Published: 6 November 2018
Last updated: 5 March 2024
IT’S HARD TO THINK of a place as far from the Palestinians, from Israel and from the common mud in which we’re mired, as Chile. But it’s precisely in Chile that the largest Palestinian minority outside the Middle East has formed. The roots of the community go back to the mid-19th century Crimean War, and immigration swelled at the beginning of the 20th century.
Between 300,000 and half a million people with Palestinian roots live (happily) in a country with a population of 18 million. A local saying has it that in every small village in Chile you’ll find a priest, a policeman and a Palestinian. About 95 percent of the “Chilestinians” are Christians whose origins lie in the Jerusalem-area triangle of Bethlehem, Beit Jalla and Beir Sahour.
Most of the families immigrated before the 1930s and with no connection to the creation of Israel. There are now more Palestinian Christians in Chile than within the areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority.
The main impulse for those early waves of emigration was the Ottoman conscription law. Christians were drafted at an early age and sent to the front, sometimes unarmed, to serve as cannon fodder in battles against other Christians, in the Balkan wars and in World War I. Since the Palestinians arrived in Chile with Ottoman papers, they were dubbed “Turks.”
FULL STORY Meet the Chilestinians, the largest Palestinian community outside the Middle East (Haaretz)
Photo: People attend a Deportivo Palestino soccer game. The team was founded a century ago by Palestinian immigrants (Leonardo Vidal)
