Forced Migration Review
Published by the Refugee Studies Center, University of Oxford

The August 2006 issue of the in-house magazine of the University of Oxford’s Refugee Studies Centre includes a major feature on Palestinian displacement. Twenty-eight articles by UN, Palestinian and international human rights organisations, Palestinian scholars in the diaspora and Jewish and Israeli activist groups examine the root causes of the displacement of Palestinians, the consequences of the failure to apply international humanitarian law in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Palestinian entitlement to protection and compensation. The full text of all articles are online.
 
The articles discuss how failure to address the Palestinian refugee crisis represents perhaps the gravest shortcoming  of the UN since its foundation. The international community has not exerted sufficient political will to advance durable solutions consistent with international law and Security Council resolutions requiring Israel to withdraw from Palestinian territory it occupied in 1967. Durable solutions for displaced Palestinians have been discussed without reference to the legal norms applied in other refugee cases. Refugee rights, entitlements to compensation or restitution and the rights to protection of those Palestinians living under continued military occupation were not central to the now-moribund Oslo peace process – nor are they part of the subsequent US-sponsored ‘Performance-Based Roadmap to a Permanent Two-State Solution’. Creeping annexation continues unchecked. Upon completion of Israel’s Wall, Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip will be restricted to a series of non-contiguous enclaves which constitute an eighth of the area of historic Palestine. Despite pro-democracy rhetoric, Western response to the internationally-validated Palestinian legislative elections in January 2006 has sparked a politically-induced crisis and crippled the Palestinian economy. Ordinary Palestinians are suffering as donors freeze funding required to maintain humanitarian assistance and development programmes.

This issue has been published in English, Arabic, Hebrew, French and Spanish. We hope it may improve understanding of Palestinian displacement and would welcome your support in ensuring hard copies reach policy- and opinion-makers in the United States, Europe and the Middle East. If you are able to assist with distribution, please email the editors at fmr@qeh.ox.ac.uk