Refugees forever?
Concept Paper
Re: Annual Ambassadorial Study Day
by Yossi Alpher
Posted at PRRN on January 14th, 2002.
(Originally posted on Ramallah
Online)
During the final months of Israeli-Palestinian permanent
status negotiations in 2000-2001, Israelis discovered
that the Palestinian national movement, after preaching
"return" for generations, was seemingly
incapable of resolving a logical contradiction. On
the one hand, in the spirit of United Nations Security
Council Resolution 242, it officially acknowledged
the Israeli state within the 1967 borders. On the
other, in accordance with its interpretation of United
Nations General Assembly Resolution 194, it required
that Israel accept Palestinian demands for return
that potentially neutralized the Jewish-Zionist underpinnings
of that state.
The demand by the Palestinian leadership that Israel
acknowledge, in some form, the refugees' right of
return, appeared to Israelis to reflect an insistence
that, at least at the level of principle, the Jewish
state was "born in sin;" that it was in
fact, or should be, a bi-national Arab-Jewish state
and eventually, thanks to birthrate differentials,
a Palestinian state. This impression was reinforced
by the increasingly aggressive demands voiced by Israeli
Arab leaders, clearly influenced by Palestinian nationalist
positions voiced during peace negotiations and culminating
in the bloody disturbances of October 2000, that Israel
accommodate their status by declaring itself a "state
of all its citizens," i.e., no longer a state
of the Jewish people.
Israelis understood, of course, that even a successful
peace process would not persuade Palestinians to openly
endorse Israel's own national narrative. This holds
that the right of the Jewish people to a country in
their historic homeland was endorsed in 1948 by the
world community and that it was the Arabs' refusal
to acknowledge that right and their attempt to annihilate
Israel that created the Palestinian refugee problem.
But how can Israelis make peace with the Palestinians
when the latter insist on conditions regarding refugees
that actively negate Israel's core identity as a Jewish
state?
The formulae presented at the Taba negotiations in
January 2001 for bridging the right of return gap
did little to reduce Israeli anxiety. It emerged that
Palestinians interpreted Israel's reported readiness
to state that a refugee agreement constitutes implementation
of Resolution 194, as an Israeli acknowledgement of
the right of return. Who would guarantee that future
generations of Palestinians would not invoke this
clause to grant legitimacy to renewed claims to "return"?
Moreover, a Palestinian commitment to steer refugees
toward alternative solutions, such as resettlement
in the State of Palestine or the West and rehabilitation
in their host countries, could easily encounter mass
refugee refusal--based on years of indoctrination,
together with the economic incentive of living in
a prosperous country--to accept any solution but return
to Israel, thereby potentially scuttling the entire
agreement.
One key reason why most Israelis are prepared to
dismantle the many settlements that interfere with
Palestinian territorial contiguity in the West Bank
and Gaza and even to partition Jerusalem, is their
growing awareness that their demographic security--the
capacity to maintain a solid Jewish majority in Israel
over the long term--is as important as their military
security. Today they are acutely aware that even the
modest achievement of a cold peace with Jordan and
Egypt and a partial peace with Palestinians has prompted
tens of thousands of Arabs to infiltrate Israel, with
its relative prosperity, looking for work. This Middle
East "north-south" microcosm poses a potential
demographic threat for Israel. Hence Israelis' insistence
that a refugee solution fully respect Israel's Jewish
nature, and that peace look more like "separation"
than "integration."
There is one additional problematic aspect of the
right of return issue that requires specific comment:
the readiness on the part of the world, including
Israel, to acquiesce in a definition of refugee status
that allows it to be passed on from generation to
generation. Nowhere else in the world is a refugee
problem officially in its fifth generation. Everywhere
else, the children and grandchildren of refugees,
including Jewish refugees, may still pursue property
compensation claims--but not "return". Here,
then, we must at least begin to contemplate an ominous
possibility. The longer the Palestinian refugee/right
of return issue remains unsolved, the more refugees
there will be--until, through intermarriage, virtually
all Palestinians will be "refugees" and,
for better or for worse, the "refugee problem"
will simply become synonymous with the "Palestinian
problem."
This points to one possible area of compromise: conceivably,
Israel could recognize some humanitarian right of
family reunification, which Palestinians could label
"return," for all first generation refugees,
i.e., those over 54 who were actually born in present
day Israel, who wish to return and who have relatives
that could assist in their absorption. Their number
would not be large, nor would they affect the long-term
demographic balance, but their "return"
could provide a degree of satisfaction for the Palestinian
narrative without seriously challenging the Israeli
narrative. In exchange, the Palestinian leadership
would agree that all other refugees be resettled or
rehabilitated outside of Israel.
Yossi Alpher is the author of the
forthcoming book "And the Wolf Shall Dwell with
the Wolf: The Settlers and the Palestinians." |