Volume 37, Number 5 · March 29, 1990
The Palestinian Refugees
By Robert I. Friedman
The United Nations office in Amman that administers to the needs of more than one million Palestinian refugees is situated in an upper-middle-class neighborhood of stone villas, whose roofs are dotted with TV antennas modeled after the Eiffel Tower. The neighborhood is one of several well-to-do suburban developments built in Amman during the oil boom years of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Many of the residents of these neighborhoods are Palestinian refugees who fled or who were driven from their homes by Jewish forces during Israel's 1948 War of Independence. Among the Arab states, only Jordan offered Palestinian refugees citizenship and encouraged them to integrate into Jordanian society. Palestinians now make up more than 60 percent of the population, and they have helped to transform Jordan from a desert backwater to a modern nation-state.
Feature, 11066 words
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