If a timeline were to present a full picture of displacement and migration trigger events in the Arab world, it would necessarily fill many pages and span many centuries. Understanding the role of the refugee in the region’s diverse cultures actually has to start with taking note of the refugee narratives – and mandates to respect the displaced and sojourners – that are foundational elements in the religions of Islam (with the exile of its founder in Medina), Christianity (with the first family’s flight to Egypt) and Judaism (with the pivotal role of the exodus in the creation of a people).
As Executive cannot but illustrate only a small slice of this millennia-lasting narrative, what we present in above infographics is a selective snapshot. The aim of a timeline of 20 major events in five countries over the course of—roughly—a century is not to give a comprehensive picture, but to illustrate the upheavals caused primarily by the conflicting push and pull of efforts to shape the region according to internal and external interests.
The domino effect
At the start of this timeline, these five countries—none yet declared as such according to our modern understanding of nation-states—were mapping out their sovereignty, or, in most cases, having it mapped out for them. The brief, post-WWI mandate period after the dismantling of the Ottoman Empire coincided with the establishment of the Turkish republic in 1923 and was followed by declarations of independence of the Hashemite Kingdom of Iraq from the British in 1932, and Lebanon and Syria from the French in 1943 and 1946 respectively. But the most noteworthy chain of events impacting migration and displacement during this time was the movement of Jewish refugees from Europe (facilitated by the British) and Arab countries, and the establishment of the state of Israel on the territory of Palestine. The repercussions of this chain of events across the region and globally have a well-documented ripple effect of conflicts and migration triggers.
The forced displacements of the subsequent Arab-Israeli conflicts would require a different examination. It can only be noted in passing here, as must be conflicts between autocratic regimes and disasters that drive forced displacement from African and Western Asian countries into the MENA region. Also not captured, though certainly contributing to some of the events specified on the timeline is the Arab Spring, a period of revolutionary uprisings and protests across the region that began in 2010 in Tunisia and spread outward assisted in large part by social media. It led not only to the toppling of governments in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen, but also spurred the anti-authoritarian protests in Syria at onset of the civil war in 2011.
In Lebanon, a similar revolutionary, pro-democratic movement occurred later in 2019—against a corrupt rather than an authoritarian regime. It unified much of the country and brought about a newly prescient alertness to the precarious status quo caused largely by the corruption of Lebanon’s political leaders. The thawra became a national wake-up call directly preceding Lebanon’s major economic crisis years.
It is of note that while some of these timeline events caused serious, mostly internal displacement, such as the Hezbollah-Israel July war of 2006 and the Beirut Blast of August 2020, the displacement was short-lived and did not trigger any significant international migration. In contrast, it is disingenuous to describe the ongoing Syrian conflict as one displacement trigger event, since during its course, there were numerous occurrences causing major migratory waves out of Syria as well as multiple internal displacements. The current genocide in Gaza, while not yet triggering substantial out-migration, has caused such grave and destructive incidents of repeated internal displacement, that it is certain to have weighty and long-lasting consequences as one of the most critical refugee challenges of the era.
