From Refugees To Citizens At Home

Getting rid of the native inhabitants of Palestine has long been one of the tenets of Zionism.¹ It was clearly spelled out by Yosef Weitz, the head of the Transfer Committee and the chief of land-confiscation operations. As early as 1940, he proposed an ethnic cleansing plan: “The only solution is to transfer the Arabs from here to neighbouring countries. Not a single village or a single tribe must be left”.²

Plan Dalet was designed to “occupy… expel”³ the Palestinian people. It was David Ben-Gurion’s doctrine that the destruction of the Palestinian people and their cultural and physical landscape was the precondition for creating the state of Israel on its ruins.⁴ The systematic elimination of the Palestinians in 1948 took the following forms:

2.1 Military Plans for Jewish Settlement

As early as January 1948, four months before the official war began, the Zionists prepared plans for the settlement of 1.5 million new immigrants over and above the existing 600,000 Jews, two-thirds of whom were themselves recent immigrants under the British Mandate. During the Jewish military operations that followed the UN partition resolution of November 1947 and before the end of the British Mandate, more than half of the Palestinian refugees were expelled. The settlement agencies headed by the Jewish National Fund (JNF) directed the military attacks to acquire coveted land, such as the villages of Indur, Qumiya, Ma’lul, Mujaidil and Buteimat in Galilee, which were destroyed primarily to grab their land.⁵

2.2 Physical Elimination of the Refugees

Almost every one of the thirty-odd Zionist/Israeli military operations was accompanied by a massacre of civilians. There were at least thirty-five reported massacres,⁶ half of which took place before any Arab regular soldier set foot in Palestine. The most notorious of these massacres is Deir Yassin, the largest is Dawayma, and the latest disclosed by an Israeli researcher, Teddy Katz, but known to Palestinians all along, is Tantoura.

Shooting of civilians was not restricted to wartime. After the fighting ceased, some of the refugees tried to return home to rescue civilians left behind, to retrieve some belongings or to attend to crops or cattle. These returnees were shot on the spot as “infiltrators”. The UN truce observers reported hundreds of such cases.⁷

2.3 Plunder and Destruction of Property

Plunder took place in the immediate aftermath of military assaults, especially in cities such as Haifa, Jaffa, Lydda, and Jerusalem. The looters included nearby kibbutzniks, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) brigade commanders and the high-ranking political figures of the ruling Mapai (Labor) party.⁸ There followed a massive campaign of destruction, which lasted over fifteen years and in which 53 percent of the 418 villages surveyed were totally destroyed and 44.5 percent partially destroyed.⁹ The clear aim of this destruction was to prevent the return of the refugees.

2.4 Political Action

Soon after the state of Israel was declared on May 14, 1948 and following the protest of UN mediator Count Folke Bernadotte, who witnessed, by June 1948, the expulsion of about 500,000 refugees, the Provisional Government of Israel stated that it could not allow any refugees to return before a peace treaty was signed, on the pretext that these refugees would be a “security threat”. Even after the fighting stopped, Israel refused to re-admit the refugees, and it maintains this position in the international arena to this day. It does so even though Israel’s admission to the UN in May 1949 was unique in that it is the only UN member whose admittance is “conditional” upon the return of refugees (Resolution-194) and withdrawal to the lines of the partition plan (Resolution-181).¹⁰

2.5 Creation of a Fictitious Legal Web to Mask Illegal Confiscation

Before, during and after the 1948 war, Israel/Zionists resorted to many pseudo-legal devices to organize and justify the confiscation of 18,700 square kilometres (92 percent of Israel) of Palestinian land, in addition to the property found in 530 depopulated towns and villages. The property was held by the Custodian of the Absentee (i.e. refugee) Property and transferred later to the Development Authority. All such land, as well as JNF holdings, is now administered by the Israel Land Administration (ILA). According to Israel, the “Absentee” is a Palestinian refugee not allowed by Israel to return. The term also applies to Palestinian citizens of Israel, who are not “Absent”, hence dubbed “Present Absentees”; much of their land has also been confiscated.¹¹

2.6 Importing of Jewish Immigrants to Fill the Depopulated Villages

Immediately upon the invasion of Palestinian villages, Israel activated its program of sending Mossad agents to transport Jews in Arab countries to Israel. The immigrants were persuaded by a mixture of rosy promises, incentives, and, for the reluctant ones, various acts of coercion, including throwing grenades at their houses.¹² About 700,000 Jewish immigrants arrived in the period 1949-52. Many of them were unhappy about the discriminatory treatment they received at the hands of the ruling Ashkenazi. Their resentment is still strong today.

