McNair Scholars Journal Volume 12 | Issue 1 Article 2 2008 Palestinian and Iraqi Women Refugees: An Examination of the Past Sixty Years Kim Anthony Grand Valley State University Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/mcnair Recommended Citation Anthony, Kim (2008) "Palestinian and Iraqi Women Refugees: An Examination of the Past Sixty Years," McNair Scholars Journal: Vol. 12: Iss. 1, Article 2. Available at: http://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/mcnair/vol12/iss1/2 Copyright © 2008 by the authors. McNair Scholars Journal is reproduced electronically by ScholarWorks@GVSU. http://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/ mcnair?utm_source=scholarworks.gvsu.edu%2Fmcnair%2Fvol12%2Fiss1%2F2&utm_medium=PDF&utm_campaign=PDFCoverPages Palestinian and Iraqi Women Refugees: An Examination of the Past Sixty Years Introduction and the worldwide attention they have received due to their increasing plight. Palestinian and Iraqi women refugees By better understanding Palestinian face daily challenges that many women and Iraqi women’s roles in their societ- throughout the world do not. These ies and histories, researchers can reject refugees cope with issues like poverty, personal biases and make well-informed deprived living conditions, violence, and recommendations to help alleviate the sexual abuse, while access to medical collective concerns of these refugees. and educational facilities remains limit- This paper also aims to make educated ed. They depend on assistance provided recommendations to governmental and by the United Nations, the United States, humanitarian organizations thus adding and host nations. According to several to the dialogue on the social concerns of refugee commissions, the chronic under- these women. Further, it attempts to pre- Kim Anthony funding of the United Nations’ humani- dict and project future needs of Palestin- McNair Scholar tarian organizations threatens to force a ian and Iraqi women refugees. severe financial cut in the number and level of services provided to refugees. The Middle East: A History of Coloni- Urgent action is needed to ensure basic zation supplies, health care, adequate education, and psychological support reach families It is important first to take a step back sheltered in occupied countries.1 and revisit the historical role foreign Researchers have investigated Pales- involvement has played in the Middle tinian refugee women to better under- East to comprehend the current political, stand their situation and to help alleviate economic, and humanitarian climate in the historical and social conditions that the region. Professor Mark LeVine com- challenge the diaspora. This project ments on the importance of understand- examined Palestine’s sixty-year history, ing how colonization has shaped Middle beginning with Israel’s declaration of Eastern history in Why They Don’t Hate Sebastian Maisel, Ph.D. statehood in 1948. This project is a com- Us: Lifting the Veil on the Axis of Evil; he Faculty Mentor parative analysis that examines the re- states, “Without the colonial context we search conducted on Palestinian refugees have no way of understanding the roots to determine how well that body of work of the country’s more recent history, can apply to Iraqi refugee women inter- including the dynamics of U.S. rule.”2 nally displaced following the American- Many of the Middle East’s current led invasion in 2003. This paper seeks problems have deep roots in the man- to answer the following questions: From ner Europeans colonized this area. For which social and economic background example, faulty mediation and deception do these women originate? How did by British and French imperial powers this affect their displacement? Where helped increase the tensions within the did they go and what was their social Middle East. In 1916, the secret Sykes- situation? How do Palestinian and Iraqi Picot Agreement between Great Britain refugees differ on these points? and France discussed the division of the This information becomes especially Ottoman Empire and its placement under vital considering the limited research foreign mandates. The interaction be- Danielle DeMuth, Ph.D. conducted on Iraqi refugee women. tween ethnic populations and the distri- Faculty Mentor Palestinian and Iraqi refugee women are bution of natural resources came second two significant populations worth study- to securing national interests of foreign ing because of their growing numbers powers. The agreement, however, con- 1 World Vision Staff, “Middle East/East Europe: Five Years after War, Refugee Crisis Looms Large for Iraq,” World Vision International, http://www.wvi.org/wvi/wviweb.nsf/maindocs/5033B7CC8863D4EF88257412005E3119?open document. 