The Palestinian “Right
of Return”
(Updated June 2002)
The Zionists always knew they would have
to live with their Arab neighbors and made every effort to
reach an agreement to live in peace; however, most Palestinian
Arabs were unwilling to live as equal citizens in a Jewish
state and abandoned their homes.
Prior to Israel's declaration of independence the Jews of
Palestine urged the Arabs to remain in their homes, but most
were afraid to be caught in the crossfire of the fighting
provoked by the invading Arab armies, or chose to listen
to their leaders' promises that they could leave their homes
temporarily and then return when the Jews were driven into
the sea.
Israel's declaration of independence explicitly called on
the Palestinian Arabs to participate in building the state
and pledged that they would be accorded equal rights. This
promise was fulfilled for the 150,000 Palestinian Arabs who
chose to remain in their homes and became Israeli citizens.
For all their rhetorical support for the Palestinians, the
Arab states have contributed less than 5% of the budget of
the UNRWA. The United States is the largest funder of this
international welfare program for Palestinians.
The Palestinian Authority has received billions of dollars
in international aid, but has made a tactical decision not
to build permanent housing for the refugees, preferring instead
to keep them in camps as political tools to breed terrorists
and serve as symbols of suffering.
The UN resolved that only those refugees willing to live
at peace should be repatriated and that others should be
compensated and resettled. The Arab states rejected Resolution
194 because the war had not yet ended and they still expected
to destroy Israel. Only after losing the war did they reinterpret
the resolution as requiring the return of the refugees.
The UN recognized that Israel could not be expected to repatriate
a population that might endanger its security and that the
solution to the problem, like all previous refugee problems,
would require at least some Palestinians to be resettled
in Arab lands.
In the interest of peace, Israeli leaders since 1948 have
repeatedly expressed a willingness to accept some refugees
as part of a peace agreement, and Israel has already allowed
approximately 200,000 to return; however, the Arabs have
refused to negotiate and made clear they consider the refugees
a weapon in their war against Israel.
Israelis across the political spectrum have made that clear
acceptance of a "right of return" would be suicide.
If every refugee was allowed to move to Israel, the population
would be nearly 10 million and more than 40% Arab. Given
the higher Arab birth rate, it would not be long before the
Palestinians would be a majority.
Resolution 242 does not mention the Palestinians at all.
It calls for "a just settlement of the refugee problem."
The use of the generic term "refugee" was a deliberate
acknowledgment that two refugee problems were products of
the conflict – one Arab and the other Jewish.
Approximately 800,000 Jews fled persecution in Arab countries
at about the same time the Palestinians became refugees.
The Jews never received any compensation for the property
Arab governments stole from them and no international welfare
agency was established on their behalf. They were all resettled
while the Palestinians were confined to camps by the Arab
governments.
When Egypt controlled the Gaza Strip it did not allow the
Palestinians into Egypt or permit them to move elsewhere.
Today, Palestine refugees in Lebanon do not have social and
civil rights, and have very limited access to public health
or educational facilities.
Most Palestinian refugees live in the historic territory
of Palestine; i.e., Jordan and the West Bank. When they talk
of the right of return, they mean to the homes they lived
in before they left. A fraction of the 3.7 million refugees
on the UN rolls can claim any direct connection to those
homes.
The UN repeatedly tried to persuade Arab nations to solve
the refugee problem by resettling the Palestinians, but they
refused. Modern neighborhoods that were built in the areas
of Jenin and Nablus during the 1990's still remain unoccupied
because the Palestinian Authority will not allow the refugees
to move out of the camps.
To this day, only two Middle East nations
grant Palestinians citizenship – Jordan and Israel.
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