Alone in the Face of the Bush Declaration, by Ramzy Baroud
Standing side by side with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, President George W. Bush decreed that Palestinian refugees should not expect to be allowed back into their land.
Sharon’s face brimmed with relief and gratitude, as Palestinian refugees went into a frenzy of protests and condemnations.
“We have the right to return to Haifa, Jaffa and Jerusalem,” a banner held by school children in the Ain Helweh refugee camp in Lebanon read. Another vowed: “We will not sell the land of our ancestors.”
While the chants of refugees echoed elsewhere across the swaths of the Middle East, political leaders seemed reserved, mute even, all but PA president Yasser Arafat, who told reporters that the ‘sacred’ right of the refugees is not for Bush to grant or deny.
But this time, the US-Israeli provocation and the angry Palestinian response, was hardly business as usual. Something happened on April 14, 2004 in Washington that completely changed the rules of the game.
In an ‘historic visit’ to Washington, to harvest yet another political endorsement, this time for his unilateral disengagement plan – a partial withdrawal from Gaza and the reserving of major Jewish settlements in the West Bank- Sharon struck the deal of a lifetime.
"A solution to the problem of the Palestinian refugees is to be found in their re-settling in a future Palestinian state and not in Israel," Bush exclaimed at the White House.
Bush, of course, neither possessed the moral nor the legal authority to grant such a wish to Israel, a wish that contradicts the aspirations of an entire nation and international law altogether.
For one, United Nations Resolution 194 of December 11, 1948, harbored no ambiguity when it granted Palestinian refugees and their descendants the right to return to their land at will, if they wished to exercise such a right.
This resolution is still legally binding, despite Israel's insistence on its invalidity on the basis of the claim that the right of return's "aim is to destroy Israel from within."
It is self-deceiving, however, to claim that Bush’s declaration espoused shock and horror, since the president’s record is dotted with the unreserved backing of Israel, at the expense of the rights of the Palestinians and international law that sanctioned those rights.
Nevertheless, Bush's remarks are of disconcerting importance, truly deserving of what a commentator dubbed the "second Balfour Declaration", referring to the British commitment of 1917, to grant a national home to World Jewry in Palestine.
Bush's standpoint, strengthened by the chief role played by his government worldwide, is perhaps the most consequential in terms of the current status of the Arab-Israeli conflict. After all, if it was not for Bush's unqualified consent, the Israeli government would have hardly been as able to lead such a bold policy of assassination and land grab.
Yet, the collective Arab position on the issue of Palestine in past years, which served as a political backbone to the Palestinian leadership and helped activate a somewhat valuable European role, is no longer in existence.
Thus, an equal travesty to the Bush declaration, was the response, or lack thereof.
In an article published by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Amnon Rubinstein, hardly able to contain his celebratory tone, noted: "There was an obvious lack of any reservations whatsoever concerning Bush's explicit comments on the issue of the Palestinian refugees non-right of return."
Alas, Rubinstein was correct in his assessment, for the Europeans for example, limited their reservations of the newest Bush's doctrine "to the question of the borders and to the need for agreement between Israel and the Palestinians on this matter, but did not add that in the matter of the right of return."
This of course was to be expected, since the right of return was almost dropped in its entirety from Arab initiatives for peace in the Middle East launched in recent years.
Even the strong reaction of Palestinian Authority chairman Yasser Arafat to Bush’s statements lacked substance and contributed to the utter inconsistencies of the PA and those operating under its auspices.
The Geneva Accords, signed by Palestinian and Israelis politicians, reduced the solution regarding the refugee issue to mere symbolic gestures. In fact, it proved more consistent with the ‘Bush vision’ than with international law. Arafat and other Palestinian officials offered their blessings to the Geneva signatories.
It is also no secret that the PA has not treated the right of return as an urgent topic since the signing of the Oslo agreement in 1993.
One is therefore, left to wonder if these cries over Bush’s remarks are even genuine.
The need to uphold international law-granting the Palestinian the right of choice: compensation or repatriation- is the essence of any lasting solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict.
