08/09/2009 Palestine - Israel Journal of Politic…

The Palestine-Israel Journal is a quarterly of MIDDLE EA ST PUBLICA TIONS, a registered non-profit organization (No. 58-023862-4).

V ol 1 5 N o. 4 & V ol 1 6 N o. 1 , 0 8 /0 9 / The Refugee Question

Focus

Between the Political Solution and Exercising the Right of

Return

A political solution to the refugee problem entails a creative approach

to the right of return.

by Ziad AbuZayyad

The Palestinian-Israeli conflict does not date from today or the 1967
war; it goes back to the 1930s and 1940s when the Zionist movement
stepped up its efforts to bring Jewish immigrants to Palestine, thus
setting the stage for a future confrontation with the Palestinian Arabs.
This confrontation had its full expression in the 1948 war, as a result
of which the state of Israel was created and more than two-thirds of
Editorial Board
the Palestinians were uprooted from their homeland and became
Hisham Awartani refugees. The international community failed then and has continued
to fail so far to resolve this problem, and General Assembly
Danny Rubinstein
Resolution 194 remains largely a symbol of the Palestinians’ demand
Sam'an Khoury to be allowed to return to their homes and lands in what became
Boaz Evron
known as Israel. Since then, any discussion revolving around the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict switches immediately to a discussion of the
Walid Salem
Palestinians’ right to return.
Ari Rath
Civilians are not obliged to endanger their lives by remaining in battle
Zahra Khalidi
zones and they have the full right to flee for their lives and go back
Daniel Bar-Tal home when the fighting ends. This principle, which is embedded in
Ammar AbuZayyad international law, was enjoyed by hundreds of thousands of Israelis
who fled their homes in northern Israel just recently in summer 2006
Galit Hasan-Rokem
during the Second Lebanon War, was not applicable to the Palestinian
Khaled Abu Aker Arabs. Despite that and for over six decades, the Palestinian refugees
Galia Golan have identified with their native cities and villages from which they,
their fathers or even grandfathers were expelled.
Nazmi Ju’beh

Gershon Baskin The right of return became a symbol of the Palestinian national
Edy Kaufman
struggle and a subject of competition among the different Palestinian
political factions. Giving up on the right of return came to be
Ata Qaymari regarded as an act of treason, and many politicians refrain from
Benjamin Pogrund saying aloud what they really think in private about the possibility of
exercising this right or the practicality of insisting on it, while insisting
Nafez Nazzal
on it, at least for some of them, as a bargaining chip at the
Simcha Bahiri negotiating table.

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Nadia Naser-Najjab
Without doubt, the right of return is a thorny and sensitive subject
Dan Jacobson
and, therefore, difficult to broach because of the great deal of charged
Jumana Jaouni emotions involved. There is not a single Palestinian who, deep down
Dan Leon
inside or purely out of choice, would give up the right of return. What
took place in 1948 — the expulsion and forced displacement of our
Anat C ygielman
people ranks among the ugliest crimes against humanity committed
Khuloud Khayyat Dajani in the 20th century. The Palestinians believe that the international
community — mainly in Europe — let down the Palestinians and
Izhak Schnell
made them pay the price for a crime they did not commit nor were
part of — the Holocaust perpetrated by the Nazis in Europe — so that
a Jewish state could be created to receive the Jews who were victims
of Nazism and to compensate them.

Both an Individual and a Collective Right

The right of return is an individual and a collective right. It is not

confined only to the actual physical return to the country from which
the Palestinians were driven. It also pertains to their right to
compensation for their suffering and the damages they have incurred
as a result of their displacement and expulsion throughout the long
Diaspora years.

In effect, any solution to the problem of Palestinian refugees must

address their right to fair compensation for their suffering,
humiliation and lost opportunities, as well as for their lost properties.
In the case of properties that cannot be returned because they are
nonextant, converted or built upon, their original owners should
receive the property value on valuation day. In the case of extant
properties, in addition to their restitution, there should be
compensation for their exploitation and the income they will have
generated since their seizure in 1948 until such a time an agreement
is concluded. Israel should bear the responsibility for the refugee
problem and should take the initiative to establish an international
fund to help in this regard and within the above-mentioned
parameters.

