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Al-Ahram Weekly 11 - 17 May 2000 Issue No. 481 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 11 - 17 May 2000 Issue No. 481
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Books Features Interview Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Blood among nations
By Salem Nahhas*Jordan hosts more than 40 per cent (2.2 million) of all the Palestinian refugees scattered mainly across the five areas covered by UNRWA (Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, the West Bank and Gaza Strip). As the whole area is now feverishly engaged in the process of the final status negotiations, the "refugee problem" is on the table, and it has become an extremely urgent question, especially for Jordan.
Though the Palestinian refugees' right of return is an international responsibility and an Israeli obligation, it is also a source of conflict, with both Israel and the Arab host countries. Here, too, Jordan is a special case, as this article will show.
The Israeli attitude is determined by the following factors. First, Israel wants to reach a settlement for the refugee problem that is final and does not leave any leeway for future demands. Israel's recognition of the right of return does not include the refugees who were driven out of Palestine in 1948, but accepts only the return of a specified and very small percentage of those who left the West Bank when it was occupied in June 1967.
Second, Israel demands that UNRWA be dissolved and replaced by another international body, in which Israel will not participate financially, and which will be responsible for compensation and the rehabilitation of refugees in the Arab host countries.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak is working for a final settlement, which he wishes to see concluded by September, involving a solution to the refugee problem within the framework agreement. He aims to convince the Israelis that such a settlement will put an end to the conflict with the Palestinians, and will assuage Israeli fears.
In the final analysis, Barak represents the Zionist consensus on the total refusal of any right of return for the Palestinian refugees. He agrees that some could return to the areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority (PA), yet knows that the infrastructure cannot accommodate them. The PA's attitude is hazy, but suggests willingness to bargain refugee rights in the hope of making gains elsewhere.
Lebanon totally refuses to rehabilitate the refugees or allow them to settle on its soil, yet it has not clearly declared that they must return to their homeland. It seems likely that Lebanon would allow most of them to settle on its land -- in return for the highest possible "economic price."
The Syrians, it is reported, have already decided to take the refugee problem to the multilateral negotiations. This would imply the refugees' integration in Syria, but Syria would like this operation to be a final result of negotiations with Israel, following the settlement of the Golan issue.
The UN has already launched the programme that will abolish UNRWA when the peace process ends. The US and the Europeans support this plan, and are in fact the major financial donors.
Jordan, according to many reports, is requesting compensations at least equal to its foreign debts ($8 billion) as a hypothetical reward for the fulfillment of the assimilation programme (as represented by the Social Security Programme, launched in 1998). The Jordanian case, however, should be read carefully because of the procedures the US has designed as a solution to the refugee problem. Official Jordanian policy is not pronouncing itself, though the assimilation process has been accelerated since King Abdullah II's declaration in Washington early this year that Jordan will assimilate those refugees who decide to stay on, and grant them full citizenship rights.
The Jordanian government has many reasons to feel uneasy about the use of the term "settlement." It also has good reason to present the assimilation programme forcibly and clearly to those members of the indigenous elite who are interested in the refugee problem. The government generally avoids using the term "settlement," to ward off political suspicions on the part of the indigenous elite and the groups who have built strategies of loyalty or opposition on a rejection of the idea of settlement. The prime minister has said repeatedly that Palestinians in Jordan are Jordanians, in the sense that they have been assimilated if not granted full citizenship. The state media has replaced "settlement" with "rehabilitation" as a pragmatic political choice liable to quell fears that Jordan's Palestinians will recover their political rights, and that refugee leaders will be absorbed by the decision-making establishment.
The situation suggests that the assimilation of the Palestinians will open the way to a "political-economic bargain"; this preoccupies decision-makers, due to rapid deterioration in the socio-economic arena.
According to the US, Jordan is eminently able to provide a practical model for the possibilities of assimilation. The existence of this model will place high pressure on the other Arab host countries. Jordan, in turn, can allege its inability to relinquish this position in view of the tensions that dominate the region.
Jordan is also presenting its needs as essentially economic. There is talk of economic incentives to be provided to ensure the success of the settlement -- or rehabilitation -- programme. Rehabilitation in Jordan would not aim to improve the refugees' standard of living, civil rights or housing conditions. Rather, it seeks to impose "political rehabilitation" -- i.e., to deny Palestinian refugees in Jordan the right to their Palestinian national identity. It will also deny them the right to express themselves in this context, taking the PLO as the only representative of a unified Palestinian people inside and outside Palestine.
The Arab countries, and the international community as a whole, are dealing with the refugee problem from a specific perspective, shaped by their initial acceptance of Israel's refusal to recognise the right of return and related international resolutions. They argue that Israel will never permit refugees to return to Palestine, and suggest that we should simply "solve this problem."
Instead of insisting upon the sacred and inalienable character of the refugees' rights, especially as enshrined in UN Resolution 194, all parties are occupied with solutions that will never bring about a just, honourable and lasting peace in the region. The refugees themselves cannot be divided among nations -- nor can their rights be scattered across continents. Nor can their representatives be divided. It is time for the refugees to take matters into their own hands.
* The writer is a Jordanian journalist and politician.
