UNGA 194 and the Denied Right to Resettlement and Compensation

Get into a discussion with an anti-Israel advocate about UN General Assembly Resolution 194, and invariably will come "proof" there is a legal "right to return" for Palestinian Arab refugees of 1948 and the millions of their descendants.  It makes me wonder how much these advocates actually know about history, or the lengths some will go to forget.

Setting aside the obvious, that UNGA resolutions are soft law and not legally binding, and the conditional nature of the Resolution's text, it's interesting to delve deeper to see how implementation was understood at the time by the Conciliation Commission it established.  This helps to show context and that little has changed.

Of course, the part of UNGA 194 always cited to emblazon the "right of return" is from Paragraph 11:

Resolves that the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible;

However, the second clause of Paragraph 11 instructs the Conciliation Commission "to facilitate the repatriation, resettlement and economic and social rehabilitation of the refugees and the payment of compensation...."

The Commission's first goal was to complete formation of the Refugee Office.  Once done in mid-1951, it started a new mediation effort to assist the parties in seeking solution of questions outstanding between them, offering to suggest specific solutions to specific problems for consideration.  The parties agreed and a conference was held in Paris from 13 September to 19 November.

The Commission reported its progress to the Secretary General on 20 November 1951. The Chairman noted from experience that "concentration on one or the other isolated paragraph of the resolution out of context had not helped promote peace." The necessary elements were "only useful if linked together according to an over-all plan."  As an example, the Commission referred to the mandate to facilitate "repatriation, resettlement and rehabilitation of refugees" that guided its proposals at the conference.

In its words:  "The interrelation of all the aspects of the problem was too obvious to be overlooked."

The proposals recognized that any solution of the refugee question would involve important commitments by Israel, but these required concurrent reasonable assurances from her neighbours as to her national and economic security. The solution proposed by the Commission envisaged the repatriation and integration of some of the refugees in Israel and the resettlement of others in Arab countries.

Discussion of the comprehensive set of proposals was to be preceded by a declaration of peaceful intentions by the parties in the form of a preamble.  The Commission's suggested text read as follows:

In accordance with the obligations of States Members of the United Nations and of signatories to Armistice Agreements, the [parties] solemnly affirm their intention and undertake to settle all differences, present or future, solely by resort to pacific procedures, refraining from any use of force or acts of hostility, with full respect for the right of each party to security and freedom from fear of attack, and by these means to promote the return of peace in Palestine.

The two sides submitted alternative language and there was no agreement.  The Commission found that the Israeli formulation "went beyond the preliminary statement the Commission considered practicable," while the Arab formulation "fell short of the intention as set forth in the preamble."  In spite of extensive discussions, formal and informal, the Arab delegations would not accept the Commission's proposed text.

Some of the relevant proposals affecting the refugees:

That an agreement be reached concerning war damages by mutual cancellation of claims.

That Israel agree to repatriation of a specified number of Arab refugees which can be integrated into the economy and who wish to return and live in peace with their neighbours.

That Israel accept an obligation to pay a global sum as compensation for property abandoned by refugees not repatriated, to be determined by the Commission's Refugee Office.

The wishes of the refugees required coordination with the practical possibilities of any proposed solution because "concrete conditions of repatriation and resettlement would undoubtedly influence the wishes of the refugees, and the expression of these wishes would in turn determine the extent of any repatriation plan."

The Commission acknowledged that the General Assembly operated under an assumption that refugees could without great difficulty return and resume their lives on the intact and unoccupied land and houses they had abandoned in their flight. The Commission was instructed to facilitate such movement, but it did not come to pass because of the well-known deadlock over the question of repatriation.

The Arab States insisted on a solution, at least in principle, of unconditional acceptance by Israel of the right of refugees to be repatriated, before agreeing to discuss other issues. For Israel no solution involving repatriation could occur outside an over-all settlement, nor could the right of return involve a repatriation operation of unknown extent.

The Commission's indicated that its proposals could only be successful if both parties, having the best interests of the refugees in mind, were willing to depart from their original positions in order to make possible practical and realistic arrangements towards the solution of the refugee problem.

Israel offered to accept a portion of the refugees, in full compliance with the resolution, but in context of the other parts of the resolution necessary to solve the questions outstanding and reach a full peace.  Conversely, the Arab solution required unconditional acceptance by Israel of the "right of repatriation" or no further discussion.

Sound familiar? In the meanwhile, to protect a "principle" of conflict, the Arabs leave the refugees to languish and suffer without choice as pawns in a larger conflict, supposedly in their "best interest."  Which response is more consistent with the Commission's words?  I have no problem understanding the difference in these two approaches to peace and promotion of human dignity.

One would think if re-settlement and compensation had been offered to the refugees themselves in 1951 that many thousands would have accepted and integrated into the other Arab societies.  There would not be this intractable issue today.  But Arab leaders chose to let them suffer to further conflict.

