Palestinian_diaspora

Palestinian diaspora

Palestinian diaspora (الشتات, al-shatat) is a term used to describe Palestinians living outside of historic Palestine - an area today known as Israel and the Palestinian territories or the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip. Of the total Palestinian population worldwide, estimated at between 9 to 11 million people, roughly half live outside of their homeland.

Palestinians in the diaspora by place of residence
Jordan	3,000,000
Syria	434,896
Lebanon	405,425
Chile (Palestinian Chilean)	300,000
Saudi Arabia	327,000
The Americas	225,000
Egypt	44,200
Other Gulf states	159,000
Other Arab states	153,000
Other countries	308,000
TOTAL	5,256,321

Since the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, Palestinians have experienced several waves of exile and lived in different host countries around the world. In addition to the Palestinian refugees of 1948, hundreds of thousands were also displaced in the 1967 war. Together, these refugees make up the majority of the Palestinian diaspora. Besides those displaced by war, others have emigrated overseas for various reasons such as work opportunity, education, religious persecution and persecution from Israeli authorities. In the decade following the 1967 war, for example, an average of 21,000 Palestinians per year were forced out of Israeli-controlled areas. The pattern of Palestinian flight continued during the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. In 2002, for example, 13 militants were deported by Israeli authorities following the Siege of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.

In the absence of a comprehensive census including all Palestinian diaspora populations and those that remained within the area once known as British Mandate Palestine, exact population figures are difficult to determine. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS), the number of Palestinians worldwide at the end of 2003 was 9.6 million, an increase of 800,000 since 2001.

Robin Cohen in his book Global Diasporas (1997), explains that for Palestinians, and others like Armenians, Jews, and some African populations, the term 'Diaspora' has "acquired a more sinister and brutal meaning", signifying "a collective trauma, a banishment, where one dreamed of home but lived in exile."

The issue of the Palestinian right of return has been of central importance to Palestinians and more broadly the Arab World since 1948. It is the dream of many in the Palestinian Diaspora, and is present most strongly in Palestinian refugee camps. In the largest such camp in Lebanon, Ain Hilweh, neighborhoods are named for the Galilee towns and villages from which the original refugees came, such as al-Zeeb, Safsaf and Hittin. Even though 97% of the camp's inhabitants have never seen the towns and villages their parents and grandparents left behind, most insist that the right of return is an inalienable right and one that they will never renounce.