In principle, the individual right belongs to the individual and it

cannot be discussed without the concerned individual appointing legal
counsel, with power of attorney, to deal with these matters. All this is
correct from a theoretical and legal standpoint, but when it comes to
the practical level and the matter of implementation, disagreements
can arise and viewpoints proliferate.

As for the collective right, it is the national right of the people who
were displaced. This right can be dealt with by a representative who
has integrity and is above reproach, who is elected democratically and
enjoys a popular mandate. It is only this representative who will be
empowered to speak for the people and to make commitments on
their behalf.

In any event, talk about the right of return is in effect talk about the
type of solution we want for the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. And

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whoever talks about the right of return has to bear in mind that it is
intertwined with the method by which this right is to be exercised. Put
simply, the prospects for resolving the conflict can be reduced to two
options: a political solution agreed upon by Israel, or an international
solution imposed on Israel, whether by force or other means of
pressure.

Two Clear-Cut Options

First and foremost, we have to agree that Israel was established as a

Jewish state. It does not cease to reiterate, with no hesitation or
shame, that it is a Jewish state and that one of the most important
principles for its survival is to safeguard its Jewish character by
making sure that the vast majority of the population remains Jewish.
This means that Israel rejects and will always reject the return to it of
large numbers of Arabs as citizens with full citizenship rights, as this
would tip the demographic balance and would cause it to lose its
Jewish character and Jewish majority. Therefore, in the face of this
principled stance on the part of the Israeli state, we should
understand and acknowledge that talk about a political solution to the
conflict is futile if, at the same time, we want to exercise the right of
return in absolute terms, because this will spell the end of Israel as a
Jewish state, a matter that Israel will not accept willingly.

If the demographic threat or balance is Israel’s problem, then why not

think of creative solutions that can address the demands and fears of
both sides? Why not learn from the experience of the Arabs of East
Jerusalem when their city was unilaterally annexed to Israel in1967?
They were given the status of permanent residents in accordance with
the Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law — which, unfortunately, kept
them vulnerable to expulsion and denied them the right to their own
hometown.

Why not try to improve on that example with a view of ensuring the
protection of the “returning” refugees and making sure they will not
be subjected to any violation of their human rights and/or human
security? This will not concern the eastern part of Jerusalem, which is
an integral part of the territories occupied in June 1967 and should be
returned to the Palestinians as the capital of their future state, but
would be applicable to the 1948 refugees who will be going back to
Israel inside the Green Line (the 1948 Armistice Line ).

A new approach that distinguishes between “residency” and

“citizenship” and guarantees the stability, dignity and human security
of the returning “residents” could present us with a solution. The
Palestinian refugees would be allowed to return to their homes and
lands in Israel wherever possible, or relocated and rehabilitated
nearby. According to this approach, the returning refugees will not be
given full Israeli citizenship but the right to the status of full residents
— without their being vulnerable to expulsion as is the case at present
with the Arabs of East Jerusalem. And, except for the political rights
of citizenship, they should be granted all other rights. This will make
a political solution to the conflict possible, without jeopardizing the

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right of Israel to maintaining its Jewish majority and guaranteeing its
future as such.

Could such a suggestion be accepted by Israel? The answer is most

probably “No.” Demographic fears are one thing, and the Israeli
policy to grab as much land as possible is another.

Land is at the core of the conflict, and all other issues are used as
arguments to justify why Israel should not allow these lands to be
returned to their Arab owners. Israel’s real intention is to grab as
much Arab land as possible. The issue is not really the demography
but the geography. After 1948, the Arabs who remained in their
villages in what became Israel were forced to leave them and to
gather in specified villages, which earned them the status of
“absentees.” Consequently, the lands and properties in the villages
they were forced to leave were confiscated and transferred to the
Custodian of Absentee Property, which proceeded to transfer these
properties to the Administration of the Lands of Israel on their way
into Jewish hands. A similar fate befell the properties of the refugees
who fled for their lives hoping to return once the war ended.

