08/09/2009 Palestine - Israel Journal of Politic… The Palestine-Israel Journal is a quarterly of MIDDLE EAST PUBLICATIONS, a registered non-profit organization (No. 58-023862-4). V ol 1 5 N o. 4 & V ol 1 6 N o. 1, 0 8 /09 / The Refugee Question Focus Palestinian Internally Displaced Persons inside Israel: Challenging the Solid Structures The Palestinians who remained in Israel after 1948 have suffered displacement and dispossession by Nihad Boqa’i Palestinian internally displaced persons (IDPs) inside Israel are part of the larger Palestinian refugee population that was displaced/expelled from their villages and homes during the 1948 war in Palestine — the Nakba. While most of the refugees were displaced to the Arab states and the Palestinian territories that did not fall under Israeli control (i.e., the West Bank and the Gaza Strip), some 150,000 Palestinians Editorial Board remained in the areas of Palestine that became the state of Israel. Hisham Awartani This included approximately 30,000-40,000 Palestinians who were also displaced during the war. As in the case of the Palestinian Danny Rubinstein refugees who were displaced/expelled beyond the borders of the new Sam'an Khoury state, Israel refused to allow internally displaced Palestinians to return Boaz Evron to their homes and villages. Walid Salem Displacement did not end with the 1948 war. In the years following Ari Rath the establishment of Israel, internally displaced Palestinians, a small number of refugees who had returned spontaneously to their villages Zahra Khalidi and Palestinians who had not been displaced during the war were Daniel Bar-Tal expelled for security and other reasons. Israeli officials also carried Ammar AbuZayyad out forced transfers of Palestinians from one village to another within the borders of the state in order to facilitate colonization of these Galit Hasan-Rokem areas. This included, for example, Palestinians from the villages of Khaled Abu Aker Iqrit, Bir’im, al-Ghabsiyya, Krad al-Baqqarah and Krad al-Ghannamah. Galia Golan Residents of these villages were expelled to Lebanon and Syria or transferred and resettled in nearby Palestinian villages. During the Nazmi Ju’beh 1950s, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) forced the Bedouins of the Gershon Baskin Naqab (Negev) to abandon their traditional nomadic lifestyle; some 110,000 Bedouins were concentrated in designated zones in the north Edy Kaufman of the Naqab1 and the forced transfer of Bedouins is ongoing.2 Ata Qaymari Benjamin Pogrund During the 1950s, the Israeli military forces destroyed most of the depopulated Palestinian villages, except for some mosques, churches Nafez Nazzal and cemeteries. According to Palestinian historian Walid al-Khalidi, Simcha Bahiri out of 420 villages, only six were not destroyed3 and Jewish http://www.pij.org/details.php?id… 1/11 08/09/2009 Palestine - Israel Journal of Politic… Nadia Naser-Najjab settlements were established on the land of these destroyed Palestinian villages. Between October 1948 and August 1949, the Dan Jacobson Israeli government built 109 settlements4 and also planted forests in Jumana Jaouni order to “hide” the traces of the original Palestinian villages. Dan Leon At the same time, the Israeli authorities built new housing units for Anat C ygielman some IDPs in designated so-called “shelter villages”5 in order to Khuloud Khayyat Dajani partially resolve the IDPs’ housing problems. However, the number of housing units constructed by the government was marginal compared Izhak Schnell to overall IDP housing needs after the war and, in order to acquire these units, IDPs were required to cede their housing and property rights in their villages of origin. In addition, most of the land for government-constructed housing was confiscated from existing Palestinian villages (i.e., the shelter villages).6 Between 1948 and 1966, internally displaced Palestinians, like other Palestinian citizens of Israel, were placed under military rule. This enabled Israel to complete the expropriation of their lands by applying the same Israeli laws used to confiscate the land of Palestinian refugees — i.e., the 1950 Absentee Property Law. In addition, the depopulated Palestinian villages were declared “closed military areas” in order to prevent the IDPs’ return.7 The practice also blocked the implementation of several Israeli High Court decisions permitting internally displaced Palestinians from the villages of Iqrit, Bir’im and al-Ghabsiyya from returning to their villages. In fact, the case of Iqrit and Bir’im became emblematic. In 1951, the Israeli Supreme Court confirmed the displaced persons’ right to return to their villages, but the government bypassed the court’s decision and the military razed the villages to the ground. In spite of the many subsequent petitions by the inhabitants of Iqrit and Bir’im to be allowed to return to their villages, to this day, the Israeli authorities have postponed the implementation of the