To conclude, the idea that Arab leaders are less rigid today is ludicrous, except in a world turned upside down.  Yet why today is there so little mention that Palestinian Arab refugees who want to live in Arab countries have the right to resettle in those countries?  Why are there no protests against these human rights violations by Palestinian and Arab regimes?  Do Palestinian supporters of “return” believe it is fair to make ALL the refugees return?  Is this illustrative of a double standard?

(Tip to EoZ)

A Blind Spot of Leftist Activists

I have been watching the Occupy Movement and the antisemitism that has surfaced among some protesters.  It seems to be tolerated and that is not good.  It points to a blind spot of Leftist activists.

The day Israel was reborn in its ancient homeland, Arabs tried to exterminate it and commit a genocide against the Jews.  They have been trying ever since, by war, by terror, and now current methods of delegitimization by “human rights activists” that demonize both Israel and voices for Jewish self-determination.

When Israel is the only country on the planet threatened with extinction, why is not considered a victim?

Many on the Left are simply too loathe to admit that Arab-Muslim societies actively engage in practices they falsely charge against Israel.  It’s like there’s no apartheid, racism, repression or torture in this world, except as committed by Israelis.  They invariably invoke liberal values, but should not liberals first address political ideologies and cultures that are hostile to liberalism?

When the disconnect is shown, charges of Islamophobia and racism often follow in the rush to enable and even embrace Israel’s adversaries.  Attempts by Left-wing activists to silence critics who question their obsession with Israel do not help millions of Arab-Muslims who suffer within discriminatory societies, and the relative silence from these proponents does not help eliminate human rights abuses in the Arab-Muslim world and elsewhere.

One day, perhaps, the activists may realize that even their Western notions are under threat, not to mention the societies they attack, that provide and advance human rights globally, even imperfectly.  It would remove the fog that clouds their vision and muddles their reality. 

Leftist Activists and Palestinian Rectitude

Happened to come across a great post at Harry’s Place today. It helps show, at least in my mind, where the so-called left in the USA is heading. I refer to the “so-called” left because one can rightly question if much of their behavior is liberal. Indeed, the left-right paradigm can often be just a means to oversimplify and label, rather than deal with the substance of issues and actions.

Cross-posted was a short essay entitled, “More Palestinian than the Palestinians?” by Professor Alan Johnson, Director and Senior Research Fellow at the Britain Israel Research and Communications Centre. A member of Labour Friends of Israel, he was writing in a personal capacity.

Johnson sets the stage by positioning two sides, as set forth by Ernest Bevin, the British Foreign Secretary, who in 1947 spoke about the Jewish desire for "the creation of a sovereign Jewish state" and the Arab insistence on resisting "to the last the establishment of Jewish sovereignty in any part of Palestine."  Bridging the gap is what peace and the two state solution is all about.

For many years, Labour worked with progressives in Israel and Palestine to create confidence building measures essential to a peace agreement. But at the party conference this year Johnson saw signs that many in Labour have forsaken the strategy for something much more dangerous:

becoming a kind of ultra-left Trotskyist external faction of the Palestinian movement; an isle of rectitude, always on the look-out for a "sell-out" by Abbas, always thinking the revolution is around the corner, if only a particular set of demands would be adopted.

He provides illustration:

At a packed Labour Friends of Palestine meeting in Liverpool, Fatah's Husam Zomlot  said that the full, untrammelled right of return for every Palestinian refugee ‘to their homes and farms' was ‘absolutely beyond negotiation.' He was cheered to the rafters.  When he promoted the idea of a reconciliation between Fatah and the fascistic Hamas, and was cheered again.  And when the chair of the meeting, New Statesman political editor Mehdi Hasan, opposed Abbas' UN application as a sell-out of the "9 million or so" (!) Palestinian refug­­ees who have the right of return, he met no challenge.

He makes the main point:

By encouraging Palestinian rejectionism and maximalism, by echoing the obstructionism of the pro-Iran Hamas, by stoking the fantasy of a full untrammelled right of return for every last Palestinian refugee, and by finding no place in its heart for the right of the Jewish people to national self-determination, these activists are more Palestinian than the Palestinians.

Rather than support progressives in both Israel and Palestine, they want to ban and boycott. Seeing only a morality play of innocent victims and cruel oppressors they propose to break links to the Israeli labour federation, the Histadrut (despite the federation's groundbreaking agreement with the Palestinian unions in 2008). By deploying polarising rhetoric these activists harm the ability of either side to move towards the other.

It goes without saying, the approach Johnson prefers is to foster conditions for a two state solution, listen to concerns across the board, and challenge those who seek to delegitimize Israel. He wonders which approach his party will choose.

