54th Anniversary of UN Resolution 194

54th Anniversary of UN General Assembly
Resolution 194(III)

The ROAD MAP REMAINS RELEVANT MORE
than 50 YEARS LATER


Today marks the 54th anniversary of UN General
Assembly Resolution 194(III) (11 December 1948)
affirming the right of Palestinian refugees and
displaced persons to return and repossess their
homes and property and receive compensation for
damages and losses. When members of the United
Nations overwhelmingly voted in favor of
Resolution 194 more than five decades ago, it
not only reflected a truly humanitarian approach
towards hundreds of thousands of Palestinian
refugees; it also reflected a well thought out
legal approach to the plight of men, women and
children, who by no fault of their own, found
themselves brutally uprooted from the only place
they knew as home.

Resolution 194 did not create new law or rights -
it simply reflected existing law and practice.
This included the prohibition that people should
not be uprooted and expelled from their homeland
or arbitrarily deprived of their nationality. It
also reflected basic human rights set forth in
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
adopted by the General Assembly one day prior to
the Resolution. Among the "equal and inalienable
rights of all members of the human family" is
the right of return and the right to property.
Two years prior to the mass displacement and
expulsion of Palestinian refugees, the United
Nations had already affirmed that "the main task
concerning displaced persons is to encourage and
assist in every way their early return to their
countries of origin." (ECOSOC Res. 8/1, 1946)

Resolution 194 also reflected the deepest wishes
of the refugees themselves. "Every day I say
tomorrow will be better, and a hundred times I
tell myself we will go back home," a young
refugee told international relief workers in
Gaza in 1949. "As you want to live in your
house, with your family, so I want to live in
mine." In public hearings across the region,
American, French and Turkish members (the
'Trio') of the UN Conciliation Commission for
Palestine (UNCCP) took note of the "unanimous
desire" among refugees to return to their homes.
"The Commission was impressed by expressions of
these spokesmen for the return of refugees to
their homes to live there in peace with their
neighbors."

In keeping with these findings, and consistent
with international legal obligations, the United
States, the primary member of the UNCCP advised
that "We should use our best efforts, through
the Conciliation Commission and through
diplomatic channels, to insure the
implementation of the General Assembly
resolution of December 11, 1948; We should
endeavor to persuade Israel to accept the return
of those refugees who so desire, in the
interests of justice and as evidence of its
desire to establish amicable relations with the
Arab world; We should furnish advice and
guidance to the governments of the Arab states
in the task of absorbing into their economic and
social structures those refugees who do not wish
to return to Israel." (Policy Paper, Department
of State, 'Palestine Refugees', 15 March 1949)

Today, however, the mere mention of the right of
return continues to send shivers up the spines
of most international policy makers including
most members of the so-called 'Quartet' (US, EU,
Russia, and the UN). Those who speak about
return, including refugees themselves, are
quickly