Palestinian Refugees 1948 - 1998
50 Years in Exile
A |Look at the Past - Perspectives for
the Future
Starting with this issue,
ARTICLE 74 will regularly present analysis and opinions of activists
and researchers on the Palestinian refugee question. In this way, we hope
to contgribute to the debate about strategies for the protection of refugee
rights. In the current issue, we present the contributions of Salah Abed
Rabbo and Dr. Adel Samara.
A UNIFIED
STRATEGY AGAINST ALL ODDS:
THE POPULAR REFUGEE MOVEMENT
By Salah Abed Rabbo
Salah
Abed Rabbo lives in Deheishe refugee camp/Bethlehem and is the spokesperson
of the Union of Youth Activity Centers/West Bank and of the Campaign
for the Defense of Refugee Rights. He is a refugee activist involved
in the popular refugee initiatives in the West Bank.
Article 74 (December
1997)
Fifty years have passed
without much change in the situation of the Palestinian refugees. Their
hopes, dreams, and perspectives have been expressed in tears over lost
homes, in poems speaking passionately about the citrus groves which are
still waiting for their owners, and about the keys to the old homes hidden
and protected in the shelters of the refugee camps. And - in the early
days - there was the hope that Israel's prime minister, Ben Gurion,
would implement UN Resolution 194 of 11 December 1948, since approval
of this Resolution had been a condition for Israel's membership to the
United Nations.
The 1960s marked a period
of struggle for national liberation and the end of colonial regimes
in many parts of the world. Palestinians understood that tears could neither
liberate their homeland, nor feed their refugee families. Thus, the PLO
was born. Palestinian refugees everywhere joined their movement for national
liberation. The PLO raised the slogan of return for the millions
of refugees and of a democratic Palestinian state encompassing all the
religious denominations present in Palestine. However, the numerous attacks,
massacres, and conspiracies conducted against the PLO in Jordan, Lebanon,
Palestine and abroad, diverted the PLO's program and reduced its struggle
for return to a minimum. The most recent expression of this diversion are
the Oslo Accords signed on 13 September 1993. They allowed for the return
of no more than a few thousands of PLO leaders and activists
to the cities of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
The question of the refugees,
like Jerusalem a taboo for Zionist politics, has remained a hairy and complex
problem. Palestinian refugees are confronted with a series of challenges:
The challenge presented
by the Oslo Accords themselves which aim to lull refugees into
illusions about final status negotiations, while even the negotiations
over interim solutions have gone into a coma.
The challenge presented
by the Palestinian leadership which formed the Palestinian Authority,
and agreed to cancel parts of the Palestinian National Charter - i.e. the
expression of a broad Palestinian consensus - without any reciprocity.
These steps cause deep concern among refugees, who worry about their present
as well as about the final destination of their torn vessel on the heavy
sea. The fact that the Oslo Accords limit the authorities of the Autonomy
Authority to the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and that elections for the
Palestinian Legislative Council - as we like to call it self-satisfactorily
- were restricted to the same areas, left Palestinian refugees in the diaspora
in the rain without protection. The Palestinian National Council (PNC)
contributed to this misery by conceding to the change of the Charter, instead
of providing an umbrella to the diaspora. The PLO leadership followed suit
by merging with the PA, leaving the members of its Executive Committee
competing for posts as PA ministers. Consequently, the PLO - weakened by
the PNC policy - has become unable to stand up on behalf of refugee communities
in distress, as illustrated in the case of Lebanon. The return of the PLO
leadership and its exclusive effort to build the Palestinian Authority
has caused harm to both the refugees and the PLO institutions in the diaspora.
It cut one of the two legs of the Palestinian national struggle which must
be conducted simultaneously inside and outside the homeland. PLO institutions
and representations outside were closed down. The absence of PLO infrastructure
and services undermined the capacity of refugees in the diaspora to fight
the pressures of resettlement, an infringement of their basic rights. Refugees'
civil and social rights - including those of prisoners' and martyrs' families
- are neglected. The frustration and disappointment created thereby make
refugees susceptible to the promises of resettlement, such as naturalization
and camp rehabilitation programs. As the PLO lost its power and authority,
other groups gained strength, started legal measures against refugees (e.g.
Jordanian landlords petitioning in court for the evacuation of refugee
camps from their lands), or launched public initiatives for the integration
of camps into the local municipal system (e.g. in the West Bank and Gaza
Strip).