The same is so for progressive activists in America. Will they choose to support the difficult road to peace and reconciliation based on the call to universal human rights for all, or the simple one with less obstacles where it’s easy and cool to be more Palestinian than the Palestinians? Because it looks like the latter, some among us must speak out.

Stereotypes

If asked, many people would probably tell you that settlers in the West Bank are part of a messianic right wing movement committed to establish power in biblical Israel.  Americans who move to the settlements are often portrayed as gun-toting extremists.  This is the stereotype generally transmitted and reinforced by media.  But is it so black and white as we are informed?

According to an article that appeared in Ha'aretz on October 7, 2011, "The American settler you don't know" by Raphael Ahren, we may need to alter our perceptions.  The article concerns the findings of a University of Chicago history researcher, Sara Hirschhorn, in her doctoral dissertation, "American-born Immigrants and The Israeli Ultra-Nationalist Movement Since 1967."

Hirschhorn says that American Jews in the West Bank represent a very heterogeneous and dynamic movement.

"It doesn't necessarily fit into any preexisting categories. In addition to that, I believe that my findings bring the discussion out of this typical left/right discourse that we have developed when we talk about the settler movement. There is a very wide spectrum, which certainly runs the gamut of everything you can imagine."

Based on access to confidential records from the American consulate in Jerusalem, 45,000 settlers have American citizenship, or about 15 percent of the Israeli West Bank population, compared to 8.5 percent of all Israeli Jews, based on estimates of 500,000 Americans among Israel's 5.8 million Jews.

"Jewish-American immigrants [to the territories] were primarily young, single, and highly identified as Jewish or traditional but not necessarily Orthodox in their religious orientation," [...] They were primarily political liberals in the United States, voted for the Democratic Party and have been active in 1960s radicalism in the United States, participating in the Civil Rights Movement and the struggle against the Vietnam War. This perhaps does not necessarily correspond to the idea we might have in mind about who these people were before they came to Israel."

Rabbi Shlomo Riskin is one example cited in the article, a native New Yorker who marched with Martin Luther King and considers himself a liberal. Hirschhorn said that many of these Americans see what they're doing in Israel as an extension of their radicalism in the United States, "in part as an expression of their own Jewish civil rights."

Hirschhorn's findings confirm the earlier research of sociologist Chaim Waxman, that an overwhelming majority of Americans viewed the role of the Messiah as "totally unrelated" to their immigration to Israel and their settling in the territories.  Rabbi Riskin confirmed this."I don't want to control people who don't want to be controlled by me," he once told a Gush Emunim leader, referring to the Arabs living in West Bank.

So the next time someone pursues the stereotype and demean settlers as a monolithic crowd, particularly with regard to Americans, a reminder is in order, that there is also a prominent and proud liberal tradition in the hearts and minds of the demeaned.  Of course, these demeaners might know this if they ventured from the echo chamber that allows a much wider, more nuanced story than a single narrative to explain the universe.

That Israel Must Disappear

So says the PLO Ambassador to Brazil, courtesy of Honest Reporting and Google Translate, in a story from Veja-Brazil, a popular Bazilian magazine.

"That Israel must disappear." And no one uttered a peep of protest! 

 Reinaldo Azevedo

Imagine if an Israeli diplomat from any spot said: "This Palestinian Authority must disappear ..." It would be a scandal. On Friday, in a speech to university students, Alzeben Ibrahim, Palestinian ambassador in Brazil, said in clear words: "That Israel should disappear."

[...]
 
So that did not weigh no doubt about what he was saying, made ​​it clear: "And is not the ambassador of Iran or President (Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad who is speaking." Soon, it became evident that he was not saying Israel must disappear from the West Bank.

[...]

Alzeben said: "Israel is preparing provocations for a new conflict.Doubt the origin of the next rocket leaving Palestine. " She stated that the counter-intelligence information according to which Israel is infiltrating agents into Gaza to fire missiles at their own territory, understand?

By saying that "that Israel must disappear," Alzeben throws the nature of the "fight", which many experts, including our own, refuse to admit.

Imagine that, Israelis will sneak in to Gaza and shoot rockets at their own people.  I must ask, facetiously, if anyone get lower than the Israelis?

And this is an ambassador on behalf of all Palestinians! 

Add to this the recent peace mongering by Abbas Zaki, member of the Fatah Central Committee, which aired on the Al-Jazeera network on September 23, 2011.

When we say that the settlement should be based upon these borders, President [Abbas] understands, we understand, and everybody knows that the greater goal cannot be accomplished in one go.

[...]

Who is nervous, upset, and angry now? Netanyahu, Lieberman, and Obama... All those scumbags.

[...]

If we say that we want to wipe Israel out... C'mon, it's too difficult. It's not [acceptable] policy to say so. Don't say these things to the world. Keep it to yourself.