All these actions were designed to prevent the return of refugees to their homes. While Israel was successful in preventing their return, the refugees remained adamant in their intention to return. They could often see their old homes across the barbed wire of the armistice line; indeed, most refugees still reside within a two-hour bus ride of their homes. After their expulsion during al Nakba of 1948, the problem for Israel thus became how to get rid of the refugees themselves, wherever they may be in exile.

Israel adopted a policy of conquest of Palestinian land, not only by military means but also by a series of fictitious pseudo-legal regulations intended to obscure the outright plunder of the land.¹⁶

In March 1948, at the initiation of the Israeli military operations, the Haganah (the forerunner of Israeli Army, IDF) created a “Committee for Arab Properties in Villages”. A similar committee was established after the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian cities of Haifa, Jaffa, Safad and Tiberias in April and May.

In November 1948, Israel completed the occupation of the most fertile and most populated areas of Palestine. In December, the same month in which the famous UN resolution 194 calling for the return of the refugees and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights were passed, Israel responded by issuing the “Emergency Regulations Relative to Property of Absentees”. Soon thereafter the Knesset passed the “Law of the Acquisition of Absentees Property”, (Absentees Property Law, 4 L. ST. Israel 68, 1949-1950). This law effectively classified all the refugees as “absent” and transferred the control of their property to a Custodian. The Custodian has the discretion to determine whether any Arab Palestinian is “absent” and confiscate his property. This arbitrary definition was applied, not only to those who were expelled beyond the Armistice Line, but was extended to Palestinians who remained in Israel. Those who remained but were not in the specified place on a particular date, for example, on a visit to the next village or had been away for a day, were declared “absent”. Since these became Israeli citizens, they were dubbed as “present absentees”, an ironical but accurate description of the Israeli fictitious legislation.

In 1950, Israel extended this appellation to all Wakf (Islamic Endowment), which was instated centuries ago, with the exception of strictly active religious shrines. Protestations that the owner–God–is “present” were to no avail. All mosques and cemeteries of depopulated villages have not been allowed to be used or repaired until this day. Many have been covered with ‘forests’, as was the case with demolished villages, to camouflage their remains. Christian and other religious bodies were left untouched.

Israel reactivated the “Defense (Emergency) Regulations of 1945”, created by the British Mandate in order to quell Palestinian revolt against British policies. Israel applied these regulations to areas in Israel in which Palestinians remained, through orders by an appointed Military Governor for each area. The regulations were not applied to Jews who lived in the same areas. Under these regulations, the Military Governor is empowered to declare that any locality is “closed”; no entry or exit from this locality is allowed.

In January 1949, the Knesset passed the “Emergency Regulations for the Exploitation of Uncultivated Lands” (Cultivation of Waste Lands Ordinance). The Minister of Agriculture is empowered to take possession of any land he considers “uncultivated”.

Further, Israel issued the “Emergency Regulations (Security Zones) of 1949” which empowered the Minister of Defence to declare most areas a “security zone”, with the power to deny entry or exit to any person or to remove him from this zone.

A further law, the “Emergency Land Requisition Law of 1949” empowered any “competent authority” to acquire any land if it is regarded as “necessary for the defence of the state, public security, essential services, absorption of immigrants or rehabilitation of ex-soldiers”.

Cases have been cited for a land coveted by the government, although the owner was legally present and cultivating his land. The land then would be declared “closed” and no person was allowed to remain there. After a period of 3 years, the government acquires the land on the pretext it was “Uncultivated”.

This sweeping acquisition of land through thinly-disguised land robbery legislation would not have been possible had it not been for the mass expulsion of refugees and the vast amount of land (92% of Israel) ready for grabs. It would not have also been possible if the country was truly democratic and the rights of the Palestinian minority were protected against racial discrimination.

To establish an intermediary between the Custodian of Absentee Property and the ultimate beneficiary, Israel created “the Development Authority (Transfer of Property) Law, 1950” to which Palestinian land was transferred. The Authority was empowered to sell, buy, lease, exchange, repair, build, develop or cultivate (Palestinian) property, provided that the beneficiary is a Jew or a Jewish entity. This excludes non-Jewish Israeli citizens also.

