To our struggling people, to our refugees everywhere in the diaspora,  

The drafting committee for the recommendations and decisions of the first refugee conference in the district of Bethlehem, held in Deheishe refugee camp on 13 September 1996, presents to the people in general, and to the refugees in particular, the recommendations compiled in broad, popular meetings held in all refugee sites in the Bethlehem district in the course of the past months, and in a series of workshops conducted between June 4 - 14, 1996. These recommendations were discussed by the participants on the day of the conference, some of them were canceled and others amended, the last section was added - all of it in a constructive and democratic atmosphere, which allowed every individual refugee participant to express freely his/her opinion and suggestions concerning this conference document.  
This document is a product of a collective effort of the refugees in the Bethlehem district. Their pluralistic and democratic approach and mentality made possible the creation of this document, which will function as a tool for measuring and judging positions and serve as a guideline to every refugee in his/her evaluation and judgment of the work of the elected representatives.  

Dear refugees wherever you are, join us! Here we are, starting the spark and knocking the walls of the container [referring to Ghassan Kanafani’s famous novel “Men Under the Sun”]. Hold your popular conferences wherever you are. Move forward!  

The Drafting Committee of the Recommendations of  
the First Conference of the Refugees in the Bethlehem District  
Deheishe, 13 September 1996  

Part I. General Principles   

We, the refugees in the district of Bethlehem, participants in the conference in Deheishe refugee camp, the spring of national spirit, declare the following:  

1. Time has come for the refugee community to organize itself in popular committees and to design a strategic program of struggle based on the hidden capacities of the people - the refugees themselves - who, with their unity, patience and clear objectives, have maintained the struggle for their national rights. The refugees thus still hold a basic advantage in the struggle against the enemy, especially in the current international, Arab and local circumstances. In order to achieve the implementation of the internationally legitimized resolutions in the era of the final status negotiations between Israel and the PNA, such programs must also take into consideration the strength and capacities found on the Arab and international level in regards to the refugee issue.  

2. The refugees in the Bethlehem district express their concern and warning of the implications of the weakness of the Oslo agreements in the refugee issue and state their readiness and to continue and renew the struggle for the transfer of the negotiations on the refugee question from the current bi-lateral forum to the hall of the United Nations.  

3. Based on the above, we the participants in the conference declare to the public and swear to our people and to our refugee brothers all over the diaspora, that we will continue the struggle for the implementation of UN Resolution 194 which states our right to return and to compensation. The strength of this resolution derives from the international consensus prevailing for decades. We declare our commitment to the internationally legitimized stand on the Palestinian refugee issues, especially to resolutions 513, 2452 (1968), 2963 (1972) and the General Assembly Resolution 3236 (1974) which recognized the Palestinian people’s unconditional right of self determination and confirmed the refugees’ right to return to their homes and property.  

4. In addition to our demand for the implementation of the UN resolutions, we raise our strong demand for the implementation of the International Declaration of Human Rights, particularly of Article 13 related to our issue.  

5. Any negotiations or programs on the refugee question which bypass the international resolutions and decisions on our right to return to our homeland and property, or contradict human rights declarations, will receive, from our side, nothing but struggle and resistance. Our criteria for support and acceptance of any party, regardless whether local or international, will be its commitment to the international resolutions on the refugees and their implementation.  

6. By this call for action and struggle for the implementation of the international resolutions, we demand from the bodies [i.e. refugee councils] to be elected, as well as from the PNA, to join efforts against the calls for the solution of the refugee question in regional frameworks [resettlement] and to always take into consideration Arab solidarity and support. However, such Arab coordination must not be at the expense of the independent decision of the Palestinian people and their right of return.  

7. The participants warn of the dangers of UNRWA involvement in the current political process, which favors the opponent and liquidates UNRWA’s original objectives. While we condemn strongly all approaches aimed at the liquidation of UNRWA, we demand Arab and international intervention in order to re-establish UNRWA’s role based on its responsibilities and internationally legitimized decisions. We demand the activation of UNRWA’s bodies and departments for the implementation of international decisions, particularly Resolution 194, and steps to oblige it to act - in the framework of the UN and outside it - in accordance with international decisions, and not by opposing or bypassing them.  

8. In this context, the participants demand all parties - Arab and international - who respect the international legitimacy, to intervene in order to connect UNRWA with the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) whose operation is based on the UN refugee charter. This charter uses a broader definition of refugees than UNRWA and can cover all refugees. Moreover, if forbids the host countries to issue citizenship status to the refugees. Also, UNHCR’s political authority and role is stronger when it comes to the matter of refugee repatriation.  

9. It is important to remember that the refugees in the Bethlehem district are following with concern some of the Arab parties in the Multilateral Refugee Working Group,  which are bypassing and retreating from internationally legitimized decisions and trying to avoid Palestinian national rights, the PLO and the right or return by supporting resettlement schemes as an alternative to the right of return. Therefore, we demand these parties to respect the international legitimacy and our rights, and we remind them that the current balance of forces may not last. Although the US may be willing to provide funds for the resolution of their financial crisis, it will not be able to provide security and protection. Our national and Arab rights are unnegotiable and not subject to deals.  

