Palestinian diaspora

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Palestinians
(الفلسطينيون al-Filasṭīniyyūn)
Palestinian infobox.jpg
Tawfiq Canaan • Edward Said • Mahmoud Darwish • Leila Khaled
Yassir Arafat • Mohammad Bakri • Hanan Ashrawi • Queen Rania of Jordan
Total population
c. 20,000,000-35,000,000
Regions with significant populations
 Palestinian territories 3,760,000 [1]
– West Bank (including East Jerusalem) 2,345,000 [1]
– Gaza Strip 1,416,000 [1]
 Jordan 2,700,000 [2][3]
 Israel 1,540,000 [4]
 Syria 630,000
 Chile 500,000 [5]
 Lebanon 402,582
 Saudi Arabia 280,245
 Egypt 270,245
 United States 255,000 [6]
 Honduras 250,000
 United Arab Emirates 170,000
 Germany 159,000 [7]
 Mexico 158,000
 Qatar 100,000
 Kuwait 70,000
 El Salvador 70,000
 Brazil 59,000 [8]
 Iraq 57,000 [9]
 Yemen 55,000
 Canada 50,975 [10]
 Australia 45,000
 Libya 44,000
 Denmark 32,152
 UK 30,000
 Sweden 25,000 [11]
 Peru 20,000
 Colombia 12,000
 Pakistan 10,500
 Netherlands 9,000
Languages

Palestinian territories
Palestinian Arabic, English, Neo-Aramaic, and Greek.
Israel
Palestinian Arabic and Modern Hebrew, English, Neo-Aramaic, Modern Hebrew and Greek
Diaspora:
Other varieties of Arabic, Spanish, English, Portuguese, French, and others
Religion

Sunni Islam, Christianity, Druze, Judaism, Samaritanism
Related ethnic groups

Other Levantine, Mediterranean, Middle Eastern, and Semitic peoples: Jews, Arabs, Assyrians.[12][13][12]
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List of Palestinians

The Palestinian diaspora (Arabic: الشتات‎, al-shatat) is the emigration or exile of Palestinians out of historic Palestine - an area today known as Israel and the Palestinian territories or the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip.[14] Of the total Palestinian population worldwide, estimated at between 9 to 11 million people, roughly half live outside of their homeland.

Large-scale emigration of Christians began in the mid-19th century as a response to the oppression of Christians by the Ottoman Empire.[15][16][17][18]

Since the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, Palestinians have experienced several waves of exile and lived in different host countries around the world.[19] 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.[19] Besides those displaced by war, others have emigrated overseas for various reasons such as work opportunity, education,[20][21] religious persecution[22] 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.[23] The pattern of Palestinian flight continued during the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s 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.[24]

Arab refugees of 1948 war

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."[14]

The issue of the Palestinian right of return has been of central importance to Palestinians and more broadly the Arab World since 1948.[19] It is the dream of many in the Palestinian diaspora, and is present most strongly in Palestinian refugee camps.[25] In the largest such camp in Lebanon, Ain al-Hilweh, neighborhoods are named for the Galilee towns and villages from which the original refugees came, such as Az-Zeeb, Safsaf and Hittin.[25] 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.[25]

Contents

Population figures [edit]

The majority of the Palestinian diaspora are in the Middle East,[1] other than the state of Israel (indicated population statistics) :

In 2007, Japan accepted and created a "Palestinian nationality" to designate Palestinian people living in the country, instead of their birth in Israeli occupied territories.[citation needed]

Other populations are found in mostly Muslim countries known for more political stability (i.e. Bahrain, Jordan, Libya, Qatar, Syria and Tunisia).

In 2004, the population of Palestinians in the historic Palestine lands made up of the Palestinian Authority (Israel and Jordan):

About 350,000 Palestinians live in the Persian Gulf states and in other mostly Muslim countries (i.e. Azerbaijan, Iran, Kuwait, Morocco, Pakistan, Turkey and the U.A.E.).

