What Regional States Are—and Aren't—Doing for Syria's Refugees

James D. Durso

Politics, Middle East

The challenge is to resettle the Syrians before they become the next Palestinians.

President-elect Donald Trump’s Syria policy is coming into view: coordinate anti-ISIS operations with Russia, and cease funding the “moderate” CIA-funded Syrian rebels given that “we have no idea who these people are.” 

As the United States demobilizes its intelligence operation in Syria, the new administration needs to focus on helping its local allies deal with the flood of Syrian refugees over their borders.

But first, the cautionary tale of the Palestinians. After the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, Palestinians fled the new state of Israel in the expectation that they would shortly return to their homes when the Arab armies scattered the Jews. Seventy-eight years later, over five million Palestinians live in the refugee camps administered by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) in Lebanon, Syria, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

The post-1948 Arab leadership kept the Palestinians un-assimilated to use them as a cudgel against Israel. Luckily, there is no PLO-like organization seeking to represent all Syrian refugees and stage a multi-decade war against Syria, so the challenge is to resettle the Syrians before they become Palestinians 2.0.

There are almost five million registered Syrian refugees in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq.

Turkey has the largest contingent of refugees, almost three million, but also has the most developed economy and capacity to absorb them. However, Turkish President Erdogan’s tightening grip on power may go hand-in-hand with an emphasis on “Turkishness” and leave the Syrians with the options of assimilation or onward migration. Turkey has proposed shifting the refugees into a “safe zone” in northern Syria, which will reduce its expenditures and push out Kurds and ISIS fighters. Turkey will use the refugees to get political and economic concessions from Europe, but likely has no long-term intention to allow any but the most economically productive to live in Turkey as Turks to avoid repeating its experience with the Kurds.