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Abstract
The Oslo agreements proposed a two-state solution for the Palestinian-Israeli conflict: a Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza existing alongside Israel. However, the refugees’ right of return and claims to land and property expropriated by Israel during the 1948 were removed from the equation, although they represent the core issues in the conflict. Based on the territorial divisions that preceded the 1967 war, or the ‘green line’, the agreements implicitly rendered the 1948 war and its consequences for the majority of the Palestinian population a non-negotiable historical reality. In a manner of speaking, the crowning of the ‘state’ (PA) dethroned the nation. In this paper, I review these processes in which refugees have been dismissed, and relegated as relics of an unredeemable past and not as subjects of history in the past-present and whose participation is fundamental in seeking a resolution to the conflict. Based on anthropological research in the region, I argue that, despite the passage of time, refugees continue to hold on to their rights and dream of return, albeit reshaped by the contingencies of exile. I conclude by suggesting that the Israeli state and society must take political, legal and practical responsibility for the refugee problem. This implies that the right of return, decolonization and de-Zionization are inseparable processes.
Notes
1According to the UNGAR 194 (III), ‘[T]he refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible’ (UN 1948).
2 According to the Interim Agreement, the Israeli state maintains sovereignty and key functions that subjugate the PA and the territories under its jurisdiction to Israeli control. For example, in Annex II: ‘It is understood that, subsequent to the Israel withdrawal, Israel will continue to be responsible for external security, and for internal security and public order of settlements and Israelis. Israeli military forces and civilians may continue to use roads freely within the Gaza Strip and the Jericho area.’ In contrast, the PLO had to declare the end of armed struggle and Arafat signed a letter stating: ‘The PLO recognizes the right of the State of Israel to exist in peace and security. The PLO accepts United Nations Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 … Accordingly, the PLO renounces the use of terrorism and other acts of violence and will assume responsibility over all PLO elements and personnel in order to assure their compliance, prevent violations and discipline violators … the PLO affirms that those articles of the Palestinian Covenant which deny Israel's right to exist, and the provisions of the Covenant which are inconsistent with the commitments of this letter are now inoperative and no longer valid’ (see PNA Citation2005b).
3 I have purposely omitted the ‘National’ in the acronym PNA in line my argument that the PA has limited powers and authority and is incapable of representing andacting on behalf of the nation at large.
4 According to Badil, the estimates compiled from different sources indicate that at the beginning of 2003 there were more than 7 million Palestinian refugees and displaced persons: 3.97 million refugees displaced in 1948 and registered with UNRWA, 1.54 million displaced in 1948 but not registered for assistance; 753,000 refugees displaced for the first time in 1967 (753,000); 274,000 internally displaced Palestinians who remained in what became Israel in 1948; and 150,000 internally displaced Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza (Badil Citation2005).
5 While writing the final draft of this paper, Hamas won the elections and is currently in government, having secured most of the seats in the Palestinian Parliament.
6 ‘Israel proper’ refers to the Palestinian areas upon which Israel was established during the 1948 war. During the war some 150,000 Palestinians remained within those areas, today the population has increased to over 1,000,000. For more information see http://www.adalah.org/eng/backgroundhistory.php.
7 The US Road Map proposed a three-phase process ending in 2005 that would lead to two states (a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, and Israel). In general the onus is placed on the Palestinians to end unconditionally all ‘violence and terrorism’. For the full text, see PNA (2005b). Similarly, the Geneva Accord (October 2003; also referred to as Geneva Understandings) is an unofficial treaty drafted by a number of Israelis and Palestinians. For more on its dangers to the refugee issue, see Eldar (Citation2003).
8 It is interesting to note that, in the UNGAR 302 (IV) establishing UNRWA, the General Assembly ensured that UNRWA's services do not jeopardize UNGAR 194 (III) where refugee rights are stated. Thus, the UNGAR: ‘Recognizes that, without prejudice to the provisions of paragraph 11 of General Assembly resolution 194 (III) of 11 December 1948, continued assistance for the relief of the Palestine refugees is necessary’ (see UN Citation1949).
9 The information on refugee reaction to UNRWA's changing policies was relayed to me during fieldwork by Palestinian UNRWA staff working in UNRWA's Amman headquarters and by refugees I interviewed between 1995 and 1999.
10 Based on the author's interviews with UNRWA staff between 1995 and 1999 at UNRWA's headquarters, Amman, Jordan.
12 See The White House (Citation2004).
11 In return, the Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon proposed to withdraw from small Jewish settlements in Gaza that in any case had become more of an economic and political burden, while maintaining Israel's control of Gaza's security, borders, air space and water resources (Reinhart Citation2004).
13 Gazit is a retired general in the Israeli army, who also acted as coordinator of the military government in the occupied territories in the West Bank and Gaza, a high official in the Jewish Agency, and as head of the IDF Military Intelligence following the 1973 war. Considered a strategic analyst he was appointed as special adviser to the Israeli team for the peace negotiations.
14 For example, the various studies published by the Norwegian Institute for Applied Social Science (FAFO) (e.g. Endersen and Zureik Citation1998). Jon Pedersen at FAFO notes that the first living conditions survey in the Occupied Territories carried out in 1992 was ‘not a cover for Oslo’, but recognizes that Terje Rod Larsen, FAFO's head, ‘developed and maintained the contacts that were used in the Oslo Channel at the same time as putting the living conditions survey into place … the researchers … were not aware of his activities’. In addition, he makes it clear that ‘the Refugee Working Group in the Middle East Peace Process has several “shepherds” … Norway has the role of “shepherd for databases” and FAFO is the executive agent of that role’ (Pedersen Citation1997: 1).
