Statelessness & Citizenship Review
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3(1)
struggle for self-determination. 166 Around half a million Palestinians sought
refuge in Syria during the Nakba. The 1967 Arab–Israeli war has further led to the
displacement of more than 300,000 Palestinians. 167 Moreover, Israeli is illegally
occupying the Syrian Golan Heights, a territory populated by around 25,000
Syrian Druze. The vast majority of them are stateless because they strongly reject
Israeli citizenship, and still hope to rejoin Syria one day. 168 The creation and
existence of the state of Israel is the continuation of European colonialism in a
vacuum, not just because of the Balfour Declaration, but also through the ongoing
settler-colonialism and a visible remnant of hegemony. 169 The creation of the state
of Israel was motivated by racial hierarchies and colonial ideas, as illustrated by
the following quote of Winston Churchill addressing Palestinians in 1937:
I do not admit … that a great wrong has been done to the red Indians of America
or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these
people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly-wise
race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place. 170
Therefore, Britain denied sovereignty to Palestinian people not because of a
historical mistake, but because they saw native populations as an inferior race
undeserving of human rights. Colonial policies enacted by Britain are responsible
for engendering the mass displacement, ongoing statelessness, and enduring
suffering of the Palestinian people.
B
The Legal Status of Palestinians in Syrian Nationality Law
Before the outbreak of the Syrian conflict, there were approximately 1 million
Palestinian refugees living in Syria — from which 560,000 were officially
registered. 171 Pursuant to Syrian legislation, Palestinians enjoy equal rights
regarding ‘employment, work, business and military service without prejudice to
their original nationality’. 172 In addition to economic rights, Palestinians are
entitled to free secondary education and equal access to Syrian universities. 173 In
terms of mobility, they enjoy the same rights as Syrian nationals: they are entitled
to travel documents, that can be obtained or extended via any Syrian embassy
abroad, which allow them to re-enter Syria and take up residence there — no
166 Albanese and Takkenberg (n 163) 35.
167 Janet L Abu-Lughod, ‘Palestinians: Exiles at Home and Abroad’ (1988) 36(2) Current
Sociology 63.
168 Maria A Kastrinou, Salman Fakher El-Deen and Steven B Emery, ‘The Stateless
169
170
171
172
173
(Ad)vantage? Resistance, Land and Rootedness in the Israeli-Occupied Syrian Golan
Heights’,
Territory,
Politics,
Governance
(online,
2020)
1
<https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21622671.2020.1743203>.
Magid Shihade, ‘Settler Colonialism and Conflict: The Israeli State and Its Palestinian
Subjects’ (2012) 2(1) Settler Colonial Studies 108; David Lloyd, ‘Settler Colonialism and the
State of Exception: The Example of Palestine/Israel’ (2012) 2(1) Settler Colonial Studies 59;
Ronit Lentin, ‘Race and Surveillance in the Settler Colony: The Case of Israeli Rule over
Palestine’ (2017) 3(1) Palgrave Communications 1.
Shlaim (n 161).
UN Human Rights Council, Working Group on the Universal Periodic Review, National
Report of the Syrian Arab Republic, UN Doc A/HRC/WG.6/26/SYR/1 (28 September 2016)
[15] <https://undocs.org/en/A/HRC/WG.6/26/SYR/1>.
Law No 260 of 10 July 1957, art 1 (Syrian Arab Republic), reproduced in Davis (n 79) 39.
Laura Anne Reeds, ‘Sixty Years in Limbo: The Duty of Host States to Integrate Palestinian
Refugees under Customary International Law’ (2006) 81(1) New York University Law Review
375.
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