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 the Palestinians were uprooted
from their homeland and became refugees. The international
community failed then and has continued to fail so far to resolve
this problem, and General Assembly Resolution 194 remains largely a
symbol of the Palestinians' demand to be allowed to return to their
homes and lands in what became known as Israel. Since then, any
discussion revolving around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
switches immediately to a discussion of the Palestinians' right to
return.
Civilians are not obliged to endanger their lives by remaining in
battle zones and they have the full right to flee for their lives
and go back home when the fighting ends. This principle, which is
embedded in international law, was enjoyed by hundreds of thousands
of Israelis who fled their homes in northern Israel just recently
in summer 2006 during the Second Lebanon War, was not applicable to
the Palestinian Arabs. Despite that and for over six decades, the
Palestinian refugees have identified with their native cities and
villages from which they, their fathers or even grandfathers were
expelled.
The right of return became a symbol of the Palestinian national
struggle and a subject of competition among the different
Palestinian political factions. Giving up on the right of return
came to be regarded as an act of treason, and many politicians
refrain from saying aloud what they really think in private about
the possibility of exercising this right or the practicality of
insisting on it, while insisting on it, at least for some of them,
as a bargaining chip at the negotiating table.
Without doubt, the right of return is a thorny and sensitive
subject and, therefore, difficult to broach because of the great
deal of charged emotions involved. There is not a single
Palestinian who, deep down 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 people ranks among the
ugliest crimes against humanity committed in the 20th century. The
Palestinians believe that the international community - mainly in
Europe - let down the Palestinians and 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 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 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, 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 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.