http://www.projo.com/report/stories/03981121.htm
Palestinians have a right to go home
By Janice Haydn
Providence Journal, 7/18/2000
BOSTON.
MILLIONS OF Palestinian refugees around the world are anxiously
waiting for President Clinton, Prime Minister Ehud Barak of Israel and
Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat, to emerge
from their Camp David seclusion and announce whether the final-status
agreement will honor the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their
homes, in what is now Israel.
The impasse over the future of Palestinian refugees is one of the major
stumbling blocks in the Palestinian-Israeli peace talks. For 52 years, the
refugees have been living in exile, clinging to the hope of returning to
their villages. But today, the Palestinian refugees fear, and rightly so,
that on Sept. 13, the date on which Israel and the Arafat-led
Palestinian Authority hope to conclude final status agreements, Arafat
will cede to Israel's hard line and sign a document that denies them the
right of return. The Palestinian Authority is going door to door in the
West Bank, Gaza Strip and neighboring Arab states, polling refugees on
whether they insist on returning to their home villages or if they would
accept compensation for resettlement. Not surprisingly, reports indicate
the vast majority of refugees will demand the right of return.
This week, to underscore that message, Palestinian refugees in Lebanon
have gathered at the Israeli-Lebanese border to pray, and Palestinian
children from the El Amri refugee camp in the West Bank have marched
to Ramallah, asking for the right of return. International support for the
refugees is being mobilized, including a planned Sept.16 rally in
Washington, and Sept. 17 rally in London.
More than 400 Palestinian villages were occupied and depopulated by
Israel in 1948, and the Palestinians have not forgotten. The phrase
"Usually a man lives in a certain place in the world, but for the
Palestinian the place lives in the man" has become commonplace. The
Palestinian refugees of the 1948 and 1967 wars and their descendants,
who now total 3 million to 4 million, mostly scattered throughout the
Middle East, are asking the international community to bring their
scattered people together and return them to Palestine, just as many
Holocaust survivors asked earlier.
As a Jew who is concerned for the future of Israelis and Palestinians
alike, I know that many American Jews, as well as the Israeli and U.S.
governments, have problems with Palestinian refugees recalling their
history and demanding repatriation and restitution, for it challenges the
comforting myths: that before Israel's creation, Palestine was a land
without people; that Israel, despite the evidence, was not responsible
for the 1948 flight of the Palestinians; that most Palestinians are
terrorists.
By confronting these myths, we Americans might feel obligated to
confront our complicity in the creation of the myths and in the rejection
of internationally recognized law that calls for return.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights simply states that:
"Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and
return to his own country." U.N. Resolution 194, ratified in December
1948, declares that: "the refugees of Palestine wishing to return to their
homes and live in peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do
so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid
for the property of those choosing not to return."
For over 50 years, Israel has refused to implement Resolution 194 and
many similar resolutions. Israel's objection is that accepting the
Palestinian right of return to their homes would alter the Jewish
character of the Israeli state. It is not merely the land or the money, for
hasn't Israel been able to squeeze in millions of Jewish immigrants from
other countries, supply them with temporary housing, education, and
subsidies, while they became absorbed into the country? In May, thanks
to the generosity of Israel and the international community, particularly
the United States, Prime Minister Barak welcomed the millionth
immigrant to arrive from the former Soviet Union since its breakup less
than a decade ago.
We Americans, especially American Jews, are neglecting the Palestinian
refugees because we are not sure. Some of us are not sure we want to
risk altering the Jewish character of the state. Others are not sure how
to explain to our friends and families that supporting the rights of
Palestinians does not mean that we are insensitive to Israel's need for
security, that speaking up about the victimization of the Palestinians
does not mean that we have forgotten the victims of the Holocaust,
that encouraging the creation of a truly democratic state in Israel, that
is, a state of all its citizens rather than a state that gives preferential
treatment to some of its citizens, does not mean that we are against the
Jews.
It is time to reflect on our complicity and do the right thing, based on
our humanity. A year ago, 1,100 clergy and lay religious leaders signed a
human-rights petition that called for, among other things, supporting
the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homeland or receive
compensation, as called for by U.N. resolutions. The human-rights
petition calls on President Clinton to publicly urge Israel and the
Palestinian Authority to abide by international law and human-rights
conventions and to link U.S. financial aid to Israel and the Palestinian
Authority to their compliance with human-rights covenants. Shouldn't
we ask the same?
Janice Hayden is Outreach Coordinator for SEARCH for Justice and
Equality in Palestine/Israel, a human-rights organization based in Boston.
Ms. Hayden lived in Jerusalem in 1996-1997.
