Talk:Palestinian refugee

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Previous discussions on the this topic may be found here: Talk:Palestinian refugee/Archive 1

Contents

1 Right of Return 2 Libyan offer 3 List 4 Later refugees 5 New Material 6 The refugees "were not able to return home". 7 My thanks, what types of photos are needed?, we were re-registered as refugees with UNRWA 8 "or been expelled"

Right of Return

Three of the primary reasons that people object to a Palestinian "Right of Return" have not been listed here. Specifically they are

1) The General Assembly resolution says "refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours" should be allowed back. Returning home is predicated on wishing to live at peace, and Israelis see no evidence that Palestinian refugees wish to live at peace with them. 2) In any event General Assembly resolutions are non-binding. 3) The actual refugees wishing to "return home" number only a small fraction of the total number of Palestinians now classed as refugees, at most 10%; the other over 90% cannot be said to be returning. Jayjg 20:26, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)

1) is fine. 2) is not precisely an objection, but may be relevant. 3) strikes me as completely irrelevant, even if reliable statistics could be found on who wants to return and who does not; a right does not have to be exercised by all those who have it (not everybody exercises their right to free speech, or trial by jury, for instance.) - Mustafaa 00:36, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Hey Mustafa, where have you been? Regarding three, my point was unclear. Let me put it this way: Only 10% of those Palestinians classed as refugees have actually ever lived in the places they claim to be refugees from; the rest were born elsewhere, so they can't be refugees in the true sense of the word, nor can they return to a place they've never been. Jayjg 01:46, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Hey Jayjg! Just sitting around in Wiki-detox... ;) As for three, that is highly POV - particularly since Israel's claim to the land was itself based originally on people "returning" to a place their extremely distant ancestors had fled from. Other refugees - eg the Chechens and Crimean Tatars - have returned to the areas from which they were expelled a generation later, and I am unaware of any claim that Crimean Tatars born in Kazakhstan should be prevented from returning to what they continue to regard as their native land. - Mustafaa 01:54, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I hope the rest was good. I've made some updates partly based on our exchange above. Jayjg 15:06, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)

There is a huge opposition to Tatars returning back to Crimea. Their homes are long as taken, and generations of people were born there. Crimean peninsula is one of the most beautiful vacation spots in the ex-USSR and is heavily populated, e.g. the Politburo dachas were in Crimea. Think real estate. ←Humus sapiens←Talk 10:01, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Of course - same as in this case. But unlike Israel-Palestine, the principle has been accepted, and a substantial number have returned. - Mustafaa 23:22, 4 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Libyan offer

About Libya's offer: Saddam Hussein also made an offer like that. I don't think there were many takers. I can't remember any details so I'm not putting anything into the article. --Zero 04:48, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Interesting - I hadn't heard about that one.

Can you source "Libyan Jews... point out the lack of human rights, religious freedoms, and democracy in Libya that make such an offer highy unattractive"? I came across no such claims being made by Libyan Jews, though commenting on the lack of democracy in Libya is like commenting about the lack of oxygen on the Moon. - Mustafaa 01:55, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)

At the end of the first link:

"We were never at home there," said New Yorker Vivienne Roumani-Denn, an expert on Jewish refugees from Arab lands who was born in Benghazi, the second-largest city in Libya. "Until the Muslim world really makes a commitment to tolerance, to democracy, to let people live with religious freedom, there's no way to return."

As for commenting on the lack of democracy in Libya (or indeed anywhere else in the Arab world) being like commenting on the lack of oxygen on the moon, yes, it goes without saying, but if specious offers of "Jewish return" from Arab dictators like Gaddafi (and Saddam Hussein) need to be mentioned, then apparently many other obvious things need to be mentioned as well. Jayjg 06:04, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Personally I would leave it out altogether. It's relevance to this page is very indirect. --Zero 06:24, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)

IMHO, if we talk about Right_of_return#Palestinian here at all, this is much more relevant than Qaddafi's PR tricks: Jews who fled Arab lands now press their cause. Refugees' advocates link issue to Palestinians' claims on Israel (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/03/28/MNGB65SHHV1.DTL) ←Humus sapiens←Talk 09:44, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)

