Introduction As Israel and the Palestinians continue to move towards achieving a just and lasting peace, a number of long-standing issues that have divided them are being resolved. One of the most complex, and crucial, of these is the problem of Arab and Jewish refugees displaced by the Arab-Israeli conflict, and the question of a fair settlement to the dispute. Although no policy decisions have yet been taken, any consideration of a viable solution must address a number of essential concerns. First, how did these large numbers of Jews and Arabs become refugees? Clearly, the remedy must reflect, to some degree, the causes of the problem. Also, as in the fundamental principle of equity, those who claim to seek justice must have clean hands. Second, why has this problem festered for decades, and who bears responsibility for blocking its resolution? Third, what are the possible alternatives for an equitable solution? Finally, what political objectives may lie behind some of the ostensibly neutral proposals for solutions, such as the Palestinian "right of return?" When discussing these questions, the rights of Jewish refugees from Arab countries must also be given their due consideration. In the years immediately following Israel's independence, nearly 600,000 Jews from North Africa and the Middle East (approximately as many as the number of Palestinian refugees who left Israel in 1948) arrived in the new state, as a direct result of official and popular anti-Semitic actions against them. Israel received them as returning countrymen, granted them citizenship and helped them begin new and productive lives. There is currently no visible sign of their being "refugees," since they have long since been absorbed into Israeli society. Nevertheless, they still have substantial claims against those countries which forced them to flee, often penniless, and these must be addressed in any comprehensive resolution of the refugee problem. In light of growing interest in the issue on the part of journalists, an overall review may be useful. This paper will address the question of how the Arab and Jewish refugee problems were created, the different ways in which these problems have been treated since 1948, the alleged Arab "right of return," and the different approaches now being considered for the resolution of these issues. The Arab Refugees of 1948 The Jewish Agency for Palestine, under the leadership of David Ben-Gurion, publicly accepted the United Nations General Assembly partition resolution, passed on 29 November 1947, which would have led to the establishment of separate Jewish and Arab states in Palestine. The Arabs, however, both in Mandatory Palestine and in the surrounding Arab states, rejected it and immediately began to carry out their oft-repeated threats of violence. This violence was not limited to Mandatory Palestine, but was also directed against Jews living throughout the Middle East. In Aleppo, Syria, 300 Jewish homes and 11 synagogues were burned to the ground, and half of the city's 4,000 Jews fled elsewhere. In Aden, 82 Jews were killed. In Mandatory Palestine itself, the Arab Higher Committee proclaimed a three-day general strike from 2-4 December 1947. Violence immediately ensued, with attacks on Jewish quarters in Jerusalem, Haifa and Jaffa. Soon after, the Higher Committee began recruiting volunteers throughout Palestine's Arab towns and villages. The "militias" they formed carried out hit-and-run assaults on isolated Jewish settlements and Jewish-owned vehicles, killing and destroying Jewish property. The attacks were launched exclusively by Palestinian Arabs, although some of their funds and military equipment came from neighboring Arab countries. During this stage, however, offensive planning was uncoordinated, even on a local basis. Left alone, the Arabs and Jews of Mandatory Palestine, for the most part, continued to live without incident, if fearfully. The Higher Committee's violence alone would not have precipitated a full-scale war between the two peoples. However, following the UN partition vote, a meeting of Arab premiers was held in Cairo on 12 December 1947. At this meeting, a plan was adopted to supply the Arab League's military committee with 10,000 rifles and other light weapons, to arrange for the passage of 3,000 Arab volunteers through Syria into Mandatory Palestine, and to provide a considerable sum toward the cost of "defending Palestine." Field command of the "Arab Liberation Army" was given to Fawzi al-Qawukji, guerilla leader of the Arab Uprising of 1936 (who later participated in the Vichy defense of Syria in 1941, before fleeing to Nazi Germany, where he lived out the remainder of the Second World War). Most of his "volunteers" were actually mercenaries from Syria, along with some non-Muslims, including German SS veterans. Far from engaging in mere rhetoric, the Arabs began infiltrating forces into Mandatory Palestine in late January 1948, and by March there were nearly 7,000 Arab irregulars in the country. They launched assaults against urban Jewish quarters, attacked outlying kibbutzim and cut vital roads linking major cities and Jewish centers. This period also marked the beginning of the movement of Arab residents out of Mandatory Palestine; approximately 30,000 Arabs chose to leave the country in the months immediately following passage of the partition resolution, in reaction to the deteriorating security situation. These were mostly businessmen and their families from the larger cities, who liquidated their holdings, transferred their accounts to banks in Egypt and Lebanon, and departed unobtrusively. In April and May 1948, the Jews began