Of all the issues that drive the Arab–Israeli conflict, none is more central, malign, primal, enduring, emotional, and complex than the status of those persons known as Palestinian refugees.
The origins of this unique case, notes Nitza Nachmias of Tel Aviv University, goes back to Count Folke Bernadotte, the United Nations Security Council’s mediator. Referring to those Arabs who fled the British mandate of Palestine, he argued in 1948 that the U.N. had a “responsibility for their relief” because it was a U.N. decision, the establishment of Israel, that had made them refugees. However inaccurate his view, it still remains alive and potent and helps explain why the U.N. devotes unique attention to Palestine refugees pending their own state.
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