SALMAN ABU
SITTA
THE DAILY STAR, BEIRUT, p.6, OPINION, 30
October 2003.
It was a dazzling view.
Young men wearing university T-shirts. A grand old
man in his Arab dress. A woman activist who was
buried as a child for 3 days in the ruins of Tel
Za’atar. A veteran fighter from 1948 leaning on his
stick. Legislators, writers, camp leaders from Gaza,
West Bank, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. Businessmen
from the Gulf and Europe.
They were about 100, except those who were turned back
at the border. The invitations reflected the
distribution of the Palestinian population in the
world. They could have been 1000, 10,000 or the whole
5,500,000 refugees. They were all eager to come. It
was a sight which would please human rights advocates
and distress political cynics.
What do they want? They wanted to say again and again
what they said for the last 55 years: “We want to
return home”, a basic and simple demand. They were
the inhabitants of 530 primary Palestinian towns and
villages, in addition to 662 secondary villages, who
were expelled from their homes in the largest
well-planned and meticulously executed ethnic
cleansing operation in the twentieth century. Their
land makes up 93% of Israel’s area. The Jewish
immigrants to Palestine could not control more than 7%
of Israel’s area (5% of Palestine) under the
protection and collusion of the British Mandate
government.
To the Palestinian refugees who met in London on 17
and 18 October, there is ample proof that the ethnic
cleansing they have suffered during al Nakba of 1948
is still alive and well. Sharon and his likes were
the perpetrators of yesterday and are still today in
Gaza and the West Bank.
This was one of the most dominant themes of the London
conference; that the ethnic cleansing of 1948, which
made two-thirds of the Palestinian people refugees, is
still continuing to make refugees of the last third as
well. The methods may be slightly different but the
aim is the same.
The conferees did not need much convincing to adopt
the manifesto of the Right of Return which reads in
part: “The right of the Palestinian refugees and
exiles to return to their homes is a fundamental and
inalienable human right, which does not diminish with
the passage of time or any political agreement. The
Right of Return is also derived from the sanctity of
private ownership and is not annulled by occupation or
change of sovereignty. The Right of Return is
basically an individual right and does not lend itself
to delegation or concessions in any agreement or
accord. It is also a collective right”
In fact the Right of Return is enshrined in every
international law instrument. In the Ottawa meeting
of June 2003 and the Geneva Seminar of October 2003,
which scores of researchers and legal experts
attended, the Right of Return for the Palestinian
refugees was overwhelmingly recognized, in spite of
feeble attempts by Israelis to discredit it. The
question was about its implementation, not its
validity.
The conferees were well-aware of the many attempts
(over 4 dozen in the last 55 years) to perpetuate and
legalize their ethnic cleansing. They saw the
so-called Taba pseudo-agreement, Clinton proposals and
now Abed Rabbo-Beilin non-paper as a nicely wrapped
package of permanent dispersion and exile. In all
these proposals, the offered options are merely
different addresses of exile. As one remarked,
“changing the address of the camp does not make the
refugee a returnee, even if the new address is in
Nablus, not Beirut”. This interpretation is quite
correct legally, as the Explanatory Memorandum of UN
resolution 194 stipulates that the return is to the
homes they were expelled from, not even to their
homeland
The audience listened attentively to a presentation of
facts and figures they knew from experience: 97% of
the registered refugees live within 100 km of
Palestine and half within 40 km; 2% of Israeli Jews
occupy the refugees land; this land is now sold to
apartment building contractors; the kibbutz is dead;
the Palestinians will be a majority at different times
and places, no matter what Israel does, short of total
extermination of Palestinians in historic Palestine.
That still would leave 55% of the Palestinians outside
Palestine still fighting for their rights.
Two features mark the London conference, unlike most
other Palestinian meetings, which led to its
unqualified success.
First, all participants has or had strong political
connections (others were independent), but no
political faction tried to dominate the meeting. All
were united behind the common cause: The Right of
Return. Political differences were put aside.
Second, the participants focussed on a plan of action
for the future. They did not come to wail, complain
or criticize. Even Abed Rabbo, Nusseibeh, Shikaki
were mentioned in passing and with obvious neglect.
Every delegation came with an action plan for their
region.
The deliberations were concluded by forming a
follow-up committee which consists of 5 permanent
members plus 12 regional coordinators (likely to
increase) to cover the 12 regions they came from.
Emphasis was placed on reinforcing the ‘return
culture’ among the young Palestinians. There is a
plan to educate the young and old in camps and cities
about their rights. The need to draw on people’s
goodwill in Europe was pointed out. There will be an
attempt to bridge the gap between the sympathetic
public and the reluctant politicians in Europe. The
dormant support of Arab and Muslim countries should be
activated. The machinery is there, it just needs to
be turned on. The great reservoir of support from the
world NGOs and the UN must be tapped. This is the
largest resource which could yield immediate results.
In short, it was agreed that the Palestinian civil
society should be activated wherever Palestinians
reside. Meagre resources and geographical dispersion
will be a problem. Judging by the determination and
matter-of-fact approach of the conferees, much could
be done with little resources. In the final analysis,
the Palestinian refugees decided they would not allow
themselves to be ignored any longer.
Salman Abu Sitta, General Coordinator of
the Palestinian Right of Return Congress wrote this
commentary for THE DAILY STAR
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