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The invitation
by Palestinian National Authority President, Mahmoud Abbas, to the
Arab states to naturalise the Palestinian refugees living there, is
no doubt one that has serious far-reaching implications on the
refugee issue and right of return, despite its announced and titular
motive of removing and alleviating the suffering of those refugees.
From the start, we
do not believe that anyone will dispute the need for alleviating the
suffering of Palestinian refugees in all the refugee camps and places of
refuge, rather the need to lend support, every support, to the refugees
to live in dignity, as is their right after all the great sacrifices
that they have made, and the quantities of blood they have shed in the
cause of preserving the immutable principles, sacred places, and rights,
at their head the right of return. There is absolutely no excuse to
place restrictions on the refugees, and deny them their basic human
rights under the pretext of rejecting resettlement, or preserving the
right of return. We understand fully the huge suffering that grinds down
the refugees in the camps of the Diaspora, and the tragic conditions of
the refugees in Iraq, and the urgent need to relieve the huge pressures
on them.
In spite of this,
the invitation remains suspicious, if the real intention was to lift the
restrictions and pressures on the refugees, and work to alleviate their
suffering, then why did he not explicitly ask the Arab countries to do
so, and why this insistence on granting citizenship? The Arab states are
able to lift the restrictions placed on the refugees without granting
them citizenship, by allowing them to work, reside, own, travel, etc.,
and at the same time preserve the Palestinian identity and the right to
return. Needless to recall that a clear objective of the Zionist entity
is to bring an end to UNRWA, and dismantle the camps; as they symbolise
the refugee issue, and constitute a reminder of what happened to the
Palestinian people; of the massacres at the hands of the Zionist forces
in 1948, thus holding the Zionist entity legally and morally responsible
for the Catastrophe of this people.
Moreover, the invitation, its timing, and the well-known history of
President Abbas’s stand on the right of return raise many suspicions.
Abbas in the past had on more than one occasion made statements that
implied he was interested in ending this issue in a manner that was
final, and that he was fully prepared to give huge concessions in this
regard. Perhaps his statements to the German magazine “Der Spiegel”, or
the Egyptian “Al-Musawir”, and what was recently published in the Hebrew
press, without him retracting it, explicitly points to a huge
dereliction on his part of the right of return.
There are those
who point to the example of Palestinian refugees living in the West,
where the majority have been granted citizenship, and despite this had
not been dissolved into these societies, and had not forgotten their
cause, rather were stalwart defenders, defending it widely and
effectively, and similarly the refugees in Jordan. We say indeed this is
true, and that the issue of the refugees in Jordan is historically,
socially, and politically special. While the issue of wholesale
citizenship for the refugees, ending the existence of the camps, and so
the end of UNRWA is dangerous territory. Ultimately this would result in
the end of the refugee issue, and its closure, and relief for the
Zionist entity in bearing responsibility for resolving it.
Once more we say
that we are with relieving the pressures on our people in the camps of
the Diaspora, and raise our voices loud, as has always been the case; a
demand to lift the injustice and the restrictions placed on the
refugees. However, at the same time, we reject resettlement, dissolving
rights, or circumventing them. A formula must be found that achieves
both goals.
