I only wish that I could provide "The Solution" to a problem which,
for nearly half a century, has bedeviled the Palestinian people,
and at the same time has been one of the major motive forces of
development in and around Palestine. I do not have any such
presumption. What I propose to do, instead, is to make some
observations on the prerequisites for a solu¬tion, as I see
them, and to set forth some elements of a fair and just
solu¬tion. Before going any further, let me say that when I
speak of a just solu¬tion, I am not talking of absolute
justice, which I believe is unattainable in this world. What I am
referring to is a nebulous concept which I suppose might be termed
attainable justice, or justice within the realm of the
possi¬ble, in other words, justice within the limits of what
is realistically attain¬able in current and future
circumstances.
The Historic Responsibility
Having registered this caveat, let me begin by saying that the
refugee issue cannot be addressed as many other issues have been
dealt with in the Palestinian-Israeli negotiations to date. In much
of what has been done so far, history has been tossed out the
window, and efforts to achieve a solu¬tion of a given problem
have begun as if the two sides were operating on a tabula rasa, as
if there were no past which had to be accounted for and dealt with.
For example, after 27 years of intensive efforts to smash every
possible element of the internal and external Palestinian
infrastructure ¬through air, land and sea attacks on
institutions and installations, inva¬sions, and assassinations
of leaders in Lebanon and elsewhere, and through imprisonment and
exile of leaders and attrition of the entire soci¬ety and
economy inside Palestine - Israel recently handed over
responsi¬bility for governance in parts of the West Bank and
the Gaza Strip and in certain spheres to a Palestinian
authority.
On the refugee issue, there can be no such cavalier treatment of
history. We have begun to learn about the historic responsibility
for the creation of the refugee problem. Indeed, almost every year
there is a larger body of impeccable scholarship which establishes
the actual course of events in the creation of this problem, most
of this fine scholarship by Israeli scholars, it must be said. But
it is not only because the facts are becoming known that history
must be an element in the solution. Rather, it is because this
issue is so central to the national narrative and the self-view of
the Palestinian people that any approach which tries to sweep
history under the rug will fail utterly. The Palestinians might put
up with humiliating and unequal agreements based on ignoring
history in the economic sphere, in the area of security, and in
other domains. But it is hard to visualize them standing for an
attempt to pretend that the refugee issue does not have specific
his¬toric roots, and can be resolved accordingly.
This means that, whenever negotiations reach what are called the
final status talks, Israel will have to take responsibility for its
conduct in the past, and accept that the deliberate actions of the
state's founding fathers have played the major role in making more
than half of the Palestinian peo¬ple refugees between 1947 and
1949. This will not be easy for any Israeli leader to do,
particularly since some of them can be counted among those founding
fathers.
Israelis will be asked to accept a proposition which in effect
means that their country was born in original sin in 1948. As if
this were not hard enough, this proposition moreover flies in the
face of decades of efforts at denial of any responsibility by the
Israeli state, efforts which have power¬fully shaped the
Israeli national consciousness on this issue. We have seen in other
contexts how hard it can be for public opinion to accept such
propositions, especially where they relate to national founding
myths.
Accepting unlimited liability for this problem will inevitably be
seen as the first step towards the wholesale return of all
Palestinians, once made refugees, to their original homes. This in
turn would lead to the dissolution of the demographic balance
favorable to Israel created by the events of 1948, which many
Israelis would regard as tantamount to national suicide. This is
obviously politically unacceptable for any Israeli government, and
to argue seriously for Israeli acceptance of unlimited
responsibility means, in my opinion, to argue against the
possibility of any real solution to this issue.
Some would go further to argue that one cannot expect an Israeli
gov¬ernment to accept any responsibility for what was done to
the Palestinians in 1948, and that in any case, if a relatively
equitable solution can be worked out, it does not matter whether
Israel atones for its actions. I dis¬agree for two reasons.
