Toward a Broader Agenda for Palestinian Refugees:

From Humanitarian Relief to Political Advocacy 

Dr. Daud Abdullah

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Introduction

When the first international conference of Arab and Islamic parliamentarians convened in Cairo in October 19381 neither its organizers nor attendees expected that after 10 years three-quarters of the Palestinian population would be turned into refugees. Immediately after the 1948 Nakba Israel’s first Foreign Minister, Moshe Sharett, described the expulsion of Palestine’s Arab population as the most important event in the contemporary history of Palestine, more spectacular than the creation of the Jewish State.2

Writing to the then President of the World Jewish Congress, Sharret out-ruled a reversion to the status quo ante. He emphasized, instead, the need to make the most of the momentous opportunity which history had presented them [the Zionist] so swiftly and unexpectedly.

In certain ways, Sharett’s remarks sums up past and present Israeli attitudes to the Palestinian refugees and their right to return. Since the violent expulsion of the Palestinian population from their homeland in 1948, Israel has obstructed all efforts by the international community to expedite their return. If any solution of the conflict is to earn the accolade of an “historic accord” it must ensure the return of the people who were unjustly uprooted and exiled.

Of course, without the help of its European and American benefactors Israel could not have emptied Palestine of its Arab population and denied their repatriation. The degree of foreign complicity in the Palestinian Nakba is well recorded. One seminal piece of evidence came to light in 1944 when the National Executive Committee of the British Labour Party issued a report which was subsequently adopted at the party annual conference. It read:

‘Palestine surely is a case, on human grounds and to promote a stable settlement, for a transfer of population. Let the Arabs be encouraged to move out, as the Jews move in. Let them be compensated handsomely for their land and let their settlement elsewhere be carefully organized and generously financed. The Arabs have very wide territories of their own; they must not claim to exclude the Jews from this small part of Palestine, less than the size of Wales. Indeed we should examine also the possibility of extending the present Palestinian boundaries by agreement with Egypt, Syria or Transjordan.’3

In retrospect, the British Labour Party is arguably the only party in the world to have openly advocated the expulsion of the Palestinians from their homes. The extremist nature of its proposal has evoked the image of a party that was more Zionist than the Zionist themselves. Despite claims of innocence and goodwill this image is likely to overshadow and haunt the party until it unequivocally acknowledges and assist the refugees to exercise their right of return to their homes.

Since the first major expulsion of Palestinians in 1948 successive Israeli governments have tabled no less than 12 proposals to resolve the refugee problem. All these proposals concentrated on the resettlement of the refugees outside of their homeland, contrary to the specific demands of UN Resolution 194 which not only called for their return to their homes but also specifically instructed the UN Conciliation Commission for Palestine [the United States, Turkey and France] ‘to facilitate the repatriation, resettlement and economic and social rehabilitation of the refugees and the payment of compensation…’ (Art.11)

With regard to the United States, the former CIA analyst Kathleen Christison notes, “resettling the refugees in the Arab countries was a more comfortable notion for the United States, for it did not involve arguing with Israel and it fit with the old colonialist notion, still widely subscribed to, that if the Arab states and the refugees were made economically content, the politics of the problem would vanish.”4

After 1967 there was a subtle change of Israeli policy toward the refugees. While maintaining its basic demand that the refugees should be resettled, Israel noticeably shifted its attention to the occupied territories with the view of resettling the refugees there. By the early 1980s the emerging view in Israel was to dismantle the camps and rehabilitate the refugees in housing units in parts of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

None of the so-called ‘historic’ accords signed with Israel during the period recognized Palestinian rights. This includes the Camp David Accord of September 1978 which is widely regarded as the most successful. It provided that Egypt, Israel, Jordan and the self-governing Palestinian authority would resolve ‘by agreement’ how the refugees displaced from the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1967 would be repatriated. With regard to the refugees who were expelled in the 1948 Nakba [Catastrophe] the Accord left it up to Egypt and Israel to resolve their problem by ‘agreed procedures’.5 The very notion that Palestinian return was made dependent on agreement meant that Israel was effectively granted a veto in this matter.

It was precisely on account of this violation the UN condemned the Camp David Accord and declared it invalid. General Assembly Resolution [34/65, B4, 29 November 1978]: “Declares that the Camp David accords and other agreements have no validity in so far as they purport to determine the future of the Palestinian people and of the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel since 1967”.

