Updates from AIJAC

The Refugee "right of return"

January 15, 2001
Number 01/01 #04

It looks increasingly like the current peace efforts will fail, despite ongoing efforts by the outgoing Clinton administration. And the main reason is a continued Palestinian insistence on an untrammelled and absolute "Palestinian Right of Return" to homes fled in 1948. Here, Dr. Nicole Brackman explains why this position is simply likely to make peace impossible, in a piece written for Canada's National Post and brought to us courtesy of the Canadian Institute for Jewish Research.

ISRAEL'S REDDEST OF RED LINES

Nicole Brackman

Despite good intentions, diplomacy cannot always overcome symbolism. And when it comes to symbols, one of the most potent for Palestinians is the refugee issue. The Palestinians demand that Israel accede to a "right of return" for refugees to their erstwhile homes (including those in sovereign Israel), but for Israel, a collective Palestinian return represents an existential threat--in the words of Israeli Justice Minister Yossi Beilin (a noted dove) "the reddest of the red lines." The Palestinian demand for an unfettered right of return for the refugees--a maximalist position from which Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat has not deviated--could prove to be an obstacle on which the current peace efforts of U.S. President Bill Clinton will also stumble.

Perhaps more significantly, the Palestinian claim to a right of return is coupled with a demand for an Israeli admission of historic culpability--a declaration of mea culpa for the creation of the Arab Palestinian refugee crisis. But while Israeli leaders have responded with expressions of sympathy for the suffering of the refugees, they correctly insist that an admission of guilt would be historically untenable and would absolve the Arab states of their own moral and historic responsibility. In November, 1947, the Palestinian leadership and the Arab states rejected United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181 (the "Partition Plan") that would have divided Mandatory Palestine into two states--one Jewish and one Arab. Subsequently, five Arab armies invaded the newborn Israel, initiating the war that led to the exodus of some 600,000-700,000 Palestinian Arabs. Early in the conflict, the Palestinian leadership, and the educated and wealthy, abandoned their brethren to the vagaries of war. And when those Palestinians who fled arrived in neighbouring Arab states, they were interned in camps to be kept as political pawns in the unceasing war against Israel, rather than being integrated into host countries.

The Arab states' treatment of the Palestinian refugees (who currently number about 3.5-million according to U.N. estimates) was in stark contrast to Israel's absorption of more than 600,000 Jewish refugees from Arab countries after the state's birth. Those communities, many over 2,000 years old, were subjected to virulent anti-Semitism, pogroms, and expulsion. Their wealth was confiscated by the Arab governments. Israel, newly independent and virtually cut off from international aid, took in these Jews, made them citizens, and gave them opportunities. Israel attempted, and in most ways succeeded, to integrate them into a young and struggling society despite the vast economic, social, political and religious difficulties inherent in such an overwhelming task.

Israel has long asserted that Palestinian refugee claims be juxtaposed with those of the Jewish refugees, and that any compensation owed by Israel should be offset by the massive expenditures shouldered by the Jewish state in absorbing the refugees from Arab lands. The Palestinians categorically reject this position. Despite reports that they might entertain such a notion in the context of an independent international claims commission, their official position at the Camp David II meeting in July was: "We absolutely reject the talk about the compensation of Jews from Arab states." They hold that they cannot be held responsible for the policies of other governments, and that Israel should approach each Arab state individually. This position is preposterous: To which governments should Israel appeal? Libya? Iraq? Syria? Yemen? Iran? And those that might be willing to talk--Egypt, perhaps Morocco and Tunisia -- condition their entertainment of claims on a successful Palestinian-Israeli deal, a classic Catch-22.

Without question, symbolic issues like the refugees remain the major sticking points in the ongoing peace talks. The Palestinian demand for an Israeli admission of historic and moral culpability and a right of return will continue to be met by Israel's refusal to take responsibility for a war--and a refugee crisis--that was initiated and perpetuated by the Arab states. Moreover, the Palestinian insistence on the implementation of a right of return, despite the demographic reality that such an influx would eventually cause the erosion of the Jewish majority in Israel, is a troubling signal that its commitment to co-existence may well be incomplete. This fear is not just posturing.

Articles out of the Center for Policy Analysis on Palestine in Washington, D.C. (an independent Palestinian advocacy organization) argue that Israel should be compelled to accept--in addition to a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza--a return of Palestinian refugees to its territory even if this means the end of the Jewish state. And while this has not been the explicit position of the Palestinian negotiators, it is the logical consequence of a large-scale Palestinian return to Israel. This brings to mind echoes of the 1974 Palestinian "phased plan" for eradicating Israel: Obtain what is possible through diplomacy, and the rest by war. Such ideas belie the principles enshrined in the Oslo peace process.

Peace is made between enemies, not friends, and many would rightly argue that some risks must be taken in the pursuit of peace. But, in the face of Palestinian insistence on a right of return provision that may sow the seeds of future conflict, many Israelis, even those in the peace camp, are questioning the logic of making concrete concessions in return for intangible promises.

Dr. Nicole Brackman is the author of several works on the Middle East, including a forthcoming book, Settling Down: The Palestinian Refugees, the United States and the End of the Arab-Israeli Conflict.