Compass – While strolling through the streets east of the capital, Amman, or the Zarqa governorate adjacent to it, the banners hung on the buildings are clearly visible, indicating the headquarters of a civil association or office belonging to a Palestinian city or village, whose residents settled in Jordan since the Nakba in 1948 or the setback that followed in 1948. 1967, and the members of these associations affirm their historical right to their cities and villages.

Majed al-Jamal, a researcher on Palestinian refugee affairs, says that “geographical proximity and the demographic factor (demographic) had the most significant impact on creating this large number of Palestinian associations, associations and bureaus in Jordan, especially in Hebron in the south of the West Bank and Nablus and Jenin in the north, where the extension is In the same family or clan between the two banks of the Jordan River.

In an interview with Quds Press, Al-Jamal indicated, “It is natural to find this wide spread of Palestinian diwans and associations in Jordan, especially if we know that Jordan contains the largest number of Palestinian refugees outside Palestine, estimated at 3 million Palestinian refugees, and they became known as Palestinians.” Jordan”.

Regarding the number of Palestinian associations and bureaus in Jordan, Kazem Ayesh, the head of the “Palestinian Return and Refugee Association” (a community based in Jordan), says that it is close to 100 Palestinian associations and associations registered with the Ministry of Interior in Jordan.
He added, in an interview with “Quds Press,” that “if we add the Palestinian associations operating in Jordan, the number is more than a thousand associations registered with the Ministry of Social Development, and the law has recently been amended so that all offices are registered in the name of an association, in terms of limiting the numbers, financial auditing and follow-up on them.” properly by the government.

The associations affiliated with the people of the Hebron region, in the south of the West Bank, are the most prevalent in Jordan. Regarding this phenomenon, Ayesh explained that “the people of the Hebron region are large in number in Jordan, especially in the capital, Amman, and they are merchants and business owners.”

He added that a large number of the people of Hebron live in occupied Jerusalem, “and therefore the children of Hebron who live in Jordan have direct contact with their relatives in occupied Jerusalem, within the framework of defending the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, and this matter benefits official Jordan within the framework of the Hashemite tutelage,” as he estimated.

He stressed that “the work of the Palestinian associations and associations is limited to social work exclusively, and in principle these bureaus are not allowed to do political or charitable work, because these associations are mainly affiliated with the Jordanian Ministry of Interior.”
The head of the “Al-Awda” Association believed that the Palestinian associations and associations in Jordan have a significant role and impact in “strengthening the Palestinian national affiliation of children from the fourth generation to the Palestinian Nakba, and this matter is not limited to the children of Palestinian refugees … but rather reaches all segments of Jordanian society.”
He pointed out that some of these bureaus “work to collect and document the Palestinian heritage and folk archives, in terms of strengthening the Palestinian identity.”
It is noteworthy that most Palestinians in Jordan enjoy Jordanian nationality, including residents of refugee camps, with the exception of about 300,000 Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, who hold temporary Jordanian passports that do not grant them full citizenship rights.