to reverse the initial Arab advantage in Palestine and, at the same time, Arab public services collapsed as a result of the pandemonium generated by the British evacuation. The exodus of Arab families increased, expanding to include large numbers of communal leaders, village mayors, judges and cadis. Thousands of peasant farmers and town-dwellers accompanied them. The most dramatic episode in this second phase of Arab departure occurred in Haifa, where approximately 70,000 Arabs lived alongside a large Jewish population. The businessmen among them began leaving immediately after the partition resolution, even though Haifa remained relatively peaceful. As early as February and March 1948, the local Greek Catholic primate arranged for the removal of large groups of Arab children to Damascus and Beirut. By the end of March, approximately 25,000 Arabs had already left. An additional 20,000 departed in early April, following Qawukji's offensive and rumors that the Arab air forces would soon bomb the Jewish quarters of the city. Finally, on 21-22 April, the British garrison withdrew and the Jews consolidated their positions in the city. On the afternoon of 22 April, the Jewish mayor of Haifa and his colleagues met with Arab leaders and pleaded with them to remain in the city with their fellow residents. The (Jewish) Haifa Labor Council issued an appeal to the Arabs of the city: For years, we have lived together in our city, Haifa...Do not fear: Do not destroy your homes with your own hands...do not bring upon yourself tragedy by unnecessary evacuation and self-imposed burdens...But in this city, yours and ours, Haifa, the gates are open for work, for life, and for peace for you and your families. These calls, however, went unheeded. Following a consultation with the Higher Committee, the Mufti and the Arab League, Arab leaders informed the mayor and his associates that the Arabs would not live, for a single day, under Jewish rule; they demanded permission to leave the city. Efforts to change their minds failed, and within 36 hours the remaining Arab population of nearly 30,000 had left the city and departed for Lebanon, either overland or by sea. The Arab exodus also gained momentum elsewhere in Mandatory Palestine, reaching nearly 175,000 during the last weeks of the Mandate. There were various reasons for this flight. The most obvious reason was the collapse of Arab political institutions that resulted from the departure of the Arab elite, at the very moment when their leadership was most needed. The departure of mukhtars, judges and cadis from Haifa and the New City of Jerusalem, from Jaffa, Safed and elsewhere, created serious problems for the Arab population. The semi-feudal character of Arab society at the time rendered the "fellah" (uneducated peasant) almost entirely dependent on the landlord and cadi. Once this elite had left, the Arab peasant was placed in the terrifying position of remaining in an institutional and cultural void. Initially, the Jewish community of Mandatory Palestine was at a disadvantage, in terms of the size of forces and the quality of equipment available. As a result, in late 1947 the Haganah defense force -- faced with increasing Arab attacks -- adopted a static defense posture, deploying the few men and weapons it had to protect individual Jewish settlements and supply convoys. It avoided military action against Arab population centers, even when there were compelling strategic reasons for taking such action. It was only in April 1948, with their military position badly deteriorating and the movement of supply convoys completely halted by the Arabs, that Jewish forces went on the offensive, securing Arab towns which dominated vital road arteries and communication lines, in an effort to seize control of Mandatory Palestine's interior road network and the country's strategic heights. The unanticipated military advances by Jewish forces also inevitably intensified the fears of the Arab population, accelerating their departure. Then too, since Arab villages and towns along highways and in strategic locations were often used as bases from which Arab forces would stage attacks, Jewish forces were compelled to respond, occasionally forcing the hostile inhabitants to move and destroying houses which had been used as military positions. The invasion of Mandatory Palestine by the regular Arab armies after 15 May 1948 had a brief stabilizing influence on Mandatory Palestine's Arab population. However, the Arab armies failed to consolidate their positions, and their relationship with the local Arabs was often ambivalent at best. By 11 June, when the first UN truce came into effect, some 250,000 Arabs had fled the Jewish-controlled areas of the country, for a variety of reasons. Facing invading armies from surrounding Arab countries, in a fight for the survival of their country, Israeli troops took control of Lod, Ramle and the cluster of surrounding Arab villages in the center of the country, causing approximately 100,000 of the local inhabitants to flee. In fact, many Arabs evacuated their settlements even before the Israeli forces arrived. By 9 July, almost 350,000 had left, and their numbers rapidly increased in the early autumn following Israel's first Negev offensive. After the hostilities ended, about 70% of the Arab population of Mandatory Palestine had fled Israeli-controlled territory. Estimates of the total number who left range from 540,000 to 720,000. Not all of those who fled their homes departed Mandatory Palestine itself. By some estimates, 45% of them simply crossed into the eastern sector of the country occupied by Jordan's Arab Legion. Around 