No waiving the right of return

Palestinians have been taking to the streets in the West Bank, Gaza, and also in the Diaspora to reassert the "right of return" for the estimated 4 million Palestinian refugees who were either expelled at gunpoint by jewish soldiers and irregulars or fled in fear from what is now Israel on the eve of its establishment in 1948.

In the West Bank, numerous rallies, demonstrations and academic panels are being organized, almost on a daily basis, for the purpose of underscoring the inviolability of the right of return. Through these acts, participants are also sending a clear warning to "all concerned," including Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority (PA), that this right cannot be ignored or compromised.

Most of the activities promoting awareness of the right to return are being overseen by the Nablus-based Committee for the Defense of the palestinian Refugee Rights (CDPRR) headed by Palestinian Legislative Council member Hussam Khader, of the Balata refugee camp, himself the son of a refugee.

The CDPRR is non-partisan and accepts in its membership all Palestinians, Arabs, Muslims and international supporters willing to devote their time and money to facilitate the attainment of the right of return.

In mid January, the committee started a campaign throughout the occupied territories aimed at getting as many refugees as circumstances allow to sign a vow asserting this right.

The oath reads, "I swear to God to reaffirm my adherence to the right of return to my locality [in Palestine] from which I was/my parents were evicted by the Zionist invaders. I further declare that I have not delegated anybody to renounce this right and I reject any and every alternative proposal for my resettlement."

Khader described the signing of the oath, which received widespread coverage in the local and Arab media, particularly among satellite television stations, as a remarkable success so far.

"This effort is directed at two goals: keeping the cause for the right of return at the fore of all discussions pertaining to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and, second, supporting the refugees' insistence on the realization of the right of return and rejecting any alternatives to it," he explained.

Khader pointed out that at no time since the Palestinian Nakba or catastrophe in 1948 has the right of return been so widely asserted among the refugees themselves and Palestinians in general.

"I can tell you that we have succeeded in convincing much of the world that the right of return is at the heart of the Palestinian issue and that without granting the refugees that right there can be no enduring peace in the region."

But Khader, like most Palestinians, harbors no illusion about Israel's position on the matter. He said that he did not expect Israel to reverse its adamant refusal to allow refugees to return to territory held by the Palestinians prior to 1967. "We know this quite well. But this is not our problem; we can't allow ethnic cleansing to triumph. We will assert this position day and night. We will not allow ourselves to rest because the right of return is a matter of life or death for the refugees and the Palestinian national cause as a whole. The refugees' cause is the Palestinian cause."

Palestinian determination to cling to the right of return also found expression last week when refugees and other activists in the West Bank, and also in Lebanon, burned an effigy and portraits of Canadian Foreign Minister John Manley who reportedly had suggested that Canada would be willing to settle some Palestinian refugees on its soil.

The offer was lauded by Israeli negotiator Gilad Sher as "a much-appreciated effort to solve one of the toughest issues of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict."

However, the PA, and Palestinians generally, viewed it with suspicion and questioned its timing, coming in the aftermath of former US President Bill Clinton's proposal which ruled out the refugees' return to their original towns and villages.

Palestinian Legislative Council Speaker Ahmed Qorei described the Canadian offer as "probably good in its intent but disastrous in its implications and political ramifications." He decried the very idea of banishing the Palestinian refugees once again to what he called a new diaspora. "Have you heard of leaders anywhere in the world who ask foreign countries to accept their people. We are not going to distribute our people among other nations."

A stronger reaction came from Fatah as well as Islamist leaders in the West Bank who in a joint statement described the Canadian offer as "not innocent, at the very best, and malicious at worst."

"We suggest that the Canadian government display even-handedness by offering to absorb a million Israeli Jewish settlers in order to facilitate the return of those homeless refugees to their ancestral homelands."

Disturbed by the indignant reactions to his remarks, Manley instructed the Canadian ambassador to Israel and other Canadian representatives in the region to issue a "clarification" saying that Canada's motivation was purely humanitarian in nature.

Moreover, Manley wrote to Nabil Ayyad, president of the Canadian Palestinian Center in Ottawa, on 15 January, reiterating Canada's support for United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194 of 11 December 1948, which stipulates that "refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practical date."

Manley added, "Canada believes that the Palestinian refugee issue must be resolved through negotiations by the parties directly concerned, and that this solution should respect the rights, dignity and human security of the refugees, and should be consistent with international law."

The ostensibly successful efforts by Palestinian refugee leaders (over half of the Palestinian people are refugees) to push the right of return to the forefront of discussions on the Middle East underlines the fact that Palestinians, especially the masses, view the refugees' plight as primarily political and legal in nature, not merely humanitarian, as many in the West view it. Indeed, this perception is being consolidated among the younger generations of refugees.

According to a recent statistical study on the attitudes of Palestinian refugees sponsored by the Center for Refugee Studies at Oxford University, which drew its sample from Palestinian refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and the occupied territories, 85 per cent of the randomly chosen respondents said they would not give up the right of return under any circumstances.

The study also showed that the younger and more educated refugees tended to be more adamant about the right of return than the older and less educated ones.

The increasing momentum which the right of return is gathering among Palestinian refugees is likely to be viewed with a certain amount of ambivalence by the PA leadership. For the time being, the PA is expected to use this momentum to try to extract concessions from Israel on the issue, perhaps by obtaining a commitment to allow several hundreds of thousands of refugees to return to Israel through the family reunification program.

However, in the long run, it seems highly likely that the PA will find itself on a collision course with the vast majority of refugees who appear ready to remain stalwart in their insistence on their right to return home.