This House believes that Israel should recognise the Palestinian right of return

Especially in the 1948 War, Palestinians were forcibly removed from their homes and towns en masse by the Israeli Defence Force (IDF). The traditional Israeli point of view arguing that Arab leaders encouraged Palestinian Arabs to flee is simply untrue. In fact, Arab leaders intended for the Palestinian Arab population stay put. Historians such as Benny Morris, Erskine Childers, and Walid Khalidi state that no evidence of widespread evacuation orders exists, and that Arab leaders in fact instructed the Palestinian Arabs to stay put.[1][2][3].

According to Morris, whatever the reasons driving many into flight, temporary evacuation under local orders, contagious panic, fear of Jewish arms, or direct expulsion manu militari, the 700,000 odd Palestinians who did become refugees acquired that status as a result of compulsory displacement or expulsion, since they were not permitted by Israel to return.(1) In terms of the cause of the Palestinian flight, Morris argues that "Arab evacuees from the towns and villages left largely because of Jewish... attacks or fear of impending attack."(1) A report from the military intelligence SHAI of the Haganah entitled "The emigration of Palestinian Arabs in the period 1/12/1947-1/6/1948", dated 30 June 1948 affirms that up to 1 June 1948: "At least 55% of the total of the exodus was caused by our (Haganah/IDF) operations." To this figure, the report’s compilers add the operations of the Irgun and Lehi, which "directly (caused) some 15%... of the emigration". A further 2% was attributed to explicit expulsion orders issued by Israeli troops, and 1% to their psychological warfare. This leads to a figure of 73% for departures caused directly by the Israelis. In addition, the report attributes 22% of the departures to "fears" and "a crisis of confidence" affecting the Palestinian population.

As for Arab calls for flight, these were reckoned to be significant in only 5% of cases.[4] This clearly demonstrates not only Israeli responsibility for the Palestinian refugees of 1948, but also that Israel was aware of it while it was going on, thus showing that expelling the Palestinians was intentional Israeli policy.  This is compounded by the fact that the dispossession and ethnic cleansing of the Arabs of Palestine was part of the Zionist project from the very beginning. Theodor Herzl, in effect the father of modern Zionism and the state of Israel, in the draft-agreement of The Jewish-Ottoman Land Company (JOLC) stated the company was 'for the purpose of settling Palestine and Syria with Jews' (the company lobbied for approval from Sultan Abdulhameed in Istanbul in 1901). In Article III of the same agreement the JOLC was given the right to deport the native populations, an act aimed at legitimizing ethnic cleansing, by granting "The right to exchange economic enclaves of its territory, with the exception of the holy places or places already designated for worship. The owners shall receive plots of equal size and quality procured by it (the JOLC) in other provinces and territories of the Ottoman Empire."[5] This intentional ethnic cleansing of Arabs from Palestine can therefore be seen as part of the Zionist project to create a Jewish majority state in Israel. Therefore, to deny the Palestinian right of return is to perpetuate this injustice and allow ethnic cleansing to succeed. Israel, a state founded by refugees of ethnic cleansing and the Holocaust, should not allow such an injustice to stand any longer.

[1] Morris, Benny. "The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited". Cambridge University Press. 2004

[2] Childers, Erskine. "The Other Exodus". The Spectator. 12 May 1961

[3] Khalidi, Walid. "Why did the Palestinians Leave, Revisited". Journal of Palestinian Studies Vol 134, no. 2 (Win. 05).

[4] Morris, Benny. "The Causes and Character of the Arab Exodus from Palestine: The Israel Defence Forces Intelligence Branch Analysis of June 1948". Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 22, No. 1 (Jan., 1986)

[5] Sakhnini, Nizar. "Dispossession and Ethnic Cleansing." Al-Awda - The Palestinian Right of Return Coalition. 12 July 2004. http://www.al-awda.org/zionists01.html

The characterization of the 1948 Palestinian exodus as forced by Israel is incorrect. In the very same passage quoted opposite, Morris goes on to argue that only "an extremely small, almost insignificant number of the refugees during this early period left because of (Israeli) expulsion orders or forceful 'advice' to that effect".[1] Count Bernadotte, the UN mediator in Palestine, testified that "the exodus of the Palestinian Arabs resulted from panic created by fighting in their communities, by rumours concerning real or alleged acts of terrorism, or expulsion."[2] Thus, Israel is not responsible for acts of flight from Palestine which were largely motivated by imagined fears, which were the cause of almost all the Palestinian refugees, as they were not directly expelled or threatened by the IDF.

