Viewpoint: The 'right of return'

BEIRUT -- Wisdom, equity and realism on Arab-Israeli issues are scarce commodities among former or serving American officials. So it is noteworthy when one of the most experienced and respected ex-American diplomats suggests, as did former US undersecretary of state for political affairs Thomas R. Pickering last week in Qatar, that a key to peacemaking should be Israeli recognition of the right of Palestinian refugees who fled or were driven out in 1948 to return to their homes and lands in what is now Israel.

Pickering achieved the personal rank of career ambassador, the highest in the United States Foreign Service, at the peak of his 40 years of government service. More recently, he worked in the private corporate sector, from which he has just announced his retirement. Speaking in his personal capacity at the inaugural seminar of the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar, established in conjunction with the Qatar Foundation, he outlined steps that he thought could pave the way for progress in the ongoing conflicts in Iran, Iraq, and Israel and Palestine.

On the latter, he argued that a two-state solution required a return of Palestinian land occupied in 1967, "approaching 100 percent, with negotiated tradeoffs", giving Palestinians control over their own internal security and foreign guarantees for their external security. Jerusalem's status would be resolved according to the Ehud Barak-Bill Clinton ideas of 2000 (essentially: what's Arab is Arab, and what's Jewish is Jewish).

Pickering's call for Israel to recognize the right of return of the 1948 Palestinians is noteworthy. No serving or retired American official of such stature and firsthand personal knowledge of the conflict has ever explicitly called for Israeli recognition of the Palestinians' right of return. I pursued the matter privately with Pickering after his public talk, and asked if he was referring strictly to the generation of Palestinians who became refugees in 1948. He replied affirmatively, and explained:

"The right of return is controversial and the Israelis don't want to actually admit or honor this right, for the simple reason that they see it as a slippery slope. Over a period of time they think that the Palestinian and Arab objective is to flood Israel with returning refugees, and therefore, in a sense, 'demograph' it out of existence. The real question is whether a right of return could be recognized within negotiated limits. This would give to the Palestinians the recognition they feel is important for themselves, but at the same time protect Israel against a flood of returnees."

How would his proposal work in practice? "I would say there are three or four steps," Pickering explained. "First, recognize the right of return. Second, define it. One way to define it in the narrowest way would be to say that anybody who left in 1948 could return, but not their progeny born after 1948.

http://www.metimes.com/articles/normal.php?StoryID=20060502-042514-3676r

And you'll find that folk who clumsily try to define something as genocide that's nothing remotely like it will look quite silly to you as well :)

violet..

minority in their own state. And then they'll have the choice: convert or die.

Try using it in it's correct context in future. And reading the article instead of just reacting to the words 'right of return' might help...

In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group;

(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/documents/gncnvntn.htm

Violet...

It doesn't look like it from here. The population of Israel is 6 million. The population of Gaza and the West Bank put together is about 3.3 million.

Do think that the only places that have Palestinians is Gaza and the West Bank? In total, Palestinians are about 9 million strong, that outnumbers the 5 million Jews living in Israel. If all Palestinians 'returned' to Israel, it would cease to be a Jewish state and become yet one more, Muslim/Arab nation!

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What you said about Palestinians who've emigrated to other countries (specifically places like the US and Canada) have little to no interest in exercising a right of return. It mainly seems to be refugees in camps who cling to the desire to be granted a physical return to their former homes....

"It occurs to me that if somebody else attributed to the Israelis a nine million member conspiracy to take over a country, you'd probably be shrieking at the top of your lungs decrying it as classic paranoid antisemitism. Somehow, though, it's okay when you apply those kinds of assumptions to the Palestinians."


No-one's yet explained to me why it is okay to make the same sort of ugly assumptions and steretyping comments about Palestinians that would be definately seen as Antisemitism if it was said about Israelis. I've stopped holding my breath waiting for an explanation a long time ago...

Violet...

Excluding Gaza and the West Bank, the number totals 4,129,000 refugees. Including those in Gaza and the West Bank, the number is 5,717,000.

Jewish population of Israel: 5,081,694



Palestinian refugee

Those "inconvenient facts" would also include the charter of the current office holders, Hamas. You claim only 300,000 would exercise their right to return. Have any proof? Now, mind you, this is not to "return" to Gaza or the West Bank, but to Israel. Whereas you claim to know that hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees are content in their new homes, you base this on...? I am guessing it is not based on the fact that none of them are citizens in their respective countries, except for Jordan. So, their is a "purity" test for the Palestinians? I was not aware of this either.

The irrational part of the post starts with "...1.2 million of them are already living in Israel, and they have yet to overthrow the government and start throwing the Jews into the furnace." Don't let the "inconvenient fact" that I never said or even implied such a thing stand in the way of your erroneous conclusion. However, your erroneous post continues with the lack of understanding of what anti-Semitism is, as well as Islamaphobia. It was never asserted that there was a "conspiracy" of the nine million to take over the country, there was a statement of fact if all Palestinians, not even all refugees, returned, a Jewish "state" would discontinue. So what we have is you "shrieking" about something that was never said nor implied.