This is why the observers deem that the advocates of a political

solution with realistic readiness to compromise on the right of return
possess clarity of vision. These advocates realize and concede that a
political solution does not allow for the exercise of the right of return,
but believe that it does allow for the salvaging of whatever can be
salvaged. In point of fact, such a position is not restricted to the
Palestinian side that is seeking a political solution, but has acquired
Arab legitimacy through the Arab Peace Initiative (API), which refers
explicitly to “an agreed-upon solution to the right of return.” This
statement implies that, within the framework of the political
resolution of the Palestinian question on the basis of the API, the
issue of the right of return must obtain Israel’s approval; in other
words, Israel has the right to veto any solution pertaining to the
refugees that does not satisfy it. Thus, giving up the absolute right of
return is no more confined to the Palestinians who favor the political
option, but includes as well the Arab states whose initiative has
gained the support of the umbrella organization the Organization of
the Islamic Conference.

Those on the Palestinian side who talk about a realistic political

solution recognize the state of Israel and acknowledge its existence.
They seek a political solution through the establishment of a
Palestinian state in the West Bank within the June 1967 borders, as
well as in the Gaza Strip and Arab East Jerusalem, both of which form
an integral part of the West Bank, which was occupied in 1967.
Although this is the position of the Palestinian leadership (the PLO),
which advocates a political solution, the facts on the ground make the
implementation of this position and its translation into reality a virtual
impossibility. This is due to the settlement activities, which continue
to gobble up large swaths of land from the Jerusalem area and from
the north and south of the West Bank, rendering the shape of the
prospective Palestinian state closer to a tattered piece of cloth,

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scattered all over the land. Such a state cannot be accepted by any
Palestinian representative. So the refugees problem is not the only
obstacle on the road to a political solution but also, and for most, the
Israeli-created facts on the ground in the occupied territories. These
facts jeopardize and rule out the possibility of creating a Palestinian
state unless they are removed. The disengagement from Gaza in
2005 proved that this is possible.

Palestinian Pragmatism: How Viable?

Israel has taken advantage of the Palestinian readiness in the Camp

David negotiations of 2000 to accept the principle of land swaps.
Since then, Israel has decided — unilaterally — upon the areas that it
wants to annex and has embarked on the expansion of settlement
pockets and settlement quarters around Jerusalem, making the
establishment of a Palestinian state pure delusion.

Thus, Israel, with its settlement practices and its inability to

comprehend the limits of the Palestinian capacity to offer concessions,
has killed any chance for a political settlement that the pragmatic
Palestinian leadership could conceivably accept. And it is shoring up
the Palestinian side that has lost faith in the political solution. In the
interest of fairness, the solution proposed by Hamas in the past,
which is predicated on a long-term hudna (ceasefire), cannot be
implemented, either, without an acceptance of the fait accompli — the
fact of Israel and its right to exist. The Hamas proposal went even
further and included at the time a willingness not to fix the borders
between the two sides, a fact that allows Israel to keep expanding
whenever possible, and it did not broach the issue of the right of
return. The long-term hudna proposed by Hamas means relegating or
postponing the refugee problem together with the right of return to
the future.

A Time for Decisions

The problem of those who talk about a pragmatic political solution

and express a readiness to give up the right of return lies in the fact
that Israel does not take them seriously and does not understand or
acknowledge the limits of their capacity to make concessions.
Consequently, in spite of all the glittering promises, they will come
out empty-handed. And the problem with those who insist on
cleaving to the principle of the right of return and its exercise is that
they do not possess, in the foreseeable future, the practical option
that can lead to a mechanism for implementing and exercising this
right.

The options that we have are clear and specific. We either seek a
political solution through which we will be compelled to waive the
right of return — except perhaps with partial symbolic solutions — or
we admit that the political solution does not enable us to exercise this
right and, because we insist on it, we should scrap the phrase
“political solution to the conflict” from our vocabulary. We then
mobilize all our energies, together with the Jewish democratic and

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human rights forces, towards a protracted struggle throughout a long
period of an Israeli apartheid regime in the occupied territories,
leading to the relinquishing by Israel of its Jewish identity and to the
creation of a bi-national state.

Time is running out, and we have to look for some true mechanism
that will enable our people to make choices of their own free will.
They will have to decide between the pragmatists and their endeavors
to achieve a political solution on the basis of two states for two
peoples and their opponents who insist on exercising the absolute
right of return. They will have to choose between a political solution,
with defined conditions that entail concessions on the exercise of the
absolute right of return, and a drawn-out conflict that means years of
bloodshed, suffering and a lack of security and stability for both sides
along the path of an uncertain future. In the end, it is the right of the
majority of our Palestinian people to choose the path they wish to
follow through free and democratic elections.

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