Return, Resettlement, Repatriation:
The Future of Palestinian Refugees in the Peace Negotiations
Source: FOFOGNET Digest, 22 April 1996
by Salim Tamari, Institute
of Jerusalem Studies
Final Status Strategic Studies
Institute for Palestine Studies
Beirut, Washington, and Jerusalem
February 1996
IX.Strategic Options in Negotiations over Refugees
Of the three final status issues slated for bilateral
negotiations in May 1996, the question of refugees
has received the least attention in terms of strategic
vision. In many ways it is also one of the hardest
to resolve given Israeli intransigence on this issue,
and Palestinian inability to impose any conditions
on their protagonists. By contrast the issues of Jerusalem
and Settlements have had a considerable number of
futurist scenarios and even the modicum of agreement.
No such debate has surrounded the issue of refugees,
and yet the legitimacy of the Israeli-Palestinian
agreement in the eyes of the Palestinian diaspora
rests to a large extent on the ability of the PNA
to ensure the return of expatriate Palestinians to
their country.
As final status negotiations come closer the following
issues are likely to dominate the debate over the
future of refugees:
1. Refugees and Displaced Persons: Linkages
between Bilateral and Multilateral issues:
More accurately this linkage is related to the manner
in which agreements made in the current negotiations
over the fate of 1967 displaced persons are likely
to affect final status negotiations over 1948 refugees.
There are currently over one million displaced persons,
if we count those who lost their residencies as a
result of Israeli administrative measures among them.
1948 refugees and their descendants constitute over
2.5 million. But there is a great degree of overlap
here since at least 30% of displaced persons are second
time refugees from the 1948 war.
Obviously not all of these refugees will relocate
to Palestine even if the opportunity was available.
A number of factors will determine this likelihood,
including quotas of return agreed upon,the absorptive
capacity of the Palestinian economy, and the attractiveness
of the new regime in comparison to the relative security
or insecurity of Palestinians in the host countries.
In the transitional period (lasting five years from
the signing of the DOP), it would be to the advantage
of the Palestinians to separate the issue of Displaced
Persons from that of '48 refugees.I would argue for
this separation on the following grounds:
**To preempt claims that the settlement of displaced
persons in the West Bank and Gaza is part of a final
package that precludes their further claims on rights
inside Israel. This is particularly relevant to the
status of Dps who are also '48 refugees.
**Since the issue of Dps is discussed in the context
of the Quadripartite Committee, which is a purely
Arab-Israeli committee,Palestinians would benefit
greatly from the participation of the international
community (in particular UN organizations) if the
multilaterals continue to debate the status of '48
refugees.
**The committee on displaced persons have been discussing
the status of people who lost their residency but
who are technically neither refugees nor 'displaced
persons'. Those include deportees and citizens who
lost their permanent IDs. It would overload the work
of the final status negotiations if these categories
of people are transferred to their committee.
Nevertheless there is a certain degree of linkage
that is bound to merge the work of the two sets of
negotiations. Those include, the manner in which the
earlier returnees are absorbed; procedures for applications
for return; and claims for compensation made by '67
and '48 refugees.
2. Final Status Claims: Compensation
or Return?
This is a false dichotomy which is often raised in
the course of negotiations. It is clear from the protocols
of the Conciliation Commission Report that two modes
of compensation are proposed, one for returning refugees,
and one for non-returning refugees. The Palestinians
have taken a principled, but static position on the
question of return. In the multi-lateral negotiations
the Palestinian delegation have always reiterated
General Assembly Resolution 194 as the basis for all
political solutions to the Refugee Problem. The Israelis
have in their turn been systematic in their rejection
of any inclusion in the summing statements for any
mention of 194 or any other specific resolution. In
1995 the United States, for the first time since its
adoption, has withheld its annual commitment to this
resolution. What does this mean?
As final status negotiations loom on the horizon
(in May 1996)immense diplomatic pressure will start
building on the Palestinians to give up their insistence
on the right of return. The Israelis in their turn
have made it clear that they will not support any
categorical 'right of return' for the Palestinians--either
to Israel itself or to the West Bank and Gaza. It
is inconceivable that any Palestinian authority can
yield to such pressure and retain its legitimacy in
the eyes of its constituents, or--significantly, by
exiled Palestinians in the diaspora. On the other
hand it is clear that the Palestinian negotiators
cannot simply go to the final status talks armed only
with an abstract UN resolutions. Concessions at the
practical level are bound to happen if at least some
justice is to be realized for 1948 refugees.
One of the most succinct proposals for a final status
positions in this regard was made by Rashid Khalidi,
in his essay "Toward a Solution". Khalidi
suggests a negotiated solution for resolving the claims
of refugees based on five conditions:
**That Israel acknowledges its moral accountability
for the creation of the Palestine refugee problem,
including the means of socializing this recognition
to the younger generation of Israelis.