What's so specious about the offer? Everything I know about Qaddafi indicates he means it, just as it indicates that they'd be stupid to accept it. Unlike any other Arab leader, he's quite simple: he almost always means what he says, though what he says is almost always breathtakingly stupid. - Mustafaa 22:23, 4 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I don't think Saddam Hussein's similar offer was specious either. What he was hoping for was a handful of returning Jews who would appear shaking his hand on TV and generally give him a nice propaganda event with minimal cost. The offer would have been quickly modified if a substantial number of Jews wanted to return to Iraq and get their property back. --Zero 08:36, 5 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I meant "specious" in the sense that the offers were not made with any real intent of welcoming Jews or improving the Israeli-Palestinian issue; rather they were both ploys by the leaders to create propaganda opportunities to use against Israel, and improve their standing in the Western and Arab worlds. Jayjg 15:03, 5 Aug 2004 (UTC)

List

As far as I know, there are many Palestinian refugees (or descendants) with degrees forming part of the liberal professionals in the Persian Gulf and even Europe. Doctors, architects, journalists,... Probably they are those outside refugee camps. However, could you make a list of famous Palestinian refugees?

Later refugees

I assume that neither this nor Palestinian exodus deal with recent Palestine emigrants. I have read that the Catholic church is concerned that the land of Jesus could remain without Christians, since the decreasing Palestine Christians are better received than Muslims in Western countries and feel increasingly uneasy along Muslim Palestinians and Israelis.

Palestinian Christians have been suffering marked at the hands of their Arab brethern who have a saying "first the saturday people, then the sunday people"....when the saturday people are stiff-necked and resist, the sunday people made to suffer by their Arab brethern. [1] (http://www.newtopiamagazine.net/content/issue17/features/exodus.php)[2] (http://www.al-bushra.org/holyland/leaving.htm)[3] (http://www.internationalwallofprayer.org/A-202-Islamic-Treatment-of-Palestinian-Christians.html) Lance6Wins 18:39, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Palestinian Christians have been resisting Israeli aggression alongside their Muslim brothers and sisters for decades. Israelis discriminate against and oppress all Palestinians, except for the Jewish Palestinians who are now considered Israelis. Zionists like Lance6Wins have been attempting for a long time to drive a wedge and divide Palestinian resistance by setting Christians against Muslims. [4] (http://www.jerusalemites.org/jerusalem/christianity/50.htm) [5] (http://www.al-bushra.org/LabibKobti/labibkobti39.html) --Alberuni 19:23, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Some of Lance's links appear to come from Palestinian Christians themselves; why are your links more convincing than his? Jayjg 19:46, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I suggest you talk to Joseph E. Saad - the only Palestinian Christian on Wikipedia - about this, if he hasn't given up yet. However, if the many Christians fleeing Palestine are added, so should be the many Muslims doing the same. It's not much fun living under occupation, and many people prefer to get out if they get a chance. - Mustafaa 00:20, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

New Material

The issue was a key factor in the collapse of peace talks in 2000. President Bush last April publicly embraced Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's position that refugees be allowed into any new Palestinian state but not into Israel.

"We promise that we will not rest until the right of return of our people is achieved and the tragedy of our diaspora ends," Abbas told a session of parliament held to mourn Arafat, who died of an undisclosed illness in France on Nov. 11. [6] (http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=6898379&section=news)

Please add. Lance6Wins 18:39, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Please provide exact Bush quote. - Mustafaa 14:28, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

"It seems clear that an agreed, just, fair and realistic framework for a solution to the Palestinian refugee issue, as part of any final status agreement, will need to be found through the establishment of a Palestinian state and the settling of Palestinian refugees there, rather than Israel." The source seems pretty reliable too ;-) [7] (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/04/20040414-4.html) Jayjg

Cool. Sadly, I don't believe Abbas, but I've added a mention of his position in case he does come out on top. The Bush quote probably belongs in one of the more general peace process pages; to put it here would require a whole new section on political participants' views, which would be constantly in need of updating. - Mustafaa 15:57, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Hmm. I'm having difficulty understanding the "policy" on when references to American actions and views are relevant to this conflict, and when they are not. On the one hand, on the Arab-Israeli conflict page we have Alberuni insisting that the 9/11 attacks were part of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Yet, here, when the American President makes a specific statement about the descendants of the refugees emigratiing to Israel, it's not relevant. Jayjg 16:19, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The 911 attacks are not part of the Arab-Israeli conflict, and if that's what Alberuni is saying, he's wrong. Other pages' edit wars have little to do with this page... I'm not dismissing the sentence as irrelevant - merely noting that to make a place for it here would take a significant amount of work (namely, summarizing the positions of at least the major political organizations participating in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.) I'm not averse to that work being done - or, indeed, to doing that work at some point - but it has not yet been done. - Mustafaa 00:01, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The refugees "were not able to return home".

