This article examines the relationship of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) during the 1970s, the period when the PLO reached the zenith of its power in Palestinian refugee camps throughout the Levant. Based on archival United Nations (UN) and UNRWA documents, as well as the PLO's own communications and publications, the article argues that the organization approached its relationship with UNRWA as part of a broader strategy to gain international legitimacy at the UN. That approach resulted in a complex set of tensions, specifically over which of the two institutions truly served and represented Palestinian refugees. In exploring these tensions, this article also demonstrates how the “question of Palestine” was in many ways an international issue.

This article examines the origins of the unique schooling system for Palestinian refugees run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). Examining developments c. 1950–57, it illuminates the programme’s beginning and explores the objectives of those behind it. Using archival evidence from numerous international welfare organizations and testimonies from refugees themselves, this article argues that the parties providing education and the refugees receiving it often had conflicting objectives that were highly politicized on both sides. Despite the comparatively greater power and resources of the United Nations, the Palestinian refugees were able to make use of their limited leverage in order to shape the education system as they preferred. The UNRWA education programme thus serves as a revealing case study for explaining developmental aid to refugee populations and its inevitable intersection with politics.

UN Sustainable Development Goal 4 aims to 'ensure inclusive and quality education for all and promote lifelong learning'. This article identifies and examines the barriers to the realisation of this goal for Palestinian refugees from Syria. Firstly, it places SDG 4 in the Palestinian historical context, looking at how stateless Palestinian refugees have accessed education in the decades since the Nakba. The article's second section then examines how the on-going Syrian conflict has affected the prospects of education both for Palestinians remaining inside the country and for those who have sought refuge in new host states. Finally, the article concludes by exploring the ways in which SDG 4 could be implemented in practice for Palestinian refugees from Syria today.Education has been central to the empowerment of Palestinian refugees. Their access to schooling and training opportunities has led to them often being described as the most educated refugees in the world, and one of the most educated populations in the Middle East. 1 Moreover, Palestinian refugees themselves have long prioritised the importance of education in exile. Since the 1950s, they have participated as both students and teachers in the education programme run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, the West Bank and Gaza (the so-called 'five fields'). Historically, Palestinian refugees in Syria were some of the greatest beneficiaries of access to education, as their host state's lack of anti-Palestinian legislation meant that they could use their qualifications to pursue a range of professional careers. 2 Today of course, the situation in Syria is very different. Since the outbreak of the war in early 2011, more than 100,000 of the 560,000 Palestinians registered in Syria have fled the country, becoming twice or three-times displaced as a population. 3 Their Palestinian origins mean that they face additional hardships; in January 2013, the Jordanian government imposed a ban on Palestinian refugees from Syria entering the country. 4 The Jordanian ban drove many to travel to Lebanon instead, putting huge pressure on already-overstretched Lebanese resources. The Lebanese government subsequently followed suit and closed its doors to Palestinian refugees from Syria in May 2014. 5 Partly as a result of these restrictions, the majority of Syria's Palestinian population remain inside the country, but over two-thirds of them have been internally displaced, and 95% are dependent on aid for their basic needs. 6The continuing crisis has had a major impact on education. Today, the call in UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4 for 'inclusive and quality education for all', is little more than a dream for Syria's Palestinian population. Many Palestinian refugees who have fled Syria are struggling simply to survive in new refuges and shelters, with little hope of sending their children to school. The

In the second half of the twentieth century, stateless Palestinian refugees regularly submitted petitions to international authorities, particularly the UN. In these petitions, the refugees demanded their rights and invoked the UN's liberal internationalist discourse to assert the justice of their cause. This article explores what these petitions reveal about contentious politics among the Palestinian grassroots in the refugee camps. In so doing, it recasts Palestinian refugee camp communities as actors consciously engaged with international politics, and key drivers in internationalising the 'Question of Palestine'. By unpacking the petitions' internationalist aspects, the article also situates Palestinian refugee history within the broader context of postwar global governance. Finally, the analysis presented here challenges the state-centrism of existing historiography on petitioning, which examines the practice largely in relation to the growth of the state. By contrast, the case study of Palestinian petitioning shows that the practice can also be important in a setting of statelessness. This article therefore makes a series of contributions to understanding not only Palestinian political history, but also the practice of petitioning and the dynamics of postwar internationalism.

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