In the midst of the outbreak of Palestinian return marches in the Gaza Strip since late March 2018, Israeli talk has returned strongly on the issue of the right of return for Palestinian refugees, and the serious threat it poses to the future of the state, and the Jewish majority there.
While Palestinians and Israelis have been fighting the refugee narrative for seventy years, a new Israeli book has been widely watched in the Israeli press, media and research centers, as it seeks to present the Israeli version of the Palestinian refugee issue and the future of the right of return with a new political and historical template. The book entitled "The War of the Right of Return: The Battle over the Palestinian Refugee Problem, and How to Win it in Israel," by Adi Schwartz and Samples and Wraps.
The book discusses in its entirety the failure of Israel to deal with the question of the right of return for Palestinian refugees, 70 years after its creation, in light of the failure of all Israeli solutions and international initiatives to turn the page, and the inability to be absent from the agenda of Palestinian, Arab, Israeli and international decision-making circles.
| The War of the Right of Return: The Battle over the Palestinian Refugee Problem and How to Win the Israeli War in it. |
Refugees and the battle of consciousness
The authors say that the refugee problem was born at the beginning of the conflict with the Palestinians more than seventy years ago, and even today the discussions and debates between the two sides are still at their peak, especially on their causes and consequences. The conflict, which is called "core issues", as well as Jerusalem, borders and others.
The authors consider that the issue of refugees is still one of the battles of consciousness that Israel is waging around the world; thus, it can be considered the first Israeli book that works to dissect the issue of Palestinian refugees from its inception to this day, and to examine the hypotheses in the hands of Israel, in the face of Palestinian demands Implement the right of return. The authors seek to engage in political thinking to resolve the refugee issue, and try to find gaps in this obstacle to any solution to the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis, and move from the solution of the problem of land and withdrawals, to the issue of the right of return.
Schwartz, a former researcher and journalist for Haaretz and Israel today, is now completing his PhD in conflict resolution, while Welff is a former Labor member of the Knesset and has previously chaired the Knesset Education Committee. She served as a political adviser to the late Israeli President Shimon Peres. These two Israeli researchers are the most experienced in the subject of Palestinian refugees, and it is interesting that they are from the generation of the "Zionist left" * .
The researchers support recent measures by Washington to reduce the budget of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) because UNRWA has long been no longer a UN institution, they claim, but has long been used as the “womb that produces Palestinian terrorism”. A moment about perpetuating the idea of asylum, displacement and the right of return among Palestinians.
The book criticizes the Israeli government and the Israeli security services for opposing the suspension of UNRWA funding for fear of a security and field explosion among refugees, particularly in the Gaza Strip, and its direct impact on Israel. The authors pointed to a remarkable irony regarding the Israeli refusal to suspend funding for UNRWA, because the security establishment in Israel means that the living conditions of Palestinian refugees will not deteriorate as a result of exposure to and reduction of the UNRWA budget, knowing that the continued provision of UNRWA assistance to these refugees means perpetuating and perpetuating their cause. It seems that it does not receive much attention from the Israeli security services, and therefore opposes the reduction of UNRWA budgets, but wants to buy calm in the Gaza Strip in particular, regardless of the method used, and therefore will continue to support the continued pumping of necessary budgets Of international, knowing that the demands of the Palestinian refugees in the maximum mean their return to the cities of Ashdod, Ashkelon and Haifa.
Incitement to UNRWA
The subject of UNRWA has occupied so much of the book's pages and chapters that the reader feels at first glance that it was specifically issued to demand its closure, because it is accused of being the cause of the Palestinian refugee issue stuck unresolved for seven decades, in complete disregard by the authors of historical and political responsibility. For the Zionist movement and the State of Israel about the emergence of the tragedy of refugees, as if the book discusses the result, and forget the reason.
