page_title: Palestinian community in Chile
section_title: Migration history
hierarchical_section_title: Palestinian community in Chile / Migration history
caption_attribution_description: Español: Banderas de Chile y Palestina, Palestino v Universidad de Concepción, Estadio Municipal de La Cisterna, La Cisterna, Santiago, Región Metropolitana, Chile.
context_page_description: The Palestinian community in Chile is believed to be the largest Palestinian community outside of the Arab world. Estimates of the number of Palestinian descendants in Chile range from 450,000 to 500,000. The effects of their migration are widely visible.
context_section_description: The earliest Palestinian migrants came in the 1850s during the Crimean War, fleeing due to Russia's intent to capture and control the Holy Land. They worked mainly as businessmen and also in agriculture. Other migrants arrived during World War I and later the 1948 Palestine war. By origin they primarily came from the cities of Beit Jala, Bethlehem, and Beit Sahour. Most of these early migrants were Christians. They typically landed at Argentine ports, and crossed the Andes by mule into Chile. Chilean Palestinians are often erroneously but also intentionally called turcos (Spanish for Turks) after the Ottoman nationality that early immigrants had on their passports. Contrary to the immigration of Germans and other European nationalities, the immigration of Palestinians was not considered beneficial by Chilean intellectuals, and was even, alongside Chinese and Japanese immigration, questioned. The arrival of the Palestinian immigrants to Chile in the early 20th century happened at the same time the Chilean state stopped sponsoring immigration to Chile and the country suffered a severe social and economic crisis coupled with a wave of nationalism with xenophobic and racist undertones. Immigrants were also at times treated in highly denigrating terms by the Chilean press; for example, El Mercurio wrote in 1911:
  Whether they are Mohammedans or Buddhists, what one can see and smell from far, is that they are more dirty than the dogs of Constantinople...
  — El Mercurio, April 13, 1911.
  Many of the immigrants were very poor and illiterate and had to take loans to pay their travel costs. Once in Chile, Palestinians settled largely in the marginal areas of cities and worked as small merchants. In the 1950s by the time of the second government of Carlos Ibáñez del Campo many Palestinian-Chileans had acquired substantial economic as well as political power in Chile, some working as deputies, ministers or ambassadors.  
  Aside from these migrants of previous decades, Chile has also taken in some Palestinian refugees in later years, as in April 2008 when it received 117 from the Al-Waleed refugee camp on the Syria–Iraq border near the Al-Tanf crossing. All of those refugees were Sunni Muslims.
  People who solely hold a Palestinian Authority passport are refused entry to Chile.
caption: Flags of Chile and Palestine.
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