In the course of the 1948-1949 Arab-Israeli war, about 700,000 Arabs were either expelled by the Israelis from territory it held or left their homes at the request of the Arab states. As Khaled al-Azm, then prime minister of Syria, recalled in his 1973 memoirs, “Since 1948 we have been demanding that the refugees return to their homes. But it was we who had encouraged them to leave. To solve the refugee problem, the United Nations General Assembly approved, against the will of the Arab states, Resolution 194 in December 1948. The wording is irrefutable. This resolution used the term “permission to return and not “right as the Arab states maintained. The General Assembly “resolves that the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live in peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practical date. Abba Eban wrote on this issue to the writer: “[T]he fact that in order to return to the territory which now is Israel, one needs a permit (just as anyone else must obtain one if he/she is not an Israeli) shows that we are not dealing here with an inherent right of any refugee, but rather with a sovereign act of the State of Israel. Only after the June 1967 war did the importance of Resolution 194 become clear to Palestinian leaders. Until then they thought that the destruction of the state of Israel would solve all their problems. Subsequently, the Palestinians proceeded to convince the world and, unbelievably, the entire Israeli political class and its press that according to Resolution 194 they had “the right of return. If today the Israeli and Palestinian circles that work for a peaceful solution are aware of the exact text of Resolution 194, it is not certain that by maintaining its ambiguity (each one reading into it what suits it) they serve the ultimate cause of peace. The ambiguity arises from the difference between the claimed right of return invented by the Palestinian authorities and the original text of Resolution 194 that speaks only of permission. In the case of the unofficial Geneva Initiative between Yasser Abd Rabbo and Yossi Beilin one reads: “The parties recognize that UNGAR 194 … concerning the rights of the Palestinian refugees represents the basis for resolving the refugee issue. Even if, within the Geneva framework, the various points allowing for the settlement of the refugee problem are specified later on, we should not be surprised that many Israeli political circles have concluded from it that the right of return, in principle, had been accepted: hence their rejection of the agreement. The proposal made in 2002 by Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah, now known as the Arab peace initiative, also played on the ambiguity of the meaning of Resolution 194. The text calls for “a just solution to the refugee problem . in accordance with UNGA Resolution 194. Although Abdullah’s proposal stressed that on this subject the discussion was still open, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni chose to understand that it implied the right of return inside Israel’s borders for millions of Palestinian refugees, thereby rendering Abdullah’s proposal unacceptable. It is interesting to note, however, that the Palestinian authorities and the Syrian government were fully aware of the true meaning of the original resolution. At the Arab League session of March 29, 2002, they demanded that, in addition to mentioning Resolution 194, King Abdullah’s Saudi peace initiative should also mention Resolution 14/224B, which states that Resolution 194 should be interpreted as requiring recognition of the right of return. Finally, during a Doha debate of April 14, 2007 on the motion “This House believes that Palestinians should give up their full right of return, we witnessed Yossi Beilin, ill-inspired for once, enter into the discussion without pointing out that there was no basis for the question since Resolution 194 only spoke of permission. Since the debate was watched by a vast audience in the Arab world, it would have been a historic opportunity to remind them that while it is obvious that the refugee problem has to find a solution with the help of the neighboring states, including Israel, this cannot be done within the framework of a non-existent right of return. Hence, bearing in mind the manipulations that surrounded the Arab peace initiative, Israeli political scientist Shlomo Avineri is perfectly justified in suggesting that when we speak of Resolution 194 it should be taken, in practice, to mean the “right of return. Under these conditions, it would be inadmissible for Israeli negotiators to refer to it in the future. The only solution is for them to content themselves with defining the points contributing to the solution of the refugee problem without citing Resolution 194. Maurice Strounis a cofounder of the International Center for Peace in the Middle East and is coauthor of “Israel/Palestine: History beyond the Myths. This commentary first appeared at bitterlemons-international.org, an online newsletter.
Resolution 194 may cut both ways for refugees
