A Violent Struggle for a Homeland: The Palestinian Right to Nationality, Property Ownership, and Movement
By Raiaab Ajmal, Urmi Shukla and Medha Nagasubramanian, 6/25,2021
Freedom of Movement & The West Bank Conflict
Throughout history, Palestine has been ruled by several groups such as the Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Crusaders, and Egyptians. Various religions such as Islam, Judaism, and Christianity uphold this region as the sacred ‘Holy Land.’
Under Ottoman Rule, individuals from all three major Abrahamic religions, i.e. Christianity, Islam and Judaism, lived together in peace in what was previously the state of Palestine. However, conflicts started as a result of nationalism. With a population that was 97% Arab and 3% Jewish, the Palestinians warranted a separate state. Meanwhile, in Europe, Theodore Herzel created modern political zionism. This idea claimed that Jerusalem, i.e. Palestine or modern-day Israel was the Jewish homeland. According to zionism, citizenship of Israel is a birth-right, and the state itself belonged to Jewish individuals. This idea traces back to 1798 when an article was published in a Paris newspaper titled “Lettre d’un Juif a ses freres” which translated to “Letter of A Jew to his Brethren.”
With the end of World War I came the fall of the Ottoman Empire. This resulted in vast territories, including Palestine, being subjected to British mandates. Meanwhile, rising tensions and cases of anti-semitism arose throughout Europe, which resulted in the Balfour Declaration of 1917, which allowed Jews to immigrate to Palestine and permitted the establishment of Palestine as a “national” Jewish home. The document stated “nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine.” However, the document did not state the political or civil rights of these communities, nor did it state their names. As Jews started immigrating to British mandated Palestine, violence started erupting in Palestine due to conflict and differences in the identities and interests of the groups residing there, causing the British to limit Jewish immigration. Some Jewish individuals felt threatened and started forming militia groups to defend themselves against the British and Arabs.
As a result of World War II, large numbers of Jewish individuals escaped the inhumane atrocities of the Holocaust and sought refuge in British-ruled Palestine. The Middle East sympathized with these refugees as they escaped from acts of brutality. This led to Western states supporting the idea of solidifying a separate homeland for Jewish individuals. By 1947, the United Nations decided to divide the area of British mandated Palestine, allotting 55% to the Jewish population, creating the state of Israel, and 45% to the Palestinians.
This resulted in resistance from the Arab states, as they believed their land was“stolen.” Palestinian nationalists, backed by the Arab League, wanted to take back control of their land. This led to the initiation of the Arab-Israeli War in 1948. Israel came out victorious, which led to Israeli forces taking over major portions of Palestinian states as “spoils of war.” This takeover saw the expulsion of 750,000 Palestinian civilians from their homes and heavy loss of life and infrastructure. Tensions continued rising over the years, as Israel won the Six-Day War of 1967. More and more Israeli settlers moved onto what scarce land was left for the Palestinians, which was a direct violation of the two-state theory. Today, more than one million settlers live in illegally occupied homes of Palestinian individuals. International law considers this to be illegal. According to Amnesty International, Israel has illegally occupied Palestine for more than 50 years, causing thousands of Palestinians to be displaced from their homes. An increase in settler violence has also been recorded.
Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states:
However, this is not the case with the individuals living in Palestine. Thousands of Palestinians seek to escape oppression while living in the territories occupied by Israel. Palestinians live under military occupation with several restrictions. These restrictions range from access to travel and employment opportunities to public services. However, Palestinian refugees are not allowed to return to their homes under Israeli occupation. Moreover, the population is not free to leave or enter the Gaza strip due to the Israeli and Egyptian border closures and the Israeli sea and air blockade. The individuals are also not allowed to freely import or export goods due to the same blockades. The Palestinian passport has been ranked as one of the lowest ranking passports in the world (it stands at 95th place), and there is no airport or sea trade.
Due to the ongoing Israeli occupation, Palestine does not have control over its borders, entry or exit points. Moreover, Palestinians cannot travel to Israel and need a personal exit to travel within Israel or the West Bank.