The Palestinians of 1948 may have made a tragic choice, for themselves and for their descendants, but this does not make Israel morally responsible for this choice and its consequences, as in almost every case Israel was not to blame, and it is impossible to isolate and identify those few where it may have been. Even if Israel were somehow morally responsible, it does not follow from this that Israel should accept an unlimited Palestinian right of return on the part of every refugee, considering the massive harms this would inflict on the state of Israel (outlined below). Rather, as Israel has proposed in the past, the Palestinians could accept words of contrition from Israel, and generous allocations of international aid, in place of the right of every refugee and his descendants to go back to his old home inside Israel.[3] This would be a more acceptable alternative to Israel, and still help to heal Palestinian wounds.

[1] Morris, Benny. "The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited". Cambridge University Press. 2004

[2] UN Progress Report, 16 September 1948, Part 1 Section V, paragraph 6; Part 3 Section I

[3] The Economist. "The Palestinian right of return". The Economist. 4 January 2001. http://www.economist.com/node/464892

Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights  states that "Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country."[1] This right clearly applies to the Palestinians, as shown by UN General Assembly Resolution 194: “The General Assembly, Having considered further the situation in Palestine ... Resolves that the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible."[2] This resolution was further clarified by UN General Assembly Resolution 3236 which reaffirms:  "the inalienable right of Palestinians to return to their homes and property from which they have been displaced and uprooted, and calls for their return." Israel itself accepted Resolution 194 when it was allowed to join the UN on the condition that it accepted this resolution.[3]

Israel's own laws recognise the importance of the 'right of return' to a people in general through the fact that Jews are allowed to emigrate to Israel under Israel's Law of Return, even if their immediate ancestors have not lived in the area in recent years.[4] The fact that, conversely, Palestinian people who grew up in the area and whose immediate ancestors had lived there for many generations are forbidden from returning is thus a huge injustice even from Israel's own legal perspective. Moreover, this right of return applies not just to Palestinians as a group but also individually to all Palestinian refugees themselves. On March 15, 2000, a group of 100 prominent Palestinians from around the world expressed their opinion that the right of return is individual, rather than collective, and that it cannot therefore be reduced or forfeited by any representation on behalf of the Palestinians in any agreement or treaty. They argued that the right to property 'cannot be extinguished by new sovereignty or occupation and does not have a statute of limitation.'[5] Therefore the Palestinian right of return has a clear basis in international law, including in Israel's own law, and so it should be recognised.

[1] United Nations. "Universal Declaration of Human Rights". Wikisource. 10 December 1948. http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Universal_Declaration_of_Human_Rights#Article_13

[2] United Nations. "UN General Assembly Resolution 194". United Nations. 11 December 1948. http://unbisnet.un.org:8080/ipac20/ipac.jsp?session=108V0691N26Y9.82&menu=search&aspect=power&npp=50&ipp=20&profile=voting&ri=&index=.VM&term=A/RES/194%28III%29

[3] Al-Awda - The Palestinian Right of Return Coalition.  "Factsheet". Al-Awda - The Palestinian Right of Return Coalition. http://www.al-awda.org/facts.html

[4] The Economist. "The Palestinian right of return". The Economist. 4 January 2001. http://www.economist.com/node/464892

[5] Al-Ahram Weekly. "Affirmation of the Palestinian Right of Return". Al-Ahram Weekly Online. 9 - 15 March 2000. http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2000/472/focus2.htm

Whatever the strengths and weaknesses of the Palestinians' legal case, their foremost argument for a 'right of return' has always rested on a claim of victimhood; this claim is highly disputed (as outlined below). Without this moral culpability on the part of Israel, there is no responsibility to right the situation on the part of the Israeli state.

Moreover, the 'individual' nature of the right of return is not helpful to the Palestinian case: Stig Jagerskiold argued in 1966 that the right of return was intended as an individual and not a collective right: "...[it] is intended to apply to individuals asserting an individual right. There was no intention here to address the claims of masses of people who have been displaced as a by-product of war or by political transfers of territory or population, such as the relocation of ethnic Germans from Eastern Europe during and after the Second World War, the flight of the Palestinians from what became Israel, or the movement of Jews from the Arab countries."[1] The claimed legal 'right of return' was never intended to be invoked by masses of people, which would fundamentally alter the welfare and nature of the state they returned to, and so its use in this way is invalid.

[1] Lapidoth, Ruth. "LEGAL ASPECTS OF THE PALESTINIAN REFUGEE QUESTION". Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs: Jerusalem Letter / Viewpoints. 1 Septemebr 2002. http://www.jcpa.org/jl/vp485.htm

Palestinian refugees represent the longest suffering and largest refugee population in the world today. During the creation of Israel in 1948, approximately three quarters of a million Palestinians were forced to become refugees. Together with their descendants, more than 4.3 million of these refugees are today registered with the United Nations while over 1.7 million are not. Approximately 32,000 Palestinians also became internally displaced in the areas occupied in 1948. Today, these refugees number approximately 355,000 persons. Despite the fact that they were issued Israeli citizenship, Israel has also denied these refugees their right to return to their homes or villages.[1] The fact that these refugees are forced by Israel to continue living abroad, mostly in refugee camps, further harms Palestinians by denying them the right to self-determination in their homeland which they were expelled from.

