In one of the outstanding of the ten essays in this valuable
collection, Prof. Rashid Khalidi explains the futility in the
Palestinian-Israeli conflict of attempts to continue sweeping
history under the rug. He believes that any failure to acknowledge
"the gross injustice done to their entire people in 1948 would
require the Palestinians to deny core elements in their own
national narrative." This book sets out firstly to record and
analyze the narrative of the Palestinian exodus and, secondly, to
suggest how the problem of the Palestinian refugees can be solved.
Prof. Khalidi, who is director of the Center for International
Studies at the University of Chicago, sees any solution as
depending upon facing "the truth about what happened in 1948 and
the truth about what is attainable 50 years later." He is critical
of the Madrid-Washington-Oslo negotiating process and recommends
learning from the South African model, which strives first for
truth (without which there can be no move forward) and then for
"justice and finally reconciliation."
False Version
Edited by two prominent London-based Palestinian academics, most of
the writers of The Palestinian Exodus are Palestinians, but there
are also contributions by Israelis and experts from the
international community. As for the truth of 1948, in recent years
it has been increasingly proven that the official Israeli version
of the creation of the refugee problem (that they left of their own
volition, or were told by their leaders to leave temporarily) is
false; thus, Israeli historian Ilan Pappe writes of "a consensus
between the 'new historians' in Israel and many Palestinian
historians that Israel bore the main burden for the making of the
[refugee] problem."
Nevertheless, it is common knowledge that outside academic circles,
there remains a wide and frightening gap between the self-image of
Israelis and Palestinians in their acknowledging what led to the
exodus in 1948 of some 750,000 Palestinians, 50 percent of the
entire Arab population of Mandatory Palestine. (There was a second
exodus of an estimated 320,000 Palestinians - some put the figure
as much higher - from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in 1967.) A
number of writers discuss the important question of the connection
between the "transfer" concept in Zionist ideology and history and
the actual events of 1948. As for righting the wrong perpetrated
with the birth of Israel, even a dovish Israeli personality like
the author Amos Oz, who has always identified with the Israeli
peace movement, saw fit not long ago to write that "the Right of
Return is an Arab euphemism for the destruction of the State of
Israel" (The New York Times, July 27, 2000).
Admitting Responsibility
On the other hand, speaking of reconciliation and atonement between
Germans and Jews, or white and black South Africans, Khalidi
mentions that after nearly 160 years, a British prime minister
recently admitted his country's share of responsibility for the
Irish famine of 1845 (which led to half a million deaths). He sees
the South Africans as trying to recognize a wrong done, even if
absolute justice is unattainable. Prof. Pappe, who teaches at the
University of Haifa, notes that in 1958, when David Ben-Gurion had
happily let the world forget the refugee problem, the Israeli peace
advocate Prof. Martin Buber did propose a plan for reconciliation.
Israel would recognize its responsibility for the refugee problem
and absorb a token number of refugees as a principal recognition of
the Right of Return. While Buber the renowned philosopher of
dialogue was listened to as a moralist, Buber the binationalist and
his small Ichud group never exerted real influence on Zionist or
Israeli policies.
Part One of this book contains four essays providing a mass of
historical material on the History of the Exodus 1948-1998, with
chapters on Palestinians in exile; historiography and its relevance
to the refugee problem; the 1967 exodus; and the ongoing expulsion
from Jerusalem. Part Two contains five articles on compensation and
reconciliation, dealing with international law; the Right of Return
to their homes in Israel; the feasibility of the Right of Return;
compensation and reparations; and elements of a solution to the
Palestinian refugee problem. The book ends with Ghada Karmi's
article "Concluding Vision: A Return to Israel/Palestine?"
Principle and Practice
Part Two is less uniform in its approach than Part One. In "The
Feasibility of the Right of Return," Salman Abu-Sitta proposes a
detailed geographic-demographic plan for the Return, including what
he calls "a maximalist scenario in which all refugees return and
all Jewish Israelis stay. Palestinians must have the right to
return, whether they actually return or not." (He notes that only
one-third of Jews exercised the right given to Jews the world over
to live in Israel.) He writes that "even in the maximalist case,
only 154,000 Jews would face relocation elsewhere in Israel to
allow 4,476,000 refugees to return to their homes," concluding that
"this is a very small concession to achieve real peace." But can
raising such an unreal scenario help to achieve peace?
As against this "maximalist case," in his essay "Truth, Justice and
Reconciliation: Elements of a Solution to the Palestinian Refugee
Issue," Khalidi seems more concerned with "what is attainable." He
demands "the right of the refugees to return to their homes in
principle," while noting that "in practice, many will be unable to
exercise this right, whether as a result of Israel's refusal to
allow all of them to do so, or of the disappearance of their homes
and villages, or because of the sheer numbers of people involved.
However, it should be accepted that as many refugees as possible
should be allowed to return to what is now Israel." As a minimal
gesture, he suggests that the present strong Israel, which as a new
and weak country was ready in 1949 to accept up to 100,000 refugees
in the framework of family reunification, should now similarly
accept 450,000 refugees, about 15 percent of the total. This would
help to address the resentment among the Palestinians of their
exclusion, while they witness Israel absorbing unlimited numbers of
Jews from abroad.
The essays by Khalidi and Abu-Sitta make it crystal clear that the
principle of the Right of Return is universally embraced by all
Palestinians and irrefutably anchored in international law,
particularly UN General Assembly Resolution 194 (111) of December
11, 1948, which states that "the refugees wishing to return to
their homes and live in peace with their neighbors should be
permitted to do so at the earliest practical date," or be paid
compensation. Israel has failed for 52 years to comply with these
international obligations. Nevertheless, Part Two of The
Palestinian Exodus indicates that the practical application of the
principle of return can be interpreted in more ways than one. This
may disappoint those seeking monolithic answers, but it ensures
that the book is both more genuine and more comprehensive.