Under Ottoman Rule, individuals from all three major Abrahamic religions, i.e. Christianity, Islam and Judaism, lived together in peace in what was previously the state of Palestine. However, conflicts started as a result of nationalism. With a population that was 97% Arab and 3% Jewish, the Palestinians warranted a separate state. Meanwhile, in Europe, Theodore Herzel created modern political zionism. This idea claimed that Jerusalem, i.e. Palestine or modern-day Israel was the Jewish homeland. According to zionism, citizenship of Israel is a birth-right, and the state itself belonged to Jewish individuals. This idea traces back to 1798 when an article was published in a Paris newspaper titled “Lettre d’un Juif a ses freres” which translated to “Letter of A Jew to his Brethren.”
With the end of World War I came the fall of the Ottoman Empire. This resulted in vast territories, including Palestine, being subjected to British mandates. Meanwhile, rising tensions and cases of anti-semitism arose throughout Europe, which resulted in the Balfour Declaration of 1917, which allowed Jews to immigrate to Palestine and permitted the establishment of Palestine as a “national” Jewish home. The document stated “nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine.” However, the document did not state the political or civil rights of these communities, nor did it state their names. As Jews started immigrating to British mandated Palestine, violence started erupting in Palestine due to conflict and differences in the identities and interests of the groups residing there, causing the British to limit Jewish immigration. Some Jewish individuals felt threatened and started forming militia groups to defend themselves against the British and Arabs.
As a result of World War II, large numbers of Jewish individuals escaped the inhumane atrocities of the Holocaust and sought refuge in British-ruled Palestine. The Middle East sympathized with these refugees as they escaped from acts of brutality. This led to Western states supporting the idea of solidifying a separate homeland for Jewish individuals. By 1947, the United Nations decided to divide the area of British mandated Palestine, allotting 55% to the Jewish population, creating the state of Israel, and 45% to the Palestinians.
This resulted in resistance from the Arab states, as they believed their land was“stolen.” Palestinian nationalists, backed by the Arab League, wanted to take back control of their land. This led to the initiation of the Arab-Israeli War in 1948. Israel came out victorious, which led to Israeli forces taking over major portions of Palestinian states as “spoils of war.” This takeover saw the expulsion of 750,000 Palestinian civilians from their homes and heavy loss of life and infrastructure. Tensions continued rising over the years, as Israel won the Six-Day War of 1967. More and more Israeli settlers moved onto what scarce land was left for the Palestinians, which was a direct violation of the two-state theory. Today, more than one million settlers live in illegally occupied homes of Palestinian individuals. International law considers this to be illegal. According to Amnesty International, Israel has illegally occupied Palestine for more than 50 years, causing thousands of Palestinians to be displaced from their homes. An increase in settler violence has also been recorded.
Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states:
- Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state.
- Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.
However, this is not the case with the individuals living in Palestine. Thousands of Palestinians seek to escape oppression while living in the territories occupied by Israel. Palestinians live under military occupation with several restrictions. These restrictions range from access to travel and employment opportunities to public services. However, Palestinian refugees are not allowed to return to their homes under Israeli occupation. Moreover, the population is not free to leave or enter the Gaza strip due to the Israeli and Egyptian border closures and the Israeli sea and air blockade. The individuals are also not allowed to freely import or export goods due to the same blockades. The Palestinian passport has been ranked as one of the lowest ranking passports in the world (it stands at 95th place), and there is no airport or sea trade.
Due to the ongoing Israeli occupation, Palestine does not have control over its borders, entry or exit points. Moreover, Palestinians cannot travel to Israel and need a personal exit to travel within Israel or the West Bank.
The Battle for Nationality and Property Ownership
The United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights, first published in 1948 in the aftermath of World War II, served as one of the most influential documents in the pursuit of worldwide freedom and equality. It mapped out 30 irretractable rights and freedoms that were the birthright of every human being. However, despite the fact that Israel signed the document in 1980, it has continually violated multiple articles over the years since 1967, when it first occupied the West Bank and the Gaza Strip during the Six-Day War.