The 1993 Vienna Declaration, which reaffirmed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the UN Charter (and so sets the standard in current international law), unequivocally gives all peoples the right to self-determination: "All people have the right to self-determination. Owing to this right they freely establish their political status and freely provide their economic, social and cultural development...World Conference on Human Rights considers refusal of the right to self-determination as a violation of human rights and emphasizes the necessity of effective realization of this right".[2] By this measure, the Palestinian people have a right to self-determination in their homeland, allowing them to establish an independent state if they wish, any suppression of that right should be seen as a human rights violation. Therefore Israel's denial of the Palestinian’s right of return harms the Palestinians, and so it should be ended.

[1] Al-Awda - The Palestinian Right of Return Coalition.  "Factsheet". Al-Awda - The Palestinian Right of Return Coalition. http://www.al-awda.org/facts.html

[2] United Nations World Conference on Human Rights. “VIENNA DECLARATION AND PROGRAMME OF ACTION”. United Nations. 14-25 June 1993. http://www.unhchr.ch/huridocda/huridoca.nsf/%28symbol%29/a.conf.157.23.en

This argument again assumes that Israel is morally responsible for the current plight of the Palestinian refugees, which is untrue as Israel was not responsible for their exodus (as outlined below). Moreover, it is Arab countries, not Israel, which keep Palestinians in a state of limbo. It is the failure of Arab states to incorporate Palestinians into their societies by offering legal status which keeps the Palestinian refugees in their current indeterminate position, not Israeli policy. Furthermore, self-determination is not an absolute right. Not every territory and region in the world that seeks independence has the right to it. This is due in no small part to the fact that such a system would be unworkable. Certain criteria must be met for a territory and people to obtain a legitimate right to self-determination, including not compromising the fundamental security or nature of the original state, something which recognising the Palestinian right of return would do to Israel. Such policies are often pursued by Arab states explicitly as a tool against Israel: for example, Palestinians who moved from the West Bank (whether refugees or not) to Jordan, are issued yellow ID cards to distinguish them from the Palestinians of the "official 10 refugee camps" in Jordan.

Since 1988, thousands of those yellow-ID card Palestinians have had their Jordanian citizenship revoked in order to prevent the possibility that they might become permanent residents of the country. Jordan's Interior Minister Nayef al-Kadi said: "Our goal is to prevent Israel from emptying the Palestinian territories of their original inhabitants," the minister explained. "We should be thanked for taking this measure... We are fulfilling our national duty because Israel wants to expel the Palestinians from their homeland."[1]

[1] Abu Toameh, Khaled. "Amman revoking Palestinians' citizenship". The Jerusalem Post. 20 July 2009. http://fr.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1246443863400&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull

Especially in the 1948 War, Palestinians were forcibly removed from their homes and towns en masse by the Israeli Defence Force (IDF). The traditional Israeli point of view arguing that Arab leaders encouraged Palestinian Arabs to flee is simply untrue. In fact, Arab leaders intended for the Palestinian Arab population stay put. Historians such as Benny Morris, Erskine Childers, and Walid Khalidi state that no evidence of widespread evacuation orders exists, and that Arab leaders in fact instructed the Palestinian Arabs to stay put.[1][2][3].

According to Morris, whatever the reasons driving many into flight, temporary evacuation under local orders, contagious panic, fear of Jewish arms, or direct expulsion manu militari, the 700,000 odd Palestinians who did become refugees acquired that status as a result of compulsory displacement or expulsion, since they were not permitted by Israel to return.(1) In terms of the cause of the Palestinian flight, Morris argues that "Arab evacuees from the towns and villages left largely because of Jewish... attacks or fear of impending attack."(1) A report from the military intelligence SHAI of the Haganah entitled "The emigration of Palestinian Arabs in the period 1/12/1947-1/6/1948", dated 30 June 1948 affirms that up to 1 June 1948: "At least 55% of the total of the exodus was caused by our (Haganah/IDF) operations." To this figure, the report’s compilers add the operations of the Irgun and Lehi, which "directly (caused) some 15%... of the emigration". A further 2% was attributed to explicit expulsion orders issued by Israeli troops, and 1% to their psychological warfare. This leads to a figure of 73% for departures caused directly by the Israelis. In addition, the report attributes 22% of the departures to "fears" and "a crisis of confidence" affecting the Palestinian population.

