ABSTRACT
The Palestinian diaspora subculture that emerged in the wake of the displacement experience can be categorized as stateless and family-oriented. A non-family social network has developed and become basic to Palestinian diaspora survival. The historical experience of the Jews indicates that only after Babylonian captivity did they develop a special sentiment toward Palestine. The experience of the Armenians and the Palestinians is analagous. It seems that in exile the stateless create institutions and practices that help them survive the hardships of dispersion. Statelessness becomes a state of mind, a continuous process of survival. The Palestinians who were exiled in 1948 were a highly family-oriented society that gave precedence to informal and personal ties. The nature of Palestinian society and family determined at the outset, particularly after the destruction of all formal institutions, the form Palestinian survival would take. It is clear that social ties and group existence would have had no chance to be reconstructed without the family.
