http://www.arabic.hour.org/article.htm
Return or Permanent Exile?
Palestinian Refugees and the Ends of Oslo
By Joseph Massad
Whereas, until the "peace process" begun in Madrid in 1991
and the Oslo process inaugurated in 1993, all the representatives of the Palestinians
inside and outside the PLO agreed that the varied interests of the Palestinian people were
inherently compatible, the new process has altered this equation radically. Following the
various agreements signed with Israel by the PLO and subsequently by the PA, the interests
of the different sections of the Palestinian people were effectively separated and made to
be incompatible if not outright contradictory with each other. Israeli Palestinians,
through their elected leadership, are challenging Israel to shed its Jewish character and
become a democratic state of all its citizens, while West Bank and Gaza
Palestinians, through their elected leadership, are said to be preparing for the
eventuality of a "sovereign and independent" Palestinian state that lacks all
the basic elements of sovereignty. To realize this eventuality, the leadership of the West
Bank and Gaza Palestinians is heeding the "pragmatic" and "realist"
advice of the necessity to concede the rights of refugee and diaspora Palestinians to
return and be compensated. The diaspora and the refugees, since Oslo began,
have in turn been rendered without leadership and with no identifiable goals.
By separating the interests of the inside and the outside and forcing the
PLO to accept that separation officially, Israel effectively laid down the groundwork for
the Oslo Process. It was at Madrid peace conference that the issue of refugees was
separated from the bilateral tracks and relegated to what was called the
"multilateral track" which set up a "Refugee Working Group" (RWG)
chaired by Canada. The purpose of the RWG is not to negotiate over the status of the
refugees, but rather to improve the living conditions of the Palestinian refugees,
particularly those outside the West Bank and Gaza. Protecting Israeli Interests as
Pragmatism. In anticipation of the final status negotiations, much
literature has appeared on the question of the refugees. In this section, I will review
the two most recent proposals which express semi-official positions. These will most
likely be used as a reference for the final-status negotiations.
Before proceeding to review these proposals, however, a presentation of
the human dimension of this question is in order, namely the numbers of refugees from 1948
and 1967. In 1995, according to the figures of the United Nations Relief and Works
Agency (UNRWA), the 1948 refugees living in the West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and
Jordan numbered 3,093,174 people. As for 1948 refugees who remained in Israel proper
(and are referred to by the Israeli government as "present absentees"),
they number between 120,000 and 150,000. The 1967 refugees (termed displaced persons),
numbered in 1994 1,132,326 people, half of them are 1948 refugees, i.e. those who were
displaced for the second time. These numbers do not include Palestinian refugees in
Egypt, Iraq, North Africa and the Gulf countries, nor do they include Palestinian Bedouins
who were no longer allowed to return to their grazing lands within Israel, nor the middle
class Palestinian refugees who did not register with UNRWA, nor the children of
Palestinian women who married non-refugee Palestinians or non-Palestinians, as UNRWA no
longer considers these as refugees. Those belonging to these four categories number around
300,000 people [for more detailed information on numbers see Elia Zureik, Palestinian
refugees and the Peace Process, (Washington D.C.: Institute for Palestine Studies, 1996),
pp. 18-19].
What is striking about most of the proposals advancing
solutions to the refugee question is the rhetoric of "pragmatism" and
"realism" which they deploy. The definition of pragmatism in this rhetoric
is one wherein everything Israel rejects is "not pragmatic," while everything it
accepts is "pragmatic." What this means is that the Palestinians are the
only party being asked to be "pragmatic," as Israeli positions function as base
referents and are therefore deployed as "pragmatic" a priori. Examples of the
use of this rhetoric include the two most recent projects that have been advanced to
resolve the refugee problem: Donna Arzt's Refugees Into Citizens, Palestinians and the End
of the Arab-Israeli Conflict (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1997) and the
proposal advanced by Harvard University's Program on International Conflict Analysis and
Resolution, which was debated by a group of Palestinians and Israelis and written by
Khalil Shikaki and Joseph Alpher (The Palestinian Refugee Problem and the Right of Return,
Working Paper Series, May 1998) . Both are important as they are being touted as starting
points for the most likely scenario for refugee negotiations.
Arzt's proposal, considered "objective" by mainstream Western, Israeli and some
PA-supported circles, foresees the settlement of Palestinian refugees mostly in
neighboring Arab countries and in the West Bank with the multi-conditioned possibility of
returning a mere 75,000 refugees to Israel. The premise of the book is that no one
can establish who was responsible for the Palestinian exodus in 1948 and therefore
everyone must share in the responsibility of resolving the plight of the refugees--not
only in terms of resettlement but also in terms of compensation. Some of the possible
explanations for the exodus that Arzt lists include Israeli expulsion as well as the now
discredited Israeli propagandistic claim that Arab leaders called on the Palestinians to
leave in order to clear the way for the descending Arab armies. Even if one were to accept
Arzt's questionable claims that we cannot establish who was responsible for the exodus of
every Palestinian in 1948 and 1967, we can easily establish (and many Israeli and
Palestinian scholars already have) with existing Israeli evidence that Palestinians in
Lydda and Ramla were expelled by Israeli army units led by none other than Yitzhak Rabin,
that thousands were expelled from the Galilee area, and that thousands (12,500 between
1967 and 1994) of Palestinians have been deported individually by the Israeli government.
