The uprooting of Palestinians in 1948 was an experience that threatened to destroy the entire fabric of Palestinian life (Nazzal “The Palestinian Exodus”; Morris, “The Birth”). By the end of that year, Palestinian society had become geographically dispersed and fragmented. This paper uses data collected from open-ended interviews with Palestinian community members and focuses on two social groups that immigrated to Kuwait between 1948 and the early 1950s—the intelligentsia and the peasantry. Specifically, I analyze the role of family and personal networks as functional units of economic, political, national, and social survival (Barakat, “The Arab Family”; Abu-Lughod, “Migrant Adjustment”; Eickelman, “The Middle East”; Geertz, “The Meaning of Family Ties”; Epstein, “The Network and Urban”). The process that transformed Palestinian families and networks into a cross-national entity is explained. These family and personal networks became a force in reconstructing Palestinian life in diaspora. In addition to rebuilding itself, this Palestinian community in diaspora contributed immensely to the evolution and development of Kuwait over the next four decades. Palestinians found themselves in the midst of a unique duality: Kuwait became their new home, but at the same time they experienced a yearning to return to their Palestinian homeland. The occupation of Kuwait in 1990 shook the Palestinian community living there. In 1991, almost 400,000 Palestinians (of which the overwhelming majority had no role in the politics of the Iraqi occupation) were displaced. More than 50 percent were displaced by Saddam’s occupation; the rest were displaced upon the return of the legitimate authority of the State of Kuwait. The community was colored by the positions of the PLO during the invasion, which opposed western intervention and preferred an Arab solution (Salem, “Conflict Resolution”) As this paper will demonstrate, the displacement of Palestinians in 1991 from Kuwait was a major loss for both Kuwaitis and Palestinians. Much of Kuwait’s institutional memory was lost since the most active working group in the country was suddenly gone. As a result, many services in the fields of education, medicine, municipality, and infrastructural development suffered. On the other hand, Palestinians lost the place they had considered a second home, as well as the community they had worked so hard to build in diaspora. To conclude, I consider what opportunities were missed for Kuwaitis and Palestinians due to these events and what the region might learn about conflict resolution from Kuwait’s experience.