To validate any prior illegal expropriations, the Knesset passed the Land Acquisition (Validation of Acts and Compensation) Law of 1953. This law permitted the Minister of Finance to vest ownership of previously and newly expropriated land in the Development Authority. The law also allowed for compensation to any (i.e. Palestinian) owner at unfavourable terms. Compensation would be paid on the assessed value of the property as on January 1, 1950 in Israeli pounds of that date, +3% p.a. thereafter, minus all costs of the property “maintenance”. The values on the official list were very low and the Israeli pound was devalued many times. The exercise is highly theoretical. On a matter of principle, practically no ‘present’ Palestinians took the offer. Other laws of the same nature have been passed.

Following the Israeli occupation of Palestine, a dispute arose between JNF and the state of Israel which lasted from 1949 to 1961. JNF proposed that the acquired Palestinian land should be treated as other JNF lands, “for the Jewish people everywhere, in perpetuity”. The state considered that this land “of the Arabs who fled” belongs to it in view of “the heroic battles of the Haganah”.

JNF has the largest share of Jewish-owned land, which did not exceed 936,000 dunum (dunum = 1000 m²) in 1948. To appease JNF, Ben Gurion’s government ‘sold’ JNF 1,101,842 d. in January 1949, during 1948 war, before the first Armistice Agreement with Egypt was signed. A further 1,271,734 d. were ‘sold’ in October 1950. The last two ‘sales’ of Palestinian land, for a consideration of $1, increased JNF total holdings to some 3,400,000 d.

The conflict between JNF and the state was resolved by signing an agreement in 1961. It was agreed that JNF land and the acquired ‘state land’ to be managed by a government body, Israel Lands Administration (ILA), under the same rules adopted by JNF since 1906, i.e., denial of its use, lease, development or access to any non-Jew including Israeli citizens.

Since there is no constitution in Israel, a number of Basic Laws were enacted, including Basic Law: Israel-Lands (1960) which restricts its use to Jews only.

ILA report of 1962 gave the following figures for lands under ILA management:

How much of this is Palestinian?

In addition to the confiscated property of the refugees, Israel confiscated 76% of the land of the remaining villages in Israel. Therefore, confiscated Palestinian land is:

The United Nations Conciliation Commission on Palestine (UNCCP), which was created by UN resolution 194, compiled the Palestinian land holding which came under Israel in 1948. A team headed by Frank E. Jarvis completed the task in April 1964 (A/AC.25/W/84 of 28 April 1964) based on British Mandate government Land Registers and in consultation with the relevant governments. According to Jarvis, the area of Palestinian land thus compiled is 5,194,091 d. But Jarvis noted that he excluded 10 blocks in Ramle and 10 blocks in Jerusalem districts¹⁷ and the whole district of Beer Sheba. Adding the area of the latter (12,577,000) and some 500,000 d. for the missing blocks, the total will be 18,271,091 d. which is similar to the above figure.

Estimates for the land now remaining in the hands of the Palestinian citizens of Israel vary between 350,000-600,000 d. This land is subject to much restrictions and discriminatory practices. Thus one million Palestinians control some 2-3% of the land, while five million Jews control 97% of Israel, or 7 times the Palestinians’ share, although this land is predominantly Palestinian.

ILA leased the Palestinian land to the Kibbutz, Moshav and other Cooperatives for 49 years. Other lands are reserved by the state for military purposes, natural reserves and future expansion to accommodate new immigrants.

The Palestinian land, now called State Land, is leased or restricted exclusively for the use of Jewish individuals or bodies, with some negligible exceptions. Professor Uzzi Ornan of the Hebrew University noted that “a Jew has right to receive land or apartment on land controlled by ILA, but a non-Jew does not enjoy this right”.¹⁸

The (Jewish) lessee is not allowed to “make non-conforming use of that land save under a written permit”, in accordance with the especially enacted law: Agricultural Settlement (Restrictions on Use of Agricultural Land and of Water). This is to prevent a Jewish lessee from sub-leasing, or allowing the use of this land to any non-Jew, including Palestinian citizens of Israel. As this applies to 92% of the land held by Israel, the restriction imposed on the Palestinians in Israel becomes quite evident.

These exclusive and racist laws have been censured by many international and human rights bodies.

