Participants know how fraught I-P discussions can be. Nevertheless, recent discussions suggest to me the importance of trying to discuss civilly an issue that seems to be a major sticking point between supporters of Palestine and supporters of Israel who like to think of themselves as fair-minded people, open to a two states for two peoples peace settlement.
That sticking point is the Palestinian claim to a "Right of Return" to Israel within its 1948-1967 borders. I also want to discuss Israel's "Right to Exist" because, I think, it helps in understanding and, perhaps, in reaching agreement.
If you're open to civil, if at times frank, discussion, please follow me over the jump.
This diary is indebted to the writings of Jerome Segal. See, e.g., Palestinians’Right of Return and Israel’s Right to Exist as a Jewish State (pdf). Naturally he is not responsible for what I have written.
I dedicate the diary to the memory of Yehoshua Arieli, one of the wisest, most humane individuals it has ever been my privilege to know. An accessible example of Yehoshua's views on the I-P conflict may be found in his New York Review of Books Article from August 1972, The Price Israel Is Paying. Here, I'll quote only his concluding paragraph:
The continuation of the status quo has not been forced upon us. Instead of insisting on negotiating for the quality of peace, for exact guarantees to preserve a peace agreement, for ways to demilitarize the evacuated territories, we have insisted on negotiating the quantity of border changes. For the sake of annexation of the territories we occupy we are sacrificing, unintentionally, our true security, the quality of our society, our free progressive spirit, our internal integrity and unity, and economic, social, and spiritual well-being.
In connection with the signing of the 1993 Declaration of Principles between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization, Yasir Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin exchanged letters of mutual recognition. Among other things, Arafat wrote Rabin:
The PLO recognizes the right of the State of Israel to exist in peace and security.
This recognition of Israel by the Palestine Liberation Organization was intended to clear away one of the stumbling blocks to entering into peace negotiations, namely, Israel's insistence that the Palestinians recognize its "right to exist." In 1975, for example, under President Ford and Secretary of State Kissinger, the U.S. had promised Israel not to negotiate with the PLO unless it recognized Israel's "right to exist." More recently, in 2006, shortly after Hamas's success in Palestinian parliamentary elections, the Quartet (the United States, European Union, Russia, and United Nations), called on the new Palestinian government to "be committed to nonviolence, recognition of Israel, and acceptance of previous agreements and obligations, including the Roadmap."
What does it mean, however, to recognize Israel's right to exist:
* Israel's right to have come into existence?
* Israel's right to continue to exist?
Affirming Israel's right to have come into existence entails accepting the morality of the Zionist (I do not use that word pejoratively) project.
Affirming Israel's right to continue to exist, that is, to live in peace and security, does not require acceptance of Zionist claims, only acceptance of Israel's legal right to live in peace and security.
Plainly, demanding that Palestinians become Zionists is a non-starter. But the second interpretation requires only agreement with (what should be) the non-controversial proposition that, under international law, all existing states enjoy the right to live in peace and security, a right to which the (future) state of Palestine also will be entitled.
With this example in mind, we can understand that the Palestinian right of return also can be understood in different ways:
* that Israel affirm, at least in principle, that all Palestinian refugees, perhaps as defined by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (
UNRWA), have an absolute right to live in Israel within its pre-Six-Day War borders (the balance of Mandatory Palestine/Eretz Israel comprising the territory of the Arab (Palestinian) state called for by the 1947
UN partition resoluton.
* that Palestinian refugees have a legal right of return as provided in
UN Resolution 194 and as consistent with other rights applicable to the situation.
As I hope to show, these two "versions" of the right to return are not the same. The first version is inconsistent with Israel's continued existence as a Jewish state. (I'll come in a moment to what it means, under the partition resolution, for Israel to be a "Jewish state.") The second version provides a reasonable basis for mutual accommodation and a two states for two peoples peace settlement.
The partition resolution - UN General Assembly (UNGA) Resolution 181 - provided for the creation of "[i]ndependent Arab and Jewish States and the Special International Regime for the City of Jerusalem." In the context of Resolution 181, "Jewish state" did not mean a theocracy, nor a state in which Judaism was the state religion. (Neither of which accurately describes Israel at any time since its creation.) "Rather," as Jerome Segal writes, it meant
"a democratic state, with equal rights for all its citizens[,] and "a homeland for the Jewish people, and as a place where the Jewish people exercise their right of self-determination. Because it is also a democracy, in which the majority rules, implicitly, the Jewish state is intended to be a state in which the majority of its citizens are Jews."
