Al-nakba: The Sponsor Of Arab Identities

By Hassan Al-batal
In Al-ayyam (Palestine), Opinion
May 19, 2008
Some Arabs and Israelis have started to take pleasure in asking Palestinians about their claim of being nation builders, and pointing specifically to their failure in building a nation of their own.

The Palestinian claim is not just a claim. It is based on facts, and most important is the fact that, as a result of the Nakba, Palestinian refugees have played a role in developing many of the nations that became their host. It is possible to explain their role because the fragmented Palestinian refugee society came from the nucleus Palestinian coastal society that had already made inroads in their quest towards urbanization, modernization, culture, and education.

Not all of the Palestinian exiles settled in desperate refugee camps. And not all of these refugee camps became secluded ghettos. In fact, many of the refugee camps soon became centers for education, and later into sponsors of political radicalization and struggle against the Nakba.

Even before Palestinian radical struggle took place against the Nakba and exile -drawing with it clashes between the Palestinians and Arabs-, UNRWA had noticed a shinier outlook that came as a result of the refugees. Specifically, refugees are an asset for their host countries, and are not a burden on the resources of the international community. Palestinian laborers in their host countries, unskilled or experienced, and the use of Palestinian refugees in the educational and managerial sectors of the Arab world played an integral, and in some cases unique, role in building the infrastructure of Arab state sand in the higher education sector, including foreign universities in the region. These effects didn’t only reach the neighboring countries of the Palestinians, but also reached and affected the Gulf States.

It is possible to say that the Nakba was caused by the regional national Arab crisis. But what role did the Palestinian refugees play in creating the crisis of Arab statehood?

Some people summarize the reason behind the Palestinian violent struggle against the Nakba by quoting Charles Malik, a Lebanese professor and ex-foreign minister. Malik said that the Sykes-Picot agreement led to the creation of four countries and five nationalities. This means that there were a people without a country. As a result, the Palestinian struggle has shaken the very nationalistic state structures that they helped create as refugees in the first place.

Which country in the region of greater Syria was not shaken by the struggle of Palestinian refugees? And which country, even in the Gulf, didn’t formulate from those Palestinian “shakes” a notion of state-based national identity?

Read on!
http://serv01.siteground202.com/~atfp/news/article.php?id=1425744069

Specifically, refugees are an asset for their host countries, and are not a burden on the resources of the international community. Palestinian laborers in their host countries, unskilled or experienced, and the use of Palestinian refugees in the educational and managerial sectors of the Arab world played an integral, and in some cases unique, role in building the infrastructure of Arab state sand in the higher education sector, including foreign universities in the region. These effects didn’t only reach the neighboring countries of the Palestinians, but also reached and affected the Gulf States.

I don't doubt this, but it's criminal that the Arab countries won't even allow the Palestinians citizenship, when they are using them as an "asset".

At least give them a state to live in, not a refugee camp.