Frost C  omparative Migration Studies (2024) 12:23 The Jordanian government also distributed another round of passports to Gaza refugees with jobs in the Arab Gulf. An American report from June 1968 describes their distribution: “A four-man Jordanian delegation headed by Deputy Minister of Interior Junaidi and Director of Passports Tharwat Talhouni visited Bahrain, Qatar, and the Trucial States last week…the trip was to execute King Hussain’s promise…[to] help facilitate travel of stateless Palestinian refugees working in the area. In Abu Dhabi, Junaidi and Talhouni…stated that a total of over 1,000 passports had been issued to Palestinian refugee residents of Lebanon, Syria, Gaza, and Egypt… Former Palestinian residents of Egypt and Gaza, who for the most part are victims of the June, 1967, fighting, were issued only one-year temporary Jordanian passports with no grant of nationality. Issuances to the latter constituted about 90 per cent of the total” (emphasis in original).17 Despite this evident passport distribution, Gaza refugees’ access to Jordanian passports became more exclusionary in law. In 1969, the government issued a new passports law, and Article 3 stated that “Jordanian passports are given to applicants who are Jordanian, having the established (‫ )الثابتة‬nationality originally or after obtaining the nationality or naturalization certificate.”18 Although Article 13 created a category of passports for non-Jordanians, it was not for “temporary” passports but for ordinary passports in “special cases (‫)حاالت خاصة‬.”19 The law did not link the “special case” passports to the Gaza refugees, nor did it reference “temporary” passports as a type of special case. The same is true for archival files from this period. For example, U.S. officials summarized Jordanian orders concerning travel policies for crossing between the West and East Banks, stating “Gazans with temporary Jordanian passports will be accorded [the] same treatment as West Bankers.”20 They did not use the term “special case” to characterize Gaza refugee passports. Thus, the new law did not grant Gaza refugees access to passports, while government regulations continued to provide this access, marking a case of performative intentional ambiguity. Moreover, government officials themselves do not describe the Gaza refugee temporary passports as special case passports. Instead, they reference them as connected to regulations and decisions and emphatically not to the passports law.21 This perspective aligns with official accounts that more Gaza refugees gained access to “temporary” (‫)مؤقتة‬ passports on October 3, 1971, in accordance with Ministry of Interior (MOI) decision number 10/2/B2385,22 rather than based on changes to the passports law—marking another case of hidden intentional ambiguity. Overall, intentional ambiguity characterizes the gap between Gaza refugees’ access to Jordanian passports in law versus 17 18 19 Airgram from American Consulate in Dhahran, June 3, 1968, 1967–69 SNF, POL 7 JORDAN, USNACP. “Law Number 2 of 1969—Passports Law,” February 16, 1969. Ibid. This discussion refers to the original text of the 1969 passports law, not the current text, which includes amendments since 1969. 20 21 Telegram from American Embassy in Amman, August 21, 1972, 1970–73 SNF, POL 23–10 Jordan, USNACP. Former government official (NS52), June 2022. Former minister (EU87), June 2022. MOI employee (KA74), May 2023. 22 Former minister (MI13), June 2022. Page 10 of 18