Moreover, even if we agreed with Arzt's and the Israeli government's propaganda that
Israel should not compensate the refugees because it did not expel them, should not the
compensation for stolen property be the responsibility of the thief? Even if
Martians had expelled the Palestinians in 1948, it is an established fact that Israeli
Jews and the Israeli government are the party which took over the abandoned property and
which refuse to return it to its rightful owners! Arzt suggests that Israel's
"contribution to the compensation pool could, appropriately, come from the 'rents' it
collected in the 1940s and early 1950s from the Jewish users of 'absentee' Arab
property." As for returning refugees, Israel could take 75,000 refugees whom it
should have the right to carefully screen for a variety of sins and crimes. Arzt is
careful to add that such a returning group will most likely include non-reproductive
Palestinians: "A population subgroup very likely to seek return...would be...the
oldest living generation of Palestinians, the ones who retain personal memories of life
before 1948." Indeed a young population of 75,000 refugees might reproduce in
ways detrimental to Jewish supremacy in Israel!
As for the Harvard
group, they propose four solutions, the two "traditional" Palestinian and
Israeli solutions and two "compromise" solutions, one Palestinian and one
Israeli. A conclusion is presented which includes commonalties between the
Palestinian and the Israeli compromise solutions. The Palestinian compromise position
"seeks to provide an acceptable, honorable --though not necessarily just--resolution
of the refugee issue while accommodating the realities on the ground and Israeli security
concerns." Whereas this solution calls on Israel to "fully acknowledge" the
"individual moral right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and property
in Palestine," the proposal writers insist that "[n]o return en masse of the
Palestinian refugees is envisaged...[rather] a return of only a limited number is seen as
feasible." The writers assert that most refugees will opt for compensation and
concede to Israel the right "to have a say to the number of refugees allowed to
return." They do, however, assert that Palestinians who want to return should have
the right to return to a Palestinian state-to-be with Israel having no say in that matter.
The compromise is stated succinctly by the authors: "In this final settlement, the
Palestinians make a strategic trade-off. They demand a return to the 1967 border, in order
to absorb the largest possible number of refugees, in return for foregoing the full
exercise of the right of return. "The remaining refugees should be settled in host
countries. Israel should be responsible to find the funds and to pay both individual
compensation as well as collective compensation, the latter to be paid to the Palestinian
state-to-be. This solution, the authors tell us, "provides realistic and reasonable
justice by granting a moral/political right while acknowledging realities on the ground
[emphases added]." Whereas the Israeli government has officially refused to make the
1948 refugees part of the negotiation agenda, and consistently makes statements that only
few of the 1967 refugees will be allowed to return, some Israelis are advancing informed
proposals about what the Israeli government might be agreeable to in the future.
While, on the one hand, Yitzhak Rabin insisted after the DoP that Israel would not allow
more than a few thousand 1967 refugees to return, adding that if the PLO "expect[s]
tens of thousands [of refugees to return,] they live in a dream, an illusion" (New
York Times, October 27, 1993, p. A3), on the other hand, the Israeli compromise position,
as the Harvard group of Israeli politicians and pundits see it, insists that Israel
can share "practical (but not moral) responsibility, together with the other parties
to the process that culminated in the 1948 war, for the plight [but not the flight] and
suffering of the refugees." Note that the fact that half of the 1948 Palestinian
refugees "left" Palestine before May 14, 1948 is not relevant to the exegetical
eye of these authors. These Israeli authors assert that in their compromise "Israel
also accepts the right of return to the Palestinian State, but not to Israel proper.
Israel also may accept repatriation of 'tens of thousands' of Palestinian refugees as part
of its family reunification program." On the question of compensation, Israel
would compensate Palestinians on a "collective basis" in tandem with the
"relevant Arab countries creat[ing] a similar mechanism for Arab collective
compensation of Jewish refugees," in reference to Arab Jews who immigrated to Israel
between 1949 and 1953. Also the Palestinian state must limit the number of returning
Palestinians to its own territory, otherwise the Israelis will curtail their obligations
of compensation. The combined authors believe that the ultimate solution would be
somewhere in between their two compromise solutions, it being understood that these
solutions will not apply to Israeli Palestinian internal refugees. Is Return
Pragmatic?
