Displacing Territory: Refugees in the Middle East

In: International journal of Middle East studies: IJMES, Volume 49, Issue 2, p. 323-326

Abstract

In the summer of 2015, the UN reported that there were more than 60 million refugees worldwide, making the current refugee crisis the largest in history. Though the refugee crisis is global, it has a particular regional and local geography that demands attention. As readers ofIJMESundoubtedly know, this crisis has disproportionally affected people in the Middle East. Since the end of World War II, a majority of the world's refugees have originated from this region. Five years of war in Syria is the most recent cause of displacement, but the American-led Iraq War in 2003 and the displacement of Palestinians with the establishment of Israel in 1948 have produced tens of millions of refugees.