The Foreign Office files, unearthed by MEMO in the British National Archives, reveal that the UK government was advised that Western countries would suffer if they sought to win the friendship of Arab states “at the expense of Palestinian refugees” rights.
In January 1955, the British embassy in Cairo sent one of its diplomats to Gaza to report on “the conditions” of the Palestinians, particularly the refugees, in the enclave, the “Egyptian government’s attitude” towards the refugee problem and “the mentality” of the refugees.
Sinai Porject 2
Following the 1948 war between Arabs and armed Zionist militias which resulted in the Nakba – the forced displacement of Palestinians and the establishment of Israel in Palestine, Egypt governed Gaza through a Military Administration. Most civil administration department heads were Egyptian, while the police and civil authorities were Palestinian. The Gaza town council was composed entirely of Palestinians, although the mayors were Egyptian appointees since the war.
The enclave was home to 86,000 original residents and 312,000 refugees who were forced to flee to different parts of Palestine as a result of the massacres and acts of terror enacted by the Zionist militias. The refugees lived in eight camps scattered across Gaza.
The Egyptian influence in Gaza was evident. From 1952 to late 1954, Omar Sawaan, chairman of the local branch of Muslim Brotherhood, served as Gaza’s mayor. However, he was forced to resign when Gamal Abdel Nasser‘s government escalated its crackdown on the Brotherhood in Egypt.
After he visited Gaza, British diplomat A.J.D. Stirling reported that Palestinian refugees in Gaza and Egypt were “almost certainly better off than those in any other Arab country.” Within the Gaza Strip, the work of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) “has been enormously helped by the ready co-operation of the Egyptian authorities who closely associated themselves with the relief work” before UNRWA was established in December 1949, he added. When the relief agency became operational in May 1950, a general supervisor was appointed by the Egyptian army to act as chief liaison officer with the agency. In addition, every refugee camp had an Egyptian Army Officer as commandant.
Stirling also noted that the refugees were allowed to share social services provided by the Egyptian government for the original inhabitants of the Strip.
Sinai Porject 3
In 1953, Abdel Nasser’s regime – which was keen to improve relations with the US – initiated the “Sinai Project”, “a scheme to reclaim land on the western edge of Sinai desert, using Nile water siphoned from the Delta under the Suez Canal,” and accommodate 50,000 Palestinian refugees. The plan, supported by the United Nations and the United States to eliminate the Palestinian right of return, aimed to integrate Palestinian refugees into society in Sinai. Within months, the plans were completed and work was almost ready to start. In his report, the British diplomat described the project as “imaginative” and “greatest gesture and all the more generous” considering Egypt’s overpopulation.
However, Stirling pointed out that the project “may not be of much direct value” in solving the refugee problem, explaining that it was to take eight years to complete while the refugee population was growing by 6,000 Palestinians a year. Hence he expected that the situation would remain relatively unchanged if no other schemes were offered; pointing that there was no sign of such schemes.
Nevertheless, Stirling emphasised that the project’s real significance was Egypt’s “acceptance of the principle of resettlement”, setting a real important step. “In itself, it may not accomplish much, but it does set a precedent for the other Arab States who have sufficient land and water to resettle the whole refugee population,” he asserted.
Yet, he warned that persuading refugees to settle in Sinai would be difficult. He explained that the reason was “they consider that by electing to settle there, they will lose any chance of returning to their former homes” in Palestine.
At that time, the British reports indicated there was a “steady stream of illegal immigrants” from Gaza to Egypt which the British embassy to Cairo considered “evidence that many refugees are almost desperately anxious to leave the camps and find work” out of Gaza.
This raised the expectations of parties involved in the Sinai Project that once the first volunteers have worked on the scheme and have reported back to their people in Gaza, there would be “a very good chance that the full number of 50,000 Palestinian settlers would move to Sinai.”
Sinai Porject 5
But Stirling found that that wasn’t the mainstream approach of the refugees. During his visit to Gaza, he observed the refugees’ unwavering determination to return to their homeland. In one camp, he noticed a map of Palestine on a school wall with the statement: “This is the Palestine we lost, we shall return.” Stirling commented: “As a whole the refugees have no other aim in life and haven’t considered any other aim” but to return to their homes.
He also noted that the refugees had organised their camps into administrative groups based on their original villages. The diplomat concluded that the bitterness of the Palestinians against the United States and the UK for having established Israel “hasn’t modified”.
In a meeting with Mukhtars, the old village headmen, Stirling heard a stark warning: “(by) Ignoring the Palestine question you were laying up future trouble for yourselves.”
During the meeting, Stirling observed that they were “dispassionate” while they “rehearsed the misery suffered by the Palestinians at the hands of the Jews, the American and the British.”
Sinai Porject 6
The Mukhtars reiterated that any alliance between the West and Arab states would not be stable as long as Palestinians are forced to resettle out of Palestine. “You are attempting to win the friendship of the Arab States, but you should remember that if by any chance you brought the Middle East into Western Camp, while the Palestinians were still in exile, these Palestinians could not forgive the wrong we had done to them,” they warned. The Palestinians in exile “would form a kind of fifth column against the West which would in time undermine whatever structure of alliance the West might build in this area,” they added before asking the British diplomat to convey their message to his foreign minister.
Stirling described the Mukhtars as “centers of resistance” to any plans that might reduce the refugees’ chances of returning home. He concluded that if resettled, the refugees would likely become “a focus for anti-Western sentiment”.
When the Egyptian government offered the “Sinai Project”, around 10,000 Palestinian refugees were living in Egypt. A Higher Committee for Palestinian Refugees, comprising representatives from Egypt’s then Ministry of War, Ministry of Social Affairs, and Ministry of Interior, oversaw the refugees’ welfare. The British reports said that the committee was “keeping an eye on them, trying to find steady employment” in Egypt. It was “particularly anxious to avoid any form of dole”, so the assistance provided “was in the shape of small grants to do things like buying tools and setting up small shops”.
Yet the reports showed that about 30 refugees were sent to Gaza from Egypt monthly and if the Ministry of Interior considered that any refuge was a security risk, they were deported immediately to the Strip.
The refugees, however, fiercely opposed the Sinai Project. In early 1955, they organised the “March Intifada” to protest against resettlement plans. The uprising succeeded in halting the resettlement project.
In a dispatch to his minister, British Ambassador Sir Ralph Stevenson praised Stirling’s report as a “valuable first-hand account of the problem” facing the original inhabitants and refugees in Gaza.
S.J. Aspden, head of the British Foreign Office’s then Levant Department, found the refugees’ threat to form a fifth column against the west “disturbing.” He warned that overcoming the “emotional obstacles” to resettlement would be challenging and needed to “be overcome” as the refugees “persistent ambition” to return home “underline the thinking of the refugees”.
No comments:
Post a Comment