The Refugee Question

The refugee issue epitomizes the human cost of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and, not surprisingly, its most complex and irresolvable aspect. For most Palestinians, whether camp dwellers or members of the Arab bourgeoisie, it has become the core issue of their national identity and the defining symbol of their powerlessness and statelessness, evoking powerful emotions. Yet significantly, this core issue has never assumed its rightful place at the negotiating table. Israel has managed so far to make refugee marginalization a precondition for its participation in peace negotiations. But new dangers facing the refugee community in several countries, coupled with the unlikelihood of any resumption of peace talks, give the refugee issue new urgency. Like it or not, there can be no real peace in the region without a just resolution of the refugee question.

The Palestinian National Movement and the Refugees

Any serious consideration of the refugee issue comes up against the fact that it has never benefited from systematic strategic thinking or articulation. Even after the PLO successfully resurrected Palestinian national identity, the refugee issue remained ill-defined. The PLO came into being in 1964 as a national liberation movement dedicated to the restoration of the rights of its main political constituency, namely the refugees, yet for some years the organization did not elaborate on the right of return: Neither its 1964 nor its 1968 charters even mentions it. This can be explained by the exclusive focus at the time on liberating all Palestine and the assumption that return would be a natural consequence of this. Following the 1967 war, the refugee issue was highlighted in UN Security Council Resolution 242, which called for “a just settlement of the refugee problem” (the word “Palestinian” appears nowhere in the resolution) as part of a general Middle East settlement, with no mention of the right of return enshrined in earlier UN resolutions. Indeed, for the framers of the famed resolution, the intention was clearly to ignore the existence of a Palestinian question as such and to reduce it by implication to a “refugee problem” of a strictly technical nature—i.e., resettlement of the refugees in the host countries or elsewhere. The PLO adamantly rejected the resolution’s depoliticizing, “humanitarian” approach from the outset, but it was not until the mid-1970s, when it began to move toward acceptance of a negotiated settlement and the two-state solution, that it began to give special emphasis to the right of return per se. From then on, the right of return was at the top of the national agenda, and the Palestinian case was increasingly articulated in terms of what came to be known at the UN as “the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people”: the right to self-determination, sovereignty (independent statehood), and—very prominently—the right of return.

But as soon as the prospect of engaging in a Middle East peace conference loomed on the horizon in the early 1990s, the PLO began to move toward acceptance of an individual right of return, even while still verbally espousing the collective right of refugee return as expressed in its own as well as various UN General Assembly resolutions. In the face of Israel’s adamant refusal to consider any implementation of return within its own boundaries, PLO ranks became divided between pragmatists, who acceded to the notion of refugee settlement in the future Palestinian state, and those who insisted on the right of the refugees to the site of their original homes in Israel. The 1993 Oslo agreement pushed discussion of the refugee issue to the “final status” phase, but as negotiations for that phase approached, the disarray within the Palestinian position became apparent. Although officially insisting on the “absolute” right of return as defined by the UNGA, the Palestine Authority, reinforced by a host of academics who frequented reconciliation conferences in the United States and elsewhere, began floating various proposals that might be acceptable to Israel. The best known result of the “back channel” explorations was an unofficial plan, the so called “Beilin–Abu Mazin paper” on final status issues, that was worked out in 1996 between the PLO’s Mahmud Abbas, the future president of the PA, and Israel’s Yossi Beilin, under which the only refugee return would be to the future Palestinian state. Clearly, this was the direction in which the PA was moving, and indeed, this was the essence of the refugee negotiations as reported both at Camp David in 2000 and at Taba in 2001. After the collapse of the official “peace process,” the so-called Geneva Accord reached in October 2003 by Beilin and the PA’s Yasir `Abid Rabbuh, which though unofficial had the full backing of the PA, follows the same pattern: While acknowledging the legitimacy of the UN resolutions on refugees, the document emphasized the refugees’ right to compensation and made any return to Israel subject to its “sovereign discretion.” In other words, any return to Israel would involve at most token numbers (40,000 was the highest figure mentioned, unofficially, by Israeli negotiators at Taba, and these to be spread over five years).
 
Grass Roots and Varying Agendas

Meanwhile, even as the peace process was eroding the internationally recognized right of return, the situation of the refugee communities, especially in the “host countries” bordering Israel, was becoming more precarious as a consequence both of the removal of the PLO military divisions from the main refugee centers and of the diversion of humanitarian aid to the West Bank and Gaza post-Oslo. Starting with the Madrid process, and especially with the marginalization of the PLO following the creation of the PA, the feeling of neglect within the refugee communities intensified. There were also growing fears that the PA was using the refugee card as a weapon in the battle for Palestinian statehood. The result was the emergence in the early 1990s of a number of grass-roots refugee organizations in the Palestinian territories and in the diaspora in order to redefine and articulate the right of return. Aidun, which spoke for the refugee communities in Lebanon, was established in 1990. In Israel itself, the Committee for the Defense of the Rights of the Displaced was founded in 1992. After convening high-visibility conferences, organizations such as BADIL and the Refugee Studies Center at al-Quds Open University emerged a few years later. Beyond the Arab region, al-Awda coalition developed in the late 1990s, mainly in the United States, and refugee research centers appeared in, among other places, Britain and Canada. There was a Palestinian Return Center in London and al-Adalah Palestinian Center in Sweden. Importantly, the Palestine Right of Return Coalition was officially established in 2001, comprising numerous groups from the Middle East, Europe, and North America. Large refugee conferences representing a wide array of organizations have been held in London, Berlin, and Vienna, with a fourth conference scheduled to convene in May 2006 at Malmo, Sweden.