2 Mark LeVine, Why They Don’t Hate Us: Lifting the Veil on the Axis of Evil (Oxford: Oneworld Publications Limited, 2005), 10. GVSU McNair Scholars Journal VOLUME 12, 2008 5 tradicted what British officials promised catastrophe”—another war commenced fourth millennium BC, and still exists to- Arabs and Sharif Hussein of Mecca two in 1967 when Israel launched a preemp- day in the war-torn modern state of Iraq. years earlier in 1915. Sir Henry McMa- tive strike against Egypt’s air forces that Similar to the Palestinians, many of hon originally promised Hussein an Arab caused Egypt, Jordan, and Syria to de- the problems with contemporary Iraq Kingdom in exchange for a military alli- clare war. Two opposing forces, the Pal- have roots in the European colonization ance to help defeat the Ottoman Empire estinians and Israelis, fought to control of the Middle East after World War I. In and its ally Germany. Hussein believed certain areas they both considered right- 1920, Iraq’s borders were drawn by the this Arab kingdom would include all of fully their own in what has been called British and included three former prov- Palestine plus Iraq, Syria, and Tran- the Six-Day War. In the aftermath of the inces of the Ottoman Empire without sjordan but the correspondence did not war, Israel occupied the Gaza Strip, Sinai regard to the diverse populations, natural lucidly state exact borders. When the Peninsula, the West Bank, and the Golan resources, and geographic terrains that Central Powers were defeated in 1918, Heights. Israeli presence in the Occu- existed there.7 Twelve years later, Iraq be- the once great Ottoman Empire dissolved pied Territories has furthered Palestinian came the first Arab state to gain indepen- into British- and French-controlled hostilities and resentment; protests and dence from the British mandate. Along mandates. The colonization, deception, resistance became, and remain, daily with the influence of colonial rule, Iraq’s and miscommunication between Euro- affairs. Since the Six-Day War, national- cultural, economic, and political history pean powers and the Arab world helped ism, fundamentalism, violence, and ter- has been shaped by the Hashemite Royal complicate relations that exist to this day rorism on both sides has prevented peace Family, the Nationalists, the Iraqi Com- in the Middle East. from reaching the Middle East. munist Party of the 1950s and 1960s, the Colonization and foreign interven- After Israeli’s declaration of state- Kurdish parties, Saddam Hussein and the tion in the Middle East helped produce hood, four to five million Palestinians Ba’athist Party, and, more recently, the tensions between Arabs and Jews. The and their descendents have been dis- US occupation.8 creation of a Jewish state contradicted placed throughout the Middle East and Wars have left a lasting impact on what Arthur James Balfour, British the world. Within the Middle East, this Iraq’s legacy. In 1980, the first of four Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, conflict affects neighboring countries conflicts involving Iraq began when stated in 1917: “His Majesty’s Govern- as refugees pour across borders seeking Saddam Hussein declared war on the ment view with favor the establishment asylum. Across the globe, nations are newly established Islamic state of Iran. in Palestine of a national home for the forced to make foreign policy decisions The Iran-Iraq war lasted into 1988 and Jewish people. Nothing shall be done regarding financial and military support caused billions of dollars in damage and to prejudice the civil and religious rights for Palestine and Israel. International millions of human causalities on both of the existing non-Jewish communities foreign policy toward the Arab-Israeli sides. Hussein financed the war with in Palestine.”3 After the foreign mandate conflict can create admiration or enmity. money borrowed from foreign lenders, and end of British colonial rule in Pales- including neighboring Kuwait. With tine, David Ben-Gurion, the first Prime Iraq’s Historical Information Iraq indebted to Kuwait, among other Minister of Israel, declared on May 14, reasons, Hussein commenced another 1948, the establishment of a Jewish state Again, to comprehend the current po- war in 1990 and invaded the oil-rich in Palestine. This challenged the Balfour litical, economic, and humanitarian situ- country; a year later, American troops declaration because the subsequent Arab- ation in Iraq, it is important first to take entered the conflict known as Operation Israeli War and the growing violence in a step back and briefly revisit the history. Desert Storm. Hussein’s actions in Ku- the region forced six hundred to seven Phebe Marr, author of The Modern His- wait resulted in internationally imposed hundred thousand Palestinians—about tory of Iraq, states, “When its human and economic sanctions