BADIL

West Bank Refugees Decide Against Participation in PA Municipal Elections
In April 1997, the PA Ministry for Local Affairs called for a meeting with refugee activists, hoping to gain their approval for refugee participation in the upcoming municipal elections. However, refugees rejected the original proposal and presented a counter-proposal which calls for the election of camp-councils which will be the body representing refugees in their relation to the PA. Elections of camp councils will not coincide with the PA municipal elections. Following PLO approval, this decision is binding for the West Bank. In the Gaza Strip, a final decision is still pending. Since the refugee population there constitutes the majority of the population within the municipal boundaries, refugees may decide in favor of participation in the PA elections. (Source: Salah Abed Rabbo, Union of Youth Centers)

Quiet Diplomacy for Refugee Resettlement
The quiet re-settlement diplomacy of the post Oslo era has followed two approaches, one dealing with schemes of massive population transfer, the other preferring a gradual transfer of limited numbers.
The first approach includes the initial trial balloons released by Israel in 1993 and 1994 regarding a massive transfer of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon and Syria to western or southwestern Iraq. A more recent example are reported efforts by US government to convince Iraq to receive up to 500,000 Palestinian refugees from Lebanon as a trade-off for lifting the UN sanctions on Iraq.
The more recent efforts of 1996 and 1997 have shifted toward a more dispersed form of resettlement across several countries, using a quota system. The most recent piece of information is a 1997 US Congressional delegation which has taken the initiative to conduct a tour of the southern Gulf states requesting each of them to take a quota of 30,000 to 40,000 Palestinian refugees from Lebanon. These new efforts involve a transfer of Palestine refugees, gradually and in small clusters to other Arab (and possibly also Western) countries, decidedly against their collective will. The plans are initiated by forces which are not known for their sympathy to the human or national well-being of the Palestinian people.

Since re-settlement schemes are a matter of deep concern and worry among the refugee community while accurate information is difficult to access, academic research which explores these diplomatic maneuverings and brings them out into the open is needed. Such research could contribute to counter the policy of dis-information and of exclusion of Palestinian refugees from the discussion about their future fate. (Source: McGill University/Fofognet, 21-4-1997)

Canada Camp and the Irony of the Multilateral Refugee Working Group
On 18 April 1997, the following news item was published in Canada (Globe and Mail, Toronto):
“A handful of refugees stuck in Canada Camp in the Sinai region for about 15 years because of an unexpected border shift are finally home. Their reunion with relatives in the Gaza Strip is evidence that efforts to resolve the Palestinian refugee question are producing results, Canadian envoy Andrew Robinson said yesterday. Mr. Robinson, special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, went to the Gaza Strip on Wednesday to greet eight heads of household who returned with their families. ‘This is a concrete expression of the benefits of the peace process for Palestinian refugee families,’ Mr. Robinson said before returning to Canada.”

A response by Elia Zureik, Professor of Sociology, Queen’s University, Kingston (Canada) was published in the same newspaper on 21 April 1997:

“The Refugee Working Group of the Middle East peace process has been meeting for five years to deal with the thorny issue of Palestinian refugees. Mr. Andrew Robinson, the current Canadian coordinator of the Refugee Working Group, was personally at hand to welcome the return of eight Palestinian refugee households from the Sinai desert to the Gaza Strip. He later commented that this return was ‘a concrete expression of the benefits of the peace process’. For someone who has been a member of the Palestinian delegation to this Working Group since its inception, this comment sounds comical had it not been for the sad reality it hides, namely that according to the United Nations there are more than four million individual refugees, stranded and waiting to go home. At this rate it is going to take two, three or more centuries to return the rest. I trust that Mr. Robinson will keep the faith and will be there to welcome the remaining refugees upon their return.” (McGill University/Fofognet, 21-4-1997 and 19-5-1997)
 

to the UN Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian People and Other Arabs in the Occupied Territories (AIC/Project for Palestinian Residency & Refugee Rights, Cairo, 31 May 1997):

AIC staff presented case files and background information to the Committee composed of UN ambassadors of several African and Asian countries and the Human Rights Officer of the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights. Egyptian press and TV reported extensively about the testimony.