• World
    • Africa
    • Asia Pacific
    • Central & South Asia
    • Europe
    • Latin America & Caribbean
    • Middle East & North Africa
    • North America
  • Coronavirus
  • Politics
    • US Election
    • US politics
    • Joe Biden
    • Brexit
    • European Union
    • India
    • Arab world
  • Economics
    • Finance
    • Eurozone
    • International Trade
  • Business
    • Entrepreneurship
    • Startups
    • Technology
  • Culture
    • Entertainment
    • Music
    • Film
    • Books
    • Travel
  • Environment
    • Climate change
    • Smart cities
    • Green Economy
  • Global Change
    • Education
    • Refugee Crisis
    • International Aid
    • Human Rights
  • International Security
    • ISIS
    • War on Terror
    • North Korea
    • Nuclear Weapons
  • Science
    • Health
  • 360 °
  • The Interview
  • In-Depth
  • Insight
  • Quick Read
  • Video
  • Podcasts
  • Interactive
  • My Voice
  • About
  • FO Store
Sections
  • World
  • Coronavirus
  • Politics
  • Economics
  • Business
  • Culture
  • Sign Up
  • Login
  • Publish

Make Sense of the world

Unique insight from 2,000+ contributors in 80+ Countries

Close

(Dis)integration: Palestinian Refugees in the Syrian Civil War (Part 2/2)

By Matthew Coogan • Sep 17, 2013

Social and economic gains of Palestinian refugees have changed due to the Syrian conflict.This is the last of a two part series. Read part one here.

Such was the status of Palestinian refugees in Syria at the advent of the popular uprising against Bashar al-Assad’s regime in early 2011. From the beginning, Syria’s Palestinian community was a principal, if involuntary, actor in the unfolding drama of the uprising. In the early stages of the conflict, the Palestinian community at large attempted to maintain neutrality, in line with a longstanding tradition of avoiding entanglement in domestic political disputes.

So potent was their initial desire to remain uninvolved in the conflict that Palestinian protestors torched the headquarters of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, the regime’s closest allied Palestinian faction, when it sided with the government and undermined the call for neutrality.

However, as time went on, ordinary Palestinians found themselves increasingly involved as the regime attempted to scapegoat their community as a foreign interlocutor. The proximity of Palestinian refugee camps to the sites of initial protest in Dara’a and Latakia led regime officials to accuse Palestinians of instigating the violence in an attempt to downplay “indigenous” Syrian support for, and participation in, the protests.

Moreover, as the regime assault on Syrian dissidents intensified, many Palestinians felt compelled to aid them. This was the case among refugees in the Dara’a refugee camp who elected to host a field hospital in the camp for Syrians requiring medical attention. This level of involvement marks a break with past traditions of Palestinian political activity in Syria.

Before the uprising, such activity was largely restricted to matters directly connected to Palestinian liberation and the right of return. Historically, Palestinians did not engage in Syria’s domestic politics. A report from Al Jazeera’s research arm reveals surprising motivations for this shift among at least some Palestinian refugees: feelings of Syrian political identity and obligation.

According to one activist, the uprising marks “the first time we feel Syrian… this intifada is about the whole of Syria, as this country is holding both Syrians and Palestinians.” Of course, isolated interviews with politically active refugees are not sufficient to capture the prevailing sentiment of the Syrian refugee population as a whole. Still, interviews such as these, along with Palestinians’ extensively documented involvement in the uprising on the side of the opposition, provide a compelling ethnographic account of the affective dimension of their integration into pre-conflict Syrian society.

The early legal integration of the Palestinian refugees of Syria (PRS) and the concomitant rise in their socioeconomic fortunes in the proceeding years allowed certain elements of the refugee population to identify with the domestic aspirations of their Syrian neighbors, despite their official status as refugees and the pull of a competing Palestinian national identity.

(Dis)integration

However, the Syrian Civil War has resulted in a rapid and expansive deterioration in the material conditions of Palestinian refugees in Syria, as it has for broad swaths of the country’s population. Significantly however, the refugee community faces an additional threat in a post-conflict environment that Syrian nationals do not: the possibility of being unable to reintegrate into society at pre-conflict levels.

As Laurie Brand theorized in her study of Palestinians in Syria, it was the Syrian economy’s capacity to absorb Palestinian refugees without causing undue dislocations for the country’s citizens that facilitated much of their early integration. Relatedly, she notes that in times of poor economic performance, Syrian nationals would accuse Palestinians of having taken Syrian jobs, and predicts that further economic distress could accelerate this trend.

