IV 
118TH CONGRESS 
2D SESSION 
H. RES. 1231 
Recognizing the Nakba and Palestinian refugees’ rights. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
MAY 15, 2024 
Ms. TLAIB (for herself, Ms. OMAR, Ms. BUSH, and Mr. CARSON) submitted 
the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign 
Affairs 
RESOLUTION 
Recognizing the Nakba and Palestinian refugees’ rights. 
Whereas the United Nations General Assembly recommended 
on November 29, 1947, to partition Palestine into two 
states against the wishes of Palestine’s majority indige-
nous inhabitants; 
Whereas this partition plan nevertheless provided for the 
‘‘Full protection for the rights and interests of minorities, 
including the protection of the linguistic, religious and 
ethnic rights of the peoples and respect for their cultures, 
and full equality of all citizens with regard to political, 
civil and religious matters’’; 
Whereas before the State of Israel declared its independence 
on May 14, 1948, there were already between 250,000 to 
300,000 Palestinian refugees who were expelled or fled 
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•HRES 1231 IH 
from their homes often after attacks by Zionist militias 
on major Palestinian cities and villages; 
Whereas by the time the war ended with the signing of armi-
stice agreements between Israel and neighboring Arab 
countries in 1949, establishing Israel’s sovereignty over 
78 percent of Palestine, and, in the process, conquering 
an additional 23 percent of Palestine beyond those areas 
allocated to the Jewish state under the partition plan, 
there were at least 750,000 Palestinian refugees (roughly 
75 percent of the indigenous population that had lived in 
areas that became Israel); 
Whereas, by 1949, Israel had depopulated more than 400 
Palestinian villages and cities, often demolishing all 
structures and planting forests over them; 
Whereas Palestinians refer to this experience of uprooting, 
dispossession, and refugeedom as the Nakba (meaning 
‘‘catastrophe’’ in English); 
Whereas the United States knew of the scale and magnitude 
of the Palestine refugee crisis as it unfolded, as is docu-
mented in an October 1948 telegram to the President 
and Secretary of State from the Embassy of the United 
States to Israel, warning that the ‘‘Arab Refugee tragedy 
is rapidly reaching catastrophic proportions and should 
be treated as a disaster’’; 
Whereas the United States voted in favor of United Nations 
General Assembly Resolution 194 on December 11, 1948, 
which states that Palestinian ‘‘refugees wishing to return 
to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors 
should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable 
date, and that compensation should be paid for the prop-
erty of those choosing not to return and for loss of or 
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damage to property which, under principles of inter-
national law or in equity, should be made good by the 
governments or authorities responsible’’; 
Whereas Palestinian refugees’ right of return is not only stip-
ulated in a General Assembly resolution, but is also an-
chored in international law and in Article 13 of the Uni-
versal Declaration of Human Rights, which states: ‘‘Ev-
eryone has the right to leave any country, including his 
own, and to return to his country’’; 
Whereas, on December 8, 1949, the United Nations General 
Assembly adopted Resolution 302 establishing the United 
Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees 
in the Near East, which the United States has financially 
supported on an almost continuous basis since its estab-
lishment; 
Whereas of the more than 7,000,000 Palestinian refugees, 
the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Pal-
estine Refugees in the Near East provides much-needed 
social services to 5,700,000 Palestine refugees today; 
Whereas international law also recognizes that descendants of 
refugees retain their rights as refugees, and that accord-
ing to the United Nations, ‘‘Palestine refugees are not 
distinct from other protracted refugee situations such as 
those from Afghanistan or Somalia, where there are mul-
tiple generations of refugees, considered by UNHCR as 
refugees and supported as such. Protracted refugee situa-
tions are the result of the failure to find political solu-
tions to their underlying political crises’’; 
Whereas the Nakba refers not only to a historical event but 
to an ongoing process of Israel’s expropriation of Pales-
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tinian land and its dispossession of the Palestinian people 
that continues to this day; 
Whereas the apartheid government of Israel is committing a 
genocide against the Palestinian people which, as of May 
14, 2024, has killed at least 35,000 people, including 
more than 14,500 children, wounded more than 79,000, 
with 10,000 additional people still missing, displaced over 
1,700,000 Palestinians, and created a state of famine 
across Gaza; 
Whereas the establishment and expansion of hundreds of ille-
gal settlements and outposts in the occupied Palestinian 
West Bank in which approximately 674,000 Israelis re-
side as of 2020 is another form of ethnic cleaning used 
to perpetuate the Nakba; and 
Whereas a just and lasting resolution requires respect for and 
the implementation of Palestine refugee rights as en-
shrined in United Nations General Assembly Resolution 
194 and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: 
Now, therefore, be it 
Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of Rep-
resentatives that it is the policy of the United States to— 
(1) commemorate the Nakba through official 
recognition and remembrance; 
(2) denounce the ongoing Nakba of the Pales-
tinian people; 
(3) reject efforts to enlist, engage, or otherwise 
associate the United States Government with denial 
of the Nakba; 
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(4) encourage education and public under-
standing of the facts of the Nakba, including the 
United States role in the humanitarian relief effort, 
and the relevance of the Nakba to modern-day ref-
ugee crises; 
(5) support the resumed provision of social 
service to Palestinian refugees through the United 
Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Ref-
ugees in the Near East; 
(6) support the implementation of Palestinian 
refugees’ rights as enshrined in United Nations Gen-
eral Assembly Resolution 194 and the Universal 
Declaration of Human Rights; 
(7) recognize that Palestinians are a unique 
people who are every bit as human as everyone else; 
and 
(8) reject bigoted efforts to question, dismiss, 
or otherwise deny the existence of Palestinians and 
their humanity. 
Æ 
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