10. Therefore the Conference appeals to Arab host countries to understand the specific character of the refugee camps on their territory and to abstain from engagement in regional politics which will be at the expense of refugees’ right to their historical homeland.  

11. In the framework of the general principles, the participants confirm that the refugee bodies to be elected should design programs which serve not only to continue the struggle of our legitimate national rights, but are able to promote democracy, civil and human rights. Any separation between these two dimensions is unacceptable. It should be clear that popular refugee support for parties - elected or not, official or not - and for any negotiating team, will depend on their respect for democracy, national and human rights.  

Part II. The Palestinian National Authority  

The participants, while understanding the restrictive circumstances of the PNA, its role in the struggle for the national rights and the numerous obstacles to national reconstruction, believe that refugee mobilization for the implementation of internationally legitimized decisions does not contradict the PNA’s aims. Therefore we demand that the PNA not only understand the objective need for the establishment of a popular refugee movement, but to also support this movement with the following:  

1. Based on study of past experience, the PNA must reconsider its negotiation program and method. All negotiations on the refugee question must be channeled back to the arena of the United Nations and its bodies, so as to pressure the UN and the international community to implement the legitimate resolutions and all relevant human rights declarations. [The PNA must] take its source of power from the people and stand up against any effort to cancel or change these international resolutions.  

2. The PNA must design a comprehensive policy aimed at strengthening Palestinian-Arab-Islamic coordination so as to unify positions and their implementation and in order to formulate a united Palestinian-Arab-Islamic strategy in refugee negotiations, which adheres to internationally legitimized decisions (including all relevant human rights conventions) that emphasize our right of return, self determination and the establishment of the independent Palestinian state. These resolutions, especially Resolution 194, must become a principled stand form which no opinion or move by the negotiators should deviate.  

3. The new negotiating strategy must be based on the positions of refugees all over the diaspora and their opinion must be taken into consideration in all matters pertaining to them, their struggle and their future.  

4. We demand that the PNA and the PLO, the only legitimate representative of our people, set initiatives to support the efforts for the establishment and development of bodies of coordination between the camps and dispersed refugees, so as to confront the schemes aimed at transforming us into separate communities in different countries. We demand [that the PNA and the PLO] support all activities aimed at mobilizing the refugees under the slogan, “the right of return is a sacred right and the red line which must not be crossed.”  

5. [We demand that the PNA] reject the policy of transfer of UNRWA tasks to the PNA and oppose efforts to legally terminate UNRWA, a step which would lead to the criminal dispersion of the Palestinian people and to its expulsion from the homeland.  

6. [We demand that the PNA] reject the concept of “compensation” as an alternative to the right of return as a legal concept.  

7. [We demand that the PNA] refuse its support of all tendencies and efforts aimed at transforming UNRWA into a financing or development agency in accordance with US policy.  

8. [We demand that the PNA] design a set of strategic plans for the improvement of living conditions in the refugee camps and outside them, which protect the identity of the camps and serve refugee interests and do not go to the expense of the refugees’ national right of return.  

9. We demand that the PNA include in its school curricula materials on the refugee issue, on the massacres our people have witnessed, the destruction of the villages and the suffering of those expelled, the long heroic struggle and its tradition, the heavy price paid and about the justice of our case.  

10. Concerning refugee participation in municipal elections and in the light of the current hot debate on this matter, re recommend the following:  
- refugee camps should be regarded as one social, political and legal unit with a distinguished character whose identity must be protected. Therefore they must not be pushed or included in municipal elections;  
- however, refugees who reside in cities and pay municipal taxes, have the right to participate in the elections, including the right to vote and stand for election, as they see fit.  

Part III. Organization and Administration   

1. The participants recommend that the popular conferences in the remaining districts should be held on the basis of the experience in Bethlehem and the Gaza Strip.  

2. The participants decided to elect the Refugee Council of the Bethlehem District. They recommend that similar councils be elected in each district and in all sites in the diaspora. Each district conference will decide the number of members elected to its council. In the case of Bethlehem, we elected a 49 member Council.  

3. The elected Council members will later elect a “bureau” (or any other name chosen) which will execute the decisions and recommendations of the Council in the periods between the meetings. Moreover, the “bureau” will have to implement the recommendations of the district conference.  

4. The “bureau” (or any other name) must join the councils elected in other districts and in the diaspora in order to collectively prepare a General Refugee Conference both inside and outside [Palestine].  

5. The General Palestinian Refugee Conference inside and in the diaspora will elect one leading “bureau” to follow up the struggle for the refugees’ national rights (right of return) and the struggle for civil refugee rights in the areas of domicile, e.g. the right to work, education, health, environment, culture, movement, expression and all those human and civil rights protected by international conventions. To this end, carefully designed and comprehensive programs should be used to achieve civil rights parallel to the struggle for national rights based on internationally legitimized resolutions.  

