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Palestinian Refugee Battle Not Over
by Emad Mekay
CAIRO (IslamOnline) - Victims of the Palestinian diaspora were encouraged that their dreams to return have not been completely forgotten by Arab and Palestinian officials as Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat provided pleasing reassurances last week after rejecting a U.S. proposal taking away the right of Palestinian refugees to return to the region.
Arab leaders throughout the region supported Arafat's move.
Palestinians inside and outside the Occupied Territories were seen on television writing in blood a pledge to return to their land. Palestinian groups had been quick to urge Arafat to reject the idea. The recent uproar was caused by a U.S. plan that would have terminated hopes of a Palestinian return to what is now Israel.
U.S. President Bill Clinton in New York earlier this week outlined his plan for an agreement that included Israeli withdrawal from land occupied since the 1967 war in return for Palestinian abandonment of the right of millions of refugees to return to their former homes in Israel.
News agencies reported that in Balata refugee camp near Nablus, in the West Bank, about 20 masked Palestinian gunmen burned photos of U.S. Special Middle East Envoy Dennis Ross, on which was written in English: "Go back. No resettlement for refugees.''
Ross was scheduled to arrive in the Middle East soon, but has postponed his trip indefinitely.
Egypt, Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries have said that they would discuss the fate of Palestinian refugees dislocated due to wars with Israel in 1948 and 1967.
In 1949, the United Nations Conciliation Commission put the number of displaced Palestinian refugees at 726,000. The newly established United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in 1950 put the number at 957,000. The Israeli government has in the past suggested numbers as low as 520,000, while Palestinian researchers have suggested up to 850,000. Of this population, approximately one-third fled to the West Bank, another third to the Gaza Strip, with the remainder fleeing to Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and other distant locations.
In 1967, another 300,000 Palestinians fled from the West Bank and Gaza to Jordan (200,000), Syria, Egypt and elsewhere. Of these, approximately 180,000 were first-time refugees (displaced persons), while the remainder consisted of refugees from 1948 uprooted for a second time.
Estimates place the total number of Palestinians, both within and outside of the Territories, in 1995 at approximately 6.6 million. In 1995, UNRWA data showed some 3,172,641 registered refugees in its "area of operation" (West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon), plus an estimated 335,000 non-registered "displaced persons".
Israel's Palestinian refugee policy teeters back and forth. Originally, it outrightly rejected any discussion of Palestinian right to return, claiming that such an "unrealistic" demand indicated that the Palestinian Authority was not serious about peace.
The situation, however, improved with the signing of the Oslo agreement in 1993 when Israeli said it would discuss the matter but made no commitments. Israel then said it wanted to make a distinction between those driven out of their land in 1948, those displaced from Gaza and the West Bank in the wake of the 1967 war and those expelled for security reasons.
Israel refused the return of 1948 refugees on grounds that it would lead to the "peaceful destruction" of Israel, altering the sensitive demographic balance in the country in favor of Palestinians.
The Israeli government fears the its country could turn into a de facto Arab-Jewish bi-national state. Subsequently, full steam efforts are going ahead in Israel in an attempt to wipe out any trace of the 1948 refugee crisis. Israel's state archives have released hundreds of cabinet documents from the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, but passages on the expulsion of Palestinians and the exodus of more than 700,000 have been struck out.
Also, according to Israeli historian Tom Segev, details of the removal of Palestinians from Ramallah and Lydda by Israeli troops led by former premier Yitzhak Rabin have yet to be released.
Refugees and their descendants are now living mainly in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. And many are keen to return to their former homes.
"The right to return to your home is a sacred right," said Mohammed Sobeih, Palestinian ambassador to the Arab league.
Ziad Abu Zayyed, another Palestinian official, was also adamant that displaced Palestinians of Gaza and the West Bank have a full right to return.
"There is no reason for Israel to oppose their return, since it has to withdraw from these territories in accordance with U.N. Security Council Resolution 242," he said.
Palestinians charge that many Western and other countries adopt policies deigned to keep Palestinians away from their homeland, granting citizenship with what they consider suspicious ease.
Former Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser deliberately countered this policy, refusing to give Palestinians Egyptian citizenship.
Other Palestinians are worried that they might be uprooted for a second time when, and if, they are allowed to go back. They say they would not be able to go back to the same house or even the same town as the ones they left, as Palestinian homes became the instant property of incoming Israelis, who neither offered to compensate them for their loss nor acknowledged their ownership.
Many Palestinians have resigned themselves to live and die away from home, as Israel denies diaspora Palestinians the right of burial in their native land.
But the Palestinian Authority is taking no chances. It is promoting a registration campaign for those who want to return with the claim that "home is home", according to Rabie al Turki of the Palestinian Embassy in Cairo.
Some believe that Palestinians have a duty, rather than a desire, to return. "Refugees should at least return in the first place," says Sobeih. "After that they can go anywhere they want."
The U.S. plan was targeted at ending more than three months of violence in the Occupied Territories. At least 306 Palestinians, 13 Israeli Arabs and 43 other Israelis have been killed in bloodshed that followed Ariel Sharon's fateful encroachment upon al-Haram al-Sharif.
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