The article says the refugees "were not able to return home". That is true for most, but certainly not all refugees. Israel offered to allow 100,000 to return (including 35,000 that were in the process of returning), but the Arab states refused to negotiate with Israel so as not to give it "legitimacy". Palestine Conciliation Commission, Fourth Progress Report, A/922, 22 September 1949: "Subject to these conditions, the Government of Israel would be prepared to accept the return to Israel in its present limits of 100,000 refugees, in addition to the total Arab population existing at the end of the hostilities (including those who have already returned since then), thus increasing the total number of that Population to a maximum of 250,000. This repatriation would form part of a general plan for resettlement of refugees which would be established by a special organ to be created for the purpose by the United Nations." [8] (http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Foreign%20Relations/Israels%20Foreign%20Relations%20since%201947/1947-1974/3%20Palestine%20Conciliation%20Commission-%20Fourth%20Progre) "This number would have included some 35,000 refugees whose return had already been negotiated and was underway ". [9] (http://216.239.57.104/search?q=cache:EfSyGy_bW9gJ:www.ciaonet.org/wps/alj01/+israel+allowed+35,000+arab+refugees+to+return+palestine&hl=en&lr=lang_en). I think this information should be included. Jayjg 16:16, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I agree, but we need to find out more first about these 35,000. What basis were they selected on? Did they actually return or not (the wording seems ambiguous)? - Mustafaa 18:48, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

They were selected on the basis of family re-unification, and the wording is slightly ambiguous, though other sources are more explicit:

In 1949, Israel offered to admit 100,000 Arab refugees, with the understanding that their repatriation would be linked to meaningful peace negotiations. Although 35,000 Arabs eventually returned under a family reunification plan, further implementation of the offer was suspended in the 1950's, after it became clear that the Arab states steadfastly refused to consider Israel's peace overtures, preferring instead to maintain a state of war with and economic boycott against Israel. [10] (http://www.palestinefacts.org/pf_independence_refugees_arabs_what.php)

Also, from the original link:

Notably, from the early 1950s until 1967, Israel maintained a family reunification program under which it claims that around 40–50,000 refugees returned to Israel; several additional thousands returned between 1967 and 1994. And since the beginning of the Oslo process, Israel has collaborated in the de facto “return” to the Palestinian authority of thousands of 1948 refugees: PLO political figures and security forces, and their families. If return is defined as applying to “mandatory Palestine,” this may enable both Palestinians and Israelis to take satisfaction in the exercise of a return to the eventual Palestinian state alone. But in general, Israel, in keeping with its narrative, has preferred to avoid taking political initiatives in the refugee issue.
The principal known Israeli initiative took place in the summer of 1949. Under pressure from the US, and in view of Arab refusal (at the Lausanne Conference) to discuss agreed borders until the refugee issue had been resolved, the Ben Gurion government agreed to absorb 100,000 refugees. This number would have included some 35,000 refugees whose return had already been negotiated and was underway. Israel’s decision was made conditional upon Arab agreement, at Lausanne, to a comprehensive peace, including resettlement of the remaining refugees in Arab countries. Discussion within the Israeli government at the time also touched upon the possibility of absorbing a larger number of refugees, on condition that the Gaza Strip (with some of its refugee population) would be transferred from Egyptian to Israeli control, thereby improving Israel’s military security situation vis-à-vis Egypt. Ultimately the Arabs rejected the Israeli offer, after which Israel retracted it.

Jayjg 19:13, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

One other point to check: the article currently says "During the period mid-1948-53 between 30,000 and 90,000 refugees made their way from their countries of exile to resettle in their former villages or in other Israeli Arab villages (contrary to Israeli law.)" Was this figure meant to include these family reunifications (in which case the parenthetical remark is partly wrong) or not? - Mustafaa 23:56, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Oh. Never mind - the quote is in Talk archives: "(Morris, p39) During the period mid-1948-53 between 30,000 and 90,000 refugees made their way illegally from their countries of exile to resettle in their former villages or in other Israeli Arab villages." Thank you Zero, as so often. - Mustafaa 23:58, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I propose a slight modification to your text, as follows:

These refugees, the great majority of whom had lived there for generations, were generally not able to return home. In 1950, according to UNRWA, they numbered 914,000. During the period mid-1948-53 between 30,000 and 90,000 refugees (according to Benny Morris) made their way from their countries of exile to resettle in their former villages or in other Israeli Arab villages (contrary to Israeli law); some 35,000 were let in legally under a family reunification agreement. In 1949, Israel offered to let in up to 65,000 more as part of a proposed deal with the surrounding Arab countries, but they rejected it, and Israel withdrew the proposal in 1950.

