Palestinians are lasting middlemen minorities since return is impossible

Evidence

With many middlemen minorities, the short-term hardship of such strenuous work is offset by the long-term goal of returning to their homeland. Many Yemeni store owners in Brooklyn, for example, save most of their income to pay for return trips to Yemen for months or even years at a time, while the store is overseen by a relative. This option is obviously unavailable to Palestinians, as it once was to Jews, making them, to use Bonacich’s term, “lasting middlemen minorities.” — Moustafa Bayoumi, How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? Being…, 474 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

What was true of the Palestinian cause before the Catastrophe was equally true after it: its essential impetus came from the people, not from the politicians. — David Hirst, The Gun and the Olive Branch The Roots…, 1073 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Middleman minorities in similar niches get scapegoated across centuries; An achievable return-to-homeland goal offsets hardship; without it a minority becomes a lasting middleman — Moustafa Bayoumi, How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? Being…, 474; Exclusion from citizenship drove Palestinians to abandon pan-Arabism for their own state — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting…, 933 (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• An achievable return-to-homeland goal offsets hardship; without it a minority becomes a lasting middleman #corroborates (0.93) — Moustafa Bayoumi, How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? Being…, 474
• Palestinian hopes of return persist despite political exploitation. #complicates (0.85) — David Hirst, The Gun and the Olive Branch The Roots…, 1073
• Palestinian refugee status is reframed as manufactured and self-inflicted #complicates (0.76)