One Year After Oslo - 1:
Refugees’ Right of Return Canceled Before Negotiations Even Begin? According to the DOP (Article XII), Israel, “the Palestinian representatives”, Egypt and Jordan should have set up by now a Continuing Committee, “that will decide by agreement on the modalities of admission of persons displaced from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in 1967”. Despite the fact that the Israeli government insisted on watering down the wording of this article so as to free it of any obligation to bring back a specific number or category of refugees, this committee, in which Israel has absolute veto power, has not established. In May 1994, Israel finally declared that it would be ready in principle to start negotiations about the return of the “1967 displaced persons” in the framework of the four-party Committee. Since then however, no such negotiations have taken place; the Israeli government declared that it did not feel bound by decisions taken in the framework of the bilateral DOP between Israel and the PLO. Palestinian officials are currently making an effort to remove this new obstacle through meetings with the Jordanian side.
Article XII quoted above is the only reference in the DOP to the Palestinian right of collective return. The lack of progress on this issue has increased the risk that the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) will remain unable to obtain even a partial implementation of the right of return within the interim period. Several factors indicate that the PNA’s position, according to which the return of the 1967 refugees to the Palestinian administered territories is guaranteed by the DOP, is severely threatened: On the one hand, Israel has, in violation of the DOP, offered the Jordanian government to discuss matters relating to Palestinian refugees in Jordan bilaterally; on the other hand it is becoming evident that the Israeli government is working to substitute the Palestinian collective return with individual return based on procedures for family reunification, most of which were established prior to the signing of the DOP in September 1993.
Moreover, traditional positions still held by the PLO/PNA and the United Nations, according to which the Palestinian refugee question both has a political (the right of return) and a humanitarian (refugee aid) dimension, are being increasingly questioned by the states, members in the multilateral talks on refugee affairs and funders of refugee aid programs.
Thus a recent study commissioned by the European Union in order to facilitate assistance strategies for Palestinian refugees in the post-Oslo period focuses exclusively on the improvement of aid efficiency, and completely disregards the political component of the question.* The study criticizes the old UNRWA definition of refugee status (“those persons whose normal residence was Palestine during the period June 1, 1946 to May 15 1948 and who lost both their homes and means of livelihood as a result of the conflict,” extended by later UN Secretary Council resolutions 237 and 2252 to include the 1967 refugees) as wasteful, because it also includes refugees who are not in need of material aid. Instead of this “status oriented” definition, the study proposes a new “need oriented” definition. Refugees in need of aid should be identified according to socio-economic criteria. Aid programs financed by the international community should cater not only to this new refugee target group, but also to the surrounding poor host population. In the occupied territories (“former OTs” in the report), the study suggests that one of the first tasks for the emergent PNA would be to coordinate and to help in prioritizing such aid.
The conclusions of this study represent the vision of many international NGOs and certain European governments, who propose treating the refugee issue from the perspective of their local needs and towards integrating them in the host countries, while omitting the refugees’ political status and aspirations. Given the lack of progress in the political negotiations concerning the refugees’ right of return (even in the limited version stated in the DOP), there is no doubt that the implementation of this study’s recommendations would support the integration of the Palestinian refugees in their host communities. This will not be prevented by statements found in the study, such as “improving the conditions of living for refugees in the host countries does not invalidate their legal status, nor prejudice their right to return to their homes or receive compensation for their loses” (Bristol Report, basic assumption no. 2). With all its shortcomings, the UNRWA definition continues to combine the notion of need (though outmoded) with the basic requirements for a political solution of the refugee question. The Palestinian refugees’ right of return can only be defended if the PLO/PNA is able to develop new strategies which can meet the challenge posed by the international community, on the one hand, and provide for more efficient refugee aid in the post-Oslo era on the other. [* Assistance to Refugees in the Middle East: Draft Final Report (Bristol Report), prepared by the Office for International Policy Services (IPS) and the Refugee Studies Programme at Oxford University, July 1994. Source for this article: unpublished review by Salim Tamari, Technical Committees - Working Group on Refugees] |
