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- The Right of
Return: Sacred, Legal, Possible. The Palestinian Refugees
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CAABU Briefings
The Right of Return: Sacred, Legal, Possible. The Palestinian
Refugees
by Dr Salman Abu Sitta
MP Honorable Members, Ladies and Gentlemen,
It is often said that history repeats itself. I believe it does
not. It simply accumulates unfinished business, piles up debts
and stacks up fortunes and misfortunes. Then there comes a day
when all these accounts have to be settled. Look at our
departing 20th Century. We have seen the retreat of evils
imposed by man on man, such as the fading away of colonialism,
the disappearance of Nazi Germany and fascist Italy, the
collapse of communism, the unceremonious departure of apartheid,
the steady but sure decline of racism - from the time when
Martin Luther King could not get a hamburger on a lunch-counter
until Nelson Mandela became a world leader hosted by big and
small countries alike.
And yet the only people in this century, who have been subjected
to all these evils combined, continue to suffer, continue to
resist and continue to defy all odds to attain their basic human
rights. The Palestinians have endured five major wars,
innumerable raids and attacks, coup d'etats and removal of
rulers in all countries adjacent to Palestine. They have
suffered a life of misery, destitution, occupation and
oppression. Yet they have not disappeared. They have not given
up. Still, they have not recovered their rights nor restored
their homes. Today, there are about 8 million Palestinians
world-wide. Five million of them, or two thirds, are refugees
uprooted from their homes. The peace process initiated in Oslo
deals only with the 1 million people, who are the original
inhabitants of Gaza and the West Bank. Other Palestinians (87%),
including all five million refugees, derive no benefit from the
Oslo Agreement and are not likely to do so in the future. How
can one think that there can be a global and final peace without
taking account of the most basic rights of at least 5 million
refugees?
The topic I am about to discuss before you today is the right of
return of the Palestinian people to their land, and the
feasibility of achieving this objective with minimum effect on
the existing population. I shall try, using facts and figures
not emotions, to show that the Right of Return is not only
sacred and legal and but possible too.
The uprooting of whole people from their homes in Palestine in
1948 by a carefully executed and externally supported plan is
unprecedented in modern history. This is what we call Al Nakba
(the Catastrophe). Its dimensions are staggering. The
inhabitants of 531 towns and villages were forcibly evicted from
their homes by the Zionist forces in 1948. They represented 85%
of the people in the land that became Israel. Their land, which
represents 92% of Israel today, has been confiscated and
administered by Israel Land Administration. Their property and
their heritage have been given free for all: Russians,
Ethiopians and other people as diverse as passengers in a busy
transit lounge. Provided such diverse people are Jews, they were
instantly welcomed to the very same homes from which the
rightful owners were expelled and to which they continue to be
denied the right to return.
Where are the Palestinians today?
Of the total 8 million Palestinians, about 3.6 million (46%) now
live within the Mandate Palestine boundaries (i.e. Israel, West
Bank and Gaza), 3.3 million (42%) live in bordering Arab
Countries (Jordan, Lebanon, Syria), and about 1.0 million (12%)
live in other Arab and foreign countries. Thus, 88% of
Palestinians world-wide live in or adjacent to Palestine. Today
there are 4.9 million Palestinian refugees. Of those, 3.6
million are registered with UNRWA. The rest, 1.3 million, are
self-supporting non-registered refugees. Thus, two thirds of all
Palestinians are refugees.
What is their Land?
In 1948, the land area under Jewish control was 1,682 sq. km or
8% of Israel today. The land area of Palestinian villages
remaining in Israel is 1, 474 sq.km or 7% of Israel. Two thirds
of their land is now confiscated by Israel. The remainder of
Israel's area, which is 17,166 sq.km, or 85% of Israel, is the
property of the expelled refugees. It has all been confiscated
by Israel. Thus, fully 92% of Israel's area is Palestinian land.
How could such a massive catastrophe have happened? The refugees
told stories of massacres, expulsion and eviction over and over
again. The West refused to believe them and preferred to believe
the heroic story of David against Goliath or little Israel
fighting 7 huge Arab armies. It is a crying shame that it is now
left to the Israeli historians to demolish this myth and to tell
the West that what the refugees always said was true.