**That Israel accepts in principle, the right of
Palestinians and their descendants to return to their
homes. The Palestinians--in return--will recognize
that this right cannot be literally exercised inside
1948 Israel, and will have to exercise it in the state
of Palestine. However as part of this conception,
Israel should take into its domain several tens of
thousands of refugees.Particularly those that have
family members living inside Israel.
**A distinction should be made between reparations
(for those who will not be allowed to return), and
compensation (for those who lost property in 1948.
Khalidi suggests the figure of $92-147 billion for
property loss (1984 figures, based on Kubursi and
Hadawi's assessment); and $40 billion in reparations,
based on an estimate of $20,000 per person for 2 million
people.
**Palestinian exiles should have the right to return
to the future Palestinian state, or (implicitly) to
the areas under the control of the Palestinian national
authority.
**Palestinians who chose to remain in Jordan should
would be offered the choice of having full citizenship
rights, or "limited rights" as citizens
of the Palestinian component of the Jordanian Palestinian
confederation.
**Palestinians in Lebanon would be offered a choice:
repatriation to the Palestinian state, return to the
Galilee and acquisition of Palestinian citizenship,
or the granting of permanent residency in Lebanon.
It is obvious that Khalidi is proposing here a package
deal which will have to be negotiated simultaneously
with the governments of Israel, Lebanon, and Jordan.
While Khalidi's proposal is both original and practical
(in the operational sense), I would differ with him
on two crucial points: (1) Right of return to the
areas of the Palestinian National Authority should
not be conditional, or even linked, on the realization
of claims to compensation or repatriation. It should
be a separate act of sovereignty. In particular Palestinians
should not enter into negotiations with Israel were
the right of return to a mini-Palestine should be
bartered off with the right of return to Israel itself.
(2)Reparations to Jews who lost their homes in their
original Arab countries should be a bilateral issue
between Israel and the respective Arab states, and
not one in which Palestinian would be embroiled as
a party.
I would further add , given the complexity of assessing
individual claims for lost properties, for Palestinian
refugees and their descendants, that two separate
forms of reparations be made. The first would be collective
compensation, to be negotiated by the Palestinian
state on behalf of Palestinian refugees in general,
the results of which will be used to rebuild the infrastructure
of the Palestinian state--which will be, in part the
'state of the returnees'. The second would be based
on individual claims which will be negotiated between
the state of Israel and representatives of the refugees.
Since many of these refugees are not the subjects(or
even future citizens) of the Palestinian State, the
PNA wouldn't be a direct party to this second set
of negotiations. The Conciliation Commission Report
(1950) discusses precedents of such modalities applied
in WWI and WWII, and to the Indo-Pakistani conflict
in 1947.
3. Jerusalem and the Refugee Negotiations:
The Status of Jerusalem was inadvertently linked to
the refugee issue as a result of several moves on
the part the Israeli Government and the [Olmert] Jerusalem
Municipal Council that were seen as preempting final
status negotiations.
First was the attempt to restrict the conditions
of residency of Jerusalem Palestinians who lived outside
municipal zones (June 1995) by withdrawing access
to health and national insurance services for Jerusalemites
who cannot establish actual residence within the city
boundaries. Family reunification schemes which are
available to West Bank and Gaza Palestinians, limited
as they are,are virtually denied to Jerusalem Arabs.
A Jerusalem census planned for October 1995 was seen
as a prelude to get rid of those Jerusalemite Arab
driven out of the city by building restrictions and
local taxes to the northern suburbs.
This was followed by a campaign to close down Palestinian
institutions in Jerusalem that were described as affiliated
with the PNA. In August 1995 the Health Council, the
Palestinian Bureau of Statistics, and the National
Broadcasting Authority (TV and Radio) were closed
down by police order. Proceedings started against
the Orient House, centre for the Palestinian Negotiating
Team. These attempts were later rescinded under the
condition that Palestinian institutions in Jerusalem
publicly dissociate their connections with the PNA.
In reaction to this campaign to shut Palestinian
institutions, Faisal Husseini reminded an Israeli
audience on May 25th, 1995 that 70% of West Jerusalem
property belonged to Palestinian Arab refugees from
Talbieh, Lifta, Qatamoun, Baq'a, and other suburbs
and villages that later formed the bulk of Israeli
West Jerusalem.Meron Benvenisti, former deputy Mayor
of Jerusalem confirmed that the much of the property
in which West Jerusalemites live belonged to Arabs
before 1948. In the 1967 census it was found that
about 10,000 Palestinians living in East Jerusalem
(16% of the population then) were born in the Western
part of the city. With their descendants they constitute
today over a quarter of the population of Arab Jerusalem.
Today Palestinian Jerusalemites are treated as absentees
as far as their West Jerusalem property is concerned,while
Jews who have had property in the Eastern part are
allowed to, and often establish their rights, to their
pre-1948 property.