The majority of the estimated 100,000 Palestinians in the E.U. are in the UK, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden. Outside the E.U. is Norway and Switzerland. Germany's capital Berlin has one of the largest Palestinian communities outside of the Middle East with about 30,000-40,000 (~1% of the total population) people of Palestinian origin residing in the city.[35]

Small numbers of Palestinians are found in Eastern Europe such as Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Russia and the Ukraine.

Palestinians, along with other Arab peoples alike the Lebanese migrated to Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Southeast Asia, and in West Africa and West Indies nations.

The French Le Monde Diplomatique ("The Diplomatic World") has two web sites with more accurate information on the Palestinian diaspora:

Palestine Populations in the Diaspora [edit]

 This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (October 2011)
Country Estimate See Article in Wikipedia
 Palestine 4,200,000 Palestine Authority
 Jordan 2,900,000 Palestinians in Jordan
 Israel 1,800,000 Arab citizens of Israel
 Syria 800,000
 Chile 500,000 Palestinian community in Chile
 Lebanon 490,000 Palestinians in Lebanon
 United States 452,000 Palestinian American
 Saudi Arabia 350,000
 Egypt 270,245
 Honduras 250,000 Honduras
 El Salvador 250,000 Demographics of El Salvador
 Venezuela 245,120 Arab Venezuelan
 Germany 200,000 Arabs in Berlin
 United Arab Emirates 170,000
 Mexico 158,000
 Qatar 100,000
 Kuwait 100,000 Palestinian expulsion from Kuwait
 Brazil 59,000 Palestinian Brazilian
 Iraq 57,000 Palestinians in Iraq
 Yemen 55,000
 Canada 50,975
 Australia 45,000 Palestinian Australian
 Libya 44,000
 Eritrea 41,000
 Denmark 40,952 Denmark–Palestine relations
 United Kingdom 30,000
 Sweden 25,500
 Nicaragua 25,000 Palestinian Nicaraguan
 Peru 20,000 Palestinian Peruvian
 Colombia 20,000 Palestinian Colombian
 Costa Rica 15,000 Demographics of Costa Rica
 Cuba 15,000 Cubans
 Italy 15,000
Template:Country data West Africa 15,000
 Tunisia 12,000
 Spain 12,000
Template:Country data Southeast Asia 12,000
 Guatemala 12,000 Islam in Guatemala
 Algeria 10,500
 Panama 10,000
 Netherlands 10,000
 Greece 9,500
 Norway 9,000
 Pakistan 8,000 Arabs in Pakistan
 France 7,000
 Haiti 7,000 Arab Haitian
 Puerto Rico 7,000 Puerto Rican people#Others
 Dominican Republic 7,000 Dominican Republic#Demographics
 South Africa 5,000
 Morocco 5,000
 Iran 5,000
 New Zealand 4,000
 Austria 3,000
 Poland 3000
 Switzerland 3,000
 Argentina 2,000
 Bulgaria 2,000
 Czech Republic 1,500
 Turkey 1,000
 Belize 1,000
 India 500

See also [edit]

References [edit]

