Sidelining the Refugee Issue from Palestinian Political Discourse

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

News about developments in the Palestinian cause pours continuously across various media outlets, and statements and political speeches about it never stop, yet we barely hear about the very core and essence of the Palestinian cause: the question of Palestinian refugees. Most of the activity concerned with searching for a solution to the Palestinian cause centers on establishing a Palestinian state, or on the so-called two-state solution, while the refugee question remains absent from this activity, or tucked away amid timid hints from Palestinian politicians. At the United Nations, some Palestinians and Arabs mention the suffering of Palestinian refugees in a hidden sentence, meant to stir the pity of those with no pity in their dictionaries; on the Palestinian home front, there is a clear erasure of the refugee question across the various educational, cultural, and media institutions, and it is rare to find the matter raised for private or public debate and discussion. On the international stage, the world remains entirely mute on this matter, and we do not hear states or human-rights and humanitarian associations placing the cause on the table for study.

The Palestinian cause, once an integrated whole expressing the rights of a whole people, has been torn apart, becoming, by turns, the cause of a small independent statelet, or a non-member state at the United Nations, or settlements, or Abu Mazen’s speech at the UN, or the salaries and tax revenue Israel collects, or the war on Gaza, or reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas, and so on.

The Cause of Palestine Is, First, the Cause of the Refugees

The cause of Palestine is the cause of a people expelled from its homeland; at its core, it is the cause of people living in camps under extremely difficult economic, social, and living conditions, and it is not any other secondary or subsidiary cause. It is true that secondary causes matter, but they do not hold first rank, and we must not let them overtake the cause of the Palestinian refugees or encroach on its supreme rank among Arab and Palestinian concerns. And if there is to be a solution to the Palestinian cause, it cannot be achieved unless it first includes a practical program for the return of Palestinian refugees to their homes and properties in the land occupied in 1948. For this reason, the refugee question must be the foremost preoccupation of everyone concerned with the search for peace in the Arab-Islamic region and at the global level. Whoever tries to flee from acknowledging the rights of Palestinian refugees is, in effect, fleeing from a serious search for a solution to the Palestinian cause, trying to keep the Arab-Islamic region in a state of permanent wars, and working to threaten world peace.

The Right of Return and the Necessity of Justice

States, international charters, and human-rights associations always speak of human rights, but the discussion stops short of the rights of Palestinian refugees. International charters, religious teachings, and the lessons of history all affirm a refugee’s right to return to his homeland, and many states, the great powers among them, always demand the return of refugees and the displaced to their homes and properties — but these same states fall mute regarding Palestinian refugees, and even the United Nations was not up to its responsibility when it contented itself, in Security Council Resolution 242, with calling for a “just settlement” of the refugee problem, without specifying which refugees it meant, without referring to the international charters on refugees, and without affirming General Assembly Resolution 194 of 1948, concerning the return of Palestinian refugees. International custom holds that disputing parties first address humanitarian problems before beginning negotiations on political, economic, and security issues, and so on. Humanitarian issues take priority over every other subject, which is why warring states first address two vital issues: refugees and prisoners. Agreement is first reached on the return of refugees or those displaced because of war conditions, and only then is agreement reached on a prisoner exchange. These are two issues that have never been given priority regarding the Palestinian cause, while Israel’s security has remained the first and central issue overshadowing the atmosphere of negotiations between Israel, the Liberation Organization, and the Arab regimes. Across the long years, the negotiating table has remained a mount for Israeli security, and displaced Palestinians have had to stand guard at the gates of the kingdom of Israel. Instead of discussing arrangements for the return of Palestinian refugees, the discussion has focused on how Palestinians ought to provide security and military services to Israel, and Palestinians have had to commit moral crimes against themselves, defending Israeli security at the very time Israeli aircraft kill children, demolish homes, confiscate land, and build settlements.

The scales of justice have been overturned in the negotiations between the Arabs and Israel, so that justice has come to mean defending the settlers and Israel’s right to drain the Palestinians, squeeze them, kill them, and demolish their homes. Justice has come to mean protecting Israel and defending its security and interests, and likewise erasing the cause of the Palestinian refugees. The greatest moral blow Palestinians have suffered as a result of this reversal is embodied in Palestinian refugees who lived and grew up in refugee camps and now defend Israeli security. There are Palestinian refugees serving as commanders in the Palestinian security services, coordinating security matters with Israel against themselves, their own people, and their own nation.

