ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the structure and dynamics of the diaspora communities. It also analyses the causes, magnitude, distribution, and destination of the forced exodus of the Palestinian refugees. The chapter examines the demography, structure, transformation, and dynamics of Palestinian diaspora communities in the context of change in the host countries and the transformation of the Middle East region. It discusses the metamorphosis of the communities from aggregations of refugee populations into a Palestinian political community. Al-Nakbah meant the destruction of Arab Palestinian society and patrimony and Palestinians'dispossession, dispersal, and destitution. The 1991 expulsion or flight of Palestinians from Kuwait points to another feature of the precarious Palestinian existence since al-Nakbah: transience and impermanence. The factors that impelled this demographic transformation between 1948 and 1995 were both economic and political. Although United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) was conceived as a temporary agency, by 1955 UNRWA reoriented its services toward integrating Palestinians into their surroundings.
