All tagged UNRWA

Refugee-adjacency and the unrecognised grief of those left behind, part 2

Refugee-adjacency and the unrecognised grief of those left behind, part 2

Lauren Banko
Then & Now

What does it mean to be ‘refugee adjacent’? The first part of this post told the story of Doris, a young Jewish woman who came to Palestine from Romania in 1941. Her family and fiancé died before they could join her when the vessel they were travelling on, the MV Struma, was torpedoed off Istanbul in February 1942. Doris was left destitute. Unlike her family, Doris was never a refugee: a British subject by birth, she had come to Palestine on a tourist visa and was eventually repatriated to Britain. But her proximity to refugeedom is obvious, in the loss of her home in Romania and the possibility of a home in Palestine, in the loss of her material possessions, and in the loss of her family, all refugees when they died. This second post tell the story of Ahmad, another refugee-adjacent individual, who left Palestine a few years after Doris.

Palestinian petitions: activism in exile

Palestinian petitions: activism in exile

Anne Irfan
Then & Now

There is a long history of Palestinian refugees deploying petitions as part of their political activism. From the early aftermath of their dispossession in 1948 – known as the Nakba or ‘catastrophe’ – Palestinians have continually organised and submitted petitions to a range of international organisations. Most often, they appealed to the UN and its various bodies, particularly the Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA). But over the years Palestinian petitioners have also targeted the League of Arab States, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, and the International Committee of the Red Cross, among others. This was not an entirely new phenomenon for Palestinians after the Nakba: many had submitted petitions to the Ottoman Sultan (before 1918), and the British authorities in Palestine (from 1918-48). The legacy of this tradition might provide some explanation as to why petitioning remained so popular for Palestinians in exile, although it is not the whole story.