an appropriate response from the international community. This response should encompass condemnations and urgent interventions to provide relief or humanitarian assistance, while addressing the root causes of this forced population transfer. Short-term response from the international community is insufficient to address this issue, and as such, long-term responses should be developed to put an end to the ongoing displacement as well as to achieve a durable solution. While many individuals and organizations have discussed the triggers of forced population transfer, civil society lacks an overall analysis of the system of forced displacement that continues to oppress and disenfranchise Palestinians today. BADIL, therefore, spearheads targeted research on forced population transfer and produces critical advocacy and scholarly materials to help bridge this analytical gap. Forced Population Transfer The concept of forced population transfer – and recognition of the need to tackle its inherent injustice – is by no means a new phenomenon, nor is it unique to Mandate Palestine. Concerted efforts to colonize foreign soil have underpinned displacement for millennia, and the “unacceptability of the acquisition of territory by force and the often concomitant practice of population transfer”3 was identified by the Persian Emperor Cyrus the Great, and subsequently codified in the Cyrus Cylinder in 539 B.C.; the first known human rights charter. Almost two thousand years later, during the Christian epoch, European powers employed population transfer as a means of conquest, with pertinent examples including the Anglo-Saxon displacement of indigenous Celtic peoples, and the Spanish Inquisition forcing the transfer of religious minorities from their homes in the early 16th century. Today, the forcible transfer of protected persons by physical force or threats or coercion constitutes a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention and a war crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. The forcible displacement of individuals without grounds permitted under international law is a very serious violation, and when those affected belong to a minority or ethnic pargroup and the policies of forcible displacement are systematic and widespread, these practices could amount to crimes against humanity. International law sets clear rules to prohibit forced population transfer, 3 6 Joseph Schechla, “Prohibition, Prosecution and Impunity for the Crime of Population Transfer”, BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights, Spring-Summer 2012. Available at: http://www.badil.org/en/component/k2/item/1764-art4.html