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 'Palestinians grow by a million in decade', Jerusalem Post, February 9, 2008
    "208,000 Palestinians were counted in east Jerusalem ... 2.345 million in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and 1.416 million in Gaza"
  2. ^ UNRWA
  3. ^ a b Cordesman, 2005, p. 54. The figure is based on an estimate for 2005, extrapolating from a population 2.3 million in 2001.
  4. ^ http://www.haaretz.com/news/israel-on-eve-of-rosh-hoshanah-population-hits-7-5m-75-4-jewish-1.7768
  5. ^ "La Ventana – Littin: "Quiero que esta película sea una contribución a la paz"". Laventana.casa.cult.cu. Retrieved 2010-02-17. 
  6. ^ "American FactFinder". Factfinder.census.gov. Retrieved 2009-04-22. 
  7. ^ The Palestinian Diaspora in Europe
  8. ^ Governo do Estado de São Paulo – Memorial do Imigrante
  9. ^ http://www.al-awdacal.org/iraq-facts.html
  10. ^ "Ethnic Origin (247), Single and Multiple Ethnic Origin Responses (3) and Sex (3) for the Population of Canada, Provinces, Territories, Census Metropolitan Areas and Census Agg...". 2.statcan.ca. Retrieved 2009-04-22. 
  11. ^ Immigrantinstitutet i Sverige
  12. ^ a b Cruciani, F et al. (2007). "Tracing Past Human Male Movements in Northern/Eastern Africa and Western Eurasia: New Clues from Y-Chromosomal Haplogroups E-M78 and J-M12". Molecular Biology and Evolution 24 (6): 1300–1311. doi:10.1093/molbev/msm049. PMID 17351267  Also see Supplementary Data.
  13. ^ Hassan et al. (2008)
  14. ^ a b Helena Shiblak (2005). "The Palestinian Diaspora: Formation of Identities and Politics of Homeland". Journal of Refugee Studies 18 (4): 507–509. doi:10.1093/refuge/fei051. Retrieved 2007-09-05. 
  15. ^ The Lebanese in the world: a century of emigration, Albert Habib Hourani, Nadim Shehadi, Centre for Lebanese Studies (Great Britain), Centre for Lebanese Studies in association with I.B. Tauris, 1992
  16. ^ Arab Chileans.
  17. ^ Between Argentines and Arabs: Argentine orientalism, Arab immigrants, and the writing of identity, Christina Civantos, SUNY Press, 2005, p. 6.
  18. ^ Arab and Jewish immigrants in Latin America: images and realities, by Ignacio Klich, Jeff Lesser, 1998, pp. 165, 108.
  19. ^ a b c "The Palestinian Diaspora". Le Monde Diplomatique. Retrieved 2007-09-05. 
  20. ^ "Saudi Arabia finances study abroad for Palestinian students". The embassy of Saudi Arabia in Washington, D.C. 2007-04-25. Archived from the original on 2007-10-13. Retrieved 2007-09-08. 
  21. ^ "Swarthmore Senior Founds Organization for Palestinian Students in U.S.". Swarthmore. March 27, 2006. Archived from the original on 2007-07-19. Retrieved 2007-09-08. 
  22. ^ "Middle East: Palestine from www.persecution.org". www.persecution.org. February 2007. Retrieved 2007-09-08. 
  23. ^ Palestine Refugees: 50 Years of Injustice," The Permanent Observer Mission of Palestine to the United Nations," http://www.palestine-un.org/info/frindex.html (28 Nov. 2002)
  24. ^ "Statistical Abstract of Palestine No. 5". Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics. October 2005. Retrieved 2007-09-05. 
  25. ^ a b c "One Day We'll Rise Again - and Return". Al-Ahram Weekly. 28 October - 3 November 1999. Retrieved 2007-09-11. 
  26. ^ (Spanish) Chile tiene la comunidad palestina más grande fuera del mundo árabe, unos 500.000 descendientes.
  27. ^ Chile: Palestinian refugees arrive to warm welcome.
  28. ^ (Spanish) 500,000 descendientes de primera y segunda generación de palestinos en Chile
  29. ^ "Table 1.0: Total Registered Refugees per Country per Area" (PDF). UNRWA. 
  30. ^ (Spanish) Palestinos por el mundo
  31. ^ "American FactFinder". Factfinder.census.gov. Retrieved 2010-01-11. 
  32. ^ Governo do Estado de São Paulo - Memorial do Imigrante
  33. ^ Palestinian in Iraq
  34. ^ Palestinian immigration in Canada
  35. ^ http://www.schule-ohne-rassismus.org/fileadmin/pdf/stadt_der_vielfalt_bf.pdf

External links [edit]


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