court decision; the villages remain in rubble. In July 2003, the Israeli Supreme Court turned down the petition. It had accepted the state’s claim that Israeli interests — based on a combination of the security situation and the Palestinian refugees’ continued demand for the right of return — did not justify their return. Thus, despite a series of promises made by previous governments — notably by David Ben-Gurion in 1948 — to the refugees that they would be allowed to return to their villages, the state won the case by raising the specter of the return of some 200,000 “present absentee” refugees and setting a precedent for cases concerning the right of return.8 Population The IDPs inside Israel are one of the unlucky categories of the Palestinian refugees as far as registration of status is concerned. Israel has never recognized them as a separate sector of the population nor their status as refugees or IDPs. Unlike for the majority of Palestinian refugees, who are registered with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), there is no http://www.pij.org/details.php?id… 2/11 08/09/2009 Palestine - Israel Journal of Politic… registration system for internally displaced Palestinians. The number of internally displaced Palestinians in Israel today is estimated to be around 274,000 persons. This, however, does not include the Bedouins displaced after 1948 in the Naqab; the urban IDPs — e.g., from Haifa and Acre (Akka) — who were permitted to return to their cities of origin but were denied the right to repossess their homes and properties; Palestinians who were transferred after 1949 from outlying village settlements (khirba) to the village proper in the Wadi A’ra area; and the Palestinians who remained in their villages but lost their lands. If all these categories of displaced persons are included, their total number would today exceed 300,000. Patterns of Displacement The displacement of Palestinians during the 1948 conflict followed two main patterns. The first was characterized by direct displacement to the “permanent” places of refuge, such as the Arab countries. This type describes the movement of most of the externally displaced Palestinian refugees. The second pattern was characterized by indirect displacement from one place to another (three to four times on average),9 according to the sequence of the occupation of the Palestinian villages by the Israeli troops. This type of displacement describes the movement of all the IDPs in Israel. It was less organized and more anarchic than external displacement, but still collective, according to the family or the village.10 The latter pattern was continuous and spread out over a longer period of time than the first pattern of displacement. Several factors explain the patterns of internal displacement inside Israel. Some IDPs found refuge in nearby villages in which they had relatives, family and friends. Nearby villages were also the most similar socially and culturally to the depopulated village. Religion also played a role in the choice of shelter villages, especially for the displaced Christian minority (some 10% of the total IDP population).11 Economic considerations also influenced the choice of shelter villages, especially in the latter part of the 1950s and the beginning of the 1960s after the IDPs realized that the period of displacement would not be short as they had expected and hoped. Economic conditions in the shelter villages were generally miserable, due to restrictions on freedom of movement, the effects of the war on the Palestinian economy and the limited resources in the villages. Since the beginning of the 1950s, many IDPs have migrated from the villages to urban centers in search of better economic opportunities.12 IDPs from the depopulated village of Saffuriya, for example, migrated to Nazareth from the upper Galilee during the end of the 1950s.13 The Palestinian sociologist Majid Al-Haj noted that, during the end of the 1950s and the beginning of the 1960s, approximately 35.5% of the IDPs who migrated to urban centers were pushed by economic considerations.14 For many of them, economic prosperity was seen as an alternative to their refugee http://www.pij.org/details.php?id… 3/11 08/09/2009 Palestine - Israel Journal of Politic… status. Israeli involvement in the IDPs’ affairs was another factor affecting the choice of a shelter village. The Israeli authorities transferred IDPs as well as local villagers from one place to another for military and security reasons. This form of internal population transfer was often carried out to facilitate the repopulation of areas targeted for Jewish settlement.15 While Israeli authorities helped IDPs to rent empty homes in shelter villages16 or, in some cases, register the property in their names, they also forced the IDPs to give up their rights in their villages of origin.17 In addition to the primary patterns of displacement, there were two rare patterns of IDP displacement that took place after 1948.