Last June, when I wrote an article for Mondoweiss proposing a framework for a one-state solution, I didn’t anticipate that it would draw me into a series of further posts on the political and legal aspects of the Palestinian right of return. In retrospect, though, that was foreseeable, since the right of return issue must be resolved before any political solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can be reached.
My previous posts led me to a fruitful exchange of views with Ahmed Moor, a more frequent contributor to this site. Now, Adam Horowitz has asked me and Ahmed to review a recent publication on the right of return by the Israeli organization Zochrot, and I do so with pleasure, since their report is worthwhile reading for anyone with more than a passing interest in the subject.
Zochrot, as many know, is dedicated to teaching Jewish Israelis about the Nakba. Their recent report, called Sedek, is a collection of brief essays envisioning the implementation of the right of return. The authors are clear in their purpose and vision on many critical points, including the following:
First, rather than arguing for the right of return, the authors simply state their belief that the right is justified and proceed to describe the possible political, geographical, social and economic manner of its exercise. Their projections are accompanied by perceptive critiques of present-day Israeli society.
Second, the report addresses the right of return in its traditional formulation, as a collective and individual right. Collective, in that the right belongs not only to the 1948 refugees, but also to anyone who can trace their lineage to at least one such refugee; and individual, in that no entity representing the Palestinian people may negotiate away the right of return of any individual Palestinian. For practical purposes, I too accept that formulation of the right of return, since I’ve found that attempts to win Palestinian agreement to any limitation or delay of the right of return, including my own naïve proposals in previous posts, almost always meet with silence or rejection.
Third, the authors recognize that the exercise of the right of return would result in the Jewish demographic majority in Israel becoming a Jewish minority, which would make the one-state solution the logical conclusion, since it would be superfluous to have two majority-Palestinian states. Here too I would agree with Zochrot’s implicit assumption that great numbers of Palestinians would exercise their right of return if they could, since it doesn’t seem reasonable to assume that they would insist for so long on their right to do something that they don’t really want to do.
Fourth, the authors recognize that there is no precedent for the physical return of such a large population of refugees and their descendants – particularly large in relation to the size of the receiving population – after the passage of so much time. Indeed, as I’ve written, in the one instance where international law has been applied to a situation resembling the Palestinian refugee problem, the European Court of Human Rights ultimately required the vast majority of Greek Cypriot refugees to accept monetary compensation rather than physical repatriation.
Fifth, the authors recognize that their views are shared by only a miniscule minority of Jewish Israelis. Even Uri Avnery, the only major Israeli political and intellectual leader whom I consider a genuine visionary and hero – a man who has spent most of his long life relegated to the far fringes of Israeli politics due to his advocacy of Palestinian rights – favors accepting the physical return of only a small and symbolic number of Palestinian refugees, with the balance of Palestinian refugee claims settled through compensation. The authors argue that the right of return should only be implemented with the consent of the Israeli public, without however suggesting how that consent might be obtained; instead they rely somewhat messianically on the kinds of surprising changes that unexpectedly brought down the Berlin Wall and apartheid.
Sixth, more specifically, the authors recognize that Palestinians living in Lebanon would be priority candidates for migration to Israel, because of their numbers, their proximity, and the longstanding and continuing discrimination and deprivation they have suffered under Lebanese law and in Lebanese society.
The staff of Zochrot deserve to be commended for their extraordinary courage, sensitivity and intelligence. They are deeply informed about and affected by the injustice of the Nakba, the continuing suffering of Palestinian refugees and their descendants in many countries, and the persistence and strength of the Palestinian desire to return. Zochrot’s activities and reports, for which they no doubt pay a heavy price within a largely hostile Israeli society, are a unique and valuable contribution to an essential conversation within that society. And yet, it was their latest report that finally jolted me out of my agonizing indecision and convinced me that the right of return is a non-starter.