The book claims that UNRWA has transformed its refugee camps into a "hatred hatred" and incitement against Israel through educational curricula that perpetuate the right of return, adopt the term displacement of Palestinian refugees, and raise the value of Palestinian national identity. It is also stated: "Palestinian refugees are certain that they will one day return to these cities from which they left seventy years ago and reside instead of us Jews, who inhabit these areas. Palestinians will not give up this demand for the right of return, because their abdication of this right means more insulting them." Those who stay are waiting for long hours at Israeli security checkpoints on the roads and streets of the West Bank. "
The authors claim that the curricula and curricula in UNRWA schools prove that they are involved with the Palestinian Authority and Palestinian factions in the battle of consciousness on both sides, the Palestinian and Israeli, about immigration and the right of return, and their unlimited support for Palestinian armed actions against Israel.
The authors claim that UNRWA is losing control of the camp population, and other Palestinians are starting to live in these camps. There is no longer a link between the actual numbers of refugees recorded in UNRWA records and documents, and the real numbers on the ground, so that elderly people who have died or relatives who have left for countries are not reported. In the 1960s and 1970s, hundreds of thousands of young refugees left the camps for the Gulf States, but it is not surprising that UNRWA does not reduce the number of refugees released annually.
Many Israelis are finding it difficult to cope with refugees in the Palestinian territories in the absence of UNRWA, although its survival legitimizes their continued demand for the right of return.
The book reveals that members of the US Congress were always visiting the residence of former Israeli Ambassador in Washington, Danny Ayalon, and then Ambassador Michael Oren, and the ambassadors gave them exclusive documents about UNRWA activities in refugee schools in the Palestinian territories, where American lawmakers were expressing their anger, Because their country finances these activities, and because this international institution, UNRWA, harms Israel.
At the same time, the Israeli ambassadors have consistently voiced their opposition to the cessation of UNRWA funding as the position of the Israeli government. The book reveals a phone conversation between General Amos Gilad, head of the Israeli Defense Ministry's political and security department, with Ambassador Oren, saying: "It is true that UNRWA is a bad organization, but Hamas is worse," referring to the Israeli approach to maintaining UNRWA in its current state, without To close it, lest Hamas replace it.
The book confirms that there is a fundamental failure in the Israeli leadership's perception of the role and mission of UNRWA, because during many years, many Israelis have been difficult to manage the refugees in the Palestinian territories in the absence of UNRWA, although its survival legitimizes the continuation of their demand for the right of return, and today when President Donald Trump comes and demands to reduce UNRWA budget For the above reasons, Israeli envoys are sent to him asking him not to touch them.
Palestinian insistence on the right of return
The authors make several assumptions about the number of Palestinian refugees returning to Israel and conclude that if two million Palestinian refugees return, the demographic number of Palestinians in 2058 will be only 36% of the entire population of Israel. According to the book, the Palestinians see their return to cities and towns inside Israel as a real goal that they will not stop pursuing, even if it is done by bringing them into Israel for 15 years, and then demanding more refugees, because Palestinians see the right of return as an individual right for each of them. It includes eight million refugees who want to return. This right, the right of return, extends to all Palestinian generations: parents, children, grandchildren and grandchildren, and they have no other way to turn this page of asylum except by returning.
The authors say that the Palestinian-Israeli negotiating table has witnessed long debates on the implementation of the right of return, especially the accepted formula called “finding an agreed solution to the refugee issue”, which is the most appropriate formula for the Palestinian side, because it does not require millions of Palestinian refugees to relinquish this right of return. . During many years of studying the conflict with the Palestinians, the authors found a dilemma, which he described as striking and strange, that the essence of the Israeli conflict with the Palestinians is the right of return, but at the same time, this right has not occupied any space in the Israeli debate in the past years and decades, but almost Disappeared, and here came the need to compose this common book.
The authors stress that the Israeli leadership over the past decades has preferred the option of ignoring the issue of Palestinian refugees, as if it does not exist, although this lack of clarity gave the Palestinians the possibility of continuing their demand for the right of return, and its implementation means "a devastation of Israel and the Jews." Therefore, this uncertainty in the Israeli political behavior of the Palestinian refugee issue can be described as "devastating", because the agreement with the Palestinians should have been based on full clarity, with open eyes, otherwise the dream of the Palestinian right of return develops and grows under the umbrella of Israeli protection and Western blasphemy. .
