Our new Community Advisory Board (CAB), made up of four members with diverse Palestinian backgrounds, is informing our work to improve access to protection for Palestinians in Europe. The CAB members provided guidance and feedback on our legal briefing on the rights of stateless Palestinians in the UK, which was launched last week. We spoke to one of our CAB members, who wished not to be named, to hear why they wanted to get involved.
The CAB will play a key role in shaping and delivering ENS’s work to improve access to protection for Palestinians in Europe over the coming months and years. Why were you interested in getting involved with this project?
As a stateless Palestinian-Syrian living in Europe, I know how policies written on paper translate into daily realities of exclusion. What drew me to the CAB is the chance to bridge lived experience with legal and policy work. Joining the CAB felt like both a responsibility and an opportunity. A responsibility, because our lived realities need to inform policy and legal advocacy; and an opportunity, because ENS provides a platform where our voices can directly shape strategies for change.
Across Europe we have seen the introduction of restrictive policies denying some Palestinians access to statelessness status or creating barriers to acquiring a nationality. What do you see as the most pressing challenges facing Palestinians in Europe today, and what recommendations would you make to governments to ensure access to effective protection?
The biggest problem is inconsistency. A Palestinian can be treated one way in one country and completely differently in another. Some are recognised as stateless, others are left in limbo. This creates huge insecurity — you don’t know if you’ll be able to work, access healthcare, keep your family together, or build a future.
Governments should apply the same standards across Europe to avoid confusion and fragmentation. Ideally, recognising that Palestinians are entitled to long-term solutions to their displacement, including pathways that respect their right to self-determination. Until these rights are realised, Palestinians without another nationality should be recognised as stateless. They should be given residence rights, including work permits, and a clear path to naturalisation. These are not special privileges, they are the basic rights needed to live with dignity.
How do you feel the legal briefing on the right to protection of Palestinians in the UK will support legal practitioners and policymakers in improving protection for Palestinians in the UK, and in what ways are any learnings from it relevant to the wider European context?
The briefing is very practical. It shows the gap between how the law is supposed to work and how it actually works in real cases. Lawyers can use it to argue for Palestinians who’ve been unfairly refused. Policymakers can see where the system is failing. Even though it’s about the UK, the same issues come up all across Europe — barriers with Article 1D, problems with recognising statelessness, and obstacles to family reunification. So the lessons are wider than the UK alone.
How important is it that community members and civil society take a coordinated approach to raising awareness and securing improved protection for Palestinians across the continent?
It’s crucial. Statelessness is often invisible, and if we all work separately, it’s easy to ignore. When lawyers, NGOs, and people from the community work together, we become stronger. It also means our stories are not just numbers or legal cases, but real lives that show why change is needed. Coordination makes our voices harder to dismiss.
Looking ahead to the joint ENS and Statefree conference in Berlin which will feature a dedicated workshop on this subject, what are you most hopeful about when it comes to shaping future projects and initiatives to advance the rights of Palestinians in Europe?
Berlin is a chance to go beyond talking and start planning real action. I hope the workshop can lead to practical tools — like joint legal strategies, stronger networks between countries, and better ways to use European case law. For Palestinians, the stakes are existential: to be recognized not as a problem to be managed but as a people entitled to dignity and future. I am hopeful that Palestinians themselves will be centered, not as case studies, but as partners in shaping future advocacy. This is not just policy reform, but a re-imagining of Europe’s responsibility to see Palestinians not as perpetual outsiders, but as a test of its own humanity.