Most of the heinous crimes of "ethnic cleansing", which we have
seen on our TV screens during the Kosovo crisis, have been
committed in 1948. About 34 massacres have been reported during
the Al Nakba, all part of the Israeli military campaign. Many
more are still yet uncovered. The pattern is clear. Villages are
surrounded from all sides except one, leaving the way open for
escapees to spread the horror stories. Young men are shot
against a wall, thrown in a well or burnt alive. Their houses
are burnt and later demolished. Even bacteriological warfare was
used by poisoning wells and infecting drinking water with
malaria and typhus. That was the case in Gaza in the summer of
1948 as Ben Gurion admitted in his diary. Evidence is
overwhelming that the depopulation of Palestinian land, hence
the creation of the so-called "refugee problem", is the direct
result of a total war waged against the Palestinians by the
Israelis during and after the British mandate, using military
and psychological means. In brief, they wanted the land, not the
people. They wanted a fulfilment of the myth that Palestine was
a "land without people".
In the years of agony that followed Al Nakba in 1948 there was
not a single, more basic or stronger driving force for the
Palestinians than their quest for their right of return. There
are three aspects to the Right of Return which makes it
compelling and inevitable. It is sacred, legal and possible.
First, the will and determination of the Palestinians. To them,
the Right of Return is sacred. In spite of being dismembered and
dispersed in the four corners of the earth, Palestinians
continue to maintain a monolithic structure, based on the family
and the village. They intermarry across countries on a family or
a neighbourhood basis. A grandchild of a 1948 refugee identifies
himself as belonging to his original village. On the national
level, societies or syndicates for professions, trades, women,
students, creative artists and others, representing the
Palestinian people, are functioning in many countries. That was
the raison d'ętre of the PLO. It was basically a refugees'
organisation.
Second, the Right of Return has a solid legal basis. To begin
with, neither the Balfour Declaration of 1917, nor the UN
Partition Plan of 1947 is binding on the Palestinians. They were
not a party to them. None of these can grant them any new rights
or deprive them of their basic rights.
In recognition of the rights of the Palestinians, the United
Nations adopted Resolution 194 on December 11, 1948. Paragraph
11 states:
"(The General Assembly)... resolves that the refugees wishing to
return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours
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 and for loss of, or damage to, property
which, under principles of international law or in equity,
should be made good by the governments or authorities
responsible".
This Resolution was affirmed over 110 times since 1948. It
represents the universal, sustained and unwavering will of the
international community. The exception is, of course, Israel and
the US since 1994.
Some notes on this Resolution may be in order. The refugees
should return "at the earliest practicable date", which is the
cessation of hostilities, i.e. in the period from February 1949
upon signing of the Armistice Agreement with Egypt, to July 1949
upon signing it with Syria. The delay of the refugees' return
from this date is a continuous violation of the Right of Return.
The liability for this violation and its consequences rest with
the Israelis.
Those who choose to return are also entitled to compensation for
"loss of and damage to their property" whether gardens, houses,
shops or personal belongings. Restitution of their land, homes
and property (restoration to original owners) should be made and
it is what the refugees are demanding. Thus, they have the Right
of Return plus compensation. Those who do not wish to return are
entitled to compensation for their land as well as their other
property and the damages they have suffered. The short reference
to the Right of Return as "return or compensation" is therefore
misleading. The compensation includes the exploitation of their
property for 51 years, and the anguish they have suffered for
this period, in accordance with the procedures adopted in the
case of Nazi victims, and as accepted by the Compensation Law
articulated by the UN for a number of cases. War Crimes are
dealt with by the UN in a separate, well-developed body of law,
starting from Nuremberg Principles in 1946 and ending with the
Statute of Rome in 1998.
The liability for compensation extends to "the governments or
authorities responsible". These include the Provisional
Government of Israel in 1948, the consecutive Governments of
Israel, the Jewish Agency, the Haganah, the Irgun and Stern
gangs, the Jewish National Fund and others in Israel and abroad.