The Assembly adopted this stand after it had previously declared that: “The validity of agreements purporting to solve the problem of Palestine requires that they lie within the framework of the United Nations Charter and its resolutions on the basis of the full attainment of the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people.” [33/28, 7 December 1978]

In 1981 the Assembly further reaffirmed its rejection of the accords. Resolution 36/120F “Strongly reaffirms its rejection of those provisions of the accords which ignore, infringe, violate or deny the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, including the right of return…”

The Assembly further declared that no state has the right to undertake any actions, measures or negotiations that could affect the future of the Palestinian people and its inalienable rights. It also decided that all actions, measures and negotiations to implement or execute such accords and agreements are null and void.

The Bush-Sharon Exchange of Letters

Ten years later, a new peace process was launched in Madrid, albeit on the old premises. It was never intended to solve the refugee problem on the basis of international law. From the very beginning it was clear that the aim of its convenors was to strip the refugee issue of its international legal character and resolve it within the framework of a regional Arab-Israeli political settlement that satisfied Israeli demands based on resettlement, rehabilitation and the annulment of the right of return. Toward this end, the US Letter of Assurances to the Palestinians made no mention of UN Resolution 194. It simply stated, “In this regard, the United States will support Palestinian involvement in any bilateral or multilateral negotiations on refugees and in all multilateral negotiations. The conference and the negotiations that follow will be based on UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338.”

While Israeli apologists argue that UN Resolution 194 is only a recommendation and does not bind members of the organization, the fact that it has been reaffirmed more than 135 times by the General Assembly constitutes unquestionable evidence of its authority on the Palestinian refugee issue. This repeated reference to the right of return serves under Article 38(1) of the Statute of the International Court of Justice to convert it into an “international custom, as evidence of a general practice accepted as law” or into a “general principle of law recognized by civilized nations.”

Significantly, the Israelis were not alone in their claim that it was impossible to implement UN Resolution 194. Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas had in October 1995 finalized with the Israeli minister, Yossi Beilin, a secret document called a ‘Framework for the Conclusion of a Final Status Agreement between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization’. The document was never officially signed by the Israeli and Palestinian sides and Abbas frequently denied its existence. A leaked copy did however give an insight on the issue of the Palestinian refugees. Article VII read:

“Whereas the Palestinian side considers that the right of the Palestinian refugees to return to their homes is enshrined in international law and natural justice, it recognizes that the prerequisites of the new era of peace and coexistence, as well as the realities that have been created on the ground since 1948, have rendered the implementation of this right impracticable. The Palestinian side, thus, declares its readiness to accept and implement policies and measures that will ensure, insofar as this is possible, the welfare and well-being of these refugees.”

Having claimed the impracticability of implementing the relevant international laws and resolutions on the right of return the Beilin-Abu Mazen Document, as it came to be known, suggested that refugees be “rehabilitated and resettled” in the Palestinian territories or other countries. The document also specified that this would be a “full and final settlement of the refugee issue in all its dimensions,” and that there would be no “additional claims or demands arising from this issue.”

One of the obvious dangers of this proposal is that it creates the impression that there is a contradiction or conflict between the individual Palestinian right of return and the collective right to self-determination. In principle, neither right should be curtailed at the expense of the other. The right of the individual must be preserved irrespective of the outcome of the collective struggle for self-determination.

One of the most curious aspects about the Arab-Israeli conflict is the tendency of peace makers to recycle old ideas and formulas even after they were tried and proven wrong. In April 2004 the ideas contained in the Beilin-Abu Mazin document were repackaged in the exchange of letters between President George W. Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

The correspondence between the two leaders articulated a joint US-Israeli commitment to a strategy of peacemaking based on the notion that Palestinian failure to fulfil security and governance responsibilities would not only delay the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, but also result in the rejection of key Palestinian negotiating demands even before negotiations are resumed.

The Bush letter emphasised that a solution for the Palestinian refugees must be found outside the borders of Israel, according to Israel’s long standing demand.

In other words, if the "right of return" exists, it will be realized inside a future Palestinian state, and not inside Israel, which Bush defined as a Jewish state.

In his letter the American president said. “It seems clear that an agreed, just, fair, and realistic framework for a solution to the Palestinian refugee issue as part of any final status agreement will need to be found through the establishment of a Palestinian state, and the settling of Palestinian refugees there, rather than in Israel.”

Speaking at the 5^th Herzliya Conference several months later (13-16 December 2004), Sharon ruled out the possibility of any meaningful negotiations on the refugee issue saying, "The understandings between the U.S. President and me protect Israel's most essential interests: first and foremost, not demanding a return to the '67 borders; allowing Israel to permanently keep large settlement blocs which have high Israeli populations; and the total refusal of allowing Palestinian refugees to return to Israel."

