Palestinian Property Rights

More than fifty years after the holocaust, Jews around the world continue to fight for and receive restitution for material and non-material losses inflicted by the Nazi regime throughout Europe. More than fifty years after the Palestinian people were displaced and dispossessed by an exclusive Jewish state established in Palestine in the aftermath of Nazi atrocities in Europe, Palestinians are still being dispossessed, dispersed, and denied any kind of restitution. Restitution is a universal human right. Persons now fighting for restitution are therefore to be supported.

Palestinians, of whom two-thirds are refugees, also have the right of restitution, including the return of the rightful owners to their property as well as restitution for other material and non-material losses. Resolution 194, which recognizes the right of refugees to restitution, has been reaffirmed one hundred and ten times by the United Nations. Further, as recently as November 1998, the UN General Assembly reaffirmed in Resolution 52/644 the principle, based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and international law, that Palestinian refugees are entitled to all revenues from their property.

Regardless of the final status of Palestinian refugees, effective restitution and resolution of the refugee issue will be dependent on several factors. This is by no means an exhaustive list. First, the right to restitution and the return of property must be recognized as a universal human right as defined in article 17 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and acknowledged by individuals and organizations, including those of Jewish and Israeli orientation, which seek restitution. On the basis of this right, all refugee assets currently held by Israel should be frozen while government and institutional archives of relevance to Palestinian refugees and their properties should be open for assessment and research of Palestinian refugee losses.

Secondly, refugees must be full partners in the process to determine their future. The collective exclusion of Palestinian refugees from a meaningful process, which seriously address the primary preferences and basic expectations of the refugees, to determine their own future places further barriers against resolution of the refugee issue. Fundamentally, this means that the right of return and compensation for material and non-material losses must be addressed. Third, narrow, linguistic interpretations of international law should not stand in the way of an agreement on restitution for Palestinian refugees. Under principles of international law, human rights treaties, such as those which recognize the right to restitution, should be interpreted "in their fundamentally humanistic rather than technical connotation".

While restitution can never fully make amends for all losses, suffering, and crimes against humanity, restitution establishes a precedent which should prevent the repetition of such catastrophes in the future.