Struggle for the Return of Refugees and Against the Privatization of Absentee Property
Amir Makhoul, Itijah
(trans. from al-Sennara 6/8/99)
Two workshops held in July 1999, one hosted by Radio Bethlehem 2000
and the other by the Galilee Center for Social Research in
Jaffa,
focused on the political activities of the Palestinian minority
inside Israel. These two national initiatives have contributed
towards raising an important issue on our common agenda, the right
of return and struggle against the privatization of absentee
property. Our mission is to place this issue at the core of the
final status negotiations.
To date, the negotiations have not been guided by a concern for historical justice. This is due, in part, to the alliance between the United States and Israel, which has been responsible for setting the agenda of the negotiations. This alliance was strengthened with the election of the Labor party this year. The current state of affairs is also due, however, to the absence of a Palestinian negotiation strategy. Palestinians have thus found themselves facing the most critical and dangerous stage of their liberation struggle without a clear political, national project, and without an active political position. The difficult situation has been compounded by the absence of Palestinian organizations inside Israel. They were unprepared for the challenges of the final status negotiations and have not thought about their role both inside Israel and on behalf of the Palestinian diaspora.
Determining this role requires special local efforts from
national parties and organizations. It also requires the
development of broad Palestinian cooperation in the absence of the
Palestinian national liberation movement represented by the PLO,
which was replaced by the Palestinian National Authority (PA). The
role of the PA has been limited, focused on dealing with issues
related to the 1967 occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Little attention has focused on the central historical issues,
which date back to 1948.
There are some facts that we should admit in advance. First, the
Palestinian minority in Israel has always found themselves, to
date, in agreement with deals reached between the PA and Israel.
The absence of a strong Palestinian opposition, with the exception
of Hamas, has contributed to this situation and further weakened
the ability of the Palestinian negotiators to reach more favorable
agreements. Secondly, the Oslo process itself has weakened the
Palestinian struggle. Under Oslo, the isolation of Palestinian
communities has increased, without regard for an inclusive solution
involving all Palestinians. Palestinians have been unable to
activate a centralized Palestinian political position under Oslo,
which combines the efforts and is directed by all Palestinians. On
the contrary, a situation has developed wherein the establishment
of the Palestinian Authority has been at the expense of two basic
Palestinian communities: refugees and Palestinians inside
Israel.
In this climate, there is a real need for a cooperative mechanism to consolidate and develop a collective and comprehensive Palestinian position. Both the United States and Israel have been working seriously to prevent this kind of development, using financial incentives conditioned on Palestinian compliance with central tenets of the Oslo process.
Waiting for results to be delivered by Barak or the occupying state rather than from a strategy emanating from Palestinians or the Arab world is clear evidence of the weakness of the PA. This was illustrated by the reaction of the Palestinians, the Arabs, and the international community to the announcement of the results of the last Israeli election in which the Labor party returned to power. With the beginning of final status negotiations, which Barak wants to complete within two years [the Sharm al-Sheikh agreement sets a one-year timetable], a Palestinian strategy that is built on the return of the Labor party instead of Likud will not have influence, power, nor the ability to maneuver.
There are, therefore, many accumulated tasks, which must be tackled by the two basic Palestinian communities: refugees and Palestinians inside Israel. The first task is to transform the refugee issue into an active project at the center of the Palestinian, Arab, and international agenda. The second task is to preserve individual and collective Palestinian properties in Israel that, under Israeli law, are classified as "absentees' properties".
The Right to Return and the Preservation of Refugee Property
Since the 1970s the right of return has not been transformed into a project and a basic demand of the Palestinian people, but was folded into the right of self-determination. The latter evolved into the project for the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza, and Jerusalem, alongside Israel. This project gained recognition and was supported by the international community, in addition to local resistance to the occupation, which reached its peak during the first two years of the intifada.
Although the occupation was rolled back through Palestinian resistance, international support, and because of internal crises within Israeli society, the Palestinian project was converted yet another time in the 1980s to the West Bank and Gaza only. This created a situation where the Palestinian issue was limited to 1967 and afterwards, while its roots go back a hundred years, when the Zionist project crystallized followed by the Palestinian Nakba and the destruction of the Palestinian body, cities and villages. The majority of Palestinians were exiled and a pure Jewish state was established.
A solution to the Palestinian issue that is based on two states for two peoples and a concomitant Israeli withdrawal to the borders of the 4th of June 1967 does not address basic Palestinian rights. The Palestinian refugee issue cannot be resolved effectively by an independent Palestinian state [in the West Bank and Gaza Strip] nor by the PA. Withdrawal from Palestinian areas of the West Bank and Gaza is based on Israeli demographic and security reasons. Shimon Peres explains that a withdrawal is needed "in order to keep the Jewish democratic character of Israel". Israel, moreover, wants to avoid a situation, which may lead to a bi-national state. It is therefore necessary to hand over control of the 2.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza to the Palestinians themselves.
Israel will likely compensate settlers from settlements dismantled in the West Bank and Gaza or Golan under any final status agreement with land administered by the Israel Lands Authority or the state inside the green line. This land consists of Palestinian refugee properties and waqf land, in addition to land confiscated after 1948 as well as land designated for future confiscation in the Wadi A'ara and other areas. The property of refugees, those exiled in 1948 ("absentees") and those refugees still inside Israel ("present absentees"), forms the physical basis of refugee return and includes both collective and individual properties. There are also public properties located in the 418 destroyed villages [figure according to Khalidi, All That Remains. Based on new sources, Abu-Sitta lists 531 villages] and in cities such as Haifa, Yafa, Lydda, Safad, and Ramla.
