Lisa Suhair Majaj is a Palestinian-American essayist, poet, and scholar. With Amal Amireh she coedited Going Global: The Transnational Reception of Third World Women Writers (Garland Press, 2000).
One of Israel's most fundamental precepts is the "law of return," specifying the right of Jews, whatever their national origin, to immigrate freely into Israel. But whether framed in terms of religion, culture, or safe haven, Jewish "return" cannot be separated from its logical consequence: Palestinian dispossession.
During and after the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, 750,000 Palestinians, inhabitants of over 532 villages, were made refugees through a process that today would be called ethnic cleansing. Of the 150,000 Palestinians who remained in what became Israel, 40,000 were internally displaced, and most of these were prevented from returning to their homes. With the 1967 occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, 350,000 more Palestinians became refugees, many for the second time. Today there are close to 5 million refugees dispersed in 59 camps throughout the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon, and individually throughout the world. Their right to repatriation and compensation is upheld by international law and by universal human rights charters. But after nearly 53 years, these refugees remain in exile.
Among the usual reasons for denying Palestinian return is the argument that the refugees would displace Israeli Jews and overwhelm the Israeli state. Here, several facts should be kept in mind. First, proponents of the right of return do not call for the displacement of Jewish families from Palestinian homes. Rather, they call for a return to the general areas from which Palestinians were displaced. Second, refugee return is physically possible. According to geographer Salman Abu-Sitta, 78% of Jews in Israel live on only 15% of the land, leaving large areas of empty land available to accommodate returning refugees; moreover, approximately 70% of refugee land is underdeveloped. In addition, Israel has a proven record of absorbing large numbers of immigrants. Even if four million refugees returned (a highly unlikely scenario) the population density of Israel would still be lower than that of the Netherlands or of Belgium. Whether or not most refugees would choose to return to Israel, given current political realities, is a question--but the right to this choice is inalienable.
The most telling rationale for denying refugee return is that the demographic ratio of Jews to non-Jews in Israel would be unsettled. Israel is defined as a state of and for only one part of its population: Jews. As a result, preferential treatment of Jews and the maintenance of a Jewish majority are enshrined in Israeli law, and Israel's Palestinian citizens are relegated to at best a second-class existence. But as a number of critics--including Israeli and American Jews--have pointed out, such legally-endorsed inequality is a fatal flaw in Israeli democracy. The ramifications of such an ideology of separation become particularly clear at moments of political crisis. For instance, in an opinion poll published in the Israeli paper Ma'ariv shortly after the outbreak of the recent intifada, the idea of "transferring" Palestinian citizens out of Israel received an approval rate of 60% among Israeli Jews in general, and 100% among Orthodox groups.
What such arguments seek to obscure is the fact that Palestinian refugee return is mandated by both international law and universal principles of human rights. Israeli statehood and later admission to the UN were predicated on Israel's acceptance, as specified in UN Resolution 194, of the return of the Palestinians forced out before and during the 1948 war. Resolution 194, adopted in 1948 and reaffirmed almost yearly since then by a near-universal consensus, states that "the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date." UN General Assembly Resolution 3236 similarly reaffirms "the inalienable right of the Palestinians to return to their homes and property from which they have been displaced and uprooted." As recently as November the UN affirmed, yet again, that "the Palestine Arab refugees are entitled to their property and to the income derived therefrom, in conformity with the principles of justice and equity."
In refusing to allow Palestinian refugees to return, Israel is also in defiance of key human rights charters. These include: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which asserts the right of every individual to leave and return to his country; the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ratified by Israel), which asserts that "No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of the right to enter his own country"; the Principle of Self Determination, adopted by the UN in 1947 and explicitly applied to the Palestinian people in 1969, guaranteeing the right of ownership and domicile in one's own country. Given these facts, Israeli proposals to allow a limited, select group of refugees to enter Israel under "family reunification" programs are inadequate, because they do not fulfill the internationally recognized principle of right of return.
Whatever the future of the "peace process," one thing remains clear: the right of return cannot be negotiated away. International law specifies that agreements between an occupier and any body in occupied areas are null and void if they deprive civilians of recognized human rights--including the rights of repatriation and restitution. As UN Mediator Count Folke Bernadotte put it in 1948, "It would be an offence against the principles of elemental justice if these innocent victims of the conflict were denied the right to return to their homes, while Jewish immigrants flow into Palestine." It is startling that the US--which has insisted upon the repatriation of refugees in other conflicts (such as Kosovo), and which has not hesitated to use military force to enforce UN Resolutions in other countries (such as Iraq)--continues to acquiesce to this injustice. After almost 53 years of exile, it is time for Palestinians to be granted the most fundamental right of all: the right to go home.
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