Article 15 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights stipulates that:
Palestinians, however, are currently the focus of the world’s largest statelessness crisis. As a result of the 1948 war that led to the founding of the State of Israel, approximately 750,000 native Palestinians were displaced and reclassified as refugees. Over time, this population has only grown: today, the number of Palestinian refugees that descend from those who fled in 1948 number about 5 million. Another 2 million refugees consist of those who fled their home country in 1967 during the Six-Day War and their descendants. Another group of refugees consist of those internally displaced; after violence and war forced them to flee their native villages, Israel gained control over the lands.
Many of the Palestinians who fled their native lands in the years after 1948 did so due to direct threats to their lives and the lives of their families. Systematic Palestinian displacement was a part of Israel’s official government policy. On February 15th, 1948, Jewish forces completely depopulated the villages of Qisarya, Barrat Qisarya, Khirbat Al-Burj, and Atlit. This process of eliminating communities and clearing out lands was outlined in a policy titled “Plan Dalet,” which involved the destruction of villages with fire and explosives, and conducting combing and control operations. By the time the UN’s Partition Plan had come into effect, about 300,000 people had already been driven out of their villages.
In addition to these refugees, there exists an unknown number of Palestinians who have been denied entry into their lands on other grounds such as deportation or the revocation of ID cards. The systematic removal of Palestinians from their native lands by virtue of land confistication, forced displacement, home demolition, the denial of access to basic amenities like water and electricity, and the revocation of residency rights has resulted in a population of over 8 million people, the largest stateless community in the world that do not have a nationality.
Jewish immigrants were initially minorities in the areas demarcated for the Jewish State. Hence, Israeli policy reduced the number of Palestinian Arabs in the area and increased the number of Jewish immigrants. To maintain the Jewish character of the new state, the government passed the Absentees’ Property Law, the Law of Return, and the Israeli Citizenship Law, which denied all displaced refugees the rights to return home, and simultaneously made it easy for any Jewish person, regardless of origin, to become a citizen of the state. Similarly, when Israel occupied the West Bank in 1967, all Palestinians who inhabited the land were reclassified as non-citizens, stripping them of their nationality. Israeli policy prohibited the 250,000 Palestinians not present at the time of annexation from returning to their lands. When Israel annexed the Golan Heights and East Jerusalem, the original inhabitants were merely listed as permanent residents rather than citizens.
The Arab countries to which these newly stateless Palestinians gravitated towards did not allow them to obtain citizenship either. While countries in the Middle East acknowledged their statelessness as a problem, with the Arab League signing a protocol on the treatment of said refugees in 1965, many of the states backed out of the agreement. At certain points in time, Palestinians were expelled en masse from countries in which they seeked refuge. The legal status, rights, and liberties of refugees in Arab nations were insecure, and countries often denied Palestinians rights to secure residency, employment, and property. The procedures to allow foreigners to apply for naturalization in countries in Lebanon, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia notably excluded stateless Palestinians.
Non-recognition of a state also causes statelessness. Only states can have citizens, so if a territory is not internationally recognized as its own state, their residents cannot be classified as citizens. While Palesintians who still lived on their lands might be able to hold domestic rights like the right to marry, drive, or be educated, they are not internationally recognized as citizens. Though they possess passports, many countries do not acknowledge their validity.
The denial of the human right of nationality to displaced Palestinians puts them in a lot of danger. Without a nationality or a country to belong to, a person cannot receive any protection guaranteed by these rights. Without citizenship, the national and international community can deny them the basic rights to education, free speech, medical attention, property ownership, participation in the democratic process, travel, or state protection because they have no state to truly call home. They are at a greater risk of homelessness, poverty, and exploitation. In essence, Israeli government policy denies them the right to have rights.
