BADIL

No doubt, the challenges facing progressive and democratic Palestinian forces aiming to launch a new initiative for the defense of Palestinian refugee rights are tremendous. All steps set so far represent no more than a humble beginning. As the traditional political leadership represented in the PLO - including both supporters of the Oslo Accords and their opponents - remains hopelessly divided, new and much weaker Palestinian social and political forces - unions, NGOs, grass-roots organizations and researchers - are confronted with the difficult task of starting to build amid the ruins of Oslo:

Based on a briefing paper by Lee-O’Brien, Oxfam, GB, February 1999

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) was formed in 1950 as an emergency relief and works agency but over time, transformed into the provider of basic education, health and social services to registered refugees. Despite lacking a political mandate UNRWA became, for refugees and host governments alike, the embodiment of international recognition and concern for the situation of Palestinian refugees.

(million Palestinian pounds, 1948)
Type UNPCC Arab High Committee Sayigh Kubursi
 

General Notes:
Jerusalem and village share is calculated based on percentage of refugees out of total refugee population in 1948. Villages include those annexed to Jerusalem after the 1948: Lifta, ‘Ayn Karim, Dayr Yasin and Malha.

Overall, Kubursi assigns a value of 743.05 million Palestinian pounds to total Palestinian Arab refugee property losses. If human capital losses are included, this figure rises to 1,176 million Palestinian pounds while the inclusion of compensation for psychological damage and pain would produce a total figure of 1,424 million Palestinian pounds or $253,000 million in 1994 US dollars.

Sources: UN Palestine Conciliation Documents and Atif Kubursi, Palestinian Losses in 1948: The Quest for Precision. Washington, DC: The Center for Policy Analysis on Palestine, 1996.

The following introduction to the issue of restitution is based on a BADIL research report prepared for publication in spring 1999.

In the closing decades of the 20th century, claims for restitution of refugees, displaced persons (DPs) and other peoples who have been deprived of their basic rights, including the right to their lands and properties, have been raised worldwide on a scale previously unknown. While international law emphasizes refugee protection (non-refoulement), refugee repatriation was put on the international agenda in the 1990s by the massive new refugee problems created by the civil wars in such places as the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, and Chechnya. According to the 1998 World Refugee Survey, published by the US Committee for Refugees, repatriation has become the favored solution for refugees. The assumption of long-term exile is outdated.

October Poll

Question 2: One of every two Palestinians lost land or other assets when Israel was created in 1948. Now that the US intervened in getting Switzerland and other countries to give compensation for Jewish losses in World War II, do you agree or disagree that the US should intervene to get Israel to pay compensation to Palestinian survivors?

Agree 35.9
Disagree 37.3
Not sure 26.8

Easterners (44.2%), 18-29 year olds (48.5%), Hispanics (45.9%), and those earning more than $75,000 a year (44.4%) are the most likely to agree that [the US] should intervene on behalf of Palestinians seeking compensation, while those living in the South (41.7%), Republications (44%) and African Americans (42%) are the most likely to disagree.
Source: Center for Policy Analysis on Palestine