Refugee Memorandum to the Palestinian National Council

Refugee Memorandum to the Palestinian National Council (PNC)

Issued by the Follow-Up Committee in Commemoration of the 52nd Anniversary of Al-Nakba (June 2000)

To: Salim al-Za'noun, Palestinian National Council

Respected PNC Members,

Deeply concerned about the national and inalienable rights of our people and the dangers which threaten our national program of return and self-determination in accordance to international legitimacy, we re-affirm that international law and principles are the only basis for the final status negotiations.

Based on our belief in liberation, independence and the establishment of the independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, we demand the right of return, according to UN Resolution 194, for our entire Palestinian people to the lands of pre-1948 Palestine. We here re-affirm the following principles which we consider as the red lines that must not be crossed in the political negotiations:

1. The refugee question, in Palestine and in the Diaspora is one issue and must not be divided.
2. UN Resolution 194 is the reference for the solution of the Palestinian refugee question.
3. The Right of Return is sacred and non-negotiable. It is an individual and collective right.
4. There is one meaning for the right of return: the return of the entire Palestinian people to the lands and properties from which they were evicted in 1948, and compensation for loss and damage caused to their properties.
5. All plans aimed at refugee resettlement or at the liquidation of the Palestinian refugee issue in the Diaspora are to be rejected and resisted.
6. Compensation as a substitute for the right of return is to be rejected, and all bargaining about the right of return in exchange for other political benefits must be stopped.
7. Any final solution for the refugee question, or any final peace agreement signed by the PLO with Israel, is not a just solution and will not be binding, if it does not include the implementation of our right of return according to UN Resolution 194.
8. The massive commitment of the Palestinian people, in the past and in the future, to the PLO is based on the PLO's adherence to the program of liberation and return.