According to the Syrian Center for Policy Research, by the end of 2012, Syrian economic losses are presumed to have eclipsed $48 billion. This represents an economic loss equal to 81.7 percent of the country’s 2010 GDP. For the same period, the economy is estimated to have shed 1.5 million jobs, and the unemployment rate has surged from 10.6 percent to 34.9 percent.

Such a development is ominous for the Palestinian refugee population, which will not only find it more difficult to obtain work in a post-conflict environment, but also faces the possibility of discrimination and ostracism as a result of the economic collapse. The Assad regime’s initial attempts to portray the refugee community as a foreign instigator already indicate the possibilities of further marginalization in a post-conflict society.

Compounding the refugees’ economic difficulties, Syria has experienced massive inflation since the war’s inception, with a bevy of basic food and clothing items having increased in price from 50-70 percent, while gas and electricity prices have nearly doubled. Fafo’s report attributed much of Syria’s refugees’ economic advantage to the relatively low price of consumer goods in Syria, in contrast to other refugee host countries, a condition that has now all but vanished.

Moreover, as conditions in Syria continue to deteriorate, the PRS are increasingly dependent on international aid, particularly from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). The total proportion of Palestinian refugees in Syria in need of humanitarian aid has skyrocketed. While only six percent of refugees received aid in the form of direct goods before the uprising, UNRWA estimated that in April of 2013, more than 400,000 thousand refugees, more than 80 percent of the total population, require such assistance.

To date, the UN agency has distributed food and non-food items to over 143,000 refugees in Syria, and is about to conclude a cash distribution plan to provide 6,000 Syrian pounds to 420,000 refugees by the end of August. UNRWA also notes that 235,000 PRS have become displaced, although it has been able to accommodate only about 7,300 in UNRWA shelters within Syria. Thus, the Palestinian refugees of Syria have become reliant on the largesse of international donors to maintain a substantially reduced standard of living, a striking contrast to their previous economic independence and success.

Conclusion 

The Syrian Civil War has been a political and humanitarian disaster for all of Syria’s disparate communities and groups. The country is currently divided between rebel-held territory and areas where the government maintains authority, with broad swaths in between subject to violent battles for control. Sectarian tensions have flared, and the presence of foreign elements backing particular constituencies has further entrenched already potent divisions in Syrian society. Undoubtedly, reestablishing a politically and socially integrated polity in a post-Assad era will prove an extraordinarily difficult task.

However, owing to the economic, social, and political factors described above, the reintegration of Syria’s Palestinian refugees presents an even more challenging dilemma. The collapse of the Syrian economy has eliminated much of the economic advantage that Palestinians enjoyed in comparison to other host countries, and the economy may not be able to accommodate the proportion of refugees it did after their 1948 arrival. And as past periods of economic decline have demonstrated, competition from Palestinians for jobs may again result in social tension.

Moreover, the PRS are in a uniquely vulnerable position as refugees, unable to participate in the electoral process and thus more effectively demand official remedies to help restore their previous socioeconomic position. Regrettably, this civil war has transformed the case of Palestinian refugees in Syria from one of the issue’s more positive incarnations into one of its most tragic.

*[This article was originally published by Jadaliyya.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

Image: Copyright © Shutterstock. All Rights Reserved

Share Story
Categories360° Analysis, Global Change, Middle East & North Africa, Politics TagsBashar Al-Assad, Humanitarian Disaster, Inflation, Palestinian Refugees, Political Identity, Popular Front For the Liberation of Palestine - General Command, Syria, Syrian Civil War, Syrian Economy, UNRWA
Join our network of more than 2,000 contributors to publish your perspective, share your story and shape the global conversation. Become a Fair Observer and help us make sense of the world.

