BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee

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172 Survey of Palestinian Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons (2006-2007) Since the beginning of the construction of the Wall in the OPT in 2002, Israel has advanced plans to impose a unilateral solution to the conflict, including the status and borders of a Palestinian state. 45 Such measures prejudice not only a negotiated settlement of the conflict, but also the rights of Palestinian refugees and IDPs. 5.3.3 The Quartet Israeli Arguments against Return and the Rights-based Approach Israel’s primary problem with a rights-based approach is that it would lead to an unacceptable political outcome. The return of Palestinian refugees would negate Israel’s raison d’état as a Jewish state. Israel would no longer be able to guarantee a permanent Jewish demographic majority; it would have to return and share the land, and enshrine equality as a basic principle of law. Arguments about security (e.g., physical, psychological, material, cultural, etc.) and the state’s capacity to absorb the refugees (e.g., physical space, material resources, etc.) are raised by Israel in order to prevent the application of a rights-based approach to the Palestinian refugee question. Israel’s arguments raise fundamental questions. Should Israel, as a democracy, grant equal rights to all of its citizens? And would this include Palestinian refugees who were displaced from villages and towns that are now part of Israel? If so, can Israel deviate from these legal obligations on the basis of public order and/or security? UN human rights committees have addressed each of these questions, both in general and specific terms (see also Chapter Four). The committee overseeing the implementation of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination (CERD) recently recommended that Israel incorporate the “prohibition of racial discrimination and the principle of equality” as “general norms of high status in [Israeli] domestic law.” 46 A number of committees have also recommended legislative reforms that would allow Palestinian refugees to resume domicile in Israel and repossess or receive compensation for their properties. 47 Some of these committees have also called upon Arab states to respect the basic rights of refugees until durable solutions can be realized. More generally, the committee overseeing the Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) has concluded that all refugees and displaced persons “have the right freely to return to their homes of origin under conditions of safety in cases of massive displacement due to foreign military, non-military and/or ethnic conflicts” and in situations where individuals are displaced “on the basis of ethnic criteria.” 48 According to the Committee overseeing the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the return of a person to “his/her own country” is not limited to nationals in a formal sense and would include “nationals of a country who have there been stripped of their nationality in violation of international law, and of individuals whose country of nationality has been incorporated in or transferred to another national entity, whose nationality is being denied them”, as well as those born outside the country. 49 The Committee also concluded that the ICCPR applies to situations of mass displacement and “implies prohibition of enforced population transfers or mass expulsions to other countries.” 50 In 1999 it narrowed the range of possible interpretations of what might constitute permissible grounds for depriving persons of their right to return by ruling that “there are few, if any, circumstances in which deprivation of the right to enter one’s own country could be reasonable”; and that a state “must not, by stripping a person of nationality or by expelling an individual to a third country, arbitrarily prevent this person from returning to his or her own country.” 51 Some Israeli arguments against the return of Palestinian refugees raise important questions about space and natural resources available for absorbing returning refugees. These are practical questions that are being tackled in the context of refugee return worldwide; but they are often raised by Israel in order to evade debate, given that Israel has absorbed more than one million Jewish immigrants since 1990 alone. Independent research findings suggest that approximately 78% of the Jewish population today occupies 15% of the land of Israel, and that Palestinian villages depopulated in 1948 whose land has become part of new Israeli urban infrastructure account for less than 10% of the total number of the villages from which Palestinian refugees originate. 52 More rights-based research about development and planning in the Israeli context could provide useful answers and guidelines for repatriation, especially since refugee return is not so much about restoring the past as it is about building a future. The “Performance-based Road Map to a Permanent Two-State Solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict” reflects the official position of the Quartet (composed of the United States, European Union, Russia and the United Nations). Its declared goal is the creation through peaceful negotiations of an independent, sovereign and viable Palestinian state living in peace and security with Israel. The Road Map includes three phases which, if implemented, would have put an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in 2005. 53 In 2006, the Quartet reiterated that a permanent solution could be reached only through the realization of the goal of two democratic states: Israel and Palestine. 54 There was, however, no significant diplomatic process based on the Road Map in 2006.
