The Influence of UNRWA on the Development of Palestinian Nationalism
Abstract
After seven decades serving the exclusive Palestinian refugees, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) has helped to shape, even unintentionally, the evolution of Palestinian nationalism in exile. When the State of Israel emerged in 1948, approximately 70 per cent of Palestinians became refugees that, without a State of their own to consolidate and direct a national identity, had to had to rebuild their identities and social ties in exile. Consequently, the identity cards, ration cards, health services, but, above all, the refugee camps and the educational system offered by UNRWA have influenced the permanence and evolution of Palestinian identity and struggle. This paper addresses the emergence of UNRWA and the historical evolution of its relationship with the collective of Palestinian refugees dispersed in the Middle East, to later focus on the role that both refugee camps and schools of this United Nations agency have played in the evolution of Palestinian nationalism, as well as the limits of the influence of this institution and its instrumentalization by other Palestinian actors.
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References
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