ABSTRACT
According to UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East), Neirab Camp, situated about 13 km south of Syria’s northern city of Aleppo, “suffers from the most abysmal living conditions of all the Palestine refugees camps in Syria” (UNRWA 2007: 4). Originally composed of 94 zinc-covered barracks that were used to house allied troops during World War II, Neirab served as housing for some of the Palestinian refugees who ended up in Syria in 1948. Each zinc-covered barrack was divided into ten housing units initially separated by sheets (UNRWA 2003). The barracks were “draughty and squalid to the extreme” and newly arrived refugees were exposed to freezing winters and insect and rodent infestations (Azzam 2005; UNRWA 2003, 2007: 7). Over time, some refugees moved out of the barracks and built houses around them, within the area allocated by the Syrian government for the establishment of Neirab Camp, but the barracks remained and refugees continued to live in them. In 2000, UNRWA, in collaboration with Syrian authorities, set in motion
the Neirab Rehabilitation Project (NRP). At the time, 72 of the original 94 barracks still existed and were providing shelter for some 6,000 Palestinian refugees out of a total camp population of 18,000 (UNRWA 2003). While insect and rodent infestations seemed to no longer be a problem, barrack residents complained about the extreme summer and winter temperatures, the flooding and leaking during winter rains, the overcrowding, the lack of sunlight and ventilation, and the humidity that left holes and cracks in their walls (Gabiam 2005). Central to the NRP, were plans to move 300 families from the
Neirab barracks to new UNRWA-built2 houses on land adjacent to the neighboring Palestinian refugee camp of Ein el Tal also known as “Handarat” (the name of a nearby village).3 A 2003 UNRWA project document refers to the NRP as a “rehabilitation/development” project and indicates that the NRP also seeks to improve the general infrastructure of Ein el Tal and Neirab camps as well as promote “sustainable livelihoods” in both camps (UNRWA 2003: 4). After holding an international conference in Geneva in June 2004 to dis-
cuss its future as the main agency assisting Palestinian refugees, UNRWA
officially set in motion a process of internal reform. This process aimed at changing the agency’s emphasis from the provision of relief and basic services to Palestinian refugees to the promotion of sustainable development in Palestinian refugee camps (UNRWA 2004, 2005a). After the 2004 Geneva conference, the NRP became an UNRWA pilot project whose lessons learned would help cement the agency’s reform process (Gabiam 2008). UNRWA adopted a participatory approach for the NRP, recruiting local
volunteers and officially promoting the involvement of the targeted communities into the project planning and implementation. The Syrian government became a participant in the NRP through GAPAR (General Authority for Palestinian Arab Refugees) by donating land for new housing to be built next to the existing camp of Ein el Tal and taking responsibility for providing electricity, telephone lines, and sewage to the new housing as well as other parts of Ein el Tal Camp. Also involved in the NRP were the governments of the United States, Switzerland, and Canada (the main donors for the first phase of the project taking place in Ein el Tal) and, later on, the governments of the United Arab Emirates, Japan, and Germany, as well as the regional governments of Galicia and the Basque country (who donated funds for the second phase of the project taking place in Neirab). In this chapter, I examine the implications of UNRWA’s new emphasis on
sustainable development, in terms of the agency’s relationship with Palestinian refugees and the aspirations of the Palestinian refugees as witnessed in Ein el Tal and Neirab. I begin by giving a brief overview of UNRWA’s formulation of the NRP. Then, I go over the way the NRP has been interpreted by Palestinian refugees in Ein el Tal and Neirab. I conclude that one of the major obstacles to a successful implementation of the NRP is that the vision of progress presented by the NRP leaves out the political and historical context of the Palestinian refugee situation, creating a trust barrier between UNRWA and the refugees. My conclusions focus mostly on the first phase of the NRP which took place in Ein el Tal and which was concluded in 2007. Palestinian refugees’ lack of trust in the NRP should not be interpreted as
outright opposition against UNRWA’s attempt to go beyond the provision of relief and basic services in Palestinian refugee camps. What is at stake is that UNRWA must do a better job of communicating with Palestinian refugees and addressing their fears that “development” is simply an economic solution to their refugee status, one that does away with the issue of return. UNRWA must come to terms with the fact that the right of return has become a cornerstone of Palestinian refugee identity. Any improvement scheme that neglects the importance of the right of return to Palestinian refugees’ selfunderstanding will most likely not garner the kind of popular support and involvement that UNRWA is seeking from the Palestinian refugee community living in camps. Most of the information for this chapter was gathered between spring 2005
and spring 2006, while I was working as an UNRWA volunteer on the NRP and simultaneously carrying out my doctoral research in anthropology. The
data I collected is mostly the result of formal and informal interviews with Palestinian refugees, UNRWA personnel, and Syrian government representatives, and participant observation through my work as a project volunteer during the implementation of the NRP. Some of this data is also the result of an UNRWA-sponsored research of living conditions in Neirab’s barracks in which I participated. The research consisted of a questionnaire and interviews with 24 families living in two of Neirab’s barracks.