It is not quite clear how much land was leased to each Jewish group. But it is clear that the Kibbutzim established before 1948 were the first to grab the best land, which typically belonged to the nearby depopulated Arab village. The total leased (termed ‘liberated’) land is about 4,500,000 d. which is comparable to Jarvis figures and is roughly equal to the Palestinian land excluding Beer Sheba. Some reports indicate that 2,800,000 d. was leased to the Kibbutzim and more than that area to the Moshav and Cooperatives. Most of the Palestinian refugees’ land is situated in the Northern and Southern Districts of Israel. There are 250 Kibbutzim (population 56,500), 217 Moshavim (population 38,800) in the Northern District, and 65 Kibbutzim (population 23,800), 112 Moshavim (population 41,400) in the Southern District–1998 figures. This shows how vast is the land leased to so few. The land leased to 160,000 Jewish settlers is the property of 5,250,000 refugees. In the words of Meron Benvenisti, “the land of dispossessed Arabs became the property of the Jewish people (everywhere and in perpetuity) according to JNF rules”.¹⁹

As stated earlier, the Israeli policy concentrated its efforts, after the expulsion and dispossession of the Palestinians and confiscating their land, on getting rid of the refugees themselves.

Today, 88 percent of the refugees live in Palestine and environs: 46 percent in British Mandatory Palestine, 42 percent in Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon, within a 100-mile radius of Israel. Only 12 percent reside further afield, equally divided between Arab and foreign countries. Their total number, according to 1998 figures, is 4.9 million, of which only 3.6 million are registered with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the official body set up to care for the refugees.²⁰ More than two-thirds of the Palestinian people are refugees! There are no other people in the world where so many have been forced into exile.

The proximity of the refugees to their homes and their unquenched desire to return explains the feverish Israeli attempts to bring in as many immigrants as possible from such diverse places as Ethiopia and Russia, just to fill the depopulated Palestinian locations. On the other hand, there are over three dozen schemes²¹ (over a hundred if we consider minor variations) to resettle the refugees anywhere in the world except their homes. They are all Israeli-inspired and are based on one or more of the following premises: that the Palestinians are not a distinct “people”, that they could and should live anywhere, that they have no rights to qualify them for return, that their return is not physically possible, and that their return is not desirable because it would threaten the “Jewish character” of Israel.

The latest edition of these schemes is a proposal made by Donna Arzt.²² Although dressed in humanitarian garb, it is essentially a continuation of the ethnic-cleansing plan executed by Ben-Gurion, Weitz and Ariel Sharon. The plan calls for the transfer of 1.5 million refugees to various parts of the world and the forced exile of several million under a scheme of threats, coercion and bribery.²³

There are other schemes which call for the return of the refugees, not to their homes, but to a new state of Palestine, whose sovereignty and territory are still shrouded in mystery. They even propose ‘land swaps’, such as exchanging Palestinian-populated areas in Israel, or deserts in Israel used as dumps for chemical waste, for valuable territory in the West Bank occupied by settlers to be annexed to Israel.

Such ideas confuse the issue of sovereignty, which applies to a territory in which the state can make laws to admit citizens to it, and the issue of return to the homes from which the refugees were expelled, which is an Inalienable Right. The two are entirely unrelated. The refugee remains one until he returns to his original home. This has been clearly spelled out in the Explanatory Memorandum of Resolution-194. Changing the camp address of the refugee does not make him a returnee or deprive him of his rights. A refugee should return to his home, regardless of the sovereignty of the regime where his home lies.

All such schemes have failed, and they will continue to fail. Therefore, it becomes increasingly necessary to go back to basics and find creative solutions. Such solutions can never be permanent unless based on justice. First we must break the Israeli taboo that the Right of Return is not possible. We start by examining and refuting the Israeli standard arguments against the Right of Return.

First, the Right of Return is perfectly legal²⁴ in accordance with international law. The well-known UN Resolution-194 has been affirmed by the international community 135 times in the period 1948-2000. There is nothing like it in UN history. This universal consensus elevates this resolution from a “recommendation” to an expression of the determined will of the international community. International law also prohibits mass denationalization of a people if the territory in which they live undergoes a change of sovereignty.²⁵ Thus the refugees are entitled to return to the homes they lost and to a restoration of their nationality as well. The Right of Return is supported by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the many regional conventions based on human rights law. It is also derived from the sanctity of private ownership, which is not diminished by change of sovereignty, occupation or passage of time.

Second, the Right of Return is sacred to all Palestinians. It has remained their fundamental objective since 1948. Their determination on the return issue has endured despite warfare, suffering, and enormous social and political hardships. In this, the refugee from Iqrit, who is an Israeli citizen, the refugee from Lydda, who is a Jordanian citizen, the refugee from Haifa, who is stateless in Syria or Lebanon, and the refugee from Jaffa, who is a US citizen, have the same determination.