The third challenge is
UNRWA and the policy of its donor governments aimed at reducing the
budget for UNRWA services. Despite the renewal of UNRWA's mandate until
the end of 1999, discussion about the agency's future continues. Three
scenarios are being raised:
1)
The first scenario ties the termination of UNRWA to the regional peace
process and not to the implementation of UN Resolution 194. UNRWA, according
to this view shared by the European governments, must be linked with the
PA and gradually transfer its responsibilities to the latter. Or, in the
view of the US government, UNRWA must be transformed into a development
agency and operate in coordination with the PA without being subsumed by
the latter.
2)
The second scenario calls for the continuation of UNRWA until the establishment
of the Palestinian state as the outcome of the final status negotiations.
Then UNRWA responsibilities, both inside and outside Palestine, should
be transferred to the PA. This view is promoted by various Israeli academics,
e.g. Emanuel Marx.
3)
The third scenario rejects termination of UNRWA until UN Resolution 194
is fully implemented. This is the refugees' position.
The UNRWA donor meeting in
Amman in March 1995 showed that there is a broad consensus about the need
for UNRWA services until a political settlement of the refugee question
is found. UNRWA has thus become linked to the progress of the current peace
process and is no longer linked to the international resolutions. This
is also the source of UNRWA's Peace Implementation Program. A new strategy
for UNRWA has been designed, based on a distinction between UNRWA tasks
in the PA areas and its tasks in Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan.
For three years now, Palestinian
refugees have been raising their voices against the termination of UNRWA
services in protest leaflets, sit-ins, strikes, and press releases. Refugees
everywhere have contended this donor policy. They have demanded the continuation
of UNRWA services and have rejected the transfer of its tasks to the PA.
Moreover, refugees call for coordinated action by the Arab host countries
to stop the liquidation of UNRWA. They call upon the rich Arab states,
especially the Arab Gulf States, to compensate for all funds which may
be withdrawn by the United States. Refugees do not oppose coordination
between UNRWA and the PA in the field of services. However, they consider
the status of the PA similar to the status of other Arab host countries.
Fifty years after exile,
Palestinian refugees have expressed their concern in various ways, the
most serious and organized expression being the popular initiative launched
in the West Bank by the 1995 al-Far'ah Conference. This Conference, organized
by the Union of Youth Activity Centers/West Bank was unique in that it
was the first popular refugee response to the Oslo Accords clearly stating
refugees' positions and fears. It called upon refugees in Palestine and
in the diaspora to organize themselves and to conduct regional conferences,
a call which lead to the First Popular Refugee Conference in Bethlehem
on 13 September 1996. Gaza refugees held a similar conference at the same
time. Since then, popular refugee initiatives based on the program of al-Far'ah
have continued, among them the Campaign for the Defense of Refugee Rights
launched by three Palestinian organizations (Union of Youth Activity Centers/West
Bank, BADIL-AlternativeInformation Center, al-Quds University/Refugee Studies
Center) in 1997. These popular initiatives and debates have been documented
and widely disseminated.
Refugee criticism has found
the support of Arab and Palestinian groups, critical Palestinian individuals
outside and inside the PLO (e.g. Farouq al-Qaddumi, head of the PLO/Political
Department), and Palestinian intellectuals in the West (e.g. Edward Sa'id)
who oppose the Oslo Accords and criticize Arafat's leadership. Some of
them (Hisham Sharabi, Nassir Arouri, Clovis Maqsoud/former Arab League
representative to the UN) have called for the establishment of a lobby
that will pressure Arab governments, the PLO, and the PA on behalf of refugee
demands, i.e. for an alternative to the PLO. Other refugee organizations
in the western diaspora (e.g. Palestinian Congress/USA, Foundation Conference
of the Arab-Palestinian Community in Germany, Conference for the Right
of Return/Belgium and Netherlands) have made attempts to re-organize Palestinians
to defend refugee rights, to resist resettlement, and to remain committed
to the agenda of national liberation in the world in general, the Arab
World in particular. Palestinian officials and negotiators, on the
other hand, have been on the defensive - as they say - forced to concentrate
their efforts to prevent the implementation of destructive foreign plans.
A clear Palestinian strategy and program on the refugee question is lacking.
