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| Pix credit Wikipedia here |
Ethnic displacements are as old as human history, as far as one can tell. And as far as one can tell, those displacements sometimes were treated as a matter of indifference, inevitability, right, justice, or tragedy. Much of that discussion might have focused more on the means by which population displacements were undertaken, and the level of savagery--judged by the standards of the times--as a function of the level of general antipathy or sympathy for the human collectives affected. More recently, displacements appeared to be at their most legitimate when undertaken through law, including international law--for example when displacements accompanied changes in borders. But even then, sometimes displacement could not be easily separated from older and more primitive desires by one collective against others.
The great difficulty of displacement is perhaps at its most basic a twofold problem. The first is that collective displacement is difficult to define with any precision--it is intimately contextual, and thus also political/ideological. One tends to reverse engineer displacement to suit one's politics. Aligned with the definitional problem is that of distinguishing between individual migration; and migration that may be formally uncoordinated but none the less collective in effect. Tied into that is the difficulty of distinguishing between collective displacement and methods--both by expelling and receiving populations and their political organs. The greater the tragedy in methodology, the more problematic in moral terms. Since the end of the last century, as well, the more likely that such methods--tied to some sort of definition of collective displacement that suits--may also constitute a violation of international criminal law as forms of crimes against humanity, for example--and at their limit, genocide.
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| Pix credit UNHCR 2024 |
In this context it is hard to find a State, or a people, whose own actions or histories are not clouded by (what in retrospect appears to have been a convenient and ordering) set of displacement actions that produced their contemporary conditions. And it is even harder to find a State under those circumstances unwilling to judge, and sometimes harshly, States undergoing similar conditions and reactions in contexts of instability, war, or other conflict. Purity, however, is the starting point of law; and the presumption of purity is a concept that is tied to the moment and the context. Thus, for example, States and peoples who might, a generation or so ago, have found the matter of displacement of minorities in their own countries a matter of indifference or of positive benefit, however violent or tragic the circumstances, may now recoil in horror at displacement of their own communities from other lands. The essence of all of this is that: (1) the impulse, at this current stage of human development, to manage, mitigate the effects of, or eliminate the acts or conditions of displacement represent a high ideal that ought not to be dismissed; (2) the connection between objective and means may well lie at the core of the issue, or at least helps shape the antipathy to which the idea of displacement has been moving; and (3) the ability of human communities to meet that ideal in a neutral, dispassionate, and equal way appears to be as elusive as the any human goal. All of this might be useful to consider in the context of a particular infatuation of the global community respecting displacement (for the larger displacement picture consider here) that is indeed fascinating--the displacement of a formerly majority population by a population of formerly displaced communities, some of whom had been displaced by the extended "family" of the community now being displaced. The accumulation of displacement makes the situation impossible--but the layering of method adds not just tragedy but perhaps inevitability. In that context, the Occupied Palestinian Territories: joint statement, 21 July 2025 provides a quite nice illustration of the issues sketched here. The Statement follows below. Beyond what has been generally described, additional commentary would necessarily be political, ideological, and expressions of communal solidarity that I leave to readers to sort out for themselves. It is, like many other Statements of this kind, made in the past and to be made in the future in this and other instances of displacement (assuming the requisite political interest), yet another instance of futility in search of a stable state. And the task is made harder in a global context in which virtually all parties have blood on their hands--in some cases that blood is still fresh. Yet that stable state may well be displacement itself under conditions of hostile difference or threat.
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| Pix credit UNHCR Mid Year Trends 2024 |
The UK and 28 international partners gave a joint statement on the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
Joint statement by:
- foreign ministers of Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Greece, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK
- EU Commissioner for Equality, Preparedness and Crisis Management
We, the signatories listed below, come together with a simple, urgent message: the war in Gaza must end now.
The suffering of civilians in Gaza has reached new depths. The Israeli government’s aid delivery model is dangerous, fuels instability and deprives Gazans of human dignity. We condemn the drip feeding of aid and the inhumane killing of civilians, including children, seeking to meet their most basic needs of water and food. It is horrifying that over 800 Palestinians have been killed while seeking aid. The Israeli Government’s denial of essential humanitarian assistance to the civilian population is unacceptable. Israel must comply with its obligations under international humanitarian law.
The hostages cruelly held captive by Hamas since 7 October 2023 continue to suffer terribly. We condemn their continued detention and call for their immediate and unconditional release. A negotiated ceasefire offers the best hope of bringing them home and ending the agony of their families.
We call on the Israeli government to immediately lift restrictions on the flow of aid and to urgently enable the UN and humanitarian NGOs to do their life saving work safely and effectively.
We call on all parties to protect civilians and uphold the obligations of international humanitarian law. Proposals to remove the Palestinian population into a “humanitarian city” are completely unacceptable. Permanent forced displacement is a violation of international humanitarian law.
We strongly oppose any steps towards territorial or demographic change in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The E1 settlement plan announced by Israel’s Civil Administration, if implemented, would divide a Palestinian state in two, marking a flagrant breach of international law and critically undermine the two-state solution. Meanwhile, settlement building across the West Bank including East Jerusalem has accelerated while settler violence against Palestinians has soared. This must stop.
We urge the parties and the international community to unite in a common effort to bring this terrible conflict to an end, through an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire. Further bloodshed serves no purpose. We reaffirm our complete support to the efforts of the US, Qatar and Egypt to achieve this.
We are prepared to take further action to support an immediate ceasefire and a political pathway to security and peace for Israelis, Palestinians and the entire region.
This statement has been signed by:
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The Foreign Ministers of Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Greece, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK
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The EU Commissioner for Equality, Preparedness and Crisis Management
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