Third, there is no acceptable reason why they should not return. The Israelis oppose return on the grounds that it will pollute the “Jewish character” of Israel and cause outward emigration of Jews. They say it is impossible because the refugees’ villages have been destroyed and property boundaries lost. A senior Israeli intelligence General still perpetuates this claim when he says, “while the principle of ‘return to their original homes’ was fitting and possible in 1948, it has not been a realistic option for years. Implementing it today would mean dismantling and destroying the new infrastructure built in the last 50 years”.²⁶ None of these claims stand serious scrutiny. They are meant to perpetuate the act of ethnic cleansing. They try to derive some comfort from the dubious assumption that, while planning a crime is illegal and reprehensible, carrying it out efficiently is acceptable.

If a historical conflict is solved by the return of 5 million refugees to their homes in accordance with international law, what is the price of this huge achievement?

The 160,000 moshav and kibbutz residents who would be affected may decide to stay and rent land (this time from the owner, not from the ILA, by a simple change in the lease contract). Or they may decide to relocate.

The kibbutzniks have always been considered the pioneers of Zionism and the elite of Israeli society. A high proportion of army generals and Knesset members are kibbutzniks. They were usually granted the most fertile (Palestinian) land. However, this has dramatically changed. While 90 percent of Jewish immigrants joined a kibbutz in 1917, today only 3 percent of Israelis live on a kibbutz. There are constant desertions and very few new recruits. Most of the kibbutzim are near bankruptcy, with only 26 percent of them producing 75 percent of total kibbutz agricultural output.²⁹

The area of irrigated fields cultivated by the kibbutzim decreased from 213,628 acres (acre = one fourth of a dunum) in 1987 to 189,564 acres in 1991.³⁰ The economic return of these vast resources is meagre and diminishing, which put the kibbutz in debt. Out of $5 billion accumulated debt borne by the kibbutzim, the government has written off $2 billion, rescheduled $2 billion and encouraged the private sector to contribute $1 billion.

Following the Gulf War (1990-1991), a major change in government policy affecting kibbutz and moshav land further undermined the rights of the Palestinian owners. Until recently this land was officially held by the ILA and leased to the kibbutzim and moshavim. In the early 1990s Ariel Sharon, as Minister of Infrastructure, and Raphael Eitan, as Minister of Agriculture, introduced regulations permitting the rezoning of this agricultural land to residential construction to accommodate Russian immigrants and to build commercial outlets, shopping malls and private apartments. The kibbutzniks would then be compensated for this transaction at 51 percent of its value. This made the bankrupt farmers very rich overnight by allowing them to pocket the value of (Palestinian) land they never owned in the first place. This angered urban taxpayers, the vast majority of Israel’s population. Two committees, one in 1997 and another in 2000, reduced the compensation to 25 percent of the land value. Thus has “sacred spiritual property” been transformed into commercial real estate.

In 1997, ILA started to sell refugees’ land. The proceeds for such sales added to the coffers of the treasury about $1 billion a year, excluding compensation to the kibbutzniks. One dunum in the centre of the country sells for $1 million.³¹ In 1998, 110 kibbutzim were allowed to expand their residential area (that is, change the zoning from agricultural to residential), which can be sold to others, by 115 percent. “Others” may include any Jew living anywhere in the world. 150,000 residential units were planned in the kibbutz, out of a general plan for 500,000.

Sharon, who expropriated for himself a farm of several thousand dunums near Iraq Al Manshiya (Qiryat Gat), said:

“The only way to absorb the immigrants was by taking land from the kibbutz… I knew the (economic) hardship they are experiencing… it is better they build on the land and sell houses…”³²

In June 2000, fifty-two members of the Knesset submitted a bill to rezone 4 million dunums, or 80 percent of the land registered with the UN Conciliation Commission on Palestine (UNCCP), from agricultural to residential land–in other words, to transfer the registration of Palestinian refugees’ land from land leased to the kibbutz to land sold to a developer in order to build and sell apartments to Israelis and Jews of any nationality.

ILA recently went further by selling plots by open tender for private construction in moshavim and kibbutzim directly without interference of those agricultural organizations. Deals are cut by direct contact with the lessee (so-called farmer) according to ILA fee scales.³³ ILA and the ‘farmer’ receive the price of the sold Palestinian land, a land they do not own. The buyer has to sign a declaration that he will not sell or lease to non-Jews.

Now, the government of Israel is about to pronounce the death of the kibbutz, “closing a chapter of Zionist history”.³⁴ The Kibbutz is to be dissolved, privatized or transformed into commercial real estate.