When Palestinian refugees choose between suffering in refugee camps or accepting the State of Israel, they prefer to remain in the camps despite the harsh conditions.
On the other hand, the book talks about a Palestinian awareness of the importance of the right of return that was present at the beginning of the Palestinian refugee tales in 1948, and how some refugees started to return from some of the neighboring Arab countries where they sought refuge during the war. And the discovery of fresh water, but declared categorical rejection of any attempts to restore their economic living conditions in those countries, lest they be an alternative to the right of return, and saw in them a betrayal worthy of war and fighting.
According to the same book, when Palestinian refugees choose between suffering in living conditions and economic hardship in the refugee camps, or accepting the State of Israel as a land-based option, they prefer to remain in the camps despite the harsh conditions and difficult life. At the beginning of the Palestinian issue in the 1950s, the Arab Higher Committee considered that returning to their countries of origin within the borders of Israel was an implicit recognition of this state, and therefore strongly opposed it.
Conclusion
The book is of added importance because of the timing of its publication.It coincides with repeated talk of the approaching announcement of the deal of the century, President Donald Trump, and the earlier announcement of Washington, in early 2018, to reduce the support of UNRWA, which may reflect the serious orientations of the US administration towards the issue refugees. As time passes, and as the US administration announces its vision for peace in the Middle East, the most serious issue that is feared to be abolished is that of refugees, and their right to return to their homes, as enshrined in UN resolutions and international laws.
The Israeli negotiation delegations with the Palestinians received harsh criticism from the authors of the book, because they kept many papers pending unresolved, especially the refugee file, as one of the core issues in the Palestinian-Israeli negotiations. Israel does not recognize the responsibility for the displacement of refugees and treating them as a humanitarian issue. Political, this issue kept open unresolved, and made the ongoing demands for refugees to return to the list, moving from the generation of grandparents to the parents and ending with grandchildren to this day.
It should be noted that a political reading of the Israeli negotiating performance since the Madrid Conference of 1991 to 2014, where negotiations were suspended and the negotiation of delegations from various Israeli political parties, indicates a remarkable phenomenon, and it unites the Israeli position on the categorical rejection of the implementation of the right of return for refugees. The rest of the core issues, such as Jerusalem, settlements and borders, were different.
Interestingly, the book omits, perhaps deliberately, that the march of a quarter of a century of bilateral negotiations in which Israel has achieved many gains in the refugee issue, the most important of which is that the Oslo Accord of 1993 put this issue in a sub-clause, making it invisible in the flood of documents describing bridges, bypass roads and garrisons. The cantons, and perhaps Palestinian partners, have blindly contributed to this blindness, but the result is clear. The refugee issue was marginalized in Oslo, although it is the heart of the conflict.
A preliminary review of the more than 300 pages of the book suggests that its authors came out with the conviction that the 70th anniversary of the refugee issue had not lost sight of them and did not cool their confidence in return, a source of disappointment for Israelis, given the inheritance. The right of return through subsequent generations of refugees and their inclusion on the lists of right holders, including parents, children and grandchildren, not just those who left those countries in 1948.
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Book Information
Title : The War of the Right of Return: The Battle over the Palestinian Refugee Issue, and How Israel Won it.
Written by : Plain Shorts, Samples and Wraps
Publisher : Zemora Betan
Date : 2018
Number of pages : 304 pages
Language of Text : Hebrew
Margins:
* The Zionist left is an Israeli political trend, whose ideology is based on the establishment of two states for the two peoples: the Palestinian and the Israeli, the most prominent leaders: Yuri Avnery, Yossi Sarid, Yossi Beilin, and Zahava Galon. The current has witnessed a significant decline since 2000, after the failure of the Camp David negotiations and the outbreak of the Al-Aqsa Intifada, and faced sharp criticism, because it identified with the right-wing camp, refusing to negotiate with the Palestinians, and the declaration of the absence of a Palestinian partner, as well as leading several wars against the Palestinians.
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This article is from Al Jazeera Center for Studies.