This book features contributions from a range of prominent
international authors including Edward Sa'id, Noam Chomsky, Ilan
Pappe, Alain Gresh and Nur Masalha. The chapters tackle the main
aspects of the Palestinian refugee issue under the subheadings;
"The Historical Context", "The Interests of the Major Actors",
"Return or Permanent Exile" and "The Search for A Just Solution".
In the introduction Edward Sa'id aptly describes Palestinans'
emotions towards this issue, saying "For Palestinians, a vast
collective feeling of injustice continues to hang over our lives
with undiminished weight."
In the first article of the book, "The Right To Expel: The Bible
and Ethnic Cleansing", Michael Prior explores the religious
perogative Zionist Jews and Israelis use to justify founding their
state in Palestine and expelling its people. The author asserts
that all colonizers invariably seek some ideological principle to
justify their actions thus appealing to the Bible to justify
inhumane behavior is not uncommon in the history of imperialist
colonization emanating from Europe. The view that the Bible
provides the title deed for the establishment of the State of
Israel and for its policies since 1948 is so pervasive in Christian
Zionist, Jewish Zionist, mainstream Christian theology and
university Biblical studies that any attempt to debate the issue
will elicit opposition. Prior concludes that in order to justify a
Jewish 'right to return', rather than using military might to
affect it, Jews all over the world would have to constitute a
clearly defined community which could demonstrate its recent
expulsion. The moral cause for the Jews' return is undermined where
there is a considerable time span between expulsion and the
determination to resettle. The right to return dissolves as that
time span exceeds reasonable limits; otherwise international law
and order would collapse.
Nur Masalha, in his article "The Historic Roots of the Palestinian
Refugee Question", argues that the Palestinian refugee exodus of
1948 was the culmination of over half a century of secret (Zionist)
plans and, in the end, brute force. The Zionist (Jewish)
leadership, especially David Ben-Gurion and the military
commanders, was primarily responsible for the displacement and
dispossession of three-quarter of a million Palestinians in 1948,
with Israeli resettlement schemes after 1948 aimed at 'dissolving'
the refugee problem, not resolving it. This stemmed from a fear of
refugee return and a determination to extirpate the problem from
the heart of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Masalha states that any
genuine reconciliation between two peoples as opposed to a
political settlement achieved by leaders can begin only by Israel
taking responsibility for the displacement and dispossession of the
refugees. Holocaust denial, for example, is abhorrent and in some
European countries, a crime. Acknowledging the Nakba through an
official Israeli appology would also mean taking responsibility for
monetary compensation, restitution of property and reparations. In
an epilogue to his article, Masalha paints a bleak picture of the
general Israeli tendency saying; "... there is a consensus among
the Zionist parties in Israel, from Meretz on the left through the
Labour and Likud parties and on to the extreme right, against the
Palestinian right to return to the pre-1967 borders."
Ilan Pappe, Noam Chomsky and Jaber Suleiman criticize the Oslo
Accords and events leading up to them. Suleiman concludes that the
Declaration of Principles and its four annexes are clear when it
comes to Israeli interests, but vague and ambiguous when it comes
to Palestinian rights. Such ambiguities favor the stronger party,
allowing it to interpret the documents to serve its own interests.
He adds that the documents serve to make the negotiations the
reference point for Palestinian rights rather than vice
versa.
Joseph Masad explores the idea that no official body representing
diaspora Palestinians was party to either the Madrid or Oslo
processes. This, he says, makes it imperative, as many Palestinians
have recommended in recent years, that free elections be held in
the diaspora to elect a new representative leadership that can
negotiate with Israel and the international community on behalf of
diaspora Palestinians.
Salman Abu Sitta, meanwhile, states that the right of return is
sacred for all Palestinians and built into their psyche. He
supports this contention with statistics, observing that 86 percent
of refugees live in historical Palestine or within a 100-mile
radius of it. This proximity highlights the bond to their places of
origin and also explains why over three dozen resettlement schemes
have failed. Abu Sitta goes on to refute Israel's argument that the
refugees cannot return due to lack of space, stating that 78
percent of Israelis live in 14 percent of Israel, while only
200,000 Jews exploit the rural lands of five million refugees
packed in refugee camps and denied the right to return.
He then puts forward two scenarios. He asks us to imagine that the
362,000 registered refugees in Lebanon are allowed to return to
their homes in Galilee, a largely Arab region even today.
Furthermore, if Gaza's 760,000 registered refugees returned to
their homes in the south, still lying empty, they could reinhabit
their original villages. He concludes that the return of the
refugees is the most important stabilizing factor for permanent
peace in the Middle East and that their return to agricultural
pursuits would take up the slack in Israel's GDPand properly
utilize wasted water in these vast, unexploited and currently
confiscated lands.
Jan Abu-Shakrah, for her part, refutes the post-Oslo context in
which some analysts, including Palestinians, have suggested Jewish
and Palestinian compensation claims be "thrown into the cauldron"
of compensation calculations for the Palestinian refugees. She
states that not only are such links unlawful and historically
baseless, more ominously they are designed to undermine Palestinian
refugee rights and to exempt Israel from its obligtions.
Naseer Aruri in "Towards Convening a Congress of Return and Self
Determination" claims such a conference would serve as a
constituent assembly, filling the legal vacuum which plagues the
Palestinian nation. Neither the PNC in its present form, nor the
so-called Legislative Council representing the West Bank and Gaza,
is qualified to fulfil that function. To justify his claim, he
raises this important question; "How can a council representing two
million Palestinians in the so called self-rule areas, leaving the
bulk of the Palestinian populations out, most of whom are refugees,
negotiate momentous issues with Israel, while under Israeli
occupation and according to inequitable conditions imposed by
Israel itself?"