Abstract

The unresolved question of Palestinian displacement raises important considerations in a settler colonial era of reparations. One line of inquiry that remains relevant for thinking about the future of redress to Palestinian displacement is the following: How did an Indigenous Palestinian society with historical ties to land come to be governed as refugees external to the land? Examining a set of progress reports issued by Count Folke Bernadotte – the first UN appointed Mediator on Palestine – this paper considers how a land-based reparative justice question became folded into a humanitarian structure, which has now stretched the course of seven decades. Centering the struggle for return as a site of ontological contestation, I consider how we might read these key decisions made between 1948–1951 around redress and the emergence of humanitarian governance as part of, and within a wider genealogy of race and settler colonialism in Palestine. La cuestión irresoluta del desplazamiento palestino plantea importantes consideraciones en una era de reparaciones del colonialismo de asentamiento. Una de las líneas de investigación que continúa siendo relevante para reflexionar sobre el futuro de la resolución del desplazamiento palestino es la siguiente: ¿Cómo llegó la sociedad indígena palestina, con lazos históricos con la tierra, a ser considerada y gobernada como sociedad refugiada ajena a la tierra? Haciendo un repaso de unos informes de progreso escritos por el conde Folke Bernadotte, primer Mediador para Palestina de las Naciones Unidas, este artículo reflexiona sobre cómo una cuestión de justicia reparadora basada en la tierra quedó incorporada en una estructura humanitaria, la cual tiene ya siete décadas de existencia. Centrando la lucha por el retorno como sitio de contestación ontológica, planteo cómo se pueden leer esas decisiones clave tomadas entre 1948 y 1951 acerca de la reparación y la emergencia de la gobernanza humanitaria como parte de, y dentro de una genealogía más amplia de raza y colonialismo de asentamiento en Palestina.

Highlights

  • How might we think about the history of redress and humanitarianism in the early years of Palestinian displacement as tied to a broader genealogy of race and settler colonialism in Palestine? The territorial realization of the Israeli state produced a new category of stateless people: Palestinian refugees

  • In his last written observation submitted to the United Nations General Assembly, Bernadotte informs the international community that peace on this land requires return as the primary means of legal redress

  • We find ourselves unable to agree on their readmission to the Israelcontrolled areas, it is because of over-riding considerations bearing on our immediate security, the outcome of the present war and the stability of the future peace settlement. (Progress Report of the United Nations Mediator on Palestine A/648, 27)

Read more

Summary

Introduction

How might we think about the history of redress and humanitarianism in the early years of Palestinian displacement as tied to a broader genealogy of race and settler colonialism in Palestine? The territorial realization of the Israeli state produced a new category of stateless people: Palestinian refugees. Reading humanitarian governance through an analytic of race, I explain how UN approaches to settler colonial displacement in Palestine at this raw moment obscured the political project of return and Palestinian claims to land as Indigenous subjects in a struggle for sovereignty, not aid. When we look closely at the discursive and material practices through which British Mandate powers denied the recognition of a sovereign Palestinian nation while transferring control into the hands of Zionist leaders, we see a kind of ontological negation that casts Palestinians as subjects of racial difference This inscription of racialization via negation of Palestinian rights to their land as lawful indigenous subjects was renewed through an aggressive Zionist ethnic cleansing campaign that gave rise to the creation of Palestinian refugees for the first time in history. Through revisiting this history of Palestinian expulsion, I am arguing here that the figure of the Palestinian refugee – from the moment of inception, is already imbued in a story about race

Count Folke Bernadotte and the blueprint for return
On race and humanitarianism
Conclusion
Full Text
Published version (Free)

Talk to us

Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have

Schedule a call