As for Arab calls for flight, these were reckoned to be significant in only 5% of cases.[4] This clearly demonstrates not only Israeli responsibility for the Palestinian refugees of 1948, but also that Israel was aware of it while it was going on, thus showing that expelling the Palestinians was intentional Israeli policy.  This is compounded by the fact that the dispossession and ethnic cleansing of the Arabs of Palestine was part of the Zionist project from the very beginning. Theodor Herzl, in effect the father of modern Zionism and the state of Israel, in the draft-agreement of The Jewish-Ottoman Land Company (JOLC) stated the company was 'for the purpose of settling Palestine and Syria with Jews' (the company lobbied for approval from Sultan Abdulhameed in Istanbul in 1901). In Article III of the same agreement the JOLC was given the right to deport the native populations, an act aimed at legitimizing ethnic cleansing, by granting "The right to exchange economic enclaves of its territory, with the exception of the holy places or places already designated for worship. The owners shall receive plots of equal size and quality procured by it (the JOLC) in other provinces and territories of the Ottoman Empire."[5] This intentional ethnic cleansing of Arabs from Palestine can therefore be seen as part of the Zionist project to create a Jewish majority state in Israel. Therefore, to deny the Palestinian right of return is to perpetuate this injustice and allow ethnic cleansing to succeed. Israel, a state founded by refugees of ethnic cleansing and the Holocaust, should not allow such an injustice to stand any longer.

[1] Morris, Benny. "The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited". Cambridge University Press. 2004

[2] Childers, Erskine. "The Other Exodus". The Spectator. 12 May 1961

[3] Khalidi, Walid. "Why did the Palestinians Leave, Revisited". Journal of Palestinian Studies Vol 134, no. 2 (Win. 05).

[4] Morris, Benny. "The Causes and Character of the Arab Exodus from Palestine: The Israel Defence Forces Intelligence Branch Analysis of June 1948". Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 22, No. 1 (Jan., 1986)

[5] Sakhnini, Nizar. "Dispossession and Ethnic Cleansing." Al-Awda - The Palestinian Right of Return Coalition. 12 July 2004. http://www.al-awda.org/zionists01.html

The characterization of the 1948 Palestinian exodus as forced by Israel is incorrect. In the very same passage quoted opposite, Morris goes on to argue that only "an extremely small, almost insignificant number of the refugees during this early period left because of (Israeli) expulsion orders or forceful 'advice' to that effect".[1] Count Bernadotte, the UN mediator in Palestine, testified that "the exodus of the Palestinian Arabs resulted from panic created by fighting in their communities, by rumours concerning real or alleged acts of terrorism, or expulsion."[2] Thus, Israel is not responsible for acts of flight from Palestine which were largely motivated by imagined fears, which were the cause of almost all the Palestinian refugees, as they were not directly expelled or threatened by the IDF.

The Palestinians of 1948 may have made a tragic choice, for themselves and for their descendants, but this does not make Israel morally responsible for this choice and its consequences, as in almost every case Israel was not to blame, and it is impossible to isolate and identify those few where it may have been. Even if Israel were somehow morally responsible, it does not follow from this that Israel should accept an unlimited Palestinian right of return on the part of every refugee, considering the massive harms this would inflict on the state of Israel (outlined below). Rather, as Israel has proposed in the past, the Palestinians could accept words of contrition from Israel, and generous allocations of international aid, in place of the right of every refugee and his descendants to go back to his old home inside Israel.[3] This would be a more acceptable alternative to Israel, and still help to heal Palestinian wounds.

[1] Morris, Benny. "The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited". Cambridge University Press. 2004

[2] UN Progress Report, 16 September 1948, Part 1 Section V, paragraph 6; Part 3 Section I

[3] The Economist. "The Palestinian right of return". The Economist. 4 January 2001. http://www.economist.com/node/464892

Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights  states that "Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country."[1] This right clearly applies to the Palestinians, as shown by UN General Assembly Resolution 194: “The General Assembly, Having considered further the situation in Palestine ... Resolves that the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible."[2] This resolution was further clarified by UN General Assembly Resolution 3236 which reaffirms:  "the inalienable right of Palestinians to return to their homes and property from which they have been displaced and uprooted, and calls for their return." Israel itself accepted Resolution 194 when it was allowed to join the UN on the condition that it accepted this resolution.[3]

Israel's own laws recognise the importance of the 'right of return' to a people in general through the fact that Jews are allowed to emigrate to Israel under Israel's Law of Return, even if their immediate ancestors have not lived in the area in recent years.[4] The fact that, conversely, Palestinian people who grew up in the area and whose immediate ancestors had lived there for many generations are forbidden from returning is thus a huge injustice even from Israel's own legal perspective. Moreover, this right of return applies not just to Palestinians as a group but also individually to all Palestinian refugees themselves. On March 15, 2000, a group of 100 prominent Palestinians from around the world expressed their opinion that the right of return is individual, rather than collective, and that it cannot therefore be reduced or forfeited by any representation on behalf of the Palestinians in any agreement or treaty. They argued that the right to property 'cannot be extinguished by new sovereignty or occupation and does not have a statute of limitation.'[5] Therefore the Palestinian right of return has a clear basis in international law, including in Israel's own law, and so it should be recognised.

