8 - 14 November 2001
Issue No.559
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 8 - 14 November 2001 Issue No.559 |
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Blueprint for return
The End of the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict: From Refugees to Citizens at Home, Salman H Abu-Sitta, London: Palestine Land Society and Palestinian Return Centre, 2001. pp38
Throughout the 50 years of Palestinian exile, the plight of the Palestinian refugees has been at the heart of the Arab- Israeli conflict. The image of millions of Palestinians, often living in sub-human conditions in camps, holding on to the rusty keys to doors that no longer stand, or to homes that no longer exist, has burnt itself into the consciousness of the Arab world. However, these millions of refugees have themselves sometimes been ignored by diplomatic efforts to find a solution to the conflict. Thus, while atrocities such as the massacres at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Beirut in the early 1980s have forced the refugees onto centre stage, they have then too often been relegated once more to the background when such events have disappeared from the newspapers or from television screens. Political settlements favoured by Israel tend to postpone or to ignore the refugees. And even in the Palestinian narrative currently being forged by the Al-Aqsa Intifada, it is the Palestinians under occupation in the West Bank and Gaza who are capturing world attention, not the many millions of Palestinian refugees.
The question of exactly how the Palestinian refugees came to be dispossessed has also been a bone of contention. According to the dominant Israeli version, they left voluntarily in 1948 or after, abandoning their lands and their homes. This myth, so strong, so prevalent and so well perpetrated by Israel, has been difficult to challenge, despite its evident falsity. Now, however, even some Zionists admit that the Palestinian refugees were forced to flee, even though a tremor of sorts ran through the Israeli establishment when Israeli "New Historians," such as Benny Morris, first published their research proving this obvious point.
Yet, even Morris and his colleagues have not pushed their reading of the evidence to its logical conclusion. Even detailed strategies, such as Plan Dalet, explicitly drawn up to expel the Palestinian population, were not "premeditated," they say. They just happened. No one should have to pay for the consequences -- except, of course, the Palestinian refugees and their descendents. In the meantime, and while the issue of acknowledgement is stalled, voices can be heard saying that, in any case, whatever the results of the historical research may be, the refugees cannot possibly be allowed to return.
It is in light of this background that Salman Abu- Sitta's research has been so crucial, and in this, his latest publication, he first offers an account of how the Palestinian refugees came to be refugees. Using UN documents from the period, Abu-Sitta shows just how protracted and continuous the process of expulsion was, involving a Zionist campaign that lasted far longer, and went far deeper, than just a few weeks in early 1948. In fact, just the initial phase of the expulsions ran from November 1947 to July 1949, and Abu Sitta argues that subsequent expulsion phases have been in operation ever since, as the Israeli state continues to design policies aimed at making any return of the refugees impossible.
Palestinians fleeing on fishing boats from Gaza, 1948 (photo: UNRWA)
According to 1998 figures, there are 4.9 million Palestinian refugees, which means that two-thirds of the total Palestinian population are currently refugees. In the face of Israeli arguments that it is impossible for these people to return to their homeland, Abu-Sitta proposes counter-arguments showing that the return of the refugees is indeed feasible. Firstly, he insists, the right of return is legally sanctioned by international law, and thus the Palestinians have an inalienable right to return to their homes.
Nevertheless, in February 2001 Shlomo Gazit, a retired Israeli general, joined a long list of Israeli officials in arguing, in an article published in the Jerusalem Post, that "while the principle of 'return to their original homes' was fitting and possible in 1948, it has not been a realistic option for years. Implementing it today would mean dismantling and destroying the new infrastructure built over the last 50 years." Abu-Sitta disproves this claim by showing that the sites of the 531 Palestinian towns and villages depopulated by Israeli forces in 1948-1949 are identifiable, despite Israeli efforts to alter the landscape. Indeed several Palestinian scholars, such as Rashid Khalidi in his All that Remains and G Falah, have painstakingly identified and mapped the sites.
