Right

The Right of Return, a Basic Right Still Denied

* The Zionist program to create a Jewish state on Palestinian land involved and continues to involve ethnically cleansing native Palestinians.   Before, during and immediately after the establishment of Israel, over 800,000 Palestinian refugees were ethnically cleansed from their homes and lands. These refugees and their descendants are the largest and most persistent refugee population in the world. Palestinian refugees now number nearly 6.5 million worldwide. 3.8 million Palestinian refugees and their descendents displaced are registered with the United Nations for humanitarian aid. 1.5 million Palestinian refugees and their descendents are not registered as they do not require any assistance. 263,000 Palestinians and their descendents are internally displaced inside Israel. 773,000 refugees and their descendents were displaced for the first time in 1967. Descendents of refugees are included in the total population because they are still unable to realize their basic rights. Tens of thousands of Palestinians also left the Occupied Territories since the start of the most recent Israeli onslaught in September 2000. Refugees live largely near the areas they were expelled from.

* The international community felt a deep sense of responsibility for this tragedy. Count Folke Bernadotte, the UN Mediator stated: "It would be an offence against the principles of elemental justice if these innocent victims of the conflict were denied the right to return to their homes, while Jewish immigrants flow into Palestine" (UN Doc Al 648, 1948). This remains true today as any Jewish person can gain automatic citizenship while Palestinians cannot return to their homeland.

* The Right to Return has a solid legal basis. The United Nations adopted Resolution 194 on December 11, 1948. Paragraph 11 states: "...the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date... compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return. Resolution 194 was affirmed practically every year since with a universal consensus, except for Israel and the U.S. The resolution was further clarified by UN General Assembly Resolution 3236 which reaffirms in Subsection 2, "the inalienable right of the Palestinians to return to their homes and property from which they have been displaced and uprooted, and calls for their return". Hindering return is an act of aggression, which deserves action by the Security Council. Israel's admission to the UN were conditional on its acceptance of relevant UN resolutions including 194.

* The Right to Return does not derive its validity merely from UN Resolutions. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights article 13 reaffirms the right of every individual to leave and return to his country. Moreover, the Principle of Self Determination guarantees, inter alia, the right of ownership and domicile in one's own country. The UN adopted this principle in 1947. In 1969 and thereafter, it was explicitly applied to the Palestinian People, including "the legality of the Peoples' struggle for Self-Determination and Liberation", (GAOR 2535 (xxiv), 2628 (xxv), 2672 (xxv), 2792 (xxvi)). International law demands that neither occupation nor sovereignty diminish the rights of private ownership. When the Ottomans surrendered in 1920, Palestinian ownership of the land was maintained. The land and property of "the refugees" remains their own and they are entitled to return to it.

* Research not only shows that the right of refugees to return is sacred and legal but also possible. Demographic studies show that 78% of Israelis live in 14 percent of Israel and that the remaining 22% live on 86% of the land that belongs to the refugees. Further, of the 22%, 20% live in cities while the remaining 2% live in kibbutzim and moshavs. Approximately 5,000 refugees live per square kilometer in the Gaza Strip, while over the barbed wire their lands are practically empty.

* Israel has destroyed thousands of Palestinian houses in Gaza and the West Bank, including east Jerusalem claiming either security reasons or on the pretext of not having building permission (see http://www.icahd.org/eng). Further, thousands of acres of Palestinian owned-land have been confiscated to build settlements in these occupied territories. The settlements contravene the 4th Geneva Convention Article 49 which states that the "Occupying Power shall not transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies" (AI report is http://www.web.amnesty.org/ai.nsf/index/MDE150591999)

* Israel is now building huge walls and fortifications around the remaining Palestinian towns and villages in the West Bank.  This after confiscating much of the Palestinian agricultural lands.  In violation of International law, the confiscated lands were used to build settlements/colonies.  

* The US is bound by its laws not to fund regimes that violate human rights and basic freedoms. Israel's violations of basic human rights are now documented by all human rights organizations who investigated these issues. The US could use the leverage of the massive financial support it gives to the State of Israel to press for this right.

* The inalienable rights of refugees and displaced people cannot be left to "negotiations" between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.  International law considers agreements between a military occupier and the occupied to be null and void if they deprive civilians of recognized human rights including the rights to repatriation and restitution.

map of Palestinian Refugees' Migration Routes during Nakba in 1948