Article 17 of the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights stipulates that:
However, the Palestinians who still live on their homelands still experience several discriminatory Israeli restrictions. The Israeli policy of home acquisition and destruction still continues today. Over the years, Palestinian territory has been shrinking, and Israel has been expanding. In addition to the land allocated to the new Jewish State by the United Nations in 1948, Israel has occupied the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights, the Sinai Peninsula, and East Jerusalem. In all of these annexed territories, the Israeli government forced native inhabitants out of their homes to make room for Israeli settlers. These inhabitants could not re-enter their lands. The government destroyed and stole their property, which explicitly violated Article 17.
Additionally, in the few territories that remain in the hands of the Palestinian people, Israel’s military forces continue to barrage homes and buildings with explosives. In the years since 1947, over 130,000 Palestinian homes have been demolished in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Terrorities (OPTs). In 2020, Israel demolished 865 structures, leaving 1,024 people displaced. In the May 2021 flare up alone, 1,800 housing units were destroyed, leaving 91,000 people displaced. The continuous violence and destruction of Palestinian communities is remiscient of the Israeli policies used in 1947 to annex their lands. However, Israel still rejects the UN Security Council Resolution 252 that demands return of land and property seized after the illegal occupation of the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
The State of Israel has violated both Article 15 and Article 17 of the Declaration of Human Rights, and has put the lives of millions of Palestinians in danger in the process. The Palestinians’ right to return to the lands from which they were displaced is outlined in international law. The UN General Assembly Resolution 194 and UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 all reaffirm that right. The Palestinians continue to assert that the only pathway to the end of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is to uphold that right.
Article 15 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights stipulates that:
- Everyone has the right to a nationality.
- No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality.
Palestinians, however, are currently the focus of the world’s largest statelessness crisis. As a result of the 1948 war that led to the founding of the State of Israel, approximately 750,000 native Palestinians were displaced and reclassified as refugees. Over time, this population has only grown: today, the number of Palestinian refugees that descend from those who fled in 1948 number about 5 million. Another 2 million refugees consist of those who fled their home country in 1967 during the Six-Day War and their descendants. Another group of refugees consist of those internally displaced; after violence and war forced them to flee their native villages, Israel gained control over the lands.
Many of the Palestinians who fled their native lands in the years after 1948 did so due to direct threats to their lives and the lives of their families. Systematic Palestinian displacement was a part of Israel’s official government policy. On February 15th, 1948, Jewish forces completely depopulated the villages of Qisarya, Barrat Qisarya, Khirbat Al-Burj, and Atlit. This process of eliminating communities and clearing out lands was outlined in a policy titled “Plan Dalet,” which involved the destruction of villages with fire and explosives, and conducting combing and control operations. By the time the UN’s Partition Plan had come into effect, about 300,000 people had already been driven out of their villages.
In addition to these refugees, there exists an unknown number of Palestinians who have been denied entry into their lands on other grounds such as deportation or the revocation of ID cards. The systematic removal of Palestinians from their native lands by virtue of land confistication, forced displacement, home demolition, the denial of access to basic amenities like water and electricity, and the revocation of residency rights has resulted in a population of over 8 million people, the largest stateless community in the world that do not have a nationality.
Jewish immigrants were initially minorities in the areas demarcated for the Jewish State. Hence, Israeli policy reduced the number of Palestinian Arabs in the area and increased the number of Jewish immigrants. To maintain the Jewish character of the new state, the government passed the Absentees’ Property Law, the Law of Return, and the Israeli Citizenship Law, which denied all displaced refugees the rights to return home, and simultaneously made it easy for any Jewish person, regardless of origin, to become a citizen of the state. Similarly, when Israel occupied the West Bank in 1967, all Palestinians who inhabited the land were reclassified as non-citizens, stripping them of their nationality. Israeli policy prohibited the 250,000 Palestinians not present at the time of annexation from returning to their lands. When Israel annexed the Golan Heights and East Jerusalem, the original inhabitants were merely listed as permanent residents rather than citizens.