[1] United Nations. "Universal Declaration of Human Rights". Wikisource. 10 December 1948. http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Universal_Declaration_of_Human_Rights#Article_13

[2] United Nations. "UN General Assembly Resolution 194". United Nations. 11 December 1948. http://unbisnet.un.org:8080/ipac20/ipac.jsp?session=108V0691N26Y9.82&menu=search&aspect=power&npp=50&ipp=20&profile=voting&ri=&index=.VM&term=A/RES/194%28III%29

[3] Al-Awda - The Palestinian Right of Return Coalition.  "Factsheet". Al-Awda - The Palestinian Right of Return Coalition. http://www.al-awda.org/facts.html

[4] The Economist. "The Palestinian right of return". The Economist. 4 January 2001. http://www.economist.com/node/464892

[5] Al-Ahram Weekly. "Affirmation of the Palestinian Right of Return". Al-Ahram Weekly Online. 9 - 15 March 2000. http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2000/472/focus2.htm

Whatever the strengths and weaknesses of the Palestinians' legal case, their foremost argument for a 'right of return' has always rested on a claim of victimhood; this claim is highly disputed (as outlined below). Without this moral culpability on the part of Israel, there is no responsibility to right the situation on the part of the Israeli state.

Moreover, the 'individual' nature of the right of return is not helpful to the Palestinian case: Stig Jagerskiold argued in 1966 that the right of return was intended as an individual and not a collective right: "...[it] is intended to apply to individuals asserting an individual right. There was no intention here to address the claims of masses of people who have been displaced as a by-product of war or by political transfers of territory or population, such as the relocation of ethnic Germans from Eastern Europe during and after the Second World War, the flight of the Palestinians from what became Israel, or the movement of Jews from the Arab countries."[1] The claimed legal 'right of return' was never intended to be invoked by masses of people, which would fundamentally alter the welfare and nature of the state they returned to, and so its use in this way is invalid.

[1] Lapidoth, Ruth. "LEGAL ASPECTS OF THE PALESTINIAN REFUGEE QUESTION". Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs: Jerusalem Letter / Viewpoints. 1 Septemebr 2002. http://www.jcpa.org/jl/vp485.htm

Palestinian refugees represent the longest suffering and largest refugee population in the world today. During the creation of Israel in 1948, approximately three quarters of a million Palestinians were forced to become refugees. Together with their descendants, more than 4.3 million of these refugees are today registered with the United Nations while over 1.7 million are not. Approximately 32,000 Palestinians also became internally displaced in the areas occupied in 1948. Today, these refugees number approximately 355,000 persons. Despite the fact that they were issued Israeli citizenship, Israel has also denied these refugees their right to return to their homes or villages.[1] The fact that these refugees are forced by Israel to continue living abroad, mostly in refugee camps, further harms Palestinians by denying them the right to self-determination in their homeland which they were expelled from.

The 1993 Vienna Declaration, which reaffirmed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the UN Charter (and so sets the standard in current international law), unequivocally gives all peoples the right to self-determination: "All people have the right to self-determination. Owing to this right they freely establish their political status and freely provide their economic, social and cultural development...World Conference on Human Rights considers refusal of the right to self-determination as a violation of human rights and emphasizes the necessity of effective realization of this right".[2] By this measure, the Palestinian people have a right to self-determination in their homeland, allowing them to establish an independent state if they wish, any suppression of that right should be seen as a human rights violation. Therefore Israel's denial of the Palestinian’s right of return harms the Palestinians, and so it should be ended.

[1] Al-Awda - The Palestinian Right of Return Coalition.  "Factsheet". Al-Awda - The Palestinian Right of Return Coalition. http://www.al-awda.org/facts.html

[2] United Nations World Conference on Human Rights. “VIENNA DECLARATION AND PROGRAMME OF ACTION”. United Nations. 14-25 June 1993. http://www.unhchr.ch/huridocda/huridoca.nsf/%28symbol%29/a.conf.157.23.en

This argument again assumes that Israel is morally responsible for the current plight of the Palestinian refugees, which is untrue as Israel was not responsible for their exodus (as outlined below). Moreover, it is Arab countries, not Israel, which keep Palestinians in a state of limbo. It is the failure of Arab states to incorporate Palestinians into their societies by offering legal status which keeps the Palestinian refugees in their current indeterminate position, not Israeli policy. Furthermore, self-determination is not an absolute right. Not every territory and region in the world that seeks independence has the right to it. This is due in no small part to the fact that such a system would be unworkable. Certain criteria must be met for a territory and people to obtain a legitimate right to self-determination, including not compromising the fundamental security or nature of the original state, something which recognising the Palestinian right of return would do to Israel. Such policies are often pursued by Arab states explicitly as a tool against Israel: for example, Palestinians who moved from the West Bank (whether refugees or not) to Jordan, are issued yellow ID cards to distinguish them from the Palestinians of the "official 10 refugee camps" in Jordan.

