At the heart of the struggle for the land of Palestine are the people: the Palestinians. Denial of Palestinian rights is often justified by arguing that there are no Palestinian people, that somehow they are part of the so-called “Arab masses” who are at home anywhere in the Arab Middle East.

Far from belonging to countries across the Arab world, Palestinians identify with a distinctly Palestinian community with its roots in the land from which the majority were exiled, a land to which international law states that they have a right. This section looks at the contemporary difficulties that Palestinians face, whether officially stateless, or holders of other passports, whether living under Israeli occupation, or beyond the borders of former Mandated Palestine.