The Arab countries to which these newly stateless Palestinians gravitated towards did not allow them to obtain citizenship either. While countries in the Middle East acknowledged their statelessness as a problem, with the Arab League signing a protocol on the treatment of said refugees in 1965, many of the states backed out of the agreement. At certain points in time, Palestinians were expelled en masse from countries in which they seeked refuge. The legal status, rights, and liberties of refugees in Arab nations were insecure, and countries often denied Palestinians rights to secure residency, employment, and property. The procedures to allow foreigners to apply for naturalization in countries in Lebanon, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia notably excluded stateless Palestinians.
Non-recognition of a state also causes statelessness. Only states can have citizens, so if a territory is not internationally recognized as its own state, their residents cannot be classified as citizens. While Palesintians who still lived on their lands might be able to hold domestic rights like the right to marry, drive, or be educated, they are not internationally recognized as citizens. Though they possess passports, many countries do not acknowledge their validity.
The denial of the human right of nationality to displaced Palestinians puts them in a lot of danger. Without a nationality or a country to belong to, a person cannot receive any protection guaranteed by these rights. Without citizenship, the national and international community can deny them the basic rights to education, free speech, medical attention, property ownership, participation in the democratic process, travel, or state protection because they have no state to truly call home. They are at a greater risk of homelessness, poverty, and exploitation. In essence, Israeli government policy denies them the right to have rights.
Article 17 of the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights stipulates that:
- Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others.
- No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.
However, the Palestinians who still live on their homelands still experience several discriminatory Israeli restrictions. The Israeli policy of home acquisition and destruction still continues today. Over the years, Palestinian territory has been shrinking, and Israel has been expanding. In addition to the land allocated to the new Jewish State by the United Nations in 1948, Israel has occupied the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights, the Sinai Peninsula, and East Jerusalem. In all of these annexed territories, the Israeli government forced native inhabitants out of their homes to make room for Israeli settlers. These inhabitants could not re-enter their lands. The government destroyed and stole their property, which explicitly violated Article 17.
Additionally, in the few territories that remain in the hands of the Palestinian people, Israel’s military forces continue to barrage homes and buildings with explosives. In the years since 1947, over 130,000 Palestinian homes have been demolished in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Terrorities (OPTs). In 2020, Israel demolished 865 structures, leaving 1,024 people displaced. In the May 2021 flare up alone, 1,800 housing units were destroyed, leaving 91,000 people displaced. The continuous violence and destruction of Palestinian communities is remiscient of the Israeli policies used in 1947 to annex their lands. However, Israel still rejects the UN Security Council Resolution 252 that demands return of land and property seized after the illegal occupation of the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
The State of Israel has violated both Article 15 and Article 17 of the Declaration of Human Rights, and has put the lives of millions of Palestinians in danger in the process. The Palestinians’ right to return to the lands from which they were displaced is outlined in international law. The UN General Assembly Resolution 194 and UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 all reaffirm that right. The Palestinians continue to assert that the only pathway to the end of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is to uphold that right.
Ethnic Cleansing & Apartheid in Palestine
Over the years, many attempts have been made to make peace between Israel and Palestine. However, with Israel’s current persecution of Palestinians, peace remains but a pipe dream. Israel is doing all it can to prevent Palestinians from existing legally. From seizing their homes, to attacking civilians, their actions make the very existence of Palestinians difficult. In February, the ICC (International Criminal Court) ruled that it had jurisdiction over crimes in OPT, and in March, the prosecutor’s office opened an investigation into Palestine’s situation. A HRW (Human Rights Watch) report from April identified some of the crimes Israel was committing, including Apartheid. By the 1973 Apartheid convention, Apartheid is defined as “inhuman acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them.” This definition perfectly describes the treatment of Palestinians by the Israeli government. Furthermore, Israel is attempting to make it impossible for Palestinians to live legally, which amounts to ethnic cleansing. Israel has been committing crimes against humanity against Palestinians for decades, and must be held accountable for them.
