BADIL

By mid-December, Palestinian and Israeli negotiating teams had met some ten times to discuss issues pertaining to the framework agreement to be signed in February 2000 as a first step towards a future comprehensive Israeli-Palestinian final status agreement. US Foreign Secretary Albright's visit gave rise to strong official Palestinian protests against the ongoing Israeli settlement activities in the 1967 occupied territories, including a Palestinian threat to halt the final status negotiations. Following Albright's departure, however, negotiations resumed.

Political Overview
Dr. Nayef Jarrad, Political Advisor to the PNC-West Bank

The adaptation of Palestinian refugees exiled to Syria after 1948 was eased by the historical connection between Syria and Palestine ("Greater Syria"). Despite political differences between the two countries after 1920, many Syrians had participated in the defense of Palestine against Zionist colonization, especially during the 1936-39 Arab Revolt. Damascus was a stronghold of Palestinian revolutionaries and, following the defeat in the 1939 revolt, became their shelter. This relationship continued until well after the 1948 Nakba.

Palestinian Refugees from the Demilitarized Zones (1949-1956)

 
The armistice agreements between Israel and the neighboring Arab states included the establishment of Demilitarized Zones (DMZs) in the north along the cease-fire lines with Syria and in the south along the cease-fire lines with Egypt. Israeli expulsion campaigns, most of them headed by Ariel Sharon, were undertaken mainly in the years 1949 - 1951 and were completed by 1956.

Speaking on the 50th anniversary of the establishment of UNRWA, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan noted that "despite the urgent need to create economic and social conditions conducive to peace, UNRWA today finds itself in a state of financial strangulation." The assessment is born out in the Agency's latest annual report, which describes 1998-99 as a year of achievement but also one of continued austerity and anxiety. According to the report, "existing services were sustained only by retention of prior austerity and cost reduction measures."

"In our Holy Land, peace is still a difficult process. In these recent days it has extended to include all parties concerned. Peace will be the fruit of justice. In our context, it should restore to the refugees their dignity and their rights, to the political prisoners their liberty, and to Jerusalem it should guarantee its sacred character. Peace with the Palestinian people remains at the heart of the problem and the essential condition for peace in the whole region." (Christmas Message, 1999)