15 On the literature on Palestinian refugees, see Zureik (Citation1996).
16 See, for example, Tamari and Zureik (Citation1996) on UNRWA's archives, Bocco et al. (Citation2001) and Fischbach (Citation2002) on the UNCCP. Badil an NGO in Bethlehem has also produced several studies on refugees focusing on the legal dimension.
17 Dr Nabil Shaath is the PNA's Minister of Planning and International Cooperation.
18 Salim Tamari is the Director of the Institute of Jerusalem Studies, and participated in the Refugee Working Group (RWG) meetings in the Arab-Israeli multilateral peace negotiations in the early 1990s.
19 Ashrawi was the spokeswoman for the Palestinian delegation to the bilateral peace talks in Washington, DC in 1994 but later announced she would not serve in any official capacity in the new Palestinian authority and has since been working on human rights monitoring.
20 Arzt is a Professor of Law at Syracuse University in the US. In 1997, the Council on Foreign Relations published her book titled Refugees into Citizens: Palestinians and the End of the Arab-Israeli Conflict.
21 From a statement issued in London following the fourth annual meeting of the sixteen-member Palestine Right of Return Coalition, 5–10 November (see Badil Citation2003).
22 The ‘New Historians’ is a generic label that includes ardent Zionists (for example, Benny Morris), but among them are critics of Zionist and Israeli state policies. Among the ‘New Historians’ are: Ilan Pappe, Avi Shlaim, Baruch Kimmerling, Joel Migdal and Tom Segev.
23 For more information, see Zochrot (Citation2005).
24 Using oral history, Katz concluded that in late May, during the 1948 war, the Zionist forces, namely, the Alexandroni Brigade, murdered up to 225 people in the Palestinian village of Tantura near Haifa. According to Amit, the findings found their way to an Israeli newspaper that used the word ‘massacre’ which was not in his thesis. The fact that the Palestinians were murdered was no longer the issue. The Alexandroni Brigade sued Katz for libel and under immense pressure he apologized for using the term ‘massacre’ – in an out-of-court settlement. Although Katz later pleaded to retract his apology, the Supreme Court rejected his request. Eventually, Katz was denied his research MA degree (for more details on the case, see Amit (Citation2005).
25 See, for example, Khalidi's work All That Remains (Citation1992).
26 Those interviewed or who wrote articles on oral history were: Faiha Abdulhadi, Gaby Abed, Ibrahim Abu-Lughod, Jamil Arafat, Sam Bahour, Rawan and Dima Damen, Sahera Dirbas, Randa Farah, Mahmoud ‘Issa, Saleh Abdel Jawad, Nazmi al-Ju'beh, Sharif Kanaana, Sonia Nimr Thomas Ricks, May Seikaly, Awatef Sheikh, Salim Tamari and Adel Yahya.
27 See, for example, publications listed by the Institute of Jerusalem Studies on urban cultures and histories that have increased in the past few years, such as Diala Khasawneh (2001) Memoirs Engraved in Stone: Palestinian Urban Mansions; Mustapha Abbasi (2005) Safad during the British Mandate Period, 1917–1948: A Social and Political Study; Rashid al-Haj Ibrahim (2005) Defending Haifa and the Problem of Palestine: The Memoirs of Rashid al-Haj Ibrahim, 1891–1953; Isbir Munayer (2003) Lydda during the Mandate and Occupation Periods; May Seikaly (Citation2003) Haifa: Transformation of a Palestinian Arab Society, 1918–1939, 3rd edn; Salim Tamari and Issam Nassar (eds) (2003) Wasif Jawharieh [author] Ottoman Jerusalem in the Jawharieh Memoirs: Volume One of the Memoirs of the Musician Wasif Jawharieh, 1904–1917; Salim Tamari (ed.) (2002) Jerusalem 1948: The Arab Neighbourhoods and their Fate in the War.Source: http://www.palestine-studies.org/final/en/books/subcategory.php?subid=18.
28 More on Shaml is available at http://www.shaml.org/zshaml/site/.
29 For more information on the Khalil Sakakini Culture Centre, please see their website at http://www.sakakini.org/.
30 This approach was based on the concepts developed by the Popular Memory Group (see Johnson et al. Citation1982), but also on Gramsci, Williams and other writers and theoreticians on subjectivity, memory and identity. Space did not allow for a more elaborate discussion on the theoretical and methodological issues.
31 The Arabic word balad is polysemic; it also refers to homeland or country.
32 Please note that I have used pseudonyms during my research. Imm Saeed was a woman in her late fifties when I interviewed her in al-Baq'a camp, Jordan, in 1996.
33 The writings of the best-known authors and poets, for example, Ghassan Kanafani and Mahmoud Darwish, are filled with rural images affirming the centrality of the land to Palestinians.
34 In sociology, Ferdinand Tonnies (1855–1936) introduced the concept of gemeinschaft and gesellschaft to differentiate between a small, usually rural and harmonious community, where individuals share values and norms, and a complex and heterogeneous society, usually urban.
35 See, for example, Siddiq (Citation1995).
36 For a good reference on linkages between cities, villages and regions, see the book by Doumani (Citation1995) on the city of Nablus.
37 Abu Adel passed away around a year after I interviewed him. He died in a dilapidated, cold and damp shelter.
38 For example, in his newspaper article, Hattar warns of the Israeli plans that aim at integrating Palestinians in Jordan and turning the latter into the ‘alternative homeland’ for Palestinians: ‘[but] Jordan will not become Palestine and the Palestinian will not become Jordanian as long as Israel is on our land’ (see Hatter Citation1995, my translation from Arabic).
39 Interview, Abu Basil (1996), al-Baq'a refugee camp, Jordan.
40 On the Zionist attempts to de-Arabize Jewish history in the Arab world by imposing an ethnocentric European version, see Shohat (Citation1992).