An interesting intervention was made by the impoverished Sephardic community, who did not share in the extravagant benefits showered on the kibbutzim. The Sephardim formed a group, Hakeshet Hamizrahit, which petitioned the High Court against sale of kibbutz land, stating that:

the land in question was largely expropriated from Palestinians and thus transferring property rights to the inhabitants of the rural communities means negating forever the Palestinian refugees’ right of return.³⁵

Thus, the end of the historical conflict by the return of the refugees is sacrificed for the sake of a dying elite and a bankrupt movement, abandoned by the Israelis themselves.

When all the refugees return and with less extravagant use of water (60 cubic metres per capita, instead of the present 100, there will be a requirement for 2,803 mcm, or a mere 15% increase.

The point is that any requirements over the present 2,000 will have to be obtained from elsewhere. The treatment of waste water will only defer the problem a little while. The desalination is very expensive, both as initial and running cost. It is barely successful in the Gulf where energy is cheap.⁴⁹ Transportation of water from Turkey by sea requires reservoirs, now being built in Isdud and has health hazards associated with contamination.

With no refugees’ return, hence no peace, Israel may be tempted to attack Arab countries once again, seizing water resources in Lebanon, Syria and even Jordan. That will be the height of folly.

If, by the return of refugees, peace prevails, it is conceivable that regional agreements may be signed with neighbouring countries, including Iraq perhaps, so that water resources are shared based on justice and equity. It is also possible that water pipeline may be extended from Turkey or Iraq on Syrian soil. It is also possible that the energy required for desalination may be transmitted from the Gulf. Thus, the return of the refugees, a necessary prerequisite for the end of the conflict, may bring peace to the region and prevent war.

The well-known slick schemes proposed by Shimon Peres to bag all the benefits of the regional agreements without paying the price of justice and equity have all, not surprisingly, met their well-deserved demise.

To be sure, there are problems to solve. Many refugees would have to change their present occupation (now 25% in construction) and revert back to agriculture. Tighter controls on water consumption will have to be applied. At some cut-off point, say a maximum of 1,300 mm3/y, agriculture has to be industrialized. New and improved crops will have to be grown. In all this, Israeli research may be useful. Certainly the Palestinians would be enthusiastic workers, since they would be returning to their land cultivated by their forefathers for centuries. All in all, the return of peace and stability to the region far outweighs any application problems.

This desperation would at best buy some time; meanwhile it will prolong the suffering and build a legacy of injustice and desire for revenge.

The fallacy of Israeli arguments, aiming to maintain Jewish majority, is abundantly clear. They aim to attain an impossible goal: that Jews will remain a majority at all times in all territories held by Israel. This is impossible. Either the time within which this majority can be maintained shrinks or the territory in which this can be maintained shrinks. A better solution for Jews, indeed for all people, is to live with the people of the land, not instead of them.

All these examples indicate that the notion of the numerical superiority of Jews is a cruel time game in which the refugees rot in their camps until the Israelis realize, or admit, that this contention is a horrible hoax, intended to keep the conquered land empty until its owners give up or are gotten rid of by a “final solution” of the Palestinian problem.

The most incredible notion is the claim that the “Jewish character” means a socially homogeneous society in which Jews speak one language, dress and behave similarly, and uphold the same values, such that the presence of one national group as the Palestinians will ‘pollute’ this uniformity. It is hard to imagine that very many Israelis really believe this. There are no dominant common features between the Russians and Moroccans, the Mizrahi and Ashkenazi or the Haredim and the secular. There are thirty-two official spoken languages in Israel and about two dozen political groups with an equivalent number of newspapers for a Jewish population a little larger than Los Angeles. The problem of their fractured society is a serious one, and it is already causing internal conflict in Israel, now tenuously held together by the drummed-up Arab danger. Considerable research has already been devoted to this question.⁵⁶ But the return of Palestinians to their ancestral homes would not substantially exacerbate these problems. Already, the Palestinian citizens of Israel [Fig-9] are 11 percent of the population in group-A, 21 percent in group-B and 70 percent in group-C.

If the “Jewish character” refers to religious practice, this has rarely been a problem in the Arab and Islamic world. Numerous historians have demonstrated that the treatment of Jewish minorities by Islamic and Arab societies has been far better than that by Christian societies.

There is no ethical or legal justification for the maintenance of a “Jewish character” that denies human rights or violates international law. The real reason for Israel’s racist practices is to maintain its hold on Palestinian land and keep it as a reserve for future Jewish immigration. On March 1, 2001, the Israeli media reported that Prime Minister-elect Ariel Sharon told the Jewish Agency that his plan is to bring 1 million immigrants from Russia, Mexico and Ethiopia, and that Israel must bring all of the world’s Jews to Israel by 2020.

