Why is Trauma Missing from Syria Refugee Debate?

For Israel, the key concern is for the Palestinians to simply disconnect from their historic homeland; for refugee advocates the struggle has always been to demonstrate that the refugees' desire to return remains as strong today as it was nearly 68 years ago.

But between Israeli laws aimed at punishing Palestinians for commemorating their Nakba, and efforts to keep the Right of Return central to the debate, an actual disconnect happened between the likes of Ebrahim Mahmoud of Haifa/Mosul, along with millions like him and the rest of us.

For Ebrahim, as is the case for Palestinian refugees in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and in Palestine itself across the region and the world, the matter of exile is neither a political nor a legal point. It is an everyday reality that has left numerous scars and manifestations on the refugees' identities as people, their perception of themselves, of their surroundings, of "home," their internalization of the past, their understanding of the present and their aspirations for the future.

It is an ongoing story, a journey that ended neither at a psychological nor practical one. Those who were expelled from Safad, Palestine, in 1948, for example, fled Jordan in 1970, then Lebanon in 1982 and, finally, Yarmouk, Syria in 2012. They are a testament to the fact that, unlike common wisdom, exile for Palestinians is not specific in time or space, but a cyclical process that is experienced by every single Palestinian, even those who would declare that they have no intentions of returning to Palestine.

The repercussions of this trauma is likely to carry on for generations. Even when a just solution is reached, it will take time for the trauma to transform into an exclusively historical topic of discussion.

Syrian refugees are now taking the first step towards their own journey of exile. While one hopes that their collective trauma ends much sooner, it is important that discussions reach far beyond a question of humanitarian and political crises. While political disputes eventually conclude, collective traumas do not magically end with the signing of political agreements.