User:Tiamut/draft for right of return

The Palestinian right of return (Arabic: حق العودة Ḥaqq al-ʿawda; Hebrew: זכות השיבה zkhut hashivah) refers to the political position or principle that holds that Palestinian refugees, both first-generation refugees and their descendants, have a right to return to homes and villages from which they fled or were expelled during the 1948 Palestine War or the 1967 War. The right of return is also invoked by Palestinians who were internally displaced in various incidents and wars subsequent to 1948. Today, there are at least 4.4 million people registered as Palestinian refugees by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency. Estimates of the Palestinian refugee population that include those not registered with UNRWA rise as high as 6 million people. (see the section on Defining Palestinian refugees below.)

Generally-speaking, the right of return is considered an inalienable and basic human right that is consecrated under international law. The first formal recognition of the applicability of this right to refugees of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War was in UN General Assembly Resolution 194 of 11 December 1948, which recognized the right of those refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors and which specified that those who opt not to return or for whom return is not feasible, should receive compensation in lieu. UN General Assembly Resolution 3236, passed on the 22 November 1974, specifically declared the Palestinian right of return to be an "inalienable right". Of great importance to Palestinians since 1948, the right of refugees and the internally displaced to return has also been of key importance to the Palestinian narrative of national liberation since 1968. Defined as the "foremost of Palestinian rights" at the 12th Palestine National Council meeting in 1974, it became the first component of the Palestine Liberation Organization's trinity of inalienable rights; the other two being the right of self-determination and the right to an independent Palestinian state.

Since the inception of the Palestinian refugee problem, the Israeli government has refused to implement a Palestinian right of return. The government's position is that neither international conventions, nor major UN resolutions, nor the relevant agreements between the parties, endorse a Palestinian right to return to Israel. In the eyes of the Israeli government, allowing all Palestinians refugees to return to Israeli territory, would be "an act of suicide" and "no state can be expected to destroy itself." Recently, the Bush administration has partially supported the Israeli position by announcing unqualified American support for Israel's identity as a Jewish state and limiting American support for the Palestinian right of return only to those territories that are to form part of a Palestinian state. The Palestinian Authority has thus far rejected such a narrow interpretation of the right of return. The issue of the territorial unit to which Palestinian self-determination would attach, the context (whether primarily humanitarian or political) within which the right is being advanced, and the generalizability of the principles advocated or established to other current and former refugee situations, remain open questions.

Scope of application

Defining Palestinian refugees

Refugees registered with UNRWA

By 1950, the number of Palestinians who fled or were expelled from Israel-controlled areas in the lead up to, during, and in the immediate aftermath of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War was approximately 914,000 people. If limited to UNRWA's operational definition, "Palestine refugees are persons whose normal place of residence was Palestine between June 1946 and May 1948, who lost both their homes and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict [... and] the descendants of persons who became refugees in 1948." The number of refugees registered with UNRWA has grown to more than 4.4 million in 2005, a rise due to natural population growth.

While the right to return is underpinned by what Palestinians refer to as Al-Nakba, the displacements have continued to take place long thereafter.

Internally displaced Palestinians

The Palestinian refugee population includes a number of Palestinians who were internally displaced after 1948. The term internally displaced Palestinian is used to refer to different sub-groups of the Palestinian population and the exact population figures for each of these groups are highly contested.

The term is used by Arab citizens of Israel who lost their homes and properties in the 1948 war and thereafter, and continue to demand the right to return to their former villages, in addition to restitution and compensation for the losses they incurred. If the definition is restricted to those displaced in the 1948 war and its immediate aftermath and their descendants, some 274,000 - or 1 in 4 Palestinians in Israel - are internally displaced Palestinians.

The term is also commonly used to refer to the 280,000 to 350,000 fled or were expelled during the 1967 war, among which some 145,000 were registered with UNRWA as refugees of the 1948 war. All refugees from the 1967 war receive humanitarian assistance from UNRWA, even though most are not registered with UNRWA and are not specifically covered by the terms of its mandate which remains offically limited to refugees of the 1948. The 1994 Quadripartite Commission set up as part of the Oslo Accords to resolve the issue of displaced persons (DP) failed to reach an agreement on who was covered by the definition. The official Palestinian position at the talks held that DPs should include Palestinians who were temporarily outside of the West Bank and Gaza in 1967, those deported thereafter, and those who left voluntarily thereafter but were refused re-entry, in addition to the descendants and relatives of the above (est. 800,000 to 1 million). The Israeli position held that the definition should be confined only to those who fled the fighting in 1967, excluding their descendants (est. 50,000 to 300,000).

Additional displacements as a result of expulsions or land appropriations continue into the present day, stemming largely from home demolitions carried out to facilitate the construction of the Israeli West Bank barrier. The extension of applicability of the right to return to internally displaced persons in international law in recent years, makes it likely that those displaced in recent times will also claim a right of return.