BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee

Politics and the Question of Palestinian Refugees and IDPs
compensation, as provided for in Resolution 194, was a condition for comprehensive peace negotiations. 4 The
UNCCP considered that it had a specific mandate to resolve the refugee question, and was willing to press Israel
to accept the principles laid out in Resolution 194. 5 Israel, however, refused to accept these principles (the right
of return, in particular) and insisted that the refugee question should be addressed only as part of the negotiations
concerning an overall peace settlement. 6 Israel advised the conference that it could re-admit up to 100,000 refugees
in the context of a comprehensive agreement, but reserved the right to resettle the repatriated refugees in locations
of its choosing. 7 Both the UNCCP and the Arab representatives found the Israeli proposal unsatisfactory. A request
by the Arab delegations for the immediate return of all refugees originating from territory allotted to the “Arab
State” under the 1947 UN Partition Plan was also rejected by Israel. 8 The UNCCP subsequently tried to facilitate
agreement by means of a memorandum that proposed that “the solution of the refugee problem should be sought
in the repatriation of refugees in Israel-controlled territory and in the resettlement in Arab countries or in the area
of Palestine not under Israel’s control of those not repatriated.” 9 While Arab delegates agreed to negotiate on this
basis, the Israeli delegates said that they would discuss the proposal only if “the solution of the refugee problem
was to be sought primarily in resettlement in Arab territory.” 10 In other words, while Arab states and the UNCCP
agreed that the choice was between “repatriation and compensation for damages suffered, on the one hand, or no
return and compensation for all property left behind, on the other”, Israel held that “the desirability of achieving
demographic homogeneity in order to avoid minority problems was the principle which should govern the process
of repatriation.” 11 According to the UNCCP, Israel’s position was a result of its “unwillingness to relinquish the
land that belonged to the refugees.” 12
In 1951, a second peace conference was convened in Paris. Israel argued that security, political and economic concerns
made the return of refugees impossible, and that “the integration of the refugees in the national life of Israel was
incompatible with present realities.” 13 Arab states maintained that “there could be no limitation on the return of
the refugees” and linked Israel’s recognition of the right of return of Palestinian refugees to the prospects for peace
in the Middle East. 14 The UNCCP continued to envisage both repatriation of refugees to Israel and integration in
Arab countries as components of a solution of the refugee question. 15 However, the UNCCP now also argued that
because the conditions in Israel had changed considerably since 1948, repatriation of refugees would have to take
into consideration “the possibilities of the integration of the returning refugees into the national life of Israel”, 16
thereby adding absorption capacity as a new criteria for determining the number of Palestinian refugees eligible to
return. Due to the incompatibility of the positions taken by the parties, the UNCCP further suggested that, even
at the cost of straying from the letter of Resolution 194, the parties had “to depart from their original positions in
order to make possible practical and realistic arrangements towards the solution of the refugee problem.” 17
Soon thereafter, the UNCCP recognized that it had failed in its task. Probably as a result of the failure of the Paris
conference, it concluded in 1951 that it had “been unable to make substantial progress in the task given to it by
the General Assembly of assisting the parties to the Palestine dispute towards a final settlement of all questions
outstanding between them.” 18
1991–2001
Political negotiations on the question of Palestinian refugees were resumed, based on the Madrid Peace Conference
of 1991 and the 1993 Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements, which established, for the
first time, direct Palestinian representation through the PLO. The Madrid-Oslo process set up two separate tracks
to address the refugee issue: a political bilateral track, and a more technical multilateral track formed in 1992 to
address regional issues such as water, regional economic development, arms control, and refugees. Under Article V
of the Declaration of Principles, bilateral negotiations on the 1948 refugee issue were to be part of the negotiations
concerning a final peace agreement (issues to be discussed at the final stage of the negotiations), and to begin no
later than three years after the beginning of the interim period (focused on limited self-government). 19
The Refugee Working Group (RWG) headed (“shepherded”) by Canada was established in the first round of multilateral
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