The Search for a State

The question of establishing a Palestinian state was never put forward as a Palestinian constant that must be fought for. Palestinian constants were confined to only two: the right of return and the right to self-determination. The idea of establishing a Palestinian or Arab authority in the territory occupied in ‘67 was never put forward until 1968, by the Zionist Allon, who presented, at the time, a proposal to solve the Palestinian cause in cooperation with Jordan. Golda Meir repeated the idea in 1973. But former Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin was clearer still when he put forward, in 1978, the idea of establishing a Palestinian authority in the West Bank and Gaza, with the city of Bethlehem as its capital, and a police force formed for it, armed by Israel, to impose internal order. Ariel Sharon adopted the idea in practice, seeking to establish a Palestinian authority through the group of village leagues established for this purpose. The Palestine Liberation Organization rejected the idea at every stage, considering acceptance of a Palestinian authority and self-rule an act of high treason punishable by death. In keeping with this position, the Palestine Liberation Organization assassinated Yusuf al-Khatib, head of the village leagues in the Ramallah area. But time has shown us that the Liberation Organization’s position was not grounded in national values, but in its own view of who should lead the national betrayal. This is why the Organization so easily accepted signing the Oslo Accord, which constitutes a poor copy of Menachem Begin’s project for establishing Palestinian self-rule. It was clear, in the Palestine Liberation Organization’s 1974 program, that it was rolling toward accepting self-rule and establishing a Palestinian authority. The official Palestinian position later developed into a search for a state under Zionist occupation. Palestinian media then adopted the idea of establishing this state as one of the Palestinian constants, even though it is closer to being an Israeli constant, given that Israel put the idea forward first.

The Idea of the State at the Expense of the Right of Return

It was important for the Palestinian leadership to adopt the idea of establishing the state and distract the Palestinian people with it, at the expense of the right of return. It was clear, from the Palestinian leadership’s movements on both the domestic and external stages, that it had abandoned the right of return, and that it offers only media service to this right in order to throw dust in the eyes of the Palestinian people. This stemmed from a conviction that crystallized within this leadership: that Israel would never agree to the right of return, that insisting on it would completely abort efforts to search for a peaceful solution to the cause, and that if the Palestinian people wanted to achieve peace with Israel, it would have to abandon the right of return first, and the right to self-determination as well. Following the Oslo Accord, the Palestinian came to notice that many officers within the Palestinian security services had begun openly saying that demanding the right of return would obstruct the peace process with Israel, and I have heard with my own ears, more than once, someone say that whoever wants the right of return does not want peace established in the region. As for the right to self-determination, it is clear that the Palestine Liberation Organization and the leadership of the Palestinian Authority never mention it, even though the UN General Assembly recognized the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination back in 1974. The Palestinian Authority and its allies work hard to remind everyone of the UN General Assembly resolution recognizing Palestine as a non-member observer state, but never bother to remind anyone of the right to self-determination, which is far more important than the resolution recognizing a state, since the establishment of a state is, at root, encompassed within the right to self-determination. The Palestinian leadership flees from the refugees’ right of return, and so do the Arab regimes, and the clause on refugees contained in the Arab Peace Initiative demonstrates the vagueness of the Palestinian and Arab position on this matter. This clause stipulates the necessity of searching for a “just solution” to the refugee problem (per Security Council Resolution 242) in light of General Assembly Resolution 194 on the return of refugees. This is a resolution that circumvents the refugee question, or, at best, raises it timidly. The position ought to be clear and unambiguous, explicitly stating the refugees’ right to return to their homes and properties in the land occupied in ‘48, leaving no room for the text to be understood as meaning the right of return applies to the land occupied in ‘67.

The Vagueness of the Palestinian Factions’ Positions

The Palestinian factions were never entirely serious in their positions toward the Oslo Accord and the retreat in Palestinian positions that followed from it, and the decline in the standing of the Palestinian cause on the regional and global stage. The Oslo Accord did not abolish the refugees’ right of return, but deferred its discussion to the final-status negotiations. This deferral is, in itself, a national crime, but recognizing Israel certainly implies the negation of the refugees’ right of return. One would have expected the people of Oslo to be subjected to the national standard followed since the era of the British Mandate, which holds that everyone who cooperates with the enemy, and shows contempt for Palestinian rights, must be boycotted. The factions organized under the Palestine Liberation Organization immediately established friendly relations with the people of Oslo, requested jobs from the Authority for their own members, and their leaderships began meeting with leaderships cooperating with Israel on security and civil matters — yet they continued issuing statements of insult and abuse against Oslo. As for the Islamic action factions, they did not boycott those cooperating with the occupation, and some of their leaderships requested jobs for their own children, and matters rolled on until, after the 2014 war, these very factions came to shelter under the umbrella of the people of Oslo. The people of Oslo led the negotiations on behalf of the Palestinian resistance, and not a single resistance leader, during the war or during the negotiations, ever mentioned the right of return. Here, all the Palestinian factions have found themselves in the very same trench, which requires the Palestinian people to redouble its efforts to preserve its fixed national rights.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “تغييب قضيىة اللاجئين عن الخطاب السياسي الفلسطيني” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.