Yearning for a Home: Peter Bergson and Hannah Arendt on the Palestinian Refugee Problem

ABSTRACT

This paper presents the findings of an international Symposium held in New-York in 1958, organized by the Institute for Mediterranean Affairs aimed at producing a solution to the Palestinian refugee problem. The Symposium included a panel of seventeen independent scholars that included political theorist Hannah Arendt. In this paper we examine the ways in which the proposed solution reflects Arendt's notion of human rights and her criticism of the universal dangers embedded in statelessness. We then examine the political thought of Hillel Kook (Peter Bergson), founding member of the Institute, and the ways it informed the basis for the solution—particularly his notions of liberal nationalism and civic identity. In light of the enduring relevance of the Palestinian Refugee Problem today, we suggest that the main theoretical elements of the proposal offer guidelines for a potential resolution.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their valuable and constructive comments on an earlier versions of this paper.

Notes

1 Hillel Kook adopted the name Peter Bergson as a nom du guerre during the time he was politically active in the U.S., thus, a number of articles and memorandum written by Kook are written under the name of Peter Bergson.

2 Even today the exact number of Palestinians who left the region in 1948–49 is controversial. According to U.N. assessments, the number of refugees was higher than 700,000 people; Israel's assessment is that there were approximately 550,000 refugees; The Arabs claim that there were more than 750,000 refugees; and the UNRWA records register 940,000 refugees as of 1950. On the dispute over the number of Palestinians who left the region, see Hawary (2001), Nazzal (1978), and Karsh (2011).

3 It should be noted that the official position up until the mid-1970s, was shared also by unofficial Israeli sources including journalists, academics and intellectuals. However, since then many changes and developments have occurred amongst intellectual arenas. For an in depth discussion of these changes, see Bar-On (2004), and Nets-Zehngut (2011).

4 For the purpose of this article, the discussion presented here will be limited to the 1950s and early 1960s.

5 Most solutions were derived from Resolution 194 (III) of the U.N. General Assembly, passed in December 1948, which became an important landmark regarding the question of the Palestinian refugees in the years to follow. In accordance with Article 11 of said resolution,

The refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors 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. See United Nations (1948)

6 The research on this issue is vast. See in particular Brynen and El-Rifai (2013, 2014), Leibovitz (2015), Sayigh (1998), and Tovy (2014).

7 On the main initiatives presented by the Arab states over these years, see Brynen and El-Rifai (2014), and Hawary (2001).

8 On Kook's political activity, see Rapoport (1999), Wyman and Medoff (2002), and Agassi (1999).

9 It is important to note that Kook himself was not a member of the official roster of panelists. However, he was founder of the Institute, and the driving force behind the Symposium. See Rapoport (1999).

10 For a detailed account of Arendt's critique of the rights of man, see Beltrán (2009), Benhabib (2004b), and DeGooyer et al. (2018).

11 This option is slightly different, as it does not provide a ‘distinct place’ and a sense of home for those displaced during the war. It seems that those who choose this option have already made a home for themselves and therefore only want reparations.

12 Thus, for example, the mere existence of the Israeli nation-state, which is a central component of the proposed solution, stands in contrast to Arendt's Federative approach, which opposed to a political order rooted in liberal nation-states; as well as her reference to civil democracy as the ideal political solution.

13 Kook termed those Jews who had immigrated to Palestine up till that point ‘Palestinian Jews’ (Agassi, 1999).

14 It is important to note that at the time, for Kook, like for many of his European contemporaries, Jewish reality did not extend beyond the boundaries of Europe and the West. Hence, he overlooked the distinction between Ashkenazi and Mizrahi Jews. In later years, however, Kook's conception of the Hebrew nation included those Mizrahi Jews who had left their countries of origin and immigrated to Israel.