Since 1988, thousands of those yellow-ID card Palestinians have had their Jordanian citizenship revoked in order to prevent the possibility that they might become permanent residents of the country. Jordan's Interior Minister Nayef al-Kadi said: "Our goal is to prevent Israel from emptying the Palestinian territories of their original inhabitants," the minister explained. "We should be thanked for taking this measure... We are fulfilling our national duty because Israel wants to expel the Palestinians from their homeland."[1]

[1] Abu Toameh, Khaled. "Amman revoking Palestinians' citizenship". The Jerusalem Post. 20 July 2009. http://fr.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1246443863400&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull

If all or a large majority of Palestinian refugees and their descendants were to implement a 'right of return', it would make Arabs the majority within Israel and Jews an ethnic minority. This amounts to abolishing the Jewish people's right to self-determination, which they hold under the 1993 Vienna Declaration.[1] It would also mean eradicating Israel as a Jewish state, which was the intention behind its foundation. The majority of Israelis find a literal right of return for Palestinian refugees to be unacceptable, pointing to this worry that as they become a minority Israel as a Jewish state would be undermined.[2]

Re-enforcing the need for the existence of a Jewish state (as a safe haven for persecuted Jews) is the presence in Israel of 758,000-866,000 Jews who were expelled, fled or emigrated from the Arab Middle East and North Africa between 1945 and 1956, to whom the Arab states which expelled them are not willing to offer any 'right of return' of their own.[3] An open letter to the Palestinian leadership published in 2001 by Amos Oz, A.B. Yehoshua and other Israeli intellectuals and peace activists dramatically demonstrated the agreement even among the 'peace camp' in Israel that a total right of return for Palestinians can never be acceptable to the Israeli people: “We shall never be able to agree”, they wrote, “to the return of the refugees to within the borders of Israel. The meaning of such a return would be the elimination of the state of Israel.” Yossi Sarid, chairman of the Meretz Party, stated baldly that “Israel can survive without sovereignty over Temple Mount, but it cannot survive with the right of return. If the Palestinians insist on it, there will be no (peace) agreement.”[4] Thus asking Israel to recognise the Palestinian right of return is tantamount to asking Israel to accept its own destruction as a state, and is thus totally unacceptable.

There are further reasons that recognising the Palestinian right of return would be fundamentally harmful to Israel's welfare, and thus an invalid action. Article 29 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights provides that rights can be limited by law solely for securing 'due recognition and respect for the rights of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order, and general welfare in a democratic society.' Article 30 states that nothing in the declaration may be interpreted as permitting any state, group, or person to engage in activity aimed at the destruction of any rights or freedoms guaranteed. The 'rights' and 'general welfare' of Israel's Jewish citizens would be endangered if millions of Palestinians who were openly hostile to Israel's existence became a majority. Article 3 of the declaration further states that "these rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purpose and principles of the United Nations".[5] The Palestinian right of return would result in the loss of Israeli sovereignty and its replacement with an Arab-majority state, and the dismantling of Israeli society in favour of an Arab-Muslim dominated society, resulting in the destruction of a UN member state: a violation of the United Nations Charter. For this reason, a Palestinian right of return is invalidated.

A right of return would also result in a flood of Palestinians stating their 'right of return' as justification for entering Israel at any time and in unlimited numbers and laying claim to old homes. This creates an unworkable legal nightmare, clouded by historical ambiguities. Such an extended legal nightmare would last for decades, and hurt the reconciliation process. [i-[1]

There are many things that Israel can and has offered to Palestinian refugees: compensation, assistance in resettlement, and return for an extremely limited number of refugees based solely on family reunification or humanitarian considerations. But an unlimited right of return for all refugees and their descendants simply goes too far. This is largely because it is purely unworkable to allow millions of Palestinians to return back to a territory that is already overcrowded.[i-[2] [6] For all these reasons, recognising the Palestinian right of return would destroy Israel as a 'Jewish state' and fundamentally harm the welfare of its current legal inhabitants by infringing on their rights, and so Israel should not pursue this recognition.

[1] United Nations World Conference on Human Rights. “VIENNA DECLARATION AND PROGRAMME OF ACTION”. United Nations. 14-25 June 1993. http://www.unhchr.ch/huridocda/huridoca.nsf/%28symbol%29/a.conf.157.23.en

[2] The Economist. "The Palestinian right of return". The Economist. 4 January 2001. http://www.economist.com/node/464892

[3] Schwartz, Adi. "All I wanted was justice". Haaretz/adi-schwartz.com. 4 January 2008. http://www.adi-schwartz.com/israeli-arab-conflict/all-i-wanted-was-justice/

[4] The Economist. "The Palestinian right of return". The Economist. 4 January 2001. http://www.economist.com/node/464892