Excluding Gaza and the West Bank, the number totals 4,129,000 refugees. Including those in Gaza and the West Bank, the number is 5,717,000.

Jewish population of Israel: 5,081,694

with less than equal rights, in their own homeland.

Do the Jews get a right of return to Arab countries?

The only thing realistically to happen will be compensation to both Palestinians displaced from Jewish Israel and Jews displaced from Muslim Arab countries...kind of neutral in the long term scheme of things...

And that is Just..most refugees from both sides were not even born in the 2 sets of countries....

Then try and do some reading on the Palestinian refugees and come back and explain why you think that descendants of Jews who were expelled from Arab countries are refugees? They're not...

Violet...

Was not on the obvious fact that most of the principals have died in the interim leaving only a small affected group, but that given the large numbers of people who would be excluded from this type of symbolic acceptance some means of compensation must arise. Money will help assuage the complaints of those who are otherwise excluded. Might be a good way for third party countries to help out.

I think this has to be addressed as the idea of dealing only with principals would become uneven when you try and balance it with RoR for Jews evicted from Arab countries. While a few of the Arab countries started evicting Jews in 1948, most did not enact their policies until the 1950's or later as they either became independent from colonial powers or enacted nationalistic governments. Thus you can have 40 year old principals for states like Libya or 50 for Algeria and Tunisia. And considering the timing of some evictions as part of a colonial backlash, it is possible that a few former colonists (European) would qualify in countries such as Algeria and Syria.

L-

I read about two years ago that only about 10% of the original Palestinian refugees were still alive, and as time creeps on, there'll be fewer and fewer of them...

I'm strongly opposed to the two issues (Right of Return for Palestinian refugees, and compensation for Jews expelled from Arab states) being tied together. I know Israel has attempted to do this in the past, but the two issues should be kept separate as it's wrong to believe that they both have to be sorted at the same time by the same parties, or that one issue negates the other. The Right of Return is something tied closely to any negotiated resolution of the I/P conflict, and for refugees like the ones in camps in Lebanon, it's very clear why it needs to be resolved so that they end up with compensation and citizenship either in Israel (with agreement from Israel) or a third country of their choice, or a Palestinian state if it finally comes into being. Coz there's no urgent humanitarian issue when it comes to the Jewish refugees expelled from Arab countries as they all have Israeli citizenship and all the rights associated with it, I just don't see that issue as such an immediate issue. For those who were expelled and had their assets seized, there is a need for them to be compensated, but they're in a similar boat as Palestinian refugees in the US who have American citizenship, if that makes sense...

Violet...

I'm strongly opposed to the two issues (Right of Return for Palestinian refugees, and compensation for Jews expelled from Arab states) being tied together. I know Israel has attempted to do this in the past, but the two issues should be kept separate as it's wrong to believe that they both have to be sorted at the same time by the same parties, or that one issue negates the other. The Right of Return is something tied closely to any negotiated resolution of the I/P conflict, and for refugees like the ones in camps in Lebanon, it's very clear why it needs to be resolved so that they end up with compensation and citizenship either in Israel (with agreement from Israel) or a third country of their choice, or a Palestinian state if it finally comes into being. Coz there's no urgent humanitarian issue when it comes to the Jewish refugees expelled from Arab countries as they all have Israeli citizenship and all the rights associated with it, I just don't see that issue as such an immediate issue. For those who were expelled and had their assets seized, there is a need for them to be compensated, but they're in a similar boat as Palestinian refugees in the US who have American citizenship, if that makes sense...

Here we disagree. First, I argue that their stories are not all that different. The Jewish immigrants from Arab countries suffered just as much loss, and they too have had issues with acceptance inside their brethren society. To wit, there were recent stories of Sephardim children being taken away from their parents and given to Ashkenazi parents. Discrimination both on the job and in society (education, etc.) were fairly common. There is a bit of a myth that they've successfully integrated into Israeli society which remains dominated by the Ashkenazi. There is an old comedy, Sallah Shabbati, which makes fun of this.

In a related piece,there are those Palestinians who have been accepted into Jordanian culture on about an equal basis as the Sephardim immigrants. Yes, there are those who have not, but by your logic, should they be denied? I personally think not.

Second, the issue is one of symbolism. If it were really about trying to address an economic injustice, then it would be limited to those purely in refugee camps which the story is obviously not supportive of. It would miss those Palestinians who did leave the camps and did make their way into the world. Obviously it is not fair they should be missed as well.

The surviving Sephardi have just as much of a case to visit and return the lands of their birth just as much as the surviving Palestinians. I suspect that most would not take up the offer. And while I think the original refugees should have the right to return to live and settle, I also think that there should be negotiated into it the general right of visitation so that families can visit family cemetaries and any remaining family members who might still remain or who did return.

As for the money, I think monies are owed to both sides here. But it should not be a case where one country gives money to another country. And it is hard to recompense those who have died. The only way to do so is probably to establish trusts to support schools and hospitals.