POLICY BRIEF | POLITICS The Case for Palestinian Nationality By: Nadim Bawalsa · September, 2022 Overview Nationality and citizenship are different concepts under international law. While citizenship is a formal arrangement into which individuals enter with a state government, nationality is considered innate to individuals, and is protected outside of the purview of the state. However, since its inception in 1948, the Israeli apartheid regime has been strategically manipulating the two in order to deny exiled Palestinians—as well as other oppressed Palestinian communities—their rights to Palestine from wherever they may be.1 Today, over seven million exiled Palestinians have the legal right to be considered nationals of Palestine by birth and/or bloodline, irrespective of Israel’s racist nationality and citizenship laws. This includes five million refugees registered with UNRWA, as well as several million other Palestinian nationals with secondary citizenship or residency statuses in other countries. That is, if exiled Palestinians and their political representatives activate this internationally protected right through effective legal avenues, they would secure the legal status of being considered Palestinian nationals from exile, thus challenging Israel’s apartheid policies and laying the groundwork for future Palestinian nationality and citizenship legislation.2 This policy brief situates the ongoing political and legal crisis of exiled Palestinians’ 1 The Case for Palestinian Nationality www.al-shabaka.org the palestinian policy network