If Palestinians continue to inherit this sense of loss without a meaningful solution that would justly end their Diaspora, future generations shall harbor similar bitterness, exasperating the conflict in the future. After all, it is the human element that gives this conflict its seeming timelessness.
However, the issue is not fully sentimental.
What took place in Iraq recently – the forced evacuation of thousands of Palestinians from their homes following the fall of Baghdad – and the similar past actions in other Arab governments, leave no room for illusions: Palestinian refugees belong in Palestine.
The fact remains, aside from using the opportunity to burn effigies of Bush and Sharon, the Arabs seem helpless in the face of this new challenge.
True, Bush’s verbal and written assurances to Sharon shall not bring to halt the Palestinian refugees’ quest for return, but neither shall the PA’s inconsistency and the Arabs lack of unity and political coherence bring the refugees any closer to Palestine.
In the face of the Bush doctrine and the Arab and Palestinian leadership’s incompetence, Palestinians are likely to be driven further into desperation.
Israeli strategic planners in 1948 envisaged a future without Palestinians.
According to Israeli author Avi Shlaim, citing Israeli government archives: Palestinian refugees were expected to either assimilate elsewhere or ‘would be crushed.’ “Some of them would die and most of them would turn into human dust and the waste of society and join the most impoverished classes in the Arab countries.”
It is the will of those refugees still grasping the deeds to their land and the keys to their homes that proved the early Israeli strategists utterly wrong.
But without a meaningful and collective Arab political policy, coupled by a consistent position from the Palestinian leadership, one must wonder how long Palestinian refugees will hold on to their keys, banners and hope of return.
-Ramzy Baroud is an Arab-American journalist.
Article republished, courtesy of The Palestine Chronicle http://www.palestinechronicle.com
Photo courtesy of The Electronic Intifada http://www.electronicintifada.net
Please also see:
Family Says Soldiers Buried Wounded Son Alive; Death Toll Rises to 29
http://www.palestinechronicle.com/story.php?sid=20040513110503115
Israel Kills 14 Palestinians In Gaza
http://www.palestinechronicle.com/story.php?sid=2004051310565830
Standing side by side with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, President George W. Bush decreed that Palestinian refugees should not expect to be allowed back into their land.
Sharon’s face brimmed with relief and gratitude, as Palestinian refugees went into a frenzy of protests and condemnations.
“We have the right to return to Haifa, Jaffa and Jerusalem,” a banner held by school children in the Ain Helweh refugee camp in Lebanon read. Another vowed: “We will not sell the land of our ancestors.”
While the chants of refugees echoed elsewhere across the swaths of the Middle East, political leaders seemed reserved, mute even, all but PA president Yasser Arafat, who told reporters that the ‘sacred’ right of the refugees is not for Bush to grant or deny.
But this time, the US-Israeli provocation and the angry Palestinian response, was hardly business as usual. Something happened on April 14, 2004 in Washington that completely changed the rules of the game.
In an ‘historic visit’ to Washington, to harvest yet another political endorsement, this time for his unilateral disengagement plan – a partial withdrawal from Gaza and the reserving of major Jewish settlements in the West Bank- Sharon struck the deal of a lifetime.
"A solution to the problem of the Palestinian refugees is to be found in their re-settling in a future Palestinian state and not in Israel," Bush exclaimed at the White House.
Bush, of course, neither possessed the moral nor the legal authority to grant such a wish to Israel, a wish that contradicts the aspirations of an entire nation and international law altogether.
For one, United Nations Resolution 194 of December 11, 1948, harbored no ambiguity when it granted Palestinian refugees and their descendants the right to return to their land at will, if they wished to exercise such a right.
This resolution is still legally binding, despite Israel's insistence on its invalidity on the basis of the claim that the right of return's "aim is to destroy Israel from within."
It is self-deceiving, however, to claim that Bush’s declaration espoused shock and horror, since the president’s record is dotted with the unreserved backing of Israel, at the expense of the rights of the Palestinians and international law that sanctioned those rights.
Nevertheless, Bush's remarks are of disconcerting importance, truly deserving of what a commentator dubbed the "second Balfour Declaration", referring to the British commitment of 1917, to grant a national home to World Jewry in Palestine.