To be sure, the implementation of this Return Plan shall encounter many difficulties, most are readily solvable. The rewards however far outweigh any cost and sacrifices likely to be made. Indeed the return would discharge the old debt of 53 years of war, strife and suffering and bring an era of permanent peace.

The essential point to remember is that we are here talking about rights, not politics, about inalienable non-negotiable rights, not about political bargaining, about fundamental freedom, not about territory or sovereignty.

The right to return home is akin to the right to live, work, get education, speak and worship freely. The question therefore is not a matter of compromise or political bargaining which does not infringe on basic rights. Political rights may be won or lost, but Inalienable Rights are intrinsic.

Even so, it is possible to argue that the return is practical, possible and politically necessary because it can bring peace and, more importantly, can avert war.

In the domain of practical considerations, it is possible to argue that the return is practical, possible and politically necessary because it can bring peace and, more importantly, can avert war.

First: The problem of water. No matter who will live in Palestine/Israel in the 21^st century, there will be a severe water shortage. It has already been shown that Israel has exhausted all available water resources at 2,000 million cubic metres per year, more than two-thirds of it is illegally seized Arab water. With the increase of population, there will be two ways to acquire more water: by war or in peace. If more Jewish immigrants are brought to Israel in the absence of peace, Israel may be tempted to occupy Syria and Lebanon and seize their water resources. We know the folly of this adventure, but some Israeli leaders may not. On the other hand, if the refugees return and true peace based on international law prevails, then all kinds of regional agreements with open borders and free movement may be possible. It is worthwhile noting that neither desalination, treatment of used water or importing water from Turkey will be sufficient to solve the water problem.

Second, Israel’s claim that old boundaries are lost, or that the country is full, has been shown to be patently false. Retaining a Jewish majority at all times and in all places is shown to be a pipe dream. The only way to achieve this Jewish majority at all times is to keep shrinking the land under Jewish possession. That is the price one pays for exclusivity.

With that goes the fanciful idea of a homogenous Jewish society. None other than Sharon admits that immigrants speak 60 languages and come from 130 countries, united only in their enmity of the Arabs, a less than noble objective.⁷⁰

The fanciful idea of a homogenous Jewish society is another myth. None other than Sharon admits that Jewish immigrants in Israel speak 82 languages and come from 102 countries, united only in their enmity of the Arabs, a less than noble objective.

On the practical side, it is shown that there is enough Palestinian labour to complete the refugees’ rehabilitation process. The construction activity will act as a major generator for the economy at least for the first 10 years. Not only can it be funded by reparations, donations and investments, but the absorption of new labour would greatly increase GDP for the new Palestine.⁷¹ Israel is in need of about 500,000 foreign labour; now it employs 300,000 foreign workers.When peace prevails, the labour for building the future is available.

Israel has an ambitious plan for the 21^st Century. Israel’s master plan for the year 2020 envisages a GDP of $220 billion, more than double the present. To do that, Israel needs a workforce of 3,200,000, of which only a tiny minority are employed in agriculture (2% or 60,000), almost the same number as of today. Its growth is envisaged in areas other than agriculture, such as industry and infrastructure.

The booming high-tech industry in Israel is part of the globalization process. Almost half of Israel high-tech companies are registered in the US. They could be anywhere, in an industrial park in Haifa or on an aircraft carrier. Globalized high-tech is non-territorial. It does not contradict in any way with the return of the refugees.

The returning labour will be needed to develop the infrastructure in the new country which is both needed when peace prevails.

It is abundantly clear that the ambitious Israeli master plan of 2020 does need the cooperation of its neighbours. All the various scenarios in the plan point out that Israel is bursting and it needs proper channels to release its force. War generals may be tempted to do this by military force which will be disastrous for all concerned. The other alternative would be a true and just peace. Replaying another Oslo will be a disaster. A cornerstone of this peace is the return of the refugees.

When the refugees return, they can revive the agriculture and make use of wasted resources of land and water, which is theirs in the first place. They will augment or replace only 60,000 agricultural labour in Israel, mostly foreign anyway, in addition to only 8,600 kibbutz farmers.

The refugees can generate 1,000,000 workers at the present level of participation, which could be doubled to match Israel’s participation. This will be essential for further development of the infrastructure, trade, hospitality and services which account for 61% of the GDP producing labour for the new Palestine.

Therefore there is no economic reason to deny the right of the refugees to return.