Globalization and the privatization program advocated by the World Bank under which government involvement in the economy is increasingly being transferred to the private sector is also having an impact in Israel, as in many other countries. Absentees' (refugee) property controlled by the government is slowly being privatized. In Israel, however, the property is to remain under pure Jewish control in line with Zionist policy. In the last few years, the Israeli government has begun to implement a plan in which land controlled by the Israel Land Authority has been transferred to 30 Kibbutzim and tens of Moshavim that were established on the land of Palestinian Arab villages destroyed in 1948. While the plan appears to be one of simple economics and a matter of Israeli internal affairs, the plan impacts the core of the refugee issue.
The time has come, therefore, for Palestinian refugees to
transform the right of return into a project for implementation. If
we do not begin to organize now, Israel will interfere in the legal
status of the property, which, if successful, will destroy the last
opportunity for the refugees. Their properties will be converted to
Jewish private property, over which the state has no authority. The
transfer of waqf property in 1948 to the Israeli Custodian of
Absentees' Property at the beginning of the 1950s, and later to the government
development authority, is clear evidence of this process. The
development authority sells land under its control to state-owned
and other Jewish companies. Today, the Finance Ministry in Israel
claims that it is impossible to estimate the value of these
properties or to review all land transactions carried out under
legal procedures. […]
A Call for Discussion
Palestinians inside Israel have a unique role in this struggle and they have the ability to affect the outcome. In particular, Palestinians inside Israel possess the tools which can have an impact on both the Israeli and Palestinian positions. It is important to keep in mind that the issue of refugees and their properties will not be resolved in the Israeli Knesset or by the Israeli legal system. What is needed is an independent Palestinian initiative that addresses the needs of all Palestinians and the Palestinian dream to obtain their rights.
Palestinian political movements, grassroots organizations, and NGOs inside Israel can all play a role, but will not be able to achieve anything unless they are part of a comprehensive, cooperative Palestinian mechanism that is representative of Palestinians wherever they may be, inside Israel, in refugee camps here, and in exile. This mechanism should determine strategies and roles according to Palestinian priorities, developed through cooperative meetings for efficient implementation. The development of cooperative and continuous relations between Palestinians from inside and from the West Bank and Gaza will contribute towards the establishment of collective Palestinian institutions with the same agenda, viewpoint and aims.
One possible mechanism is a comprehensive Palestinian conference or international conference about Palestinian refugee property. Both can be implemented and have become a necessity in the current situation in order to develop an agenda for the final status negotiations and to confront Israeli policy in this area. The transfer of the land issue from the Ministry of Infrastructure to the Prime Minister's Office is a strong indicator of the important nature of this issue to the Labor party. Barak should therefore be the target for pressure on this issue.
Despite certain weaknesses, the PLO and Arab countries can play a helpful role in facilitating institutional cooperation, which is critical in the absence of the traditional role played by the PLO. 31/7/1999
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TABLE 1: PALESTINIAN ARAB AND JEWISH PROPERTY IN THE TERRITORY
OCCUPIED BY ISRAEL UNDER THE TERMS OF THE GENERAL ARMISTICE
AGREEMENT OF 1949
(area in dunums--4 dunams=1 acre)
Subdistrict Arab-Owned Property1 Jewish-OwnedProperty2
Subdistrict Arab-Owned Property1 Jewish-OwnedProperty2
Acre
774,416
25,240
Baysan
239,438
127,235
Beersheba
12,455,890
65,231
Gaza
776,480
49,566
Haifa
665,891
387,492
Hebron
1,161,491
5,466
Jaffa
182,251
156,751
Jerusalem
301,209
26,024
Jinin
255,676
4,251
Nablus
23,414
--
Nazareth
365,797
142,856
Ramallah
6,240
--
Ramla
662,727
133,674
Safad
527,103
167,833
Tiberias
267,766
176,259
Tulkarm
351,381
146,789
TOTAL
19,017,170
1,614,667
1 Data from Sami Hadawi, Palestinian Rights and Losses in 1948: A
Comprehensive Study (London: Saqi Books, 1988), appendix 8, p. 246.
Includes all land claimed to be Arab-owned irrespective of method
of registration or recording in the records of the Palestine
government. Includes both rural and urban lands. Includes land
recorded in the Village Statistics under the column "public" per
Palestinian Arab village. Includes villages part of whose
inhabitants remained in their homes in 1948. The term "Arab"
includes non-Jews, such as Armenians, German, Greeks, etc. Excludes
the portion of lands of "border" villages, which fell outside the
territory held by Israel. Excludes Jewish settlements and
Jewish-owned land in Arab villages.
2 Data from Hadawi, Palestinian Rights and Losses in 1948, appendix
6, p. 230. The lands of two German colonies, Sarona and Wilhelma, in the
Jaffa
subdistrict, acquired by the Jewish after World War II,
have been shown as owned by Jews. The Huleh Concession Area, in the
Safad
subdistrict, has been included in the land area owned
by Jews. Land recorded in the Village Statistics under the column
"public" has been included under Jewish ownership where such land
falls in Jewish settlements.