[5] United Nations. "Universal Declaration of Human Rights". Wikisource. 10 December 1948. http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Universal_Declaration_of_Human_Rights#Article_

[6] The Economist. "The Palestinian right of return". The Economist. 4 January 2001. http://www.economist.com/node/464892

The inalienable rights of refugees are not negotiable, nor are they subject to the interests of the state which they would be returning to. International law considers agreements between an occupier and the occupied to be null and void if they deprive civilians of recognized human rights including the rights to repatriation and restitution.[1] Therefore the interests of the state of Israel are not legitimate reasons to deny the right of return which is owed to Palestinian refugees. Moreover, the right of return is feasible in Israel due to the availability of empty land. 80% of Israelis live in 15 percent of the land and that the remaining 20% live on 85% of the land that belongs to the refugees. Further, of the 20%, 18% live in Palestinian cities while the remaining 2% live in kibbutzim and moshavs. By contrast, more than 6,000 refugees live per square kilometer in the Gaza Strip, while over the barbed wire their lands are practically empty.[2]

[1] Al-Awda - The Palestinian Right of Return Coalition.  "Factsheet". Al-Awda - The Palestinian Right of Return Coalition. http://www.al-awda.org/facts.html

[2] Sakhnini, Nizar. "Dispossession and Ethnic Cleansing." Al-Awda - The Palestinian Right of Return Coalition. 12 July 2004. http://www.al-awda.org/zionists01.html

The current Palestinian refugee crisis is largely the creation of the Palestinian people themselves, who largely left voluntarily (or at least not by Israeli force) in 1948, and the Arab states who both started the 1948 war against Israel and who have kept the Palestinians in limbo ever since instead of integrating them.

Firstly, Palestinian flight from Israel was not compelled but was predominantly voluntary, as a result of seven Arab nations declaring war on Israel in 1948. Israel officially denies any responsibility for the Palestinian exodus, stating that their flight was caused by the Arab invasion. Efraim Karsh states that most Palestinians chose their status as refugees themselves, and therefore Israel is therefore absolved of responsibility.[1]  Morris argues that only "an extremely small, almost insignificant number of the refugees during this early period left because of (Israeli) expulsion orders or forceful 'advice' to that effect".[2] Count Bernadotte, the UN mediator in Palestine, testified that "the exodus of the Palestinian Arabs resulted from panic created by fighting in their communities, by rumours concerning real or alleged acts of terrorism, or expulsion."[3] Therefore Israel is absolved of moral responsibility for the Palestinian exodus, as the vast majority of it was caused by the Palestinian people themselves.

Further, Arab states instigated the 1948 and 1967 wars, and so they bear responsibility for their outcomes, including the refugees that resulted. Israeli official sources, foreign press, and officials present at the time, and historians such as Joseph Schechtman have long claimed that the 1948 refugee crisis was instigated by the invading Arab armies, who ordered Palestinian civilians to evacuate the battle zone. Israel officially denies any responsibility for the Palestinian exodus, stating that their flight was caused by the Arab invasion.[4][5] Thus the responsibility for housing and integrating Palestinian refugees into established, recognised nations in fact lies with the Arab states. However, this is a responsibility that the Arab world has neglected since 1948. 

It is the failure of Arab states to incorporate Palestinians into their societies by offering legal status which keeps the Palestinian refugees in limbo, not Israeli policy. Refugees and their descendants are usually kept in refugee camps and not allowed to integrate into the Arab nations in which they reside.[6] Such policies are often pursued by Arab states explicitly as a tool against Israel: for example, Palestinians who moved from the West Bank (whether refugees or not) to Jordan, are issued yellow ID cards to distinguish them from the Palestinians of the "official 10 refugee camps" in Jordan. Since 1988, thousands of those yellow-ID card Palestinians have had their Jordanian citizenship revoked in order to prevent the possibility that they might become permanent residents of the country. Jordan's Interior Minister Nayef al-Kadi said: "Our goal is to prevent Israel from emptying the Palestinian territories of their original inhabitants. "We should be thanked for taking this measure... We are fulfilling our national duty because Israel wants to expel the Palestinians from their homeland."[7] Thus, the Palestinian refugee problem was brought about through choices made by Palestinians themselves, during a war against Israel initiated by Arab states. The crisis has since been perpetuated by other Arab governments. Many states- such as Jordan- have pursued policies that call for the exclusion and marginalisation of Palestinians, in the interest of weakening Israeli claims to statehood and maintaining and deepening Palestinian and Arab resentment of Israel. Israel is not therefore the morally culpable actor, and so has no responsibility to recognise the Palestinian 'right of return'.

[1] Karsh, Efraim. "Fabricating Israeli History: The "New Historians"". Cass. 1997

[2] Morris, Benny. "The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited". Cambridge University Press. 2004

[3] UN Progress Report, 16 September 1948, Part 1 Section V, paragraph 6; Part 3 Section I

[4] UN Progress Report, 16 September 1948, Part 1 Section V, paragraph 6; Part 3 Section I

[5] Schechtman, Joseph. "The Arab Refugee Problem". 1952.

