2021 Statelessness & Citizenship Review 3(2) those labels, stateless Palestinians seek to align with members of the Palestinian diaspora who arrived earlier and are now Swedish citizens and create communities of solidarity, emphasising the common Palestinian experience of displacement as an experience which is of importance. Palestinian statelessness is seen as the result of the displacement originating in 1948, and therefore, they should receive protection on that condition. Struggles are also entangled with solidarity movements within host societies. 96 Asylum seekers actively engage with different NGOs but have found it difficult to give voice to the particular Palestinian predicament through connecting with Swedish solidarity organisations. Many believe that empathy in Swedish civil society has been primarily directed towards unaccompanied minors from Afghanistan. 97 There is also engagement with Swedish political decision-making structures, through the presence of a Palestinian diaspora and, for example, Jamal al-Haj, a Member of Parliament who arrived in Sweden from Lebanon in the 1980s, who has used his position to raise awareness of the situation of stateless people. 98 The struggles of stateless Palestinians are enmeshed with hopes of ending statelessness, but also with Palestinian nationalism, identity and struggle for independence/liberation. 99 At times, statelessness is emphasised as a way of accentuating how stateless Palestinians represent vulnerability throughout the (Arab) world, and a reason in itself why protection should be provided. Statelessness could also be used as a way to emphasise Palestinian-ness as such, and to indicate the ways in which Palestinian non-citizenship in Arab countries needs to be recognised. Thus, in resisting outside categorisations, stateless Palestinians highlight their collective national experience and emphasise different aspects of statelessness in different situations. In a letter to UNHCR, authored by Palestinian Refugee Rights, it is argued: The Palestinian refugees constitute a vulnerable refugee community. Their status of refugees has lasted since 1948, which means sharp restrictions in their legal status, their freedom of mobility and their human rights. The Palestinian refugee community suffers from their long-time dispossession and displacement and the impossibility for them to return to Palestine. 100 In not recognising Palestinian claims of selfhood and refugeeness, Swedish migration politics was interpreted as using a form of ‘collective punishment’ and the SMA was portraited as ‘lying’, ‘hellish’ and as ‘inhuman’. 101 There was a widespread belief that the SMA routinely rejected Palestinian asylum claims. 96 Christine Straehle, ‘Associative Solidarity, Relational Goods and Autonomy for Refugees: What Does It Mean to Stand in Solidarity with Refugees’ (2020) 51(4) Journal of Social Philosophy 526. 97 According to interviews and conversations held between 2019–20. 98 Jamal El-Haj, Statslösa palestiniers situation vid avslag på asylansökan (Written Question to Morgan Johansson No 2019/20: 1020, 2019). 99 Diana Allan, Refugees of the Revolution: Experiences of Palestinian Exile (Stanford University Press 2014); Gabiam (n 15); Feldman (n 13). 100 Conversation with protesters at the Palestinian sit-in strike in Gothenburg, 2 March 2020. 101 ibid. 278