The Return of Refugees, Not Statehood

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

Israel and America are these days busy intensifying their search for ways to offer the Palestinian Authority something still unknown, as a step or a signal toward paving the road to establishing a Palestinian entity they call a state. Most media outlets indicate that this activity is meant to preempt the United Nations General Assembly meeting in September 2011, which might recognize a Palestinian state.

This activity has nothing to do with the General Assembly meeting, which had already recognized Palestinian rights; rather, it is directly connected to the changes taking place on the Arab scene. Israel and America realize that the equation of humiliation and submission on the Arab scene has begun to change, and that those regimes which used to receive orders and carry them out against the interests of the Arab nation are collapsing, or on their way to collapse. Both of them are aware that the tasks the Arab regimes used to perform in the service of Israel and America will stop, or will be severely disrupted, and that what could be foisted upon the Arab nation and the Palestinians in the past will not be possible in the future. That is why the two states want to preempt events, and to offer something that might justify to the Palestinian Authority continuing with negotiations and accepting the feeble Palestinian entity, which will act as a security proxy for Israel.

Here it must be said that there are only two fixed Palestinian constants: the right of return and the right of self-determination. Any disregard for either of these two constants constitutes an act of aggression against the Palestinian people, and a blatant attempt to bypass the fixed national rights of the Palestinian people. The establishment of a state is not among the constants; rather, it is a product of the right of self-determination. When the refugees return, and the right of self-determination for the people of Palestine is acknowledged, this people will decide for itself whether it wants to establish an independent, sovereign Palestinian state, or to join a union with one or more other Arab states.

For this reason it is important that no one try to squander the fixed national rights of the Palestinian people for the glitter of a state that will not be independent and will not be separate from Israeli security control. If the United States and the European states are able to make peace, then recognition of the refugees’ right to return to their homes and possessions on the land occupied in ‘48 is the precondition for it. These states may now succeed in convincing some Palestinians of the idea of expanding the powers of the Palestinian Authority and expanding the areas classified as (A) under the 1995 Taba agreement, but this will not convince the Palestinian people, who insist on their full rights.

Whoever seeks peace does not run from what is due. Israel knows perfectly well that the balance of power has changed, that the political environment which produced the Camp David, Oslo, and Wadi Araba agreements has been left behind us, and that a new political environment is now taking shape in the Arab region. What suited a previous political environment does not suit a new political environment; what could be acceptable in the past is not acceptable now, and what may be acceptable now will not be acceptable a year from now.

Over long years, the United States was not convinced that Arabs are no different from other peoples, and that they would eventually rise up. Perhaps it will now be convinced that it must respect the will of the peoples instead of searching for ways to circumvent that will. Perhaps its own scholars will confirm to it that the Palestinians will not serve as Israel’s agents at a time when the nation is rising, its head held high with pride and dignity. And it is wise for whoever wants the future not to go searching for the slogans of the people of the past.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “عودة اللاجئين وليس الدولة” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.