6. The participants recommend that the elected Council  coordinate its work with other elected councils in the diaspora so as to transfer the refugee file [from the PNA] to these democratically elected bodies. The General Refugee Conference will thus be the only body authorized to negotiate - through the PLO - on the refugee issue. [These negotiations] will be held in the arena of the United Nations and will be based on international resolutions and Arab and international solidarity. The General Refugee Council elected by the General Refugee Conference will be the body to follow up the refugee issue. The time of paternalism and of appotropuses imposed on the refugees without prior consultation will thus end.  

7. Frameworks of coordination must be established in order to connect the various initiatives in the diaspora; the experience of former popular activities must be used in order to bypass foreign restrictions. A refugee charter should be drafted in order to regulate the relations between the various regions in the diaspora; this charter must be based on the right of return and internationally legitimized decisions.  

8. We recommend the organization of conferences, events and campaigns with a popular character in all refugee sites, inside and outside, emphasizing the right of return and explaining current developments related to the refugee issue.  

9. [We recommend] the establishment of local, non-governmental organizations in all refugee sites; NGOs should work in a coordinated fashion in each region to implement programs based on social needs; [these programs] should be conducted professionally in order to avoid political factionalism (e.g. Committees in Defense of the Right of Return in Lebanon);  

10. The elected local refugee councils should establish a center for documentation and for the collection of data and information on refugees, which will - at a larger stage - serve as the establishment of a general refugee information center. This is because we cannot rely on data issued by UNRWA, whose figures, especially in the field of planning, are not always accurate.  

11. We recommend that all elected councils in the diaspora proceed on the basis of democracy, pluralism, flexibility and tolerance in order to represent all the refugee strata, and in order to preserve the independence of the decisions of the refugee movement; to resist all attempts of co-optation, so as to preserve the refugee issue as the national and un-negotiable priority of the Palestinian people.  

12. The participants recommend the publication of newsletters, magazines and other written materials specializing on the refugee issues.  

13. Concerning the Service Committees Suggested by the PNA Local Affairs Ministry in the refugee camps, we declare the following:  
The Ministry of Local Affairs which proposed the establishment of such committees must explain what are the aims, authorities, organizational structure and expected role of these committees. Based on this information, the decision whether or not to cooperate with these committees will be taken [see also below].  

Part IV. Civil Rights   

1. The participants recommend to the elected Council to organize study days, workshops, lectures, debates and opinion polls in order to explore refugee needs and priorities.  

2. participants recommend to the elected refugee councils to coordinate amongst each other and with the PNA, in order to design development plans for the refugee camps which will be complementary to the plans aimed at achieving the right of return and national rights. In no way should the [development plans] contradict the latter. The role of the local NGOs, working for the achievement of civil rights and the fulfillment of the various needs, will be defined accordingly.  

3. [The participants recommend] to focus the effort on the reduction of housing density in the refugee camps, on the alleviation of poverty and all other sources of suffering and to work for general and mental refugee health. The fear and concern of resettlement schemes must not prevent the provision of professional services for the improvement of conditions in regard to work opportunities, education, health, environment and other social affairs. Studies and research are crucial in order to identify and tackle the relation between living conditions and their effect on political attitudes towards the refugee issue and vice versa. It is time for refugees, inside and outside the camps, to live in dignity.  

Part V. General National Issues  

1. The participants at the Deheishe conference emphasize that they are part and parcel of the Palestinian people and an important factor in the struggle for national liberation aimed at achieving self determination, the establishment of the independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital and the right of return of all refugees to their homeland.  

2. The participants emphasize their strong support for the Palestinian people’s right to Jerusalem as the capital of its independent state; the right of the people on Jerusalem is un-negotiable and not subject to bargaining.  

3. The participants express their emotional and rational unity with the prisoners in Israeli jails. We call for their immediate release and demand that the PNA place the issue of political prisoners at the top of their agenda.  

4. The participants, deeply concerned about the ongoing construction of settlements, demand the formulation of a comprehensive national plan, based on the peoples’ strength, in order to fight the settlers and to protect the land.  

5. Stating our determination to cling to our national rights, we are not opposed to the international desire for peace in the region, a peace which will be for the peoples of the region. However, we emphasize that there will be no peace, if our national rights - especially the right to return to our homeland as protected by international law - are neglected. Therefore, peace in the Middle East is directly linked to the Palestinian people’s right of self determination and to the recognition of all its national rights by means of the implementation of the internationally legitimized resolutions, most fundamentally the right of return.  

Conclusion  

The participants declare that the right of return and the refugee issue are the core of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Therefore, any effort at the establishment of a just peace in the region will fail, if it does not include a just solution for the refugees based on internationally legitimized resolutions, especially Resolution 194.   

We do not oppose peace. We are for a peace built on mutual respect for internationally recognized rights and hold that the implementation of the right of return and the respect of the Palestinian national rights are the key to ending the conflict in the whole region.   

First Refugee Conference, Bethlehem District   
Held in Deheishe Refugee Camp, 13 September 1996