The 1995 confrontations over residency rights and
uneven access to property claims have hastened the
need for a clearer strategy over Jerusalem. The cornerstone
of this strategy should be that the postponement of
the Jerusalem issue to final status negotiations(in
May 1995) should not allow Israeli to make major demographic
and zoning (settlement) changes to ensure Jewish hegemony
in the Arab sections of the city. In other words the
status quo in Jerusalem should be preserved in such
a way to ensure the survival of Palestinian institutions
and the national integrity of the Arab population
in the transitional period.
With the impending start of final status negotiations
impending Palestinians are still caught in a situation
were the repetition of an objective ('Arab Jerusalem
is the capital of the future Palestinian state') has
substituted the adoption of a strategy to bring about
such an objective. The coming elections for the Palestinian
Assembly, planned for the winter of 1995, is a good
opportunity to develop such a strategy:
***In negotiating issues of residency rights and
family reunification East Jerusalem should be seen
as a regional extension of the West Bank.
***In negotiating the modalities of admission of
displaced persons East Jerusalem should have equal
status to the repatriation of its refugees from the
war of 1967.
***Arab properties and material losses in West Jerusalem,
part of the corpus seperatum in the partition plan,
should be raised as Israeli Jews are making claims
(and appropriating) properties in Silwan, Atarot [Qalandia]
and the Jewish Quarter or the Old City.The Palestine
Conciliation Commission has already established the
aggregate inventory of these claims.
***The right of return to lost homes and properties
in West Jerusalem should be raised on par with Jewish
claims (and actual movement) to homes and properties
in Arab Jerusalem.
***Jewish settlement in Arab Jerusalem (Ramat Eshkol,
Ramot, NeveYa'cov) should be treated in the same manner
as the status of Israeli colonial settlement in the
West Bank and Gaza.
Finally the fact that Israelis today appear more
intransigent on the issue of Jerusalem, elevating
it to a non-negotiable status, is itself a strategy
of psychological intimidation. The claim of non-negotiability
is itself a violation of the Oslo Accords. The rights
of West Jerusalem Palestinian refugees should have
a high priority in the Palestinian agenda for final
status negotiations since it combines two of the main
postponed items in one category.
4. The Status of Refugee Camps
A distinction should be made here between refugee
camps in the Arab host countries (particularly in
Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan), and those in Palestine.
For many years a mistaken view was prevalent among
Palestinians that improvements in the conditions of
life among camp refugees would weaken the will of
refugees to fight for their historic rights. The practical
consequence of this view(particularly in Lebanon)
was large-scale individual migration to the West (Canada,
Scandinavia, and the US were the main recipients of
migrants. Today the Palestinians have adopted the
view that refugees in the camps of the host countries
should be entitled to improve their standards of living,
and to receive the amenities and privileges accorded
to permanent residents of those countries.Jordan is
a case which presents a sharp contrast with Lebanon
in this regard, with refugees receiving all the legal
benefits of citizens outside the camps. Syria has
adopted an intermediate position, with refugees having
full access to employment, health and educational
opportunities, but no political rights.
Within the areas that came under the control of
the PNA in 1994,particularly in Gaza, infrastructural
planning has incorporated urban refugee camps within
schemes that served the city as a whole(sewage systems,
electricity, etc.). This is often necessitated by
logistic and technical considerations but it also
reflects the PNA's position not to consider the juridical
status of refugee camps until final status disposition
of the refugee issue is resolved. In the meantime
programs for health, job-training,education and research
among refugees are almost invariably extended to the
non-refugee population in the area.
In general social-class mobility has been a critical
factor in the restructuring of the lives of refugee
camp residents in the West Bank, Gaza, Syria, and
Jordan (but not Lebanon) with those refugees who become
successful moving outside the camps, and integrating
with the lives of local communities were they live.
But this has been an issue of free individual choice
and not one imposed on the refugee population. By
contrast Israel has made several efforts tore-locate
camps from Gaza city to Rafah and Khan Yunis, as well
as from the Gaza district to Jericho. More recently
the Ministry of Displaced Persons in Lebanon made
an unsuccessful bid to relocate refugees from Beirut
to the Shuf mountains. The only scheme for housing
development for Palestinian refugees approved unanimously
by the RWG was a US grant to rebuild destroyed shelters
in Sabra and Shatila (Beirut), but this scheme was
never approved by the Lebanese government.
Within the West Bank and Gaza the dismantling of
the refugee camps should be a matter subject to a
mutual agreement on their status,and acceptable to
the refugees themselves, rather than an imposition
dictated by Israel's conditions for a quota of returning
refugees. In the Arab host countries, the liquidation
of the refugee camps should be subject to the regularization
of their legal and civil status within the host countries,
and only after they receive the options of repatriation
or resettlements. In all of these cases the refugee
population should be a party to these agreements.
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