READ MORE IN THIS 360° SERIES

Refugees: Stopping the Madness
By Harun Yahya • Sep 01, 2014
Jordan: Local Perceptions on Syrian Refugees (Part 2/2)
By Hana Asfour • Mar 19, 2014
Lebanon and the Syrian Refugee Crisis
By Lana Asfour • Mar 19, 2014
Jordan: Local Perceptions on Syrian Refugees (Part 1/2)
By Hana Asfour • Mar 16, 2014
A History of Violence: African Asylum Seekers in Israel
By Natasha Roth • Jan 29, 2014
Syrian Refugees in Yemen: Left to Their Own Fate
By Anita Kassem • Sep 29, 2013
Cutting Borders: Ethnic Tensions and Burmese Refugees
By Sophia Akram • Sep 18, 2013
(Dis)integration: Palestinian Refugees in the Syrian Civil War (Part 1/2)
By Matthew Coogan • Sep 10, 2013
Roma: Europe's Dispossessed
By Anna Pivovarchuk • Jun 23, 2013
Stateless in Jordan: The Life of a Refugee (Part 2/2)
By Siraj Davis • Jun 23, 2013
The Uncertain Future of Rohingya Refugees
By Kira O'Sullivan • Jun 22, 2013
Protecting Refugee Rights: The Role of Religion
By Amjad Saleem • Jun 22, 2013
Life in the Kakuma Refugee Camp
By Qaabata Boru • Jun 22, 2013
Afghan Refugees: A People Without Home
By Nishtha Chugh • Jun 21, 2013
Stateless in Jordan: The Life of a Refugee (Part 1/2)
By Siraj Davis • Jun 21, 2013
Protracted Refugee Situations: Stuck in Limbo
By Annika Schall • Jun 20, 2013
Registering Refugees: A Game of Numbers
By Anna Birawi • Jun 20, 2013
Kashmiri Pandits: The Forgotten Refugees
By Mayank Singh • Jun 20, 2013
Sri Lanka: The Uncertain Future for IDPs
By Amjad Saleem • Jun 20, 2013
Close to Combustion: Syrian Conflict Inflames Regional Refugee Crisis
By Yasmeen Sami Alamiri • Jun 19, 2013
Refugees and Borders
By David Holdridge • Jun 18, 2013
UK Asylum Seekers: At the End of the Line
By Still Human Still Here • Jun 18, 2013
Refugees in Africa's Great Lakes Region: A Perpetual State of Exile
By Lucy Hovil • Jun 16, 2013
The Struggle of Twice-Displaced Refugees
By Dina Amer • Nov 14, 2012
Iraqi Refugees: Desperately in Search of Leonor
By Siraj Davis • Nov 02, 2012
The Plight of Syrian Refugees in Turkey
By Murat Onur • Jul 30, 2012
22 Years Later and Still Waiting
By Amjad Saleem • Jun 22, 2012
A New Influx: Syrian Refugees in Turkey
By Marian Strand • Jun 18, 2012
The Plight of Refugees
By Natasha Smith • Jun 17, 2012

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Post navigation

Previous PostPrevious The Egyptian Revolutionaries’ Self-Inflicted “Coup”
Next PostNext Build, and They Will Come – New Entrepreneurship in Singapore
Subscribe
Register for $9.99 per month and become a member today.
Publish
Join our community of more than 2,500 contributors to publish your perspective, share your narrative and shape the global discourse.
Donate
We bring you perspectives from around the world. Help us to inform and educate. Your donation is tax-deductible.

Explore

  • About
  • Authors
  • FO Store
  • FAQs
  • Republish
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Use
  • Contact

Regions

  • Africa
  • Asia Pacific
  • Central & South Asia
  • Europe
  • Latin America & Caribbean
  • Middle East & North Africa
  • North America

Topics

  • Politics
  • Economics
  • Business
  • Culture
  • Environment
  • Global Change
  • International Security
  • Science

Sections

  • 360°
  • The Interview
  • In-Depth
  • Insight
  • Quick Read
  • Video
  • Podcasts
  • Interactive
  • My Voice

Daily Dispatch


© Fair Observer All rights reserved
We Need Your Consent
We use cookies to give you the best possible experience. Learn more about how we use cookies or edit your cookie preferences. Privacy Policy. My Options I Accept
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Edit Cookie Preferences

The Fair Observer website uses digital cookies so it can collect statistics on how many visitors come to the site, what content is viewed and for how long, and the general location of the computer network of the visitor. These statistics are collected and processed using the Google Analytics service. Fair Observer uses these aggregate statistics from website visits to help improve the content of the website and to provide regular reports to our current and future donors and funding organizations. The type of digital cookie information collected during your visit and any derived data cannot be used or combined with other information to personally identify you. Fair Observer does not use personal data collected from its website for advertising purposes or to market to you.

As a convenience to you, Fair Observer provides buttons that link to popular social media sites, called social sharing buttons, to help you share Fair Observer content and your comments and opinions about it on these social media sites. These social sharing buttons are provided by and are part of these social media sites. They may collect and use personal data as described in their respective policies. Fair Observer does not receive personal data from your use of these social sharing buttons. It is not necessary that you use these buttons to read Fair Observer content or to share on social media.

 
Necessary
Always Enabled

These cookies essential for the website to function.

Analytics

These cookies track our website’s performance and also help us to continuously improve the experience we provide to you.

Performance
Uncategorized

This cookie consists of the word “yes” to enable us to remember your acceptance of the site cookie notification, and prevents it from displaying to you in future.

Preferences
Save & Accept