Comment by skissane

> Yes, there are people born in refugee camps in a couple of neighboring countries who are somehow not citizens of those countries. From a US perspective, this is very strange. The descendants of people who fled to the US are most definitely citizens.

US citizenship law says that everyone born in the US is a citizen of the US (jus soli, "right of the soil"). (With some rare and obscure exceptions, such as children of foreign diplomats.) But, most countries worldwide don't define citizenship in terms of birthplace, they define define it in terms of descent. So it doesn't matter if you are born in the country, you are only a citizen if at least one of your parents is (jus sanguinis, "right of the blood"). So the real reason it is strange is because the US is unusual by global standards, not because what is happening in these countries is really that unusual by those standards.

If you look at the Middle East, most countries in that region define citizenship in terms of descent not birthplace – which can result in people who have lived in the same place for generations but lack citizenship. It occurs in cases which have nothing to do with Israel-Palestine at all - for example, the stateless "Bidoon" people of Kuwait. It also occurs in Israel - Israeli law says that (non-Jewish) people born in Israel's sovereign territory only become Israeli citizens if one of their parents is, with the result that the majority of Arabs/Palestinians who live in East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights are living in land which Israel legally claims to have annexed (not merely militarily occupied), yet without Israeli citizenship – Israeli law says they have to apply for naturalisation, most don't want to, and even of those who do apply, only around a third have their applications approved (commonly denied either due to insufficient fluency in Hebrew, or vaguely defined "security reasons").