The first is that real reconciliation, real healing, can only begin
when such steps have been taken. The fact that they have not yet
been taken is part of the reason that such reconciliation has not
yet real¬ly started in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
Symbolic Resistance
The second reason why such a hard path is necessary in regard to
the refugee question is a much more prosaic one: in my opinion, it
is incon¬ceivable that most refugees or their descendants will
be allowed to exercise their right of return to their original
homes in what is now Israel for the foreseeable future, or perhaps
ever. This being the case, and even were there to be the most
generous reparations for the losses involved, it is essential that
the existential hurt that was done to the majority of the
Palestinian people be acknowledged by those who caused that hurt,
or their successors in power. This is a mainly symbolic response to
a real grievance, but in a situation where, in most cases, there
can probably be no fundamental redress of that grievance - beyond
the possibility of com¬pensation - the symbolic response is
all the more important. Given that, in some sense, the war is over,
and Israel is clearly the victor, one might expect a little more
generosity on this and other issues that we have seen so far, but
even this symbolic response will clearly not come easily. This is
why it is essential that the concept of reparations be established
as one basic element of any solution.
In international law, and according to U.N. General Assembly
resolu¬tions, the Palestinians made refugees in 1948 have the
right to return to their homes, or to be compensated for their
property, should they choose not to return, and all have the right
to compensation for property lost or damaged. In the Palestinian
view, and in my reading of international law - not to speak of
higher, moral law - that is an inalienable right. The only
limitation placed on that right in Resolution 194 in 1948 was that
they be willing to live in peace with their neighbors. Today,
however, in practice that right is limited by other factors. The
refugees and their descendants can be compared to people forced to
flee their homes by a flood which has permanently inundated their
original communities, and who have a right to return which they
simply cannot exercise by reason of force majeure.
I would argue that a number of them, perhaps those with families
still located in their home villages inside Israel, could and
should still be allowed to return to their homes, but for most
Palestinians, whether we like it or not, it is as if their homes
and villages have been submerged for these villages have been
obliterated. However, there is one vital difference between the two
cases: unlike a flood, the State of Israel is not a force of
nature; and because it is not a force of nature, it can and must be
held responsible for its actions. This is why the term
"reparations" is so important, for it denotes clearly this
responsibility, and indicates that this is not simply compensation
granted automatically and impartially by some anonymous government
body, as would be the case for unfortunates whose homes were lost
in raging floods.
Attainable Justice
Given all of the above, what can those made refugees in 1948 and
their descendants look forward to? The following are some elements
of a solu¬tion which embodies at least a modicum of what may
be attainable justice. This is not by any means an exhaustive list
of these elements.
Firstly, there must be some symbolic recognition by Israel of the
hurt that was done to the Palestinians made refugees in 1948. This
is essential if the bitter pill of the loss of most of the
Palestinian homeland is finally swal¬lowed, and if the page is
finally to be turned on the harsh injustice done to the Palestinian
people. This must go beyond mere statements by politi¬cians,
and extend to the powerful means of socialization under the direct
control of the Israeli state, like history textbooks and
indoctrination within the military.
Secondly, it must be accepted that all Palestinian refugees and
their descendants have a right to return to their homes in
principle, although it is equally accepted that in practice, force
majeure will prevent most of them from being able to exercise this
right - whether as a result of Israel's refusal to allow them to do
so, or of the disappearance of their homes and villages many
decades ago. In exercise of this right, however, at least some
Palestinians should be allowed to return to what is now Israel,
even if this is done under the guise of family reunification for
those whose home vil¬lages still exist, have family living
there, and are willing to become citizens of the State of Israel,
with all that entails, and even if this means a regulat¬ed
entry of only a few thousand or tens of thousands of people over
many years. It is particularly galling that Palestinians who may be
suffering per¬secution as close to their ancestral homes as
South Lebanon or as far away as Libya cannot return to Palestine,
while Jewish victims of persecution from much farther afield are
welcome.
A third element is reparations for all those who will not be
allowed to return, and compensation for those who lost property in
1948. Given that most refugees will not be able to return, the sums
involved are large indeed, according to the most recent estimate of
property losses alone. Depending on the criteria used, they range
from $92 billion to $147 billion at 1984 prices. Even if one uses
an entirely different approach, $20,000 per person for an
arbitrarily chosen figure of two million eligible refugees and
their descendants, yields a figure of $40 billion. However, lest
this seem like a great deal of money, it should be recalled that it
amounts to little more than a decade's worth of U.S. aid to
Israel.
It might be mentioned here that if compensation for property lost
is the basis for part of these reparations, as it was for part of
the German repara¬tions to Israel, then Jews who left or were
forced to leave Arab countries in and after 1948, similarly have a
perfectly legitimate claim, one which might conceivably be resoled
in tandem with reparations to the Palestinians.