The Right of Return does not derive its validity merely from UN
Resolutions. Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights asserts the right of every individual to leave and return
to his country. The Right of Return to one's home is so basic
that it has been stated in Magna Carta (Ch. 42) in 1215. The
Geneva Civilian Convention of 1949 prohibits "individual or mass
forcible transfers … regardless of motive". There is a growing
body of international, regional and national legislation, which
affirms the right of return. The Right of Return is affirmed by
the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the
International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Racial Discrimination, the European Convention for the
Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, the
American Convention on Human Rights and the African Charter on
Human and People's Rights. In fact the Human Rights Law has
superseded local laws in Europe if they were at variance with
it.
A state, such as Israel, which declares its sovereignty on parts
of Palestine, cannot deny the inhabitants of that country their
nationality and domicile. Such a state has an obligation to
offer these inhabitants the nationality and protection afforded
by it to its own chosen citizens without discrimination on the
basis of religion or any other consideration. In international
law, sovereignty dictates that land and people go together. You
cannot wipe out the people and keep the land.
The Principle of Self-Determination guarantees, inter alia, the
right of ownership and domicile in one's own country. This
principle was adopted by the UN in 1947. In 1969 and thereafter,
it was explicitly applied to the Palestinian People, including
"the legality of the Peoples' struggle for Self-Determination
and Liberation". Resolution 3236 adopted by the UN on November
22, 1974 is "one of the most fundamental actions" taken by this
international body to reaffirm "the inalienable rights of the
Palestinians to return to their homes and property from which
they have been displaced and uprooted and calls for their
return".
Last but not least, the Right of Return derives its strength
from the sanctity of private ownership which cannot be
extinguished by new sovereignty or occupation and does not have
a statute of limitation. In this sense the Right of Return
cannot be delegated to a national authority or bargained away in
a political deal or treaty. All actions, laws or agreements
which diminish the individual's rights, other than those
surrendered by the individual himself, are null and void. My
advice to cornered leaders therefore is: 'watch out, no backroom
deals. These will not work in law and in fact'.
We come now to the third aspect of the Right of Return. With
such overwhelming support of law for the Right of Return, we
hear voices, well intentioned or self-serving perhaps that
exclaim: but is the return of the refugees feasible? They say
"that Palestinian towns and villages ... have disappeared...
(and) ... it would be difficult to re-establish these former
sites".
The claim that it is not possible to re-establish former sites
is factually erroneous. There is no land better documented than
Palestine. In the period 1920-1947, the Survey of Palestine
produced detailed maps for the whole of Palestine. The land area
and ownership of each town and village are recorded on maps and
government registers. In 1964, the UN prepared ownership records
for 500,000 owners describing the area and location of each
property. After the Israeli occupation of Palestine in 1948,
these very same maps, with their Arabic names erased and
replaced by Hebrew names, were used by Israel. The Israel Land
Administration, which leases Palestinian land to Jews, has
complete records of every plot of land. Today advanced
technology such as the satellite mapping system makes the
retrieval and comparison of old and new data quite feasible and
accurate.
Then comes the question: where would the Palestinians return to?
What is to be done with all those multi-national immigrants who
were brought to Israel to live in Palestinian homes? The answer
lies in examining Israel's demography.
Demographic analysis of Israel shows that the concentration of
Jews today is largely in and around pre-1948 Jewish land and
that the expropriated Palestinian land is still sparsely
populated. As surprising as this may seem, serious research
proves this point. Let me explain a bit further. For this
purpose, let us divide Israel into 3 areas.
68% of the Jewish population in Israel live in an area of 1,628
sq. km. (8% of Israel). Let us call this area A. Just to remind
you, this area is almost the same area in which Jews lived in
pre-1948 Palestine.
Another 10% of the Jews live together with 20% of the
Palestinians in Israel in an area of approximately 1,500 sq. km.
(7% of Israel). Again for the purpose of our discussion, let's
call this Area B. This mixed area is almost the same in size as
the land of the Palestinians remaining in Israel. Thus the
undisputed fact is that about 80% of the Jews in Israel live in
15% of Israel.
The remaining part, which we shall call Area C, has a total area
of 17,325 sq. km. and is essentially the land of the 4.9 million
Palestinian refugees. Apart from a few urban centres (mostly
Palestinian towns originally) in which urban Jews live, only
200,000 rural Jews control and exploit this vast Palestinian
land.
