Bill Text: IL HR0213 | 2025-2026 | 104th General Assembly | Introduced

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Bill Title: Recognizes the "Nakba" or the uprooting, dispossession, and refugeedom of Palestinian refugees. Expresses rejection of efforts to enlist, engage, or otherwise associate the United States Government with denial of the Nakba. Encourages education and public understanding of the facts of the Nakba, including the United States' role in the humanitarian relief effort and the relevance of the Nakba to modern-day refugee crises. Expresses support for the provision of social service to Palestinian refugees through the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. Expresses support for the implementation of Palestinian refugees' rights as enshrined in United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194 and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Sponsorship: Partisan Bill (Democrat 1)

Status: (Introduced - Dead) 2025-03-26 - Referred to Rules Committee [HR0213 Detail]

Download: Illinois-2025-HR0213-Introduced.html

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HR0213 LRB104 12795 ECR 24134 r
HOUSE RESOLUTION
WHEREAS, The United Nations General Assembly recommended
on November 29, 1947 to partition Palestine into two states
against the wishes of Palestine's majority indigenous
inhabitants; and
WHEREAS, This partition plan nevertheless provided for the
"Full protection for the rights and interests of minorities,
including the protection of the linguistic, religious and
ethnic rights of the peoples and respect for their cultures,
and full equality of all citizens with regard to political,
civil and religious matters"; and
WHEREAS, Before the State of Israel declared its
independence on May 14, 1948, there were already between
250,000 to 300,000 Palestinian refugees who were expelled or
fled from their homes, often after attacks by Zionist militias
on major Palestinian cities and villages; and
WHEREAS, By the time the war ended with the signing of
armistice agreements between Israel and neighboring Arab
countries in 1949 that established Israel's sovereignty over
78% of Palestine and, in the process, conquered an additional
23% of Palestine beyond those areas allocated to the Jewish
state under the partition plan, there were at least 750,000

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Palestinian refugees, approximately 75% of the indigenous
population that had lived in areas that became Israel; and
WHEREAS, By 1949, Israel had depopulated more than 400
Palestinian villages and cities, often demolishing all
structures and planting forests or repopulating them with
Jewish Israelis; and
WHEREAS, Palestinians refer to this experience of
uprooting, dispossession, and refugeedom as the Nakba, meaning
"catastrophe" in English; and
WHEREAS, The Nakba refers not only to the historical event
but also to an ongoing process of Israel's expropriation of
Palestinian land and its dispossession of the Palestinian
people that continues to this day through the establishment
and expansion of approximately 300 illegal settlements and
outposts in the occupied Palestinian West Bank in which
approximately 674,000 Israelis reside as of 2020; and
WHEREAS, The United States knew of the scale and magnitude
of the Palestine refugee crisis as it unfolded as is
documented in an October 1948 telegram to the President and
Secretary of State from the United States Embassy in Israel
warning that the "Arab Refugee tragedy is rapidly reaching
catastrophic proportions and should be treated as a disaster";

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and
WHEREAS, The United States voted in favor of United
Nations General Assembly Resolution 194 on December 11, 1948,
which states that Palestinian "refugees wishing to return to
their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be
permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that
compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing
not to return and for loss of or damage to property which,
under principles of international law or in equity, should be
made good by the governments or authorities responsible"; and
WHEREAS, Palestinian refugees' right of return is not only
stipulated in a General Assembly resolution but is also
anchored in international law and in Article 13 of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states "Everyone
has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to
return to his country"; and
WHEREAS, On December 8, 1949, the United Nations General
Assembly adopted Resolution 302 establishing the United
Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the
Near East, which the United States has financially supported
on an almost continuous basis since its establishment; and
WHEREAS, Of the more than 7,000,000 Palestinian refugees,

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the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine
Refugees in the Near East provides much-needed social services
to 5,700,000 Palestine refugees today; and
WHEREAS, International law also recognizes that
descendants of refugees retain their rights as refugees, and
according to the United Nations, "Palestine refugees are not
distinct from other protracted refugee situations such as
those from Afghanistan or Somalia, where there are multiple
generations of refugees, considered by UNHCR as refugees and
supported as such. Protracted refugee situations are the
result of the failure to find political solutions to their
underlying political crises"; and
WHEREAS, A just and lasting resolution requires respect
for and the implementation of Palestine refugee rights as
enshrined in United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194
and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; therefore, be
it
RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE ONE
HUNDRED FOURTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that
we recognize the Nakba; and be it further
RESOLVED, That we reject efforts to enlist, engage, or
otherwise associate the United States Government with denial

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of the Nakba; and be it further
RESOLVED, That we encourage education and public
understanding of the facts of the Nakba, including the United
States' role in the humanitarian relief effort and the
relevance of the Nakba to modern-day refugee crises; and be it
further
RESOLVED, That we support the provision of social service
to Palestinian refugees through the United Nations Relief and
Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East; and be it
further
RESOLVED, That we support the implementation of
Palestinian refugees' rights as enshrined in United Nations
General Assembly Resolution 194 and the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights.