BADIL

Forcible transfer and deportation are terms that commonly evoke images of people being loaded onto trucks or trains or violently driven away.¹ Forcible transfer, however, may also take the form of involuntary or induced movement of people resulting from the creation of insecurity, disorder, or other adverse conditions, for the purpose of, or resulting in such migration. Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits all forcible transfers. Only the security of the population of the occupied territory or imperative military reasons can exceptionally justify total or partial evacuation of an area under occupation. Those evacuated shall be transferred back to their homes as soon as hostilities in the area in question have ceased.

In 1973, The United Nations rightfully condemned ‘the unholy alliance between Portuguese colonialism, South African racism, Zionism and Israeli imperialism.’¹ And only two years later the same international organization determined ‘that Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination.’² Although this resolution was revoked in 1991, at the behest of the U.S. administration, in order to pave the way for the Madrid Peace Conference that same year, the equation of Zionism with racism is still valid. Apartheid is based on the principle of the establishment and maintenance of a regime of institutionalized discrimination in which one group dominates others. In the case of Israel, the driving-force behind the Palestinian reality of apartheid is Zionist ideology; its manifestation is population transfer and ethnic cleansing.

The return of displaced Palestinians to the lands from which they have been displaced and denied return for over six decades is the central issue around which the Palestinian struggle for freedom and self-determination revolves. Among those who value justice and respect for international law, there is no disagreement that refugee and IDP reparation ( return, Restitution, rehabilitation, compensation and non-repetition) is central to a just and lasting solution to the woes of the region. For both Badil and Zochrot, it is this aspect of the liberation of Palestine to which we have dedicated our efforts for over a decade since our organizations’ establishment. Through the course of our work, however, we have found that conceptions of “return” have remained somewhat superficial. This is true among the settler community that sees it as a calamity to be avoided at any cost as well as among the indigenous community that equates return to a reversal of six decades of settler-colonialism; the return to a paradise lost.

In what follows we offer an overview of the various dimensions and aspects of the work needed in preparation for the return of Palestinian refugees. In general, we believe that the struggle for return needs to be cumulative, flexible, and sustainable:

Some of the Lessons from the South African Restitution Experience

In the discussions, meetings and visits conducted as part of the BADIL-Zochrot study visit in Cape Town, several issues were raised that we saw as being of direct relevance to restitution and reparations in the case of Palestine. These included the following:
(note: some of these may not have been directly experienced in South Africa, but were raised as questions and concerns by study visit participants in their examination of the South African restitution experience)