The Road Map provides an ambiguous set of guidelines for resolving the refugee issue. It calls for “an agreed, just, fair and realistic solution”, but does not define what is meant by these terms. According to the Road Map, final settlement issues, including borders and refugees, should be negotiated on the basis of “Security Council resolutions 242 (1967), 338 (1973), 1397 (2002), and 1515 (2003), the terms of reference of the Madrid peace process, the principle of land for peace, previous agreements, and the initiative of Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah endorsed by the Beirut Arab League Summit.” 55 UN General Assembly Resolution 194 is not expressly mentioned, although reference is made to the Beirut Arab League Summit (Beirut Declaration), which calls for a just solution to the Palestinian refugee problem in accordance with UN Resolution 194. The Road Map was endorsed by the PLO, while Israel’s endorsement was qualified by 14 conditions, including the stipulations that “references must be made to Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state and to the waiver of any right of return for Palestinian refugees to the State of Israel.” 56 5.3.4 The United States Politics and the Question of Palestinian Refugees and IDPs Workshop on durable solutions for Palestinian refugees, BADIL study group program, Bethlehem, occupied West Bank, 2006. © BADIL. While the United States actively supported implementation of UN Resolution 194 during the 1950s, this position changed as their strategic alliance with Israel deepened, in particular after the 1967 war. Since then, the United States has endorsed a politically-driven solution to the refugee issue that would preserve the Jewish character of the state of Israel. The United States, like Israel, continues to vote against UN General Assembly resolutions that reaffirm Palestinian refugees’ right of return and the right to self-determination of the Palestinian people. 57 In April 2004, US President George W. Bush affirmed in a letter to then Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, that: [t]he United States is strongly committed to Israel’s security and well-being as a Jewish state. It seems clear that an agreed, just, fair, and realistic framework for a solution to the Palestinian refugee issue as part of any final status agreement will need to be found through the establishment of a Palestinian state, and the settling of Palestinian refugees there, rather than in Israel. 58 173
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1948 - 2008: 60 Years of the Palest
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1948 - 2008: 60 Years of the Palest
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Table of Contents Executive Summary
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Chapter Five: Politics and the Ques
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Executive Summary Palestinian refug
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Campaigns for boycott, divestment a
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6. Not to recognize the illegal sit
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Glossary Absentee A person who, at
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Jewish State A term used by Israel
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Refugee Office A sub-office establi
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Voluntariness The Wall and its Asso
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From the Nakba to the Present Day -
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1.1 Background Figure 1.1: Estimate
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1.2 From Mandate to Partition From
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In September 1947, the UN Special C
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Map 1.3: 1948 Depopulated Palestini
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1.4 Displacement after the 1948 War
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Both The Guardian and The London Ti
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Al-Tanaf refugee camp at the Syrian
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Chapter Two ‘Aida refugee camp, o
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2.1 Background Population Numbers,
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Population Numbers, Distribution an
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2.2 Distribution Population Numbers
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Figure 2.3: Estimates of the Number
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Table 2.4: Registered Refugees in O
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Map 2.1: Palestinian refugee commun
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Table 2.7: Distribution of Palestin
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(hospitals and medical centres). Im
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Table 2.15: Percentage of Children
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Assistance Chapter Three UNRWA Food
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3.1 National, Regional and Internat
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Assistance According to LASC Resolu
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Assistance Table 3.1: Main sources
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UNRWA’s relationship with host go
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3.2 Main Forms of Assistance - Deve
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Assistance Palestinian refugees in
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Assistance 2005, the Syrian governm
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In Syria, the government provided l
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UNRWA Funding Assistance UNRWA’s
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Assistance and equipment in schools
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Table 3.9: Summary of Emergency App
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Assistance 27 Luigi De Martino, “
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Assistance 78 Report of the Commiss
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Protection Chapter Four Israeli sol
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Protection Almost 60 years after th
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Protection While there is no formal
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Protection immediate return of all
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2.2.2 The Right to Restitution Prot
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Protection It is clear from the phr
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Protection of All Forms of Racial D
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Protection Palestinian citizens. Fo
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Page 147 and 148: Protection Investigations conducted
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Page 151 and 152: Protection Palestinian refugees in
Page 153 and 154: Protection Palestinian refugees in
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Page 157 and 158: Protection rights. If the refugee i
Page 159 and 160: 4.6.2 The United Nations Conciliati
Page 161 and 162: UNCCP activities related to restitu
Page 163 and 164: Table 4.2: Estimates of Palestinian
Page 165 and 166: Protection the occupied territory [
Page 167 and 168: Protection The UNHCR recognizes 194
Page 169 and 170: Protection the Rights of the Child
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Page 177 and 178: Protection Bank and to those who le
Page 179 and 180: Protection Right to Work in Lebanon
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Page 183 and 184: Protection 213 UNHCR, 2005 UNHCR St
Page 185 and 186: Al-’Aqaba, a Palestinian village
Page 187 and 188: 5.1 Refugees/IDPs and Peace Agreeme
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Page 197 and 198: 5.3.7 The League of Arab States The
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