The Palestinian negotiators failed to obtain more than a vague mention
of the 1948 refugee question in the Oslo agenda. Surprisingly enough, the
emergence of the popular refugee initiatives has so far been overlooked
by Palestinian experts and academics. Elia Zureik, for example, in his
latest book (Palestinian Refugees and the Peace Process, IPS, 1996/English,
1997/Arabic) does not include any references to the popular refugee conferences
in Palestine, even in the chapter dedicated to official Palestinian positions
and the unofficial refugee stand.
The question is not "What Do Refugees
Want?", but
"How Strong Can We Become?"
Refugee demands are based
on a broad consensus: the right of return and a solution to be negotiated
in the framework of the United Nations, and not in the framework of Oslo.
The popular refugee conferences after Oslo have issued the required strategic
program (e.g. recommendations of the 1996 conference in Bethlehem, published
in ARTICLE 74/17). However, due to the diversity of opinion among refugees
regarding the proper relationship to the PLO and the PA, the program of
the popular refugee conferences has not yet been implemented, and refugees
have remained unable to elect their leadership. The main obstacles encountered
are the following:
1.
The PA and some Palestinian political parties regard an independent refugee
leadership as a threat, because it may present itself as an alternative
to the PLO and the PA.
2.
The PA fears that an independent refugee leadership will strengthen the
Palestinian opposition inside the PLO and from among the Islamic movement.
3.
A large sector of the Palestinian leadership views the PA as a personal
economic project. In their view, the PLO is no longer needed - at least
in the 1967 occupied territories - and the right of return has become obsolete.
4.
Part of the Palestinian opposition believes that a new representative refugee
body will eventually be integrated into the PA and its negotiation teams.
It is therefore wiser to abstain from the establishment of such a body.
5.
The fact that refugees in the diaspora (Jordan, Lebanon, Syria) have not
joined the initiative of popular refugee conferences has weakened the movement
in Palestine.
Given the broad refugee consensus
on their central demands, the question is not "what do refugees want?"
The question at stake is whether refugees in the 21st century will be able
to overcome the above mentioned obstacles despite the unfavorable balance
of forces, locally, regionally, and internationally.
PALESTINIAN
REFUGEES MUST RE-GAIN THEIR SELF-REPRESENTATION
By Dr. Adel Samara
Dr.
Adel Samara is a political economist and director of BADIL/Alternative
Information Center- Bethlehem. Below is a section of the working paper
Change is Necessary in the Three Dimensions of the Conflict - Palestinian
Refugees Must Regain Their Self-Representation, presented by Dr. Samara
to the Stocktaking Conference on Palestinian Refugee Research organized
by PRRN/IDRC in Ottawa/Canada on 8 -9 December 1997.
Article 74 (December
1997)
What Have Refugees Gained
from Oslo?
The Palestinian question
is the question of a people evicted from its homeland, Palestinian refugees
are the backbone of the Palestinian question. Their fundamental right is
the right of return to their own homes and properties, including the right
to restitution for those who are unwilling and/or unable to return. Both
the Madrid and Oslo negotiations and agreements failed to guarantee or
promise this basic right. The Oslo Accords left the refugees issue to the
final negotiations.(1) In place
of the return of the five million refugees, Oslo guaranteed the return
of the PLO ruling apparatus, especially the high-ranking cadres. It
returned the leadership, not the people.
The Palestinian question
was removed from its natural place of treatment, the United Nations, to
be left in the hands of the United States. The USA as a super power
enjoys a monopoly over the international dimension. It is the major supporter
of Israeli aggression. The Palestinian question was disconnected from its
Arab dimension, giving the capitalist Arab comprador governments the chance
to negotiate separately with Israel, as long as the Palestinians did so
too. It terminated the PLO 's credibility as the representative of the
Palestinian people, especially the refugees, and put the PLO in the hands
of the PA, a captive of Israel [...].
A regime of this sort, and
in such circumstances, cannot spare time or energy for the refugee question,
which is scheduled for liquidation by both Israel and the United
States. Thus, the refugee issue remained in the hands of negotiating teams
that failed to achieve any progress. In the era following the DOP, refugees
were left inside their camps. Most of them are unemployed, except those
who are members and supporters of the PA. More and more discussion is taking
place on the topic of compensation to the Palestinian refugees.(2)
The deterioration of the daily lives of the Palestinian people is deliberately
designed through a direct or indirect collusion between:
1.
the PA 's corruption and repression;
2.
Donors who favor a westernized elite and distribute funds so as to recruit
supporters for their politics; (3)
3.