The striking fact is that this small number of rural Jews who
confiscated the heritage of about 5 million Palestinians is
almost the same as the number of settlers in the West Bank.
The irony is that those rural Jews are the residents of the
Kibbutz, which is now ideologically outdated and economically
bankrupt. The image of Kibbutz pioneer, the picture of the
Israeli fighter, slinging his gun on his shoulder and driving
his tractor into the sunset, is dying out. There are constant
desertions from the Kibbutz. Almost three-quarters of the
Kibbutz are loaded with debts and unable to survive. Most of you
have read about the tragic conditions in Gaza Strip where over
one million people live in a tiny stretch of land at a density
of over 4,000 persons per sq. km. Across the barbed wire they
can look at their empty land controlled by the Kibbutz at a
density of a mere 3 persons/sq. km. Why can't the refugees
return home?
Let me test two scenarios which, in my opinion, can diffuse two
volatile dynamites in the Middle East. The subject is vitally
important, so please bear with me as I roll out some figures.
The first scenario is the return of the Palestinian refugees in
Lebanon. This is most worrying and is now constantly in the news
because of their depressing working and living conditions. The
second scenario is the return of the Palestinian refugees in
Gaza, where over one million people are crammed in 360 sq. km.
with no hope of a future. Although the entire issue of the
refugees must be resolved, these two explosive situations must
be addressed without delay.
If Lebanon refugees return to their homes in Galilee and
elsewhere, the impact would be hardly felt by the Israelis. The
density of the whole new population would only increase by 1% in
Jewish Area A, 6% in mixed Area B, and by 17% in Area C to which
most of the refugees would return. The much-tooted concern for
Jewish majority would not be warranted. They would remain above
50% even in areas when Jewish concentration is the lowest. The
Jews who may barely feel the effect of the return are those few
rural Jews who lease refugee's land. Of course, the urban Jews
will continue to live and flourish in towns.
While Lebanon refugees could return to a largely Arab territory
in Israel, with minimum effect on the Jews, the Gaza refugees
would return to an almost totally empty land. As I said before,,
the rural Jews who exploit their land are spread at a density of
3 persons/sq. km. The density of population in Gaza is one
thousand times more. According to Israeli statistics, there are
few Jews - barely 60,000 - rural Jews in the southern half of
Israel in an area of 14,000 sq. km. In addition, there are
553,000 urban Jews, two-thirds of whom live in 3 Palestinian
towns (Beer Sheba, Ashdod and Majdal-Ashqelon) and another 24%
live in 3 new towns. These urban Jews are engaged in industry,
education and services. The return of the refugees would be of
benefit to those Jews and vice versa, and as such, would be a
positive element. After the return of Gaza refugees, the density
of the total population in Israel would increase by only 6% in
Area A, 5% in Area B and 32% in Area C to which the refugees
return. Once again as in the case of Lebanon refugees, the Jews
would still be over 50% in Area C where they are least in
number.
One of the painful twists of history is that the number of Gaza
and Lebanon refugees, who have been denied the right to return
home, is almost exactly the same as the number of Russian
immigrants that have been freely admitted to Israel throughout
this decade. While the return of the refugees will bring peace
and stability to the Middle East, the Russian immigration is a
cause of tension in Israel itself and, as studies have shown,
could trigger a new major conflict about water.
If the Right of Return is implemented and Palestinians return to
their homes, hardly any infringement on the Jews' Lebensraum
(living space) would occur. The Palestinians, mostly farmers,
would return to their fields which they had tilled for
centuries. Their efforts would compensate for the drop in
Israel's agricultural production from 11% of GNP (1950) to only
3.5% (1993). Already the farmers in Gaza, in spite of being
deprived of economic support and of water supply, produce
superior and cheaper agricultural products.
The Israelis claim that, if the refugees were to return, Israel
would lose its Jewish character. There is no place, or a future,
in the civilised world for a state that is based on such
exclusivity. Israel must choose between being a Jewish or a
democratic state. It cannot claim to be both. In the words of a
noted jurist, "The Jewish character is really a euphemism for
the Zionist discriminatory statutes of the State of Israel which
violate the human rights provisions… The UN is under no more of
a legal obligation to maintain Zionism in Israel than it is to
maintain apartheid in the Republic of South Africa".