I write for Mondoweiss under a pen name, but for the sake of this post I’ll relate two relevant personal details: One, my (Jewish) grandparents survived World War II by fleeing their homes in Europe ahead of the Wehrmacht. Two, my wife’s (Arab) grandparents were expelled from their homes and villages by Israeli forces in 1948. Both of us grew up surrounded by traumatized refugees telling stories of persecution and dispossession. None of our family members ever received any compensation for what they lost and endured. Neither of us could remain indifferent to the suffering of Palestinian refugees, even if we wanted to.
Looking forward, we worry about how our half-Jewish-half-Arab children will fare in Israeli society, with all its ethnic division and strife. We want nothing more or less than peaceful, normal lives. That’s why we can’t accept the right of return.
Two years ago, upon his release by Israeli authorities, Samir Kuntar received a hero’s welcome in Lebanon, despite the fact that his sole claim to fame is that he murdered a Jewish Israeli family. I wasn’t surprised. If I was a Lebanese Palestinian, I would hate Israel deeply and passionately. After all, Israel expelled Palestinians from their homes and villages and drove them into Lebanon, where they are still second-class non-citizens after more than six decades. Then Israel conducted protracted military operations in Lebanon, causing them further suffering. I can easily understand how Lebanese Palestinians feel, but for the same reason I think it would be crazy to let them into Israel. If I was a Lebanese Palestinian, I would want to exercise my right of return so that I could reclaim Palestine for myself and for other Palestinians, not so that I could learn Hebrew, befriend my Jewish neighbors, and be a good Israeli. That’s one piece of the puzzle that I think Zochrot is missing; they seem to think that any Israeli concern about Palestinian hostility and retribution is just irrational fear of the Other.
Even more important is the fact that the right of return, while often expressed in abstract terms of human rights and international law, is primarily motivated by much more primal ties to blood, land, and the voice of God. That’s another piece of the puzzle that I think Zochrot is missing. Since tribal loyalty, devotion to the land, and religious belief are also the primary forces motivating Jewish attachments to Israel, the exercise of the right of return would most likely lead to civil war.
To me, setting the stage for disaster is not justice. “No justice, no peace” is a powerful principle, but it has limits. As I’ve written before, peace can’t be achieved by demanding perfect justice. More fundamentally, the rules of justice itself have always been primarily determined by the desire to keep the peace in human affairs.
I’ve also written in previous posts that I have no truck with ethnocracy and would much prefer to live in a country where human beings are human beings and tribal loyalties are negligible. Perhaps, some day, Israeli-Palestinian political unification can create that kind of country. But today is not that day. Indeed, that day seems very far off, and I don’t think that the solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can afford to wait until mutual affection and respect hold sway in the hearts of Israelis and Palestinians. On the contrary, it seems that a solution to the conflict is the only thing that can begin to replace mutual hostility with more amicable feelings and relations.
I can’t persuade Palestinians to give up on the right of return although, to be brutally honest, it’s backward-looking rather than forward-looking, fantasy rather than reality, and an impassable obstacle to reaching a peace agreement. I can’t do so for two reasons: First, as a Jew who came to Israel many years ago, under the spell of religious and Zionist myth and under the Law of Return, I have no standing to make such arguments, just as the guy who took your place after you got laid off has no business telling you to go out and find a new job, even if that’s exactly what you need to do. Second, even if I was somebody else, or anybody else, Palestinians wouldn’t accept my refutation of their dream.
Still, for the sake of focusing the discussion, I can say what I would do if I were Prime Minister of Israel. I would make the following offer to my Palestinian counterparts: A Palestinian state including all of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with an expressway joining the two. All Israeli settlements evacuated, including those in and around Jerusalem. West and East Jerusalem as the capitals of Israel and Palestine, respectively, with U.N. custodianship of the major holy sites. The Palestinian state to have all the attributes of a sovereign state, including a standing army. Monetary compensation and assistance for individual Palestinians and for the new Palestinian state. Diplomatic assistance in bringing international pressure to bear on countries like Lebanon that refuse to regularize the status of their Palestinian residents. And that would be my final offer. Would it be accepted, or would it be rejected because the right of return was not included?
