In 1948, the state of Israel was established, and since then, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict has been a prominent, volatile, and divisive issue in world affairs. The plight of the Palestinian refugees and their descendants who were and continue to be displaced, however, is a story some say often gets forgotten.
Falling on the 60th anniversary of the creation of the Israeli state, known by Palestinians as the Nakba, meaning 'catastrophe' in Arabic, the Palestinian Awareness Series is sponsoring a series of lectures and events discussing the lives of Palestinian refugees and addressing the current state of world affairs and its impact on individuals. The series is sponsored by the Arab Students Association, the Muslim Students Association, the Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies Students Association, the Global Justice Project, and the sociology and fine arts departments.
According to the official estimate by the United Nations, 711,000 Palestinians were displaced outside of Israel after the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. Now, these refugees total more than 4.4 million, according to 2007 estimates by United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. These refugees live primarily in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and the West Bank and Gaza Strip. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistic, 36 percent of the Palestinian population was living in poverty in 2006, and 22 percent was unable to meet basic needs of food, clothing, and housing.
Though the lights of Israel can be seen at night from some of these refugee camps, Dunya Alwan, co-founder of the organization "Birthright Unplugged," said they might as well be a world away.
Alwan works to raise awareness about the conditions in the West Bank and Gaza Strip for Palestinian refugees by bringing people of Jewish descent to refugee camps. "The idea is to unplug the notion, the wrong notion, of a birthright that people are entitled to," Alwan said. "They [Israeli government] want to have Jewish people feel that it's their birthright. We want to have an opposite presence."
2008 Woodie Awards