A fourth element is the right to live in the
Palestinian-state-to-be, and to carry its passport, a right already
putatively extended to all Palestinians by the 1988 Declaration of
Independence, which stated that the State of Palestine was the
state of all Palestinians. The right to live in this state
¬the collective right of return to Palestine, as it were -
will necessarily be restricted by the new country's absorptive
capacity, which is limited, but which could be increased by
determined efforts by the Palestinian public and private sectors.
Whether such efforts will be exerted will be one of the great tests
of the Palestinian National Authority, and should be a primary
concern of Palestinians in holding this Authority to account for
its actions. However, lest we be subjected to some historical
comparisons with Israel, which nearly doubled its Jewish population
within one year of its estab¬lishment by taking in over
600,000 Jewish refugees, it must be remembered that in 1948-49
Israel had the benefit of the huge stock of housing,
agricul¬tural, industrial and other forms of capital left
behind by the 750,000 Palestinians whom the state had just made
refugees. The Palestinian National Authority, in contrast, starts
its life with an economy drained of capital by 28 years of
Occupation.
Special Situations
Fifthly, there remain two groups whose situation requires special
atten¬tion: the Palestinian refugees in Jordan and those in
Lebanon (some points pertaining to those in Lebanon apply to those
in Syria as well). Palestinians in Jordan, beyond any of those who
choose to return to the areas under control of the Palestinian
National Authority today, or the Palestinian state tomorrow, and
beyond any reparations they may receive, deserve a final and
equitable resolution of their legal status. One solution which
might be envisaged in Jordan would involve most Palestinians
staying in the country with a choice of either full rights of
citizenship as Jordanians, or alternatively somewhat more limited
rights as citizens of the Palestinian component of a
Jordanian-Palestinian confederation. Such an arrangement, or
another acceptable to a majority of both Palestinians and
Jordanians, will hopefully be possible in the not-too-distant
future, when the resolution of questions at issue between the two
peoples will have been addressed deliberately and rationally.
As far as Lebanon is concerned, a resolution of the status of
Palestinians is urgent, since it impacts directly on the internal
Lebanese equilibrium, and is once again today on the country's
political agenda. In Lebanon, there is no option for a
constitutional arrangement as might be envisaged in Jordan, since
there is no likelihood of Lebanon granting most Palestinians full
rights of citizenship, an option unacceptable to all of the
country's major political forces, and probably to most
Palestinians. If the other provisions I have mentioned come into
force, some Palestinians in Lebanon (and Syria) may leave for the
Palestinian state with their newly acquired rights, a few others
may choose to return to their original home villages in Galilee as
Israeli citizens, and many will use their new Palestinian passports
to travel abroad in search of work, but most in both Lebanon and
Syria will probably have to stay where they are indefinitely.
However, the status of those who will remain in Lebanon is in
urgent need of revision, which will at the very least involve their
receiving Palestinian passports and nationality and being granted
permanent resident status with special rights in Lebanon. This will
involve long and difficult negotiations.
Compared to the plight of virtually all other Palestinian
communities, that of those in Lebanon is perhaps the most cruel.
These people have sac¬rificed prodigiously for the Palestinian
cause since the 1960s, have lived in harsh conditions between 1948
and 1968, and again since 1982, and have far fewer possibilities of
integration into the host society than Palestinians in Jordan and
Syria. While important aspects of this problem will have to be
resolved in negotiations with Israel, and via Israel's acceptance
of some share of its responsibility for a solution, in a
significant sense, this is a prob¬lem for the Palestinians and
the Lebanese to solve.
In conclusion, I can only say that there is no simple solution to
the Palestinian refugee issue, and that the elements I have put
forward, mod¬est though they may seem to many, will be
exceedingly hard to achieve. Together with Jerusalem and
settlements, the refugee issue is the major remaining one between
Palestinians and Israelis. Negotiating a solution based on what I
have called attainable justice will mean that the conflict is
finally over: this cannot be done on the unequal basis which has
prevailed so far in the negotiations, and which has resulted in
interim agreements which are, by and large, neither fair nor
equitable. A permanent settlement, and real peace, will have to be
based on more than the overwhelming strength of one side and the
weakness of the other. That is something for which both sides, not
just one, should be willing to sacrifice, and it is some¬thing
which will require of the Palestinian side, in particular, a level
of per¬formance which has often been lacking in the past. But
a just resolution of the refugee issue, the issue which, in a
sense, is at the heart of the Palestine question, will require no
less than this.