I mean, why not! According to Deputy Rector of Al-Azhar University, Sheik Muhammad Ashur, on September 30, 2011, Jews are the offspring of pigs and apes.

I say to all my brothers and sisters: Jihad has become an individual duty incumbent upon each and every one of us, because our enemies have grown arrogant and have persisted in their great tyranny. In an even uglier display, they publicly declare their support and defense of injustice, even though they boast that they denounce any injustice and that they are the ones who legislate human rights.

But the rights of what human are they defending and supporting? They support the unjust oppressors, the offspring of pigs and apes.

And one wonders why Israelis and Jews are wary about Arab and Palestinian intentions?

However, among the "humanitarians" of the Western anti-Zionist elite, who constantly tell us how they support peace and justice, no one uttered a peep of protest!

(Tip to EoZ)

Robert L. Bernstein on Human Rights and Why Words Matter

Robert L. Bernstein is the former president and chairman of Random House and founding chairman emeritus of Human Rights Watch.

He is is presently chairman of the group Advancing Human Rights, an NGO to promote values of the Universal Declaration with a primary focus on unfree states that, unlike open societies, have small means to correct human rights abuses—a free press, active and independent NGOs, vigilant courts and legislatures.

AHR also examines current procedures for an improved understanding of the interplay between war and human rights and the treatment of international humanitarian law by human rights groups.  This is an areas where controversy exists concerning the methodology of "expert" analysis.

Bernstein wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post on September 27, entitled: "Why do human rights groups ignore Palestinians’ war of words?"  He begins:

Two dominant forces have defined Arab nations in modern times: autocratic leadership that has denied basic freedoms to its own people, and a deeply ingrained and institutionalized anti-Semitism, centered on a hatred of Israel. Freedom is a growing possibility in light of the Arab Spring, but for this freedom to lead to peace, progress must be made in ending hate speech and incitement to genocide. This is particularly true in Gaza, the West Bank, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Iran.

He believes a vote to add to the United Nations a new member state that calls for the elimination of its neighbor and glorifies terrorism will make peace harder to achieve, not easier. He cites Hamas’s blatant calls for genocide and deceptions of the Palestinian Authority, even when engaged in peace talks, such as Abbas's said flatly last October that “we refuse to recognize a Jewish state.”

He calls out human rights groups as "unwitting accomplices" and that "almost every mainstream human rights group has ignored hate speech and incitement to genocide, not only against Israel but against all Jews." 

Human Rights Watch, which I founded 33 years ago, continues to attack many of Israel’s defensive measures during war, yet it says nothing about hate speech and incitement to genocide. To cite just one example, the speaker of the Hamas parliament, Ahmad Bahr, called in April 2007 for the murder of Jews, “down to the very last one.” Imagine what leading human rights groups would say if this same speech and incitement were coming from Israel, aimed at the Palestinians.

He also faults human rights groups for choosing to focus primarily on Israel and discounting Israeli actions to protect civilians on both sides, steps approved by military experts, while "whitewashing Hamas’s desire to eliminate a whole country as just bluster and meaningless words." 

One would think that, of all organizations in the world, human rights groups would particularly believe that words matter. Words inform intent and influence action. Words and actions need to be taken seriously, especially when they are sponsored by governments.

To Bernstein and others, including myself, the real obstacle to long-term peace are words of hate and incitement to genocide effectively spread to Arabs, such as in Saudi textbooks, distributed in the Arab world and beyond, that label Jews “monkeys and pigs,” fomenting discord, radicalism and violence.

He concludes: 

The absence of criticism by the United Nations and human rights groups is more than just a lack of judgment and fairness. It is proof that the Arab Spring has yet to thaw the old thinking that has stymied progress toward peace for far too long. [...] Human rights groups should be leading this battle — not ignoring it.

This is what astounds me about so many in the human rights community, the clamor against one side and the virtual silence with regard to the other, as if the Universal Declaration is anything but universal in application, and must accede to cultural relativism.  This may also be attributable to a double standard, what Gerstenfeld calls "humanitarian racism."  More on that in a later post.  No matter the cause, there is no justification as I see it, nor any right to lecture others about what is dignity and tolerance.

As a postscript, Bernstein gave an incredible speech in Omaha about a year ago, the Shirley and Leonard Goldstein Lecture on Human Rights University of Nebraska at Omaha.  Entitled, “Human Rights in the Middle East,” it begins: 

You may wonder why a man just shy of his 88th birthday would get up at 5 in the morning to fly to Omaha to give a speech. Frankly, since accepting this kind offer, I’ve wondered myself. Here’s why. Having devoted much of my life to trying to make the Universal Declaration of Human Rights come alive in many places in the world, I have become alarmed at how some human rights organizations, including the one I founded, are reporting on human rights in the Middle East.

I highly commend the entire speech for anyone who cares about human rights, the Universal Declaration, and humanitarian law.