The Return of Refugees First

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

24/5/2011

Netanyahu struts about with his statements on the Jewishness of the state and the security of his Zionist entity, speaking in a forceful tone against those who hold his entity responsible for the state of affairs in the Arab-Islamic region. Against this, one finds Arab and Palestinian leaders mumbling — kneading words in their mouths without knowing what they want — stammering and complaining that Netanyahu is unwilling to achieve peace. Arab and Palestinian leaders too impotent, too cowardly, and too lacking in national feeling to declare clearly and openly the fixed national rights of the Palestinian people and the Arab nation — rights that are not subject to negotiation, bargaining, haggling, questioning, or postponement.

The root of the problem is that the people of Palestine were expelled from their homeland. People were driven by force from their homes and possessions, and for long years they have lived outside their homeland under extremely harsh living, social, economic, and psychological conditions. The affliction is that there is a displaced people who wants to return to its homeland.

Mr. Mahmoud Abbas sometimes speaks of the right of return, saying he supports a just resolution of the refugee issue in accordance with Resolution 194. That is, he wants to combine a resolution that is neither firm nor binding — Resolution 194 — with a resolution that came after it and is entirely vague — Resolution 242. Whoever wants the right of return must say that he wants the right of return, and unless the return of the Palestinian refugees is achieved, the region will see nothing but a Palestinian stance that wrests the right by force.

It is required, according to international norms and the record of history, that the path of negotiation between warring parties be preceded by two things: an exchange of prisoners, and the return of refugees to their homes. It is absolutely impermissible for a person to negotiate with a party he is fighting without first securing these two matters — otherwise his national loyalty becomes a matter of doubt and reproach. The Palestinian leaderships went to the negotiating table without having secured either of these two things.

Therefore, we must return to the roots. We are, simply, a displaced people, expelled from our homeland, and we want to return; and if that is not made easy, then we will do everything in our power in order to return. We are not required to produce political initiatives, nor negotiations, nor concessions. We were the ones attacked — by Britain, the Zionists, and several Arab and international parties — and all we know is that the right of return rises above the necks of everyone.

Our problem is not the state; our problem is the return. When we return, and when we have achieved the right of self-determination, we will be able to decide for ourselves whether we want to establish a state, an empire, or a unionist merger with an Arab state. The state they speak of now is nothing but a feeble entity acting as a security proxy for the Zionist entity, run by people more concerned with the interests of the Zionists than with the interests of the Palestinians. Whoever coordinates security matters with Israel, and speaks of a state through the American vision, cannot possibly be loyal to anything but non-Palestinian interests.

The cause of Palestine is a trust placed upon our necks, and we must stand firmly against every attempt at liquidation. This is the responsibility of every Palestinian man and woman, and it is the responsibility of the refugee camps and the diaspora. We await the revolution of the Palestinian refugees that began on 15 May 2011, to complete its course until the land’s love for its lovers is fulfilled.

We must not listen to Netanyahu’s growling, nor to the leaders’ faintheartedness, nor to the war of despair waged by the collaborators, for Israel is weaker and frailer than we imagine.

The problem is political, not legal

It is clear from the international texts on refugees that the failure to implement the Palestinian refugees’ right of return stems from political, not legal, reasons. Legally, there is support for the Palestinian refugees’ right of return at the following levels:

The Geneva Conventions on human rights stipulate the right of refugees to return to their homes and possessions, and require all parties responsible for causing people to become refugees to facilitate the refugees’ return and to take the various measures needed for that.

United Nations General Assembly Resolution No. 194 calls upon Israel to allow the Palestinian refugees to return to their homes as quickly as possible.

The United Nations General Assembly established the agency for the relief and works of Palestinian refugees to operate temporarily, until the return of the Palestinian refugees; it was not intended to continue its work indefinitely.

The General Assembly resolution issued in 1974 affirmed the right of self-determination of the Palestinian people, and this includes their right to return to their homes and possessions on the land seized in 1948.

The refugee’s right to return to his home and possessions is guaranteed logically, humanely, morally, and religiously. This, even though the Western capitalist philosophy that supports Israel considers property a natural right of the individual, for which the necessary laws must be framed to preserve it.

Despite the international texts supporting the right of return, the Palestinian refugees have not returned, and the reason is political, related to the question of power and the balance of power in the region. This can be summarized in the following points:

Israel does not want to allow the Palestinians to return, and considers their return a genuine danger to Israel’s survival. Israel feels uneasy about the presence of Arabs on the Palestinian land it seized, fears the growth of their numbers, and is not prepared to open the door for millions of Palestinians to return to their homes.

Israel wants an exclusively Jewish state that no one else shares. The Zionist movement tried to obtain recognition from the League of Nations to establish a national home on an area equal to about 100,000 square kilometers of the land of Greater Syria (the southwest of Greater Syria), and now it demands that Mandatory Palestine (as it currently stands) be a Jewish state.

Israel enjoys great influence in the Western countries that have supported its existence over time and supplied it with weapons and money, and it is able to influence the decisions of these states so that they seek a solution to the Palestinian refugee issue on land other than the land of Palestine.

The Western countries that support Israel do not want the return of the Palestinian refugees, and have long sought to resettle the Palestinians in Arab countries. The United States, for example, tried to gather the Palestinian refugees in the northeast of Lesser Syria, in the Jazira region, and failed. It also tried to resettle them west of the Euphrates and failed there too.

The Western conspiracy against the Palestinian refugees is evident in Security Council Resolution 242, which called for a just resolution of the refugee issue without saying “the Palestinian refugees.” That is why Israel, in its commentary on the resolution, said that there are Jewish refugees in the Arab countries, and the solution is for them to return to what it calls their homeland, Israel.

The Western world always speaks of refugees’ rights to return to their homes — except when it comes to the Palestinians’ right, for we do not hear a single Western state calling for it.

The Arab countries do not insist on the right of return, and no longer even speak of it.

The Palestinians left the refugee issue to the final-status negotiations when they signed the Oslo Accord.

From all this, we conclude that the cause of the Palestinian refugees is a victim of the military balance of power, tilted sharply in favor of Israel and those who support it. It appears that refugees’ rights can be subjected to standards of justice only if the balance of power tilts in favor of the Palestinians and those who support them. Otherwise, talk of return without real material power behind it remains theoretical, with no path to implementation.

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