Unlike most proposals dealing with refugees, which look
at what is practical from the viewpoint of Israeli leaders and which aim to resolve the
Israeli part of this problem at the expense of Palestinians, Salman Abu Sitta proposes
what he simply calls "The Feasibility of the Right of Return" (ICJ and
CIMEL paper, June 1997, available from www.arts.mcgill.ca/mepp/prrn/papers). He begins by
affirming that the "return of the refugees is practically feasible, and even
desirable for permanent peace to prevail." The elements of Abu-Sitta's proposal are
as follows: The majority of refugees whether they live inside or outside Palestine
are within a 100 mile radius of their former homes. Although most of their houses are
destroyed, "a return would be to the same land, most frequently the same site, with
reconstruction of villages and repairing long-neglected Palestinian cities. With the
exception of the Central District, relatively few village sites are occupied by modern
construction. Most Kibbutz and prefab units are installed away from old village
remains." Also, "it is claimed that boundaries have disappeared and are
impossible to determine. Available Palestine and Israel maps, assisted by modern
technology, now used by Israel to lease refugee's land, are sufficient to determine old
and new boundaries. It can be demonstrated that all boundaries and ownerships are
well recorded. Not only the villages are kept [sic] in the memory of the refugees
and their children, but their images are kept for posterity through the British aerial
survey of 1945-46."
To the ostensible horror of Israelis,
Abu-Sitta dares to divide Israel into Areas A, B, and C. Area A includes 8% of the land in
Israel and is occupied by 68% of the Israeli Jewish population. Area B encompasses 7% of
the land and is inhabited by 10% of the Jewish population. Thus 78% of Jews in Israel live
on 15 % of the land. Area C encompassing 85% of the land area in Israel "is
remarkably similar, but not exactly identical, to the Palestinian land from which they
were driven." The inhabitants of Area C include 800,000 urban Jews living in urban
centers, 154,000 rural Jews and 465,000 Israeli Palestinians. "Thus 154,000 Jews
cultivate the land of 4,476,000 refugees who are prevented from returning to it."
Since most of the rural Jews are leasing the land, once the lease is up, the land can be
given back to the Palestinians. Even with the return of the refugees, overall population
density in Israel would be 482-persons/sq. km., instead of the present 261. "The new
overall density of 482 p/sq. km., is a far cry from the congested miserable conditions
which the refugees have to endure while their land is the playground of the privileged
Kibbutz." Abu-Sitta adds that even in the most congested but unlikely
scenario, wherein all the refugees choose to return, "only 154,000 Jews may choose to
relocate elsewhere in Israel to allow 4, 476,000 refugees to return to their homes and end
half a century of destitution and suffering. This is a very cheap price[that] Israel
should pay for what it inflicted upon the Palestinians and still cheaper price to pay for
a secure future for both peoples." What Abu Sitta's proposal offers is a
challenge to the pervasive rhetoric of pragmatism and realism and the capitulationist
stance of the PA and its supporters. Separating Palestinian Political
Interests
Native West Bank and Gaza Palestinians are reaping the
benefits of a phantasmatic state-to-be by forsaking refugee rights. The premise that
diaspora and refugee Palestinians are part of the final settlement of the "peace
process" presupposes that they are one with native West Bank and Gaza Palestinians,
yet all proposed resolutions by PA elements and its coterie of supporters sacrifice most
of their rights in favor of separating them from native West Bank and Gaza Palestinians
who are the ultimate beneficiaries of whatever Israeli largesse the PA and its cronies are
able to extract.
If the Palestinian diaspora, which is composed of a majority of refugees
is not the beneficiary of this "peace process," why must it acquiesce in it by
conceding all its rights? To ask the diaspora and the refugees to sacrifice their rights,
hopes, and dreams, so that some meager political benefits can accrue to native West Bank
and Gaza Palestinians is to ask the diaspora and refugees more generally, to commit
national suicide. Since those who are now conceding Palestinian diaspora and refugee
rights have never been elected to their positions nor were they ever given a mandate by
diaspora and refugee Palestinians to concede their rights, then they perforce have no
authority to negotiate on behalf of the diaspora and the refugees. The refugees' and
the diaspora's conflict with Israel is different from that of the PA and those who support
it. Although the Palestinian people remain one spiritually, their material interests are
different. The "peace process" from Madrid to the present has not only deepened
the differences between these material interests, it rendered them contradictory in an
Israeli-dictated and PA-accepted zero-sum game, wherein so-called gains for native West
Bank and Gaza Palestinians must be attained at the expense of real losses on the part of
the refugees and the diaspora.
Joseph Massad is assistant professor of modern Arab intellectual history
at Columbia University.
A longer version of the paper was published in Critique, Spring 1999, pp. 5-23.
Joseph Massad MEALAC Columbia University 602 Kent Hall New York, N.Y. 10027
Phone: (212) 854-4722 Fax: (212) 854-5517