The Palestinians have no obligation to the Israelis to lose
their homes and identity and continue to suffer in the Diaspora,
in order to provide the Jews with a second home. The last 50
years showed clearly that it was the Palestinians who had no
home except in Palestine, while only 4 million Jews out of 12
chose to live in Israel. On the contrary, the Israelis have an
obligation to the Palestinians, which must be fulfilled, to
account for their dispossession and the crimes committed against
them. The Right of Return to the Palestinians is a dire
necessity. To the Jews, it is an option, a luxury.
The notion of maintaining Jewish supremacy is also short sighted
and impractical. The Palestinians today constitute 45% of the
total population in historic Palestine, between the river and
the sea, and the Jews 55%. It is only a question of time when
the Palestinians attain a majority regardless of how many Jews
continue to immigrate to Israel. Their immigration will sooner
or later dry up. What then would Israel do? Continue to maintain
the only remaining apartheid system? It is absolutely clear that
the denial of the refugees' right to return home in order to
maintain the Jewish 'purity' of Israel is immoral, illegal and
simply impractical.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
We all are painfully aware of the trail of blood and destruction
initiated 82 years ago by the ill-fated Balfour Declaration. In
that Declaration, those who did not own promised those who did
not deserve, to inherit the homes of those who did not know.
In this House, 76 years ago, in July 1923, 110 members of the
House of Commons submitted a petition to the cabinet to reverse
the folly of the Balfour declaration. In it they urged that "the
whole population of Palestine, with its 93 percent Arabs, should
be consulted and a form of government agreed upon in harmony
with their wishes". It continued to say "To impose on an
unwilling people the Dominating Influence of another race is a
violation of human rights", condemned in the covenant of the
League of Nations.
But the ardent Zionists in the Middle East Department, such as
Shuckburgh, Ormsby-Gore and the notorious Meinertzhagen, carried
the day. The result was 80 years of bloodshed, half a dozen
wars, hundreds of thousands killed and wounded, millions of
innocent people made homeless, five countries occupied and all
governments in the region toppled. If Balfour were alive today,
what would he have said to answer for this tragedy?
But the British government of today can and should say and do a
lot to redress this colossal injustice. First it must uphold the
international law. It must insist on the implementation of the
Right of Return according to UN resolution 194.
Britain, in the UN and through the Security Council, supported
by diplomacy the right of return in Tajikstan, Abkhazia, Namibia
and Cyprus. Why not in Palestine?
Britain, in the UN and through the Security Council, implemented
by military force the UN resolutions, including the right of
return, in Kuwait, Bosnia, Kosovo and East Timor. Why not in
Palestine?
Britain in co-ordination with the European Union should face
Israel with the necessity of implementing the right of return,
should refuse Israel's contention that the subject is a taboo,
should examine the modality of return, and should explore the
capacity of Galilee and the South to absorb the returning
refugees. Britain should express its objection to Barak four
no's as a threat to peace, as a recipe for war and a sure way to
prolong suffering. Britain should build on the fact, long
demonstrated in the last 50 years, that peace is much cheaper in
human and material cost than war and conflict. The historic role
played by Britain in Palestine makes it imperative that Britain
should lead, not follow, in restoring Palestinians rights. This
duty is long overdue. The Palestinian children await the
fulfilment of this duty and no doubt will continue to struggle
for it in the 21st Century.
Five million people today wait for their right to return home.
If, by a miracle, 99% of these refugees were to surrender their
right to return, and only 1% were ready to resist that by force,
this would mean a militia of 50,000 motivated individuals,
enough to cause serious trouble to any hostile government in the
region. The Palestinians will not go away, disappear or accept
to be carted away to settle elsewhere. Their plight has shaped
the history of the Middle East and will continue to do so in the
next century. It behooves fair-minded people and governments
concerned with peace and stability to support their Right of
Return actively and by every effective means. For it would be an
illusion, a dangerous and costly illusion, to think that peace
can prevail in the Middle East, indeed in our global village,
without implementing the most basic of rights, to return home.
Thank you.
Dr Salman Abu Sitta
This was the text of an address given in the House of Common on
24 November 1999 organised by CAAB
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