[6] The Economist. "The Palestinian right of return". The Economist. 4 January 2001. http://www.economist.com/node/464892

[7] Abu Toameh, Khaled. "Amman revoking Palestinians' citizenship". The Jerusalem Post. 20 July 2009. http://fr.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1246443863400&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull

The Zionist project which led to the state of Israel intended to displace Palestinians from the very beginning, long before the so-called Arab 'aggression' in 1948. Theodor Herzl, who presided the First Zionist Congress, had provided the ideological underpinnings of the Zionist movement in his pamphlet, Der Judenstaat, which was published in 1896. Herzl called for a colonial project for the exclusive benefit of the Jews and suggested that Der Judenstaat would 'form a portion of the rampart of Europe against Asia, an outpost of civilization as opposed to barbarism.' Efforts of the Zionist political movement to implement their project, with the support of the Imperialist Great Powers, in complete disregard to the Palestinian rights and human reality in Palestine, were responsible for initiating and prolonging the conflict in and around Palestine. The establishment of an exclusive Jewish State in a country where the majority of its people were not Jewish meant transplanting Jews from all corners of the world and bringing them to Palestine. Simultaneously, it meant dispossession and ethnic cleansing for the Palestinians. This was, and still is, the core issue in the conflict. All subsequent events are derivative and irrelevant as a consequence.[1]

[1] Sakhnini, Nizar. "The Core Issue". Al-Awda - The Palestinian Right of Return Coalition. 11 July 2004. http://www.al-awda.org/zionists0.html

Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights does not guarantee a right of return because the clause "everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country" was meant to guarantee the right to leave.

According to its legislative history, Article 13 was aimed at governments which imprisoned certain subgroups of their own nationals by preventing them from moving beyond their national borders. According to its sponsor, the mention of a "right to return" was included to assure that "the right to leave a country, already sanctioned in the article, would be strengthened by the assurance of the right to return.[1] Moreover, Article 13 only guarantees a specific right to return "to his own country".[2] But, the Palestinians who were displaced were never citizens or legal residents of Israel. Therefore, they can have no right of return to Israel.  U.N. General Assembly Resolution 194, furthermore, does not specify a 'right', but rather says refugees "should" be allowed to return.[3] Hence Israel is under no obligation to recognise a 'right', but rather merely to accept that Palestinians have some claim to return or to compensation for not being able to return. This is distinct from a total and inalienable 'right' to do so, regardless of the consequences for Israel. Also, there is no formal mechanism in international law to demand repatriation of refugees and their descendants in general or Palestinians specifically. No international legislation, binding UN resolutions or agreements between Israel and the Palestinians require this. This is demonstrated by international precedent, especially by the case of the 758,000-866,000 Jews who were expelled, fled or emigrated from the Arab Middle East and North Africa between 1945 and 1956, with property losses of $1 billion.[4] Since these refugees were neither compensated nor allowed return—to no objection on the part of Arab leaders or international legal authorities—the international community has accepted this migration of Jews as fait accompli, and thereby set legal precedent in the region against a right of return for Palestinians also.

Finally, most of the inhabitants of the Palestinian refugee camps abroad were not actually alive in either 1948 or 1967, and there is no reason to believe that their descendants automatically inherit any 'right of return' which their ancestors may have held. Therefore Israel should not recognise the Palestinian 'right of return' as no such right really exists under international law.

[1] Dinstein, Yoram. "Israel Yearbook on Human Rights". Volume 16; Volume 1986

[2] United Nations. "Universal Declaration of Human Rights". Wikisource. 10 December 1948. http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Universal_Declaration_of_Human_Rights#Article_13

[3] United Nations. "UN General Assembly Resolution 194". United Nations. 11 December 1948. http://unbisnet.un.org:8080/ipac20/ipac.jsp?session=108V0691N26Y9.82&menu=search&aspect=power&npp=50&ipp=20&profile=voting&ri=&index=.VM&term=A/RES/194%28III%29

[4] Schwartz, Adi. "All I wanted was justice". Haaretz/adi-schwartz.com. 4 January 2008. http://www.adi-schwartz.com/israeli-arab-conflict/all-i-wanted-was-justice/

The 1948 UN General Resolution 194 specifically applies the right of return to the Palestinian refugees. Paragraph 11 states "that the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible."[1]

[1] United Nations. "UN General Assembly Resolution 194". United Nations. 11 December 1948. http://unbisnet.un.org:8080/ipac20/ipac.jsp?session=108V0691N26Y9.82&menu=search&aspect=power&npp=50&ipp=20&profile=voting&ri=&index=.VM&term=A/RES/194%28III%29