I think this is more accurate, and slightly better gramatically. Thoughts? Jayjg 17:03, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Looks fine. - Mustafaa 17:16, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

A few things are not quite right here. The '100,000 offer' that Israel made at the Lausanne conference was supposed to consist of (1) 25,000 "illegal immigrants", (2) 10,000 persons under the family reunification scheme, (3) 65,000 others. The 25,000 figure was the one being claimed by the Israeli government at that time. It might be correct but there is no way to check it. An Arab who left their village, went to the West Bank, then returned to their village was an illegal immigrant according to Israel, but such people were indistinguishable from those who stayed in their village all along. Unless, of course, their village no longer existed in which case they would have tried to hide with relatives in another place. Anyway, these people would have tried to hide their history and Israel had a good motive to exaggerate their numbers, so the numbers are very uncertain. The figure of 10,000 was a "projected" number that did not correspond to reality. By the middle of 1951 the total number of such people was still less than 2000 (Israeli govt figures quoted by Morris). (And meanwhile Israel was still expelling Arabs, but that's another story.) The "35,000" ascribed to family reunicification in the article is simply wrong - it is 25,000+10,000 misinterpretted. A good source on the 100,000 offer is the last chapter of Morris (Birth...Revisited). --Zero 12:39, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for responding to my e-mail on this question. Very interesting and informative response, though I'm not sure exactly where this leaves us. Jayjg

Next, it is true that the Arab states rejected the 100,000 offer but there is more to the story. The offer was not made in isolation but had other conditions. For example, it included Israel being allowed to keep all of the land it had occupied in the war. Behind the scenes, the US was trying to press Israel into taking back a much larger number of refugees. There was huge opposition within the Israeli government to taking back any refugees at all (including from Ben Gurion, who for once didn't get is own way). Part of the Israeli preparation for making the offer was to deliberately stir up public opposition to it in Israel; the idea was to impress on the world how difficult it was for Israel to make such an offer and how impossible it would be to offer more. Around this time (I forget the exact chronological order) some of the Arab states were making secret contacts with Israel that offered various deals. For example, in 1949 Syria offered to "immediately sign a peace treaty and not an armistice and immediately exchange ambassadors", and in addition to settle 250,000-500,000 refugees. In return they wanted the international border to run along the Jordan River (note there is only a short stretch relevant to Syria) and through the middle of the Sea of Galilee. According to Israeli documents, Ben Gurion refused to discuss it. This is not necessarily relevant to the current article, but I mention it to show that the Israel-conciliatory, Arab States-intransigent picture of history is largely mythological. --Zero 12:39, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Interesting and informative as well, though considering that the Sea of Galilee is Israel's main freshwater source, I'm not surprised at Israel's reluctance to accept the Syrian offer. Jayjg 18:12, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

My thanks, what types of photos are needed?, we were re-registered as refugees with UNRWA

Well I have just read this article through twice, and it seems fine, I am not finding it too biased. A pleasant change, so I wanted to thank those involved, Thank You!

I will seek out some photos as requested. Any ideas on what is needed?

BTW: We were just re-registered as refugees by UNRWA, even though we are Canadian Citizens now. So I guess there is no time limit in terms of length or residency. My children, however, can only be registered by me, when I go back, according to the documents my father obtained when he came back from Jordan last December. Ironically about the same time as when the last revision took place.

Joseph 04:27, May 3, 2005 (UTC)

"or been expelled"

Yes, some were expelled, but the linked article (Palestinian Exodus) only indicates expulsions after the war started, so as far as I can tell the insertion was inaccurate. Jayjg ^(talk) 20:01, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

No, actually - I checked that article first, and during the first stage of the flight, December 1947 - March 1948, "There was also cases of outright explusions such as in Qisarya where roughly 1000 Palestinian Arabs were evicted in February". - Mustafaa 20:46, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, you're right, I missed that when I read through it. Still, it seems to give a false impression, that there were large numbers of expellees at that time. I'll add in the 1000 figure. Jayjg ^(talk) 21:14, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure that isn't misleading too; the wording in Palestinian Exodus suggests that the number would have been at least significantly larger than 1000. An estimate would be ideal, if someone more knowledgeable could provide one. - Mustafaa 22:15, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Well, if we're looking for knowledgeable, Zero's the guy. Jayjg ^(talk) 22:31, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

You read my unwritten words. - Mustafaa 22:44, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)