For more than five decades Palestinian refugees and internally displaced have struggled for a solution to their plight based on UN resolutions and international law, including the right to voluntarily return to their homes and lands of origin from which they were displaced/expelled during wars in 1948 and 1967 and due to other Israeli policies of forced eviction, deportation, etc..

Refugee Self-Organization

In the early 1990s, Palestinian refugees and the internally displaced (IDPs) initiated new efforts aimed at self-organization and empowerment in response to the absence of explicit references to refugee rights, relevant UN resolutions (e.g., GA Res. 194 and SC Res. 237) and international law from agreements signed by Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). These initiatives aimed to lobby the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Palestinian Authority (PA), Israel and the international community to negotiate durable solutions consistent with UN resolutions and international law. They were as much an expression of concern about the exclusion of specific rights from these agreements as they were a popular demand for better representation in the political process.

Basic agenda and guidelines for a community-based campaign for the right of return were defined in a series of popular conferences convened in 1995 and 1996 inside 1948 Palestine/Israel and in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The popular refugee conferences and the prospect of final status negotiations on the refugee issue in 1999-2000 led to the gradual expansion of the loosely organized right of return network. The Global Palestine Right of Return Coalition was officially established in 2001 enabling partners in the Middle East, Europe and North America to organize joint initiatives and develop unified strategies for Palestinian refugee rights as part of a comprehensive solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

BADIL's refugee rights campaign facilitates partnership-based initiatives with local Palestinian and international organizations to strengthen refugee identity, promote refugee unity, and empower initiatives of refugee self-organization for Palestinian refugee rights. Activities include local and regional workshops on refugee rights; support for rallies, community lobbying and the establishment of a formal framework of coordination of local refugee community and right of return initiatives; study tours to villages of origin and other refugee cases; discussion and debate about Palestinian refugee rights with progressive sectors of Jewish-Israeli society; and, cooperation with similar initiatives of displaced and landless peoples. For more information about past and ongoing work see the BADIL Annual Report.