Bush's standpoint, strengthened by the chief role played by his government worldwide, is perhaps the most consequential in terms of the current status of the Arab-Israeli conflict. After all, if it was not for Bush's unqualified consent, the Israeli government would have hardly been as able to lead such a bold policy of assassination and land grab.
Yet, the collective Arab position on the issue of Palestine in past years, which served as a political backbone to the Palestinian leadership and helped activate a somewhat valuable European role, is no longer in existence.
Thus, an equal travesty to the Bush declaration, was the response, or lack thereof.
In an article published by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Amnon Rubinstein, hardly able to contain his celebratory tone, noted: "There was an obvious lack of any reservations whatsoever concerning Bush's explicit comments on the issue of the Palestinian refugees non-right of return."
Alas, Rubinstein was correct in his assessment, for the Europeans for example, limited their reservations of the newest Bush's doctrine "to the question of the borders and to the need for agreement between Israel and the Palestinians on this matter, but did not add that in the matter of the right of return."
This of course was to be expected, since the right of return was almost dropped in its entirety from Arab initiatives for peace in the Middle East launched in recent years.
Even the strong reaction of Palestinian Authority chairman Yasser Arafat to Bush’s statements lacked substance and contributed to the utter inconsistencies of the PA and those operating under its auspices.
The Geneva Accords, signed by Palestinian and Israelis politicians, reduced the solution regarding the refugee issue to mere symbolic gestures. In fact, it proved more consistent with the ‘Bush vision’ than with international law. Arafat and other Palestinian officials offered their blessings to the Geneva signatories.
It is also no secret that the PA has not treated the right of return as an urgent topic since the signing of the Oslo agreement in 1993.
One is therefore, left to wonder if these cries over Bush’s remarks are even genuine.
The need to uphold international law-granting the Palestinian the right of choice: compensation or repatriation- is the essence of any lasting solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict.
If Palestinians continue to inherit this sense of loss without a meaningful solution that would justly end their Diaspora, future generations shall harbor similar bitterness, exasperating the conflict in the future. After all, it is the human element that gives this conflict its seeming timelessness.
However, the issue is not fully sentimental.
What took place in Iraq recently – the forced evacuation of thousands of Palestinians from their homes following the fall of Baghdad – and the similar past actions in other Arab governments, leave no room for illusions: Palestinian refugees belong in Palestine.
The fact remains, aside from using the opportunity to burn effigies of Bush and Sharon, the Arabs seem helpless in the face of this new challenge.
True, Bush’s verbal and written assurances to Sharon shall not bring to halt the Palestinian refugees’ quest for return, but neither shall the PA’s inconsistency and the Arabs lack of unity and political coherence bring the refugees any closer to Palestine.
In the face of the Bush doctrine and the Arab and Palestinian leadership’s incompetence, Palestinians are likely to be driven further into desperation.
Israeli strategic planners in 1948 envisaged a future without Palestinians.
According to Israeli author Avi Shlaim, citing Israeli government archives: Palestinian refugees were expected to either assimilate elsewhere or ‘would be crushed.’ “Some of them would die and most of them would turn into human dust and the waste of society and join the most impoverished classes in the Arab countries.”
It is the will of those refugees still grasping the deeds to their land and the keys to their homes that proved the early Israeli strategists utterly wrong.
But without a meaningful and collective Arab political policy, coupled by a consistent position from the Palestinian leadership, one must wonder how long Palestinian refugees will hold on to their keys, banners and hope of return.
-Ramzy Baroud is an Arab-American journalist.
Article republished, courtesy of The Palestine Chronicle http://www.palestinechronicle.com
Photo courtesy of The Electronic Intifada http://www.electronicintifada.net
Please also see:
Family Says Soldiers Buried Wounded Son Alive; Death Toll Rises to 29
http://www.palestinechronicle.com/story.php?sid=20040513110503115
Israel Kills 14 Palestinians In Gaza
http://www.palestinechronicle.com/story.php?sid=2004051310565830