Given the events of the past week with the explosion in Beirut it is important to revisit a talk given by Olfat Mahmoud from the Palestinian Women's Humanitarian Organisation to unionists at Qld Coucil of Unions in 2018.
Dr Mahmoud gives a short history of the struggle of the Palestinian people starting with the Balfour declaration in 1917. Refigees are denied the right of return to their towns, villages and farms. They are stateless.
These are the main political points I took away from Dr Olfat Mahmoud's talk:
1) Palestinian refugees in camps outside the occupied Palestinian territories (in places like Lebanon) do not have protection of the UNHRC because they are stateless.
2) Aid from UNWRA inside Palestine is under severe attack by the US.
3) Israel has passed a Nation State law that will drive Palestinian citizens of Israel out and aims to deny Palestinians their homeland for ever )= no right of return guaranteed under UN resolution 194.
4) Arab league states (like Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq ...) voted in the UN against Palestinian 'right of return' even though they do not want Palestinians in their countries.