Despite the increasing attention to the refugee issue and the proliferation of refugee rights groups, there is little consensus regarding the preferred strategy for achieving refugee rights, especially the right of return. Indeed, there is not even a consensus on implementation of that right. In principle, all Palestinians, including the “pragmatist” elements of the PLO and the PA (whose refugee department participated in most of the popular refugee conferences), would have wanted the full implementation of the UNGA Resolution 194 calling for the return of all refugees to their homes inside Israel. The dilemma was, and is, between what is seen as desirable and what is seen as “possible.”

A further complication in articulating a position acceptable to all segments of the Palestinian population is the contrasting conditions of the refugees in their various areas of settlement. The largest refugee communities are in the Arab world, mostly in camps operated by UNRWA in the West Bank, Gaza, and the countries bordering on Israel (Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan), with smaller communities elsewhere in the Arab world and in Europe and the West. There are also almost 250,000 “internal refugees” in Israel itself. These are Palestinians displaced from their homes and villages in 1948 who remained in the country but were not allowed to return to their homes or villages. In addition to their geographical dispersal, the refugees have widely differing situations, ranging from highly assimilated successful members of the societies in which they live—in Arab countries and the West—to impoverished communities under direct and immediate threat. 

Among the worst situations is that of the refugee community in Lebanon, which is in constant tension with the authorities, increasingly impoverished by UNRWA cutbacks, and whose members are banned from holding professional jobs and live under the control of various Palestinian militant factions inside the camps and under the watchful eyes of the Lebanese authorities posted outside. Perhaps even more threatened is the far smaller refugee community in Iraq (about 45,000, though the new government has been greatly exaggerating its numbers to create a sense of threat among the Iraqi public), now being scapegoated simply because it had enjoyed the protection of the Ba`th regime. Accused of collaborating with the former rulers, these Palestinians have been evicted from their homes in Mosul and in Baghdad’s poorest neighborhoods; most have been removed to makeshift camps along the Jordanian border. While the Syrian refugee community, at least as large as that in Lebanon, has one of the better situations among the exiled refugee communities, its security (like that of the refugee community in Iraq) is also tied to the regime, and any destabilization of the Damascus government could place it in a similarly threatened situation. The largest Palestinian refugee community is in Jordan, where its situation is mixed: Although enfranchised and naturalized after Jordan’s annexation of the West Bank in 1948, Palestinians have had their share of political insecurity over the years (most dramatically during the 1970 Jordanian civil war and its aftermath). Furthermore, Amman’s unilateral political disengagement from the West Bank in 1988 raised fears of loss of citizenship rights. Indeed, following the Jordanian separation decree, West Bank Palestinians saw their citizenship status reduced to “temporary residents” with two-year passports used for travel documents.

Some Thoughts on the Future

What is to be done, then, given the precarious security situation of certain refugee communities, the absence of a unified Palestinian position, the lack of a single representative organization to speak on behalf of the disparate communities (especially in the camps), and the possibility of foreclosing this issue altogether with the prospect, even likelihood, of a settlement unilaterally imposed by Israel? The absence of consensus about what the Palestinians should push for remains a serious obstacle to the formulation of any coherent strategy. The one issue on which there has been agreement up to the present is the need to rely on the strength and durability of international law in advancing the refugee case. Though disappointing in the past, it remains the legal bedrock of the issue: UNGA Resolution 194 unequivocally establishing the refugees’ right of return and compensation continues to be reaffirmed every year in a number of annual UN resolutions. But while international law has sustained Palestinian claims all these years, the election of a Hamas government could complicate the case, as Hamas’s ideological premises derive not from the principles of international law but from Islamic principles. It would be a calamity if the new Hamas government—if it succeeds in holding on to the reins of power—downplays the importance of the UN’s responsibilities, not only because it would result in the reduction of material aid, but also because it would erode the international organization’s contractual commitment to the physical survival of the refugees.

The Palestinian refugee issue has never been simply a “Palestinian problem,” and more than ever before there is need for a supra refugee organization or a higher council that can deal with the political dimensions of the problem. Such a body could not be under the aegis of the UN, which historically has been tasked with the humanitarian dimensions. Given that the refugee issue is also an Arab problem, with the great majority of the refugees outside Mandatory Palestine living in the Arab world, the most logical sponsor of this organization would be the Arab League, the only remaining body at least theoretically capable of adopting pan-Arab policies. It also would make sense for the new refugee body to be headquartered in an Arab country far from the conflict area, such as the United Arab Emirates. It would be within this body, where the various right of return organizations would also be represented, that a single and clear position could be hammered out and aligned with the PA and broad Arab consensus. Whatever the league’s past record on Palestine, such an office would have a stature and legitimacy, and if well staffed and adequately funded could have greater impact than the league’s Arab Information Offices in the past. Part of the refugee office’s function would be to carry out lobbying activities on behalf of the refugee communities, including with the U.S. Congress. For this purpose, however, a national Arab-American arm could be set up. Overall, a refugee council should be empowered to act as the lobby’s governing board in order to shield it from the bureaucratic and factional hazards of the Arab League and its member states.

There is no question that the establishment of a pan-Arab supra refugee body would encounter enormous difficulties and require determination, efforts, and resources. But with no realistic prospect of Palestinian-Israeli negotiations on the horizon, and with Israel wanting normalization with the Arab world, such a development would seem to have the greatest chance of moving the refugee issue forward and saving it from total marginalization.
 

Ghada Hashem Talhami is the D. K. Pearsons Professor of Politics at Lake Forest College, Lake Forest, Illinois.