Israel enacted several policies to make it impossible for Palestinians to live legally. The government calls them a “demographic threat” and forcibly confiscates their land. They also obstruct Palestinians from finding new housing. Therefore, many Palestinians are left destitute. Israeli settlers are encouraged to move into the OPT, while Palestinians don’t have freedom of movement. One well-known example of this is in the neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah. Here, the Israeli government attempts to evict 28 Palestinian families to make space for Jewish settlers. They claim it’s merely a property dispute, but Daniel Seidemann, an Israeli lawyer, says that "There is a concerted effort to displace the Palestinians who live there, and to replace them with biblically motivated settlers." The situation is even more difficult for Palestinian Bedouin communities, who are not recognized by the government. In 2000, then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon stated that Bedouins “are gnawing at the country’s land reserves” - as though they are not entitled to live legally. A 2003 government report stated that “the expropriation activities were clearly and explicitly harnessed to the interests of the Jewish majority.” Through their land confiscations, Israel has gone to great lengths to prevent Palestinians from existing legally- which is the definition of ethnic cleansing.
Not only are Palestinians experiencing government-sanctioned homelessness, but they also experience restrictions their rights and inferior treatment. Palestinians in the OPT are under military rule, and are deprived of the freedoms of movement, assembly, and voting, unlike the Israeli settlers there. The government has stated its intent to suppress Palestinians, calling them a “demographic threat” to their Jewish state. In 2005, Benjamin Netanyahu stated, “Instead of making it easier for Palestinians who want to get citizenship, we should make the process much more difficult, in order to guarantee Israel’s security and a Jewish majority in Israel.” In Gaza, it has also limited the movement of goods, which has left 80% of the population reliant on humanitarian aid. Conditions in Gaza are barely livable, with the infrastructure destroyed, and the UN finding 96% of its water impotable. Israel has launched three military offensives in Gaza, supposedly against hostile Palestinian groups. However, they’ve killed over 2000 civilians, and have frequently attacked peaceful demonstrators. On May 15th, they bombed a building in Gaza with journalists from Al-Jazeera and the Associated Press. Not only does this fit the definition of apartheid, the killing of civilians also constitutes a significant crime against humantity.
Israel enacted several policies to make it impossible for Palestinians to live legally. The government calls them a “demographic threat” and forcibly confiscates their land. They also obstruct Palestinians from finding new housing. Therefore, many Palestinians are left destitute. Israeli settlers are encouraged to move into the OPT, while Palestinians don’t have freedom of movement. One well-known example of this is in the neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah. Here, the Israeli government attempts to evict 28 Palestinian families to make space for Jewish settlers. They claim it’s merely a property dispute, but Daniel Seidemann, an Israeli lawyer, says that "There is a concerted effort to displace the Palestinians who live there, and to replace them with biblically motivated settlers." The situation is even more difficult for Palestinian Bedouin communities, who are not recognized by the government. In 2000, then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon stated that Bedouins “are gnawing at the country’s land reserves” - as though they are not entitled to live legally. A 2003 government report stated that “the expropriation activities were clearly and explicitly harnessed to the interests of the Jewish majority.” Through their land confiscations, Israel has gone to great lengths to prevent Palestinians from existing legally- which is the definition of ethnic cleansing.
Not only are Palestinians experiencing government-sanctioned homelessness, but they also experience restrictions their rights and inferior treatment. Palestinians in the OPT are under military rule, and are deprived of the freedoms of movement, assembly, and voting, unlike the Israeli settlers there. The government has stated its intent to suppress Palestinians, calling them a “demographic threat” to their Jewish state. In 2005, Benjamin Netanyahu stated, “Instead of making it easier for Palestinians who want to get citizenship, we should make the process much more difficult, in order to guarantee Israel’s security and a Jewish majority in Israel.” In Gaza, it has also limited the movement of goods, which has left 80% of the population reliant on humanitarian aid. Conditions in Gaza are barely livable, with the infrastructure destroyed, and the UN finding 96% of its water impotable. Israel has launched three military offensives in Gaza, supposedly against hostile Palestinian groups. However, they’ve killed over 2000 civilians, and have frequently attacked peaceful demonstrators. On May 15th, they bombed a building in Gaza with journalists from Al-Jazeera and the Associated Press. Not only does this fit the definition of apartheid, the killing of civilians also constitutes a significant crime against humantity.
