The Return Marches: An Effective Weapon Weakened by Discontinuation

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

Marches affirming the right of return of Palestinian refugees to their homes and property were launched on Friday, March 30, 2018, coinciding with Palestinian Land Day. These marches sought to restore this right’s standing and place it, once again and forcefully, before the world, affirming that it is one of the fixed Palestinian principles that two-state-solution diplomacy has overshadowed.

For about three decades, the right of return has been largely sidelined by Palestinian and Arab institutions generally, and when it does receive attention from Palestinian leaderships, it is only through media statements, with no practical echo or political and diplomatic follow-up on the international stage. It has been clear from the activities of Palestinians and Arabs on the international stage that they evade affirming the right of return, by not making the matter a central topic of discussions among the concerned parties — as though Arabs and Palestinians are trying to avoid angering the Zionist entity and the United States, and so focus instead on establishing a state.

Because of this long period, the right of return has faded from Arab and Palestinian awareness generally, especially among the rising youth who are expected to be responsible for the Palestinian cause in the future. Awareness has shifted from the matter of the right of return and the right to self-determination toward the right to establish a state, which does not constitute a fixed Palestinian principle in itself, since it is subsumed within the right to self-determination.

Because of the continuous focus on the two-state solution, the rising generation has come to think Palestinians have no rights except those related to establishing a state on the territory occupied in 1967. The absence of awareness of this matter — which concerns millions of Palestinians — has negatively affected the standing of the Palestinian cause, and the ability of Palestinian leaderships to mobilize energies at both the Arab and Palestinian levels.

Accordingly, the right-of-return marches — and the clashes accompanying them between the marchers and the Zionist occupation — are vital and necessary, in order to instill awareness of the cause among the Arab and Palestinian masses, and to push leaderships to reconsider the demands raised on the international stage.

The worst thing Zionists could hear is the demand for the right of return of Palestinian refugees, on the grounds that this demand targets the very existence of the Zionist entity itself. Zionists believe implementing the right of return would completely overturn the demographic equation and turn the entity into a Palestinian state, endangering Jewish security to the point of forcing them to leave Palestine.

They view this demand with extreme gravity, and always work to avoid it being raised at global and local levels. This is why the Zionists — and their supporters on the international stage — have thrown themselves into the two-state solution project, which obscures awareness and eliminates the right of return. They believe mere recognition of the Zionist entity is enough to render the right of return a form of futility.

Zionists hate hearing about the right of return because it is a cause Palestinians cannot lose, and it is capable of cornering the entity and those who support its owners in their arrogance and continued aggression. The right of return of refugees is a winning cause, diplomatically at least, because every international law, agreement, and covenant affirms the refugee’s right to return to his home and property, and states must adopt every facilitation that hastens the refugees’ return.

Because human rights values have been sweeping the world for some time now, it is not conceivable for a line of argument rejecting the return of Palestinian refugees to prevail. It is difficult to find a state, other than the Zionist entity, that disputes the right of return, and this right will find support, even if only reluctant, from the United States.

Palestinians ought, in principle, to adopt the idea of the right of return at the expense of state-building, because they are certainly the winners in that case, and would rid themselves of the Western world’s lie regarding Palestinians’ right to establish their state on the June 4 borders.

This is why we found the Zionists mobilizing politically, diplomatically, and through the media before the marches began — they heavily employed their media to explain the so-called “terrorist” goals of the marches, on the grounds that they ultimately aim to eliminate the Zionist state and remove it from the Arab region.

Zionist media used the pretext that the Hamas movement, classified as terrorist, is the one leading these marches, and that a terrorist adopts nothing but terrorist activities against the entity. The entity was active among Western states to contain the idea of the right of return, and asked its various representative offices to explain the Zionist position on Palestinian activity.

The Zionist entity was no less severe on the day the marches launched, opening fire on the marchers in a hysterical manner betraying a terror that had gripped it. The marchers were not armed, and had no intention of armed engagement, but the entity opened fire with the aim of casting terror into the demonstrators’ hearts. This is entirely consistent with the Zionist theory of terrorizing the opponent forcefully, so they never again engage in hostile activities.

There is a problem the Palestinian arena suffers from: discontinuation from sustaining activity. For activity to bear fruit, it must be sustained. Activity is usually strong, and Palestinians offer enormous sacrifices without holding back, but they soon grow weary, so the activity stops and the opportunity to achieve the desired results is lost.

This happened in 1987 with the Stone Intifada, which did not last long, and during which the PLO recognized the Zionist entity, squandering what could have resulted from the enormous sacrifices the people offered. This also happened with the martyrdom operations the fedayeen once waged against the Zionists.

Those operations could have led to the departure of hundreds of thousands, indeed millions, of Zionists from Palestine, but Palestinian breath was not long enough. Now the movement for the right of return has begun, and for it to succeed, the following elements must be present:

1. The activity must be sustained and not seasonal — what is required is repeating the event at least monthly, so it does not fade from media and political memory, and from individual and collective awareness. Seasonal activity has proven a failure, needing continuous revival, which is why the Palestinian factions are required not to diverge in their positions regarding the right of return, and to participate in the activity according to an agreed, publicly announced schedule.

2. The scope of the activity must be widened so it is not confined to Gaza. Gaza constitutes a suitable political and revolutionary environment for activities against the Zionist entity, but other suitable environments must be crafted wherever the Palestinian people is present, and the movement must include the West Bank, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon.

What is unfortunate is that Gaza alone has carried the activity on its shoulders, and we found no effective solidarity from the Palestinian refugee camps and Palestinians generally after the enemy committed its massacre. A number of martyrs ascended, hundreds of wounded fell, and all we found was a rush to the United Nations, which possesses no enforcement tools independent of American will, and a single day of strike and mourning in the West Bank. This was not enough, amounting merely to a token gesture of reproach.

3. Mass activity needs the support of the political level to carry the concern to various states and international institutions. What is required is for those at the political level to play a major role in this regard, replacing their pursuit of statehood with insistence on the refugees’ right of return.

This was especially required after the American president recognized Jerusalem as the Zionists’ capital, in order to spoil the entire American scheme to liquidate the refugee cause, and to disrupt the American schemes seeking to liquidate the cause as a whole.

The pursuit of a state will only have meaning once the people for whom the state is supposedly meant actually return. Accordingly, priority must go to the people’s return, so that a state might then exist. This shift in diplomatic momentum could have constituted an important point in restoring the standing of the Palestinian cause, in mobilizing the full energies of the Palestinian people, and in enabling popular Arab and Islamic support for the Palestinian cause.

There are those who argue the activity is futile, saying great harm will befall the Palestinian people without result, citing as evidence the ascension of martyrs and the fall of the wounded, only for matters to return to what they were. Losses on the Palestinian side are inevitable, and if the people is unwilling to offer sacrifices, it will never liberate its homeland or achieve its freedom.

A people living under occupation usually pays a price far higher than what the occupying state pays, but ultimately the occupier cannot bear to remain because of the price it pays, and so decides to leave — such is the historical experience of the world. But, as I noted earlier, the activity must be sustained, must expand in place and time, and must enjoy political support.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “مسيرات العودة.. سلاح مؤثر يضعفه الانقطاع” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.