Israel which continues its war against Palestinians, mainly by means of
the "economics of closure". The three parties aim at pushing
Palestinian refugees to substitute the right of return with improvement
of living conditions, for which compensation is an important factor. (4)
Towards A Political and
Social Agenda for Palestinian Refugees
Refugees are not a single
and coherent social class. While most of them are poor and popular classes,
not all of them are from a popular class. Accordingly, class terms
alone, i.e. mode of production, source of income, place of work, material
conditions, form of work, class culture, etc., are not enough to
define them. Until recently, (i.e. until the deep change of the PLO's
role, politics and structure) refugees were collected around, and
integrated into the PLO's policy by the national struggle as slogan, culture,
organization and practice. Today, refugees are not represented in
most, if not all, Palestinian social and political institutions, despite
the fact that refugees are the majority of the Palestinian people.
Workers, women, students, NGOs, etc. have formed representative
bodies in Palestinian society. Refugees, however, do not have an equivalent
representation. The fact that refugees are also part of all these bodies
and institutions working in different social fields does not compensate
for the lack of their own representation.
Despite the negative developments,
refugees have remained united by their political-national aim, much more
than by social class agenda. If one combines the political-national aim,
the main unifying factor, with the social class factor, we might be able
to elaborate a unified agenda for Palestinian refugees.
The vacancy which followed
the change of the PLO, the current situation of the refugees scattered
in the diaspora, the economics of closure imposed by Israel on the West
Bank and the Gaza Strip, the weakness and malfunctioning of the PA, and
the uncertainty about their future, all turned the refugees into the most
fragile sector of the Palestinian people. Due to the change of the PLO,
they lost their national- organizational security. With Oslo, they lost
their hope of return. Due to the economics of closure, they lost their
source of income. Refugees, poor and exiled, do not belong to the privileged
sectors of society which benefit from the PA.
This fragile situation made
it possible and easy for the PLO to ignore them in the negotiations of
Madrid-Oslo, and to compose a Palestinian refugee delegation from among
persons who act as functionaries and employees, dealing with the refugee
question from an academic, rather than from a militant approach. Even if
these were the best people to represent the refugees, the refugees themselves
never elected them nor have they ever been consulted about their appointment.
Given the very low political ceiling of Madrid-Oslo, these people might
be the best for negotiations, but still they should not agree to replace
the refugees themselves.
When the PLO was the mother
of all the Palestinian people, the absence of a special representation
of refugees was understandable. Then, the PLO was a political-national
organization fighting for the liberation of Palestine, i.e. the land of
these same refugees. However, when the PLO became the tool of an elite,
influenced by the United States and captivated by the Israeli occupation,
and when the PLO was subordinated to the PA - and not vice versa -
to the extent that the PNC held its last conference in Gaza which is under
Israeli control, refugees had lost their political-national umbrella. Devoid
of power, the refugees' issue was neglected in negotiations to the extent
that it could be stated that the aim of this peace is to terminate
(rather than solve) the refugee question. The deterioration of UNRWA
services, and the transfer of large portions of its budget towards income
generating and peace implementation projects is just one indicator. (5)
While the Palestinian people
is approaching the fiftieth anniversary of its disaster, it is further
away than ever from achieving its right of return. The only sector of refugees
listed on the agenda of the Madrid-Oslo negotiations are those expelled
in 1967. (6) Most of the
refugees do not support the Oslo Accords. The only formal reference to
the 1948 refugee question was the establishment of the multilateral negotiations
track which is restricted to dealing with the improvement of refugee living
conditions, (7) i.e. emptied
from its political-national content and turning it into an issue of charity.
Under US pressure, UN Resolution 194 was excluded from the terms of reference
of the negotiations, and the UN itself has been prevented from participating.
To put it briefly: since
the peace process failed to tackle the refugee question in an appropriate
manner, since the campaign to terminate the Palestinian people's
right of return continues, since the same peace process is about to die,
and since the Palestinian refugees reject the Madrid-Oslo process, a new
refugee agenda is unavoidable.
What is to be Done?
On
the local Palestinian dimension, the subordination and the dependence of
the PLO on the PA must be reversed. (8)
The PLO must be placed outside occupied Palestine, in an Arab
country, in order to regain its independence and the ability to represent
the Palestinian people properly. The leadership of the PLO must not be
the same as the leadership of the PA and/or appointed by the PA chairman.
The PNC must not hold its conferences inside occupied
Palestine. PNC members must
be elected and not appointed. The members of the PA Self-Rule Council must
not be considered members of the PNC, unless they are re-elected
directly to the PNC in elections under the sponsorship of an independent
PLO.
