History
The birth of the Palestinian community in modern Iraq dates back to 1948, when the Iraqi army, which had been fighting in Palestine, returned to Baghdad with a group of Palestinians who had been forced to flee their homes in Haifa and Jaffa. Following the 1967 War with Israel, a second larger wave of Palestinians sought refuge in Iraq. The third and final wave occurred in 1991 after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, when those Palestinians living in Kuwait and other Gulf states fled or were expelled due to (what the Gulf States alleged to be) Yasser Arafat’s support for the invasion. In fact Yasser Arafat was never supportive of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. His opposition to the war against Iraq in 1991 was driven by his principle opposition to US attacks against Arab countries. Over the years, there were also many Palestinians who came to Iraq in search of work. Prior to 2003, there were approximately 25,000 registered Palestinian refugees living in Iraq. In December 2010, approximately 10,000 Palestinians remained in Iraq, the majority of whom were living in and around Baghdad.
Read more about this topic: Palestinians In Iraq
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“For a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.”
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