BADIL

'Palestine Right-of-Return Coalition:' The Search for an Organizational Model for Effective, Democratic, and Inclusive Coordination of Palestinian Refugee Community Initiatives

Our 2002 annual meeting was convened while the Palestinian people are facing extremely difficult circumstances in the 1967 occupied Palestinian territories (OPTs) and inside 1948 Palestine/Israel. For some two years, the Israeli occupation has engaged in a campaign aimed at erasing the Palestinian cause in all its components –
national, political, and human. This campaign has threatened both the physical existence of our people and the legitimacy of our political leadership. Moreover, it has succeeded to move international public perception of the struggle for the liberation of the people and the land into the realm of "terrorism." This move would not have succeeded without the international silence and complicity that prepared the ground for the acceptance of daily war crimes committed against the Palestinian people. The affects of these war crimes have been devastating. The resulting needs of our people are overwhelming. In this context, and in order to not lose sight of the strategic objectives of our struggle in the face of hardship caused by the Zionist occupation, it is vital to continue our popular movement for the refugees' right of return. BADIL and its partners convened the third annual meeting of the Palestine Right-of-Return Coalition for this purpose.

A human rights award given by an international cosmetics company has focused attention on an oft-ignored group of Palestinian refugees: those living as exiles inside the land occupied by Israel in 1948. The Body Shop selected the Association for the Defence of the Rights of the Internally Displaced (ADRID), as one of four recipients of its annual international award in recognition of the work of human rights campaigners.
The situation confronting the 250,000 refugees inside Israel, classified by the Israeli Absentee Property Law under the surreal oxymoron “Present Absentees,” demonstrates that there can be no just solution for Palestinians without recognition of the rights of those inside the Green Line. The work of ADRID, and individual village-based societies like the Saffuriyya Heritage Association featured here, must be supported internationally as an integral part of the work of campaigning for the right of return. Palestinian refugees inside the 1948 border began to take a more active role in campaigning for their rights following the 1991 Madrid conference. It became clear that official channels, both Palestinian and international negotiators, were not going to place the issue of 1948 Palestinians (refugees or not) on the agenda. ADRID was formed in the wake of this realization, and their efforts have recently received international recognition by The Body Shop. The award has given their campaign a welcome boost. In October, members of the committee flew to London to receive the award before an audience of over 350 guests from the British media, parliament and NGOs. The honour was shared with groups from Honduras, Kenya and Bulgaria, all of whom are campaigning for rights for indigenous peoples, demonstrating that this issue has the potential to reach an international audience. ADRID is a grassroots network supporting community-based organisations campaigning for the right of return for refugees inside the 1948 borders. Providing moral and practical support, the group works to restore destroyed communal property and religious sites (graveyards, churches, mosques) and undertakes documentation of history, demography, and properties of internally displaced Palestinians.