Emerging Trends

Since the demise of the late Palestinian President Yaser Arafat Israel has intensified its own efforts to evade its legal obligations toward the Palestinian refugees as required under international law. With typical defiance Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom instead declared that the time has come for the international community to make clear to the Palestinians that it is no longer possible for them to return to their homeland. An article appearing in the Jerusalem Post under the title ‘New Plan for Refugee Problem’ [14/12/2004] reported the minister had already contacted international donors including the World Bank to finance a permanent housing solution for Palestinians living in the refugee camps in the Gaza Strip, West Bank, Syria and Lebanon.

Reacting to the Israeli Foreign Minister so-called initiative the Palestinian Popular Assembly for Defending the Right of Return declared in a statement ‘the official in Sharon’s government could not have issued such a statement if deviant voices associated with the Palestinian national movement.’ Examples of these are illustrated outlined in Sari Nusseibeh and Mark Heller’s book, No Trumpets, No Drums as well as in the October 2003 Geneva Initiative.’6

While the latter two initiatives do appear to fulfil the requirements of realpolitics, their fundamental defect is that they both contravene the provisions of international law. Refugee advocacy groups point out that the relevant provisions existing in international law and UN resolutions can only be replaced by a political agreement whose provisions grant rights equal to or more extensive than those already guaranteed by law.

To be just, therefore, an agreement on the refugees must recognize the Palestinian right to return to his home/land. There should be absolutely no confusion between the return of the refugees to their homes and the sovereignty of the new state of Palestine. Sovereignty is a political act in which a state extends its recognized authority over a territory. The right of return is an inalienable right applied to man and his home wherever his home is located.7

The problem of the Palestine Arab refugees has arisen from the denial of their inalienable rights under the Charter of the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.8 Their return to their homes is not a product of peace. On the contrary, it is a necessary condition for the transition to peace. Toward this end Resolution 3089 D notes that the enjoyment by the Palestine Arab refugees of their right to return to their homes and property, recognized by the General Assembly in Resolution 194 is indispensable ‘for a just settlement of the refugee problem.’ 

The failure to achieve peace during the last decade was not because of a shortage of accords, protocols and agreements. Failure was recurrent because there was no recognition of the humanity of the Palestinian refugees in the various initiatives. They all viewed them as moveable objects that could be dispensed with by the stroke of a pen. Force and the threat of force were always central to these agreements. Consequently, they were perceived as cruel diktats and rejected.

The peace industry can only deliver if it overturns the conditions created by force in Palestine. As long as it continues to focus on the consequences and ignores the causes of Palestinian resentment the industry would never be successful.

Against the background of persistent failure there is now emerging an international movement of increased solidarity with the Palestinian people. More than ever the subject of the refugees is being discussed in Europe in the light of recent developments in the Balkans. In the 1990s the region witnessed widespread violent expulsions as well as successful internationally supervised voluntary repatriation. The Balkan experience has left crucial lessons that have since informed the formation of an international network that advocates the Palestinian right to return, and compensation for material and non-material losses.

With regard to the status of the refugees in future negotiations UN Resolution 194 was and will always remain the basis of any negotiations on this issue. All the concerns of the refugees in their various places of domicile are totally justified especially in the absence of meaningful negotiations concerning their fate.

None of the positive developments should minimise the need for a united Arab approach to the refugee question, not least because it affects several Arab countries that host millions of Palestinian refugees. The dimensions of the Palestinian refugee issue are global and regional. Having participated in their dispossession and disenfranchisement, the international community must honor its historical and moral responsibility toward them. Civil society and refugee community organizations can play a leading role in redeeming the international community by ensuring a just resolution of the issue in accord with human rights and humanitarian law and not according to what pleases or displeases Israel.

Judging from their past record the Israelis would continue its efforts to restrict the issue to bi-lateral negotiations between themselves and the Palestinians. This should not be. Suffice to note that as long as Israel continues to enjoy the unmitigated support of the United States and Europe, the Palestinians would remain politically disadvantaged at the negotiating table.

If the attacks of 11 September 2001 marked a turning point in global security thinking and alliances, the UN World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance held in Durban in August – September 2001 marked a turning point in international support for the Palestinian cause. There some 4,000 NGOs issued a declaration calling for concerted international efforts against Israeli apartheid.

