Refugees, International Organizations, and National Identity: The Case of Palestine

Abstract

Little has been written about the impact of The United Nations Relief and Work Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) on the reconstruction of Palestinian nationalism and identity in the refugee camps and beyond. UNRWA's socioeconomic services, however, played a key role in the reconstruction of Palestinian identity and nationalism. The creation of UNRWA in 1950 provided a huge bureaucracy that functioned as a quasi-state, bringing the Palestinian refugees under one umbrella. Although UNRWA's mission at the beginning was to help the refugees assimilate and integrate, the camps actually prevented them from integrating and promoted their identity as separate and distinct. As the research presented here shows, refugees began preserving their own culture and reinventing their old traditions, using oral history, narrative, and memories of the events of 1948 to reconstruct their identity and nationalism. The refugees' narratives were most commonly associated with the social-political realities of historic Palestine, especially those linked to political organization, civil society, strong traditions, and social solidarity. Refugees put great emphasis in their narratives on the new culture of dispossession and destitution imposed on them in the diaspora. The unintended consequences of UNRWA's activities and services supported the development of this oral history of displacement. This study highlights the extent to which UNRWA unintentionally linked the Palestinians through an unprecedented socioeconomic bureaucracy that helped in preserving their identity through its extensive programs and how the Palestinians' use of this structure contributed to the reconstruction of Palestinian nationalism and identity.