[Right-wing Israelis see in the Haredim and Israeli Palestinians, 2 million out of the total 6, an obstacle to the development of Israel. They propose to strengthen the elite part of the society (Ashkenazi) and shake off the burden of weaker segments of society. Their solutions range from penalizing large families, cutting aid and welfare to the infamous “Transfer” plans of Arabs. This is the wholemark of a racist society, bent on planning and executing ethnic cleansing in total contempt of international law. This will have no future.] Having reviewed geographic, agricultural, demographic and economic aspects of the refugees return, we cannot find a logical or practical reason for the denial of the Right of Return.

It is absolutely clear that the only remaining obstacle to permanent peace is Israel’s racist policies. These policies have not been implemented as a single event in 1948, they have been practised ever since. It is a sad reflection on the Israeli state of mind, when the learned professionals of Israel come up with ethnic cleansing or apartheid policies as the only way to ensure their own view of Israel’s future. This is an explosive formula which is likely to bring total destruction of the region.⁷²

They will not prevail. The only way for Israelis to live in peace is to end the Palestinian-Israeli conflict forever. This can never be without justice. Force is likely to win wars but will never win permanent peace. International law, Israel’s geography and demography will not enable Israel to prevail by force in the long term.

If Israeli leaders (and indeed society) come to their senses, they will realize that the much-coveted ‘peace’ can only be achieved through justice. This then will be peace for all time.

One particularly sad example of such mentality is what the poet Ilan Sheinfeld wrote:

We will not go away. We will not leave this place. Not Jaffa, not Acre, not Nazareth, not Givat Shaml B, which was one Deir Yassin and not Ein Hod, which was one Ein Haud. We will not give you back your land. We will not give back the houses you abandoned in the 1948 war, and we will not grant you your right of return, because your right of return is our eviction. And we no longer have any place to go.” (my italics).

These are honest words in that they describe the Israeli state of mind, and admit the take-over of the Palestinians’ land and homes. The refusal to give them back is based on the fear of ‘eviction’ of Jews in which case, it is claimed, they will have no place to go to.

If there is any conclusion to be drawn from this paper, it is that the return of the refugees does not require ‘eviction’ of the Jews. And, it is the Palestinians who have no where else to go, as has been demonstrated in the last 53 years. It is the Jews, who come from 102 countries, many carry double nationality, are the ones who see in Israel a second home, an insurance against possible bad times.

It is indeed amazing that Israelis, who appeal to the sense of justice in the West for the atonement of past evil deeds and for moral and material compensation for the injustice inflicted upon them should at once resort to pure force and bloodshed in Palestine to deny the right of Palestinians to return to their homes and property. This indeed is and has been a recipe for perpetual war and suffering.

The only way for Israelis to live in peace is to end the Palestinian-Israeli conflict forever. This can only be with justice. Force is likely to win wars but will never win permanent peace. International law, Israel’s geography and demography will not enable Israel to prevail by force in the long term. If Israeli leaders and society see their future in a non-military context, they will realize that the much-coveted ‘peace’ can only be achieved through justice. This then will be peace for all time.

The qualifications for a just peace is that Israel must shed its racist policies, must respect and adhere to international law, particularly Human Rights law. The return of the refugees to their homes becomes then a natural corollary. It can come about simply by removing the racist stigma from the Israeli Law of Return, which restricts its applicability to Jews or those who claim to be. It can come about by removing all vestiges of racism, exclusivity and apartheid from Israeli laws. Only then can Israel become a ‘normal’ country and cease to be the pariah of the world.

Israel must then dismantle its weapons of mass destruction as both unnecessary and dangerous. The funds now poured into destructive weapons and military hardware (highest percentage of GDP in the world) could be put into development projects.

The US and Europe must cease, in dealing with the Middle East, to base their policies on pressures from a vociferous minority or on grounds of political expediency. Europe must cease to pay for its guilt in the Second World War by Palestinian lives and blood. Otherwise, Europe will be morally obliged to atone for the same guilt twice. The US must see that its blind support for Israel brought war and destruction to the area and caused serious harm to its own interests.

Europe must cease to pay for its guilt in the Second World War by Palestinian lives and blood. Europe will then be required to atone for the same guilt twice.

This Return Plan is not Utopia. It is practical in absolute terms. All the short-cuts, all the forced solutions, all the military might, all the deception and misinformation campaigns, all the connivance of the politicians, have brought nothing but destruction of life and property. It has deprived the region of the tranquillity it deserves for over half a century. Now it is time to chart a new course, that of international law.

The return of the refugees may be a long way ahead, but it is the only way to reach a lasting peace. Let us make it short.