Echoes of Palestinian partition in Syrian refugee crisis | Al Jazeera America - 0 views
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With more than 2 million Syrians already living outside their war-torn country and 1 million more expected to flee in the coming months, there is a growing protection gap. Indeed, a report (PDF) released in November by Harvard University shows that even Canada, which prides itself on being hospitable to refugees, has been systematically closing its borders to asylum seekers. Without a doubt, development-related aid is an important incentive to host countries, and providing sanctuary for vulnerable populations is just as vital, but what refugees need most is a legal status, which can be achieved only through a regional framework of protection and national asylum policies. The Bangkok Principles are a good start because they highlight the commitment among these states to develop a regional framework and national solutions to protect refugees, with the support of the international community. The U.S. must do its part and encourage the Middle East to build on these principles. Syrians deserve an organized and effective framework, and the risk of turning our backs is that Syrians, along with the Palestinians, will be wandering without a homeland. Galya Benarieh Ruffer is the founding director of the Center for Forced Migration Studies at the Buffett Center for International and Area Studies at Northwestern University and a public voices faculty fellow with the OpEd Project. The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera America's editorial policy. 180401 Join the Conversation Post a new commentLogin c
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Although the cause of Syrians fleeing their homeland today differs fundamentally from the flight of Palestinians in 1948, one crucial similarity is the harsh reception they are experiencing in neighboring countries. The tragedy of the Syrian refugee crisis is palpable in news stories and in the images of those risking their lives in rickety boats on Europe’s shores. More than one-third of Syria’s population has been displaced, and its effects are rippling across the Middle East. For months, more than 1,500 Syrians (including 250 children) have been detained in Egypt. Hundreds of adults are protesting grotesque conditions there with a hunger strike. Lebanon absorbed the most refugees but now charges toward economic collapse, while Turkey will house 1 million Syrians by the year’s end.
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The surge of Syrians arriving in urban centers has brought sectarian violence, economic pressure and social tensions. As a result, these bordering countries, having already spent billions of dollars, are feeling less hospitable and are starting to close their borders to Syrians.
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A Dec. 13 Amnesty International report calls the Syrian refugee crisis an international failure, but this regional crisis necessitates a regional response — one that more systematically offers Syrian refugees legal protections. The Amnesty report rightly points out that it is not just the European Union that is failing the refugees. It is the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council that, in spite of their wealth and support for the military action in Syria, have not offered any resettlement or humanitarian admission places to refugees from Syria.
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After World War II, the European refugee crisis blotted out other partition crises across the globe as colonial powers withdrew in South Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Partitions at the time were about questions of borders and the forced un-mixing of populations.
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The 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees — the international legal framework for the protection of refugees, which obligated states to not return refugees to their countries of origin (non-refoulement), to respect refugees’ basic human rights and to grant them freedoms equivalent to those enjoyed by foreign nationals living legally in the country — did not include those displaced from partitioned countries in its definition of a refugee.
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Today, this largely leaves Syrian refugees entering those countries without legal recourse. It is also the most dangerous injustice that Syrian refugees face.
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Turkey is heeding the call. In April it enacted a law establishing the country’s first national asylum system providing refugees with access to Turkish legal aid
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The origins of the Middle East’s stagnation lie in the partition of Palestine in 1948. When half a million Arab refugees fled Jewish-held territory, seeking refuge in neighboring states, countries like Lebanon and Saudi Arabia moved to stop them. In the final days of the drafting of the United Nation General Assembly’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, with the war in Palestine raging, Saudi Arabia persuaded many countries, including the U.S., to dilute the obligation of a state to grant asylum. The Middle Eastern countries feared that they would be required to absorb Palestinians and that Palestinians might lose a right of return to what is now Israel.
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I am heartened by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ recent call not just for financial and humanitarian assistance and emergency development in the Middle East to aid Syria but also for legal protection for refugees.
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Bangkok Principles on the Status and Treatment of Refugees. Formally adopted in 2001, the principles provide for a right of return, a broader definition of a refugee and a mandate that countries take up the responsibility of determining refugee status based on rule of law.
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With more than 2 million Syrians already living outside their war-torn country and 1 million more expected to flee in the coming months, there is a growing protection gap. Indeed, a report (PDF) released in November by Harvard University shows that even Canada, which prides itself on being hospitable to refugees, has been systematically closing its borders to asylum seekers.
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what refugees need most is a legal status, which can be achieved only through a regional framework of protection and national asylum policies.
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The Bangkok Principles are a good start because they highlight the commitment among these states to develop a regional framework and national solutions to protect refugees, with the support of the international community. The U.S. must do its part and encourage the Middle East to build on these principles. Syrians deserve an organized and effective framework, and the risk of turning our backs is that Syrians, along with the Palestinians, will be wandering without a homeland.