5% crossed the Jordan River and entered the Hashemite Kingdom itself. About 30%, who originally had encamped in the south, fled toward the Gaza area. Nearly 15% sought refuge in Lebanon, another 5% in Syria, with smaller groups traveling on to Iraq and Egypt -- and later to the Persian Gulf sheikhdoms. Israel's Policy Towards the Arab Refugees Since the beginning, Israel has linked a resolution of the problem of the Palestinian Arab refugees to the achievement of a comprehensive peace with its Arab neighbors. On 1 August 1948, David Ben-Gurion, in the midst of a brutal and bloody war which had been imposed on the new state, laid out Israeli government policy: When the Arab states are ready to conclude a peace treaty with Israel this question [of refugees] will come up for constructive solution as part of the general settlement, and with due regard to our counter- claims in respect of the destruction of Jewish life and property, the long-term interest of the Jewish and Arab populations, the stability of the State of Israel and the durability of the basis of peace between it and its neighbors, the actual position and fate of the Jewish communities in the Arab countries, the responsibilities of the Arab governments for their war of aggression and their liability for reparation, will all be relevant in the question whether, to what extent, and under what conditions, the former Arab residents of the territory of Israel should be allowed to return. The Arab refugee problem, then, was not to be viewed in a vacuum, but rather as one element of the overall Arab-Israeli conflict. Israel could not reasonably be expected to allow the entry to its territory of several hundred thousand openly hostile Arabs, who viewed Jewish sovereignty over any part of the former Palestine mandate as anathema. They had, after all, supported a concerted attempt by the Arab world to destroy Israel before it even had a chance to become established. Even so, 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. In contrast, as a gesture of goodwill, Israel unilaterally released the frozen bank accounts and safe deposits of Arab refugees. Arab Responsibility for the Refugee Problem In 1973, Khaled al-'Azm, who served as Prime Minister of Syria in 1948 and 1949, published his memoirs in Beirut. In analyzing the reasons for the failed Arab attack against Israel in 1948, al-'Azm includes the following: The call by the Arab Governments to the inhabitants of Palestine to evacuate it and to leave for the bordering Arab countries, after having sown terror among them, following the incident at Deir Yassin. This collective flight helped the Jews, whose position improved, without any effort on their part. Let us try to imagine what would have happened if the inhabitants of Palestine, more than a million in number, had remained; what a fifth column they would have constituted and what continuous trouble their remaining would have caused the Government of the Jews! Since 1948 we have been demanding the return of the refugees to their homes. But we ourselves are the ones who encouraged them to leave. Only a few months separated between our call to them to leave and our appeal to the United Nations to resolve on their return. Is this a wise and stable policy? Is there harmony in such a programme? We have brought destruction upon a million Arab refugees, by calling upon them and pleading with them to leave their lands, their homes, their work and their business, and we have caused them to be barren and unemployed though each one of them had been working and qualified in a trade from which he could make a living. In addition, we accustomed them to begging for hand-outs and to suffice with what little the UN organisation would allocate them. Following the war, the Arab countries consistently refused to take steps necessary to improve the lives of the Palestinian refugees. In early 1950, the UN General Assembly established the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, with a budget of $54 million. UNRWA was charged with the task of employing the Palestinians on projects in the Arab states in which they resided. It was an explicit expectation of the program that within 18 months most of these refugees would be as self-supporting as their Arab neighbors, and relief handouts could be ended. However, when UNRWA officials initiated talks with the Arab governments, they encountered an uncompromising refusal to cooperate with any plan designed for economic integration. Arab leaders argued that Paragraph Eleven of General Assembly Resolution 194 of December 1948 guaranteed the refugees the right to return to their homes, and that they could not participate in any scheme that might compromise such a right. In fact, the Arab states themselves had voted unanimously against the resolution, since it envisaged peace negotiations with Israel. The refugee issue accordingly served as a useful obstacle to future discussions and as an effective lien on the world's conscience. By the end of 1950, as a result, no more than 10,000 of the refugees were employed. Throughout the 1950's, UNRWA put forward additional plans to resettle and rehabilitate the Palestinian refugees. Like the earlier plan, these too were rejected by the Arab countries, individually and through the Arab League. By 1959, UNRWA was obliged to report that its rehabilitation fund, created in 1950 to provide homes and jobs for Palestinian refugees outside the camps, had been boycotted by the Arabs. The fund had set a goal of $250 million, but after three years only $7 million had been spent, and a further $28 million lay unused in the fund. Thereafter, a small part of the money