On
the Arab dimension, the Palestinians must coordinate their positions with
the Arab countries, especially those aiming at negotiations
for an equal and just peace, i.e. Syria and Lebanon. (9)
Any improvement in the Palestinian position will strengthen the popular
Arab position versus official Arab state positions. It will weaken, and
maybe even stop, Arab regimes from dealing with the plans of resettling
the Palestinian refugees in Arab and non-Arab countries.
Regarding
the international dimension, all Palestinian representative bodies must
insist upon taking the Palestinian issue again to the United Nations,
and not to any international conference, small or large. The Palestinian
people must fight to liberate the peace process from the hands of the United
States. In the same context, UNRWA must continue operating under the responsibility
of to the United Nations; it must not be dominated by the United States.
Palestinians must stand firmly against the politicization of UNRWA; the
latter must not be subsumed under the PA as has happened with the PLO.
On
the refugee level, a political group to represent the refugees is necessary.
This group must be elected directly by and from among the refugees all
over the world. It must be obliged to remain committed to the refugees'
right of return to their land and properties. This Palestinian refugee
body will operate from within the PLO as the only representative of the
refugees.
This new refugee body must
work with and through the refugee grass-roots organizations. Those who
will represent the refugees in the negotiations must be from among its
members and working according to the refugees' agenda, supervised closely
by the popular refugee organizations. This body must not compete with the
PA for power. It will rather serve two main and clearly defined issues:
-
social, health and humanitarian
issues
-
negotiations issues.
The place of the political struggle
of the refugees is in the Palestinian political organizations. The need
for a special refugee body derives from the need to protect refugees until
the PLO is restructured and operating again as a real representative of
the Palestinian people, especially the refugees, or until the Palestinian
people decide to create another representative body.
The representative body of
the refugees, the Palestinian political organizations and the grass-root
organizations must fight for the above mentioned aims. This may help to
transcend some of the internal Palestinian problems, e.g. the relationship
between the formal and non-formal, between Palestinians outside and inside
the West Bank and Gaza, and problems in defining the relationship between
the political organizations and the elected body for refugee representation.
Research on refugee attitudes towards issues of political and
social life should be conducted to support this process.
The march towards the solution
of the refugee question is a long one. The focus must be on the grass-root
level. Those who are the subject of the struggle and the negotiations must
reach the level of self representation and decision making. (10)
Footnotes
(1)
For more analysis see, Muhammad Jaradat, "Palestinian Refugees and the
Effects of the Political Agreements" , and Salah Abed Rabbo, "Palestinian
Refugee Conferences...Why Now", in Working Papers Presented by the Preparatory
Committee for the Refugee Conference in Bethlehem. Published by BADIL-Alternative
Information Center-Bethlehem, 1997.
(2)
Concerning compensation and the aims of the host governments, see Adel
Samara, NEWS FROM WITHIN Magazine, no. 9/1996; published by the Alternative
Information Center, Jerusalem.
(3)
See Adel Samara, KHATIB.
(4)
See Muhammad Jaradat and Salah Abed Rabbo, ibid. 1997.
(5)
See Jaradat and Abed Rabbo, 1997, ibid. .
(6)
Even the 1967 refugee question, subject of negotiations in the
quadripartite committee
(Palestinian, Israeli, Jordanian and Egyptian delegations) has not come
closer to a solution due to Israel's rejectionism and the stand of the
Arab delegations which reflects their separate interests more than the
interest of the Palestinian delegation.
(7)
Rex Bryen, "The Refugee Group of the Middle East Multilateral Peace Negotiations",
in Palestine-Israel Journal of Politics, Economics and Culture, vol. 2.
No 4, Autumn 1995, pp. 53-64.
(8)
Members of the PLO's Executive Committee are still appointed by Mr. Arafat
who is the PLO and PA chairman! They must be elected from among an elected
PNC.
(9)
It is important to note here that peace agreements between a matured social
formation and strong Arab country , i.e. Egypt and Syria, will be more
balanced than an agreement between Israel and the fragile, dependent
regimes which serving and dependent upon imperialist policy in the area,
i.e. the PA and Jordan. This is why the PA's integration into the Arab
dimension is one of the main means to control its deep inclination for
compromise.
(10)
For the refugees body to do its job properly, an empirical research for
the refugees attitudes towards all issues related to their daily life and
final solution is necessary
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