British mandate and UN records also make it possible to identify the 1948 ownership of the land at these sites. Even more importantly, UNRWA records registering 3,602,000 of the total 4,940,000 refugees, make it possible to locate the majority of these owners, or their descendents, the remainder being traceable through family and kinship networks. As research by Falah and others indicates, in the overwhelming majority of cases, these villages have not been subsequently populated by Israelis, even as Palestinians have been denied access to them. Thus, according to Abu-Sitta's figures, "well over 90 per cent of the village refugees could return to empty sites." In other words, Israelis would not have to be evicted to allow for the return of the Palestinian refugees.
The author also disputes the Israeli claim that there is not enough space to accommodate large numbers of returning Palestinian refugees, showing that the refugees would return to areas unpopulated by Israeli Jews, thus not affecting local Jewish population density. This argument is related to another Israeli claim concerning the "Jewish character" of Israel, which, the claim states, would be threatened by the return of the refugees. Abu-Sitta exposes the racist and simplistic assumptions at the root of this argument, which assumes a homogeneity in the Jewish population of Israel that does not exist. Israel, he points out, is composed of an immigrant population from 102 countries that speaks 82 languages. Israeli and UN projections for population increase suggest that Palestinians will outnumber Jews in Israel by the year 2070, unaffected by any return of the refugees.
Elsewhere in his book, Abu-Sitta gives considerable attention to the dearth of water resources in Israel, another argument, this time having to do with available natural resources, that Israel has used to preclude the return of the refugees. Israel has already nearly exhausted its available water resources, two thirds of which are made up of illegally seized Arab water. Here, however, perhaps Abu-Sitta is a little disingenuous in arguing that "if, by the return of refugees, peace prevails, it is conceivable that regional agreements may be signed with neighbouring countries, including Iraq perhaps, so that water resources are shared based on justice and equity." Such a result is inconceivable. For though the return of the refugees is indeed crucial to a "just and comprehensive peace" in the region, the Arab-Israeli conflict cannot simply be reduced to the issue of the Palestinian refugees. There are many other political and strategic problems associated with the management and politics of water resources other than the Palestinian refugee issue, an obvious context that one wonders whether Abu- Sitta has consciously ignored.
However, having disproved Israeli arguments against the return of the Palestinian refugees, Abu-Sitta proposes a seven- stage plan for their return, each stage involving a population transfer of 0.5 to one million, with priority being given to registered refugees from villages, followed by those from the smaller cities. Among possible problems faced by this plan would be those surrounding the return of refugees to five villages now incorporated within greater Jerusalem. Here, Abu- Sitta concedes that this holy city deserves special study and consideration, and perhaps a separate plan.
The whole return process, Abu-Sitta thinks, could be achieved in less than 10 years. It would require a labour force of 165,000 construction workers for the duration, a force that is readily available among the Palestinian population. Abu- Sitta estimates the total cost to be $45 billion. Where will this money come from? Partly from "the total compensation package to be paid by Israel to the refugees for 53 years of suffering, exploitation and destruction of property, and for war crimes in accordance with Resolution 194 and international law," he says. Yet financial aid from the US and Europe would also have to be sought.
Finally, Abu-Sitta's blueprint for the return of the Palestinian refugees is a welcome addition to Palestinian activist scholarship. Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation and oppression has often been criticised for being ad hoc, or piecemeal in character. Here, however, is a move in the direction of strategic planning. Throughout his concise study and plan, Abu-Sitta reveals a heartening if utopian sense of optimism and faith in the peoples both of Palestine and of Israel, and in their desire to overcome difficulties in order to co-exist in peace.
Nevertheless, there is still at least one missing link. While it is clear how the Israeli authorities came originally to dispossess the Palestinians, it is less clear how the Palestinians will be able to implement the return plan Abu-Sitta proposes. There is an implicit assumption that the Israelis will, perhaps as part of another peace process, perhaps under pressure from the elusive international community, become convinced of the validity of Palestinian rights and begin to work towards the implementation of the plan.
However, there remains more than a trace of wishful thinking here. For, how are the Israelis to overcome their irrational fear of the Palestinians, as well as their prejudice against the people they have dispossessed?
Reviewed by Amina Elbendary
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