was used on agricultural development; the rest of the money was used to augment UNRWA's general reserves. Some of the Palestinians were formulating their own solution by then. In 1952, UNRWA observed that a good number of the Arab refugees had recently found homes and livelihoods in neighboring countries, in Iraq and the Persian Gulf states. At least 280,000 refugees had established themselves in Jordan and, by their own efforts, had become an integral part of that country's economy. For others, however, the situation was different. In January 1951, the "Committee of Palestine Refugees" in Lebanon wrote the Arab League political committee, observing that a return to their homes was less than imminent for most of the Palestinians. Until a political solution could be found they could hardly be left to rot in Arab countries without decent food, shelter or means of providing a livelihood. The letter suggested that the Arab states should at least provide those refugees willing to settle outside Palestine with the opportunity to do so. Yet the single affirmative response to this appeal was King Abdullah's decision to confer Jordanian citizenship on the 200,000-odd refugees of the West Bank. Of these, 100,000 found employment; the rest continued to live in camps on UNRWA's dole. By contrast, the refugees in Gaza were confined as virtual prisoners within the Strip. With the exception of perhaps 20,000 who managed to secure jobs in Iraq and the Persian Gulf area by 1951, they were denied employment or citizenship in Egypt itself. As a result of this situation, UNRWA relief aid became a fixture in the lives of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians. The "advantages" of refugee status were not unsubstantial. The refugees had access to health services. The incidence of sickness and death accordingly was lower among them than among the surrounding Arab populations. Some 45% of their children of school age received free education. While their rations were meager, they did not suffer from malnutrition. By the end of 1956, only 39% of registered refugees actually lived in UNRWA camps; yet nearly all of them drew UN rations. Israel, therefore, cannot be held solely responsible for the socio-economic problems of the Gaza refugees, which were created by deliberate Arab neglect before 1967. In 1959, UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold personally investigated the possibility of a comprehensive resettlement scheme in the Middle East. Such a scheme would, like the earlier recommendations of the UN Palestine Conciliation Commission, have been based on the general principle of resettling Arab refugees in Arab countries; as a result, it encountered Arab opposition and was dropped. Since UNRWA's inception, Arab countries have made totally inadequate contributions to its funding. UNRWA's annual budget, and deficits, have been covered almost entirely by Western countries; Arab states have made only token contributions, amounting to about 5% of the total budget. Over the years, Arab governments have placed a higher priority on the destruction of Israel than on the welfare of the Palestinian refugees. They perceived it as their interest to keep the bitterness and anger of the Palestinian refugees alive. For decades, in fact, Arab leaders used the Palestinians' misfortune to promote their efforts to undermine Israel, linking a return of refugees to Israel's destruction. In an interview to the Cairo journal "Al-Masri" on 11 October 1949, Egyptian Foreign Minister Muhammad Salah A-Din said: In demanding the return of the Palestinian refugees, the Arabs mean their return as masters, not slaves; or, to put it quite clearly -- the intention is the termination of Israel. This motif was repeated in later years, with President Nasser of Egypt saying, in a 1965 speech, that "Our aim is to restore the national rights of the Palestinian people, namely to destroy Israel." The Impact of the 1967 War The 1967 Six Day War, which resulted from a further attempt by the Arab states to destroy Israel, added new dimensions to the refugee problem, created new problems and opened up new possibilities. In the wake of its victory, Israel suddenly had to deal with large numbers of Arab refugees living under Israeli administration. They challenged Israel to apply and prove the approach it had advocated for resolving the refugee problem. New refugee problems emerged due to the flight of great numbers of West Bank inhabitants to Jordan. The political problem posed by the refusal of the Arab states to accept Israel's existence, which was always a major obstacle to a solution of the refugee problem, was further aggravated by Israel's success. While the Arab states' primary use of the West Bank had been as a staging area for attacking Israel, Israel's first concern in the administered territories was to prevent a disruption of essential services to the local population, including the refugees. On 14 June 1967, four days after the cease-fire became effective, the Israeli government reached agreement with UNRWA for the continued functioning of the agency. Israel also initiated public works projects in order to provide a livelihood for many refugees, and permitted them to find employment in the rapidly expanding economy of the territories and in the Israeli labor market. Along with economic development, public services were improved; a network of roads was built; water, electricity and sewage services were expanded; health services were enhanced; and new schools, in addition to those run by UNRWA in the refugee camps, were erected. A number of refugee |
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