The NGO Durban Declaration offered a platform for the development of effective popular action for the restoration of Palestinian rights. Article 164 read:

We recognize that targeted victims of Israel´s brand of apartheid and ethnic cleansing methods have been in particular children, women and refugees and condemn the disproportionate numbers of children and women killed and injured in military shooting and bombing attacks. Recognize the right of return of refugees and internally displaced people to their homes of origin, restitution of properties, and compensation for damages, losses and other crimes committed against them, as guaranteed in international law.

Likewise Article 425 called upon the international community :

 To impose a policy of complete and total isolation of Israel as an apartheid state as in the case of South Africa which means the imposition of mandatory and comprehensive sanctions and embargoes, the full cessation of all links (diplomatic, economic, social, aid, military cooperation and training) between all states and Israel.  Call upon the Government of South Africa to take the lead in this policy of isolation, bearing in mind its own historical success in countering the undermining policy of “constructive engagement” with its own past Apartheid regime.

Article 426 Condemned of those states that support, aid and abet the Israeli Apartheid state and its perpetration of racist crimes against humanity including ethnic cleansing, and acts of genocide.

In the past, many ideological parallels have been drawn between apartheid South Africa and Zionist Israel. These were never really developed into a global advocacy movement for the service of the Palestinian cause. The South Africans succeeded in this respect. Not only did they succeed in extracting UN resolutions condemning apartheid as a revolting and abhorrent system but they also convinced the world that it was a destabilizing factor for the southern African sub-region.

In the context of Palestine, the challenge before civil society bodies and the right of return movement is to engage the international community in a process that overturns the stereotypes that seek to demonise and dehumanise the Palestinians. This involves, to begin with, effective action against the racism that lies at the heart of Israel’s systematic violations of human rights and international humanitarian law. The nature of this racist system amounts to a new form of apartheid and as such a crime against humanity. Worse still it poses a dangerous threat to world peace and security.

In the end, the challenge is not to rewrite or legislate new laws. There are ample laws that recognize the inalienable rights of the Palestinians. What is required is their implementation.

Since Durban the agenda for Palestinian refugee rights has witnessed a major shift toward increased political advocacy. In September 2004 more than 150 human rights organizations and North American solidarity groups met in New York at an International Conference of Civil Society in Support of the Palestinian People as mandated by UN resolutions 58/18 and 58/19.

The following month the National Lawyers Guild in the US took a decision to divest, in principle and practice, from Israel. Its Resolution declared:

‘Israel accepts and immediately begins full implementation of the inalienable individual and collective Palestinian Right of Return as enshrined in international law, especially United Nations Resolution 194, thereby permitting Palestinian refuges wishing to return to their homes to do so immediately while paying compensating for the property of those choosing not to return and for the loss of or damage to property that, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the Israeli Government.’

The declaration by the Lawyers Guild had come only months after the Presbyterian Church had decided to conduct selective divestment from companies that benefit from Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Meanwhile, in Europe, the European Social Forum convened in London in October 2004 and reaffirmed the achievements of the Durban Forum. The European Coordinating Committee of NGOs on the Question of Palestine, including groups from Britain, France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Greece, Cyprus, Austria, Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Scandinavia, came together and adopted a unified policy of sanctions against Israel. The results of the meetings were presented to and adopted by the European Social Forum, in which 25,000 people from all over Europe participated.

The current campaign includes popular grassroots activity to pressure governments into imposing the following types of sanctions on Israel:

·               Suspension of the EU-Israel Association Agreement, which Israel signed to on condition that it respected human rights and international law. Because Israel is in grave breach of human rights and international law, the Agreement must be suspended.

·               Ending of all military cooperation with Israel, especially the import and export of weapons.

·               Divestment from Israeli companies and sanctions against purchasing and selling Israeli products.

·               Governmental academic non-cooperation with Israel.

As the humanitarian crisis deepens among Palestinian refugees, international NGOs and civil society bodies will have to expand the scope of their agenda from providing humanitarian relief to political advocacy. All six of the major agreements signed with Israel during the 1990s studiously eschewed the refugee issue, subjecting it to Israeli political needs rather than the requirements of international law and United Nations resolutions. While their future has being deferred to ‘final status’ negotiations, Israeli rejectionists have already prejudiced the outcome by declaring that the Palestinians will have no say in deciding who, if any at all, will be allowed to return to Israel proper.

Anything short of repatriation to the homes and villages from which they were expelled must be seen as a stopgap measure that may temporarily keep the lid on popular discontent. In the long term, however, another generation of Palestinians would emerge and resume the struggle to exercise their right of return. They would in the fullness of time acquit themselves from any formula that denies them this right.

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