This is the context in which UNGA Resolution 194 was adopted.
The relevant portion of Resolution 194, adopted in December 1948, concerning refugees reads:
- Resolves that the 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
The attentive reader will notice that Resolution 194 does not confer an unqualified legal right of return. The right of return is limited to "refugees willing to . . . live at peace with their neighbours." Jerome Segal maintains that implicit in this qualification is UN recognition "that the Israelis have a right which must be balanced against the right of return. Their [the refugees'] right is to be able to live at peace within the Jewish state that was created pursuant to UN General Assembly Resolution 181, the Partition Resolution of 1947."
The historically-minded reader will realize that Resolution 194 was not adopted in a vacuum. The resolution dealt with one of the results of the rejection of Resolution 181 by the Palestinians and the Arab states, and their unsuccessful attempt to prevent Israel from successfully coming into existence. Hence Resolution 194 was not speaking about something abstract, for example, the willingness of refugees to live at peace with Jews in a non-Jewish, say largely Islamic, state. No. The legal right of return created, or recognized, by Resolution 194 was only for those refugees willing to live at peace within the Jewish state created earlier that same year in accordance with Resolution 181.
The Arab Peace Initiative, can be read as accepting this point, which is one reason the mainstream Israeli Peace Camp, its supporters, and indeed other, non-Greater Israel, Israelis, have regarded it as a suitable basis for negotiating a two states for two peoples peace settlement. The Arab Peace Initiative does not demand that Israel accept an unqualified right of all Palestinians with the status of refugee to live in Israel. Rather, it calls for:
Achievement of a just solution to the Palestinian refugee problem to be agreed upon in accordance with U.N. General Assembly Resolution 194.
A Palestinian refugee born in 1948 within Israel today would be 61 years of age. It seems safe to say that only a few of the refugees who were adults in 1948 are still alive, and only a minority of all the 1948 refugees. Most Palestinian refugees living today are the children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren of refugees who once lived in the land that became Israel after the 1948 war.
With this and our analysis of Resolution 194 in mind, we can consider the different moral rights that a Palestinian refugee might claim:
* the right to return to an actual former home in Israel.
* the right to return to an actual home in which one never lived, but in which one's parents, grandparents, or great-grandparents lived.
* the right to legal ownership of such an actual home, even if one cannot actually live in it.
* the right to live someplace in Israel as an Israeli citizen.
* the right to live someplace in Israel as a citizen of Palestine.
* the right to financial compensation for property that belonged to a 1948 refugee or such a refugee's parents, grandparents, or great-grandparents.
In light of the foregoing, when considering the case of the surviving 1948 refugees, we can suggest the possibility of Israel agreeing to a final peace settlement that recognizes the legal right of surviving 1948 refugees, who so choose and who affirm their willingness to live at peace within the Jewish state, to return to Israel with appropriate compensation for not being able to return to their actual homes.
As to the remaining refugees, the Geneva Accord may provide appropriate terms for a peace settlement. I quote from the official summary:
The agreement provides for the permanent and complete resolution of the Palestinian refugee problem, under which refugees will be entitled to compensation for their refugee status and for loss of property, and will have the right to return to the State of Palestine. The refugees could also elect to remain in their present host countries, or relocate to third countries, among them Israel, at the sovereign discretion of third countries.
Making peace requires, in my view, mutual accommodation. No side should be required to accept either the immorality of its own side on core issues or the morality of another side's. IMHO, peace between Israel and Palestine is worth striving for. Indeed, it is possible, but only a basis that fully takes on board the idea of a definitive, final, comprehensive peace settlement based on the principle of two states for two peoples.
Update [2009-8-19 14:55:11 by another American]: At least in a February 2002, New York Times op-ed, Yasir Arafat accepted this fundamental point:
[W]e seek a fair and just solution to the plight of Palestinian refugees who for 54 years have not been permitted to return to their homes. We understand Israel's demographic concerns and understand that the right of return of Palestinian refugees, a right guaranteed under international law and United Nations Resolution 194, must be implemented in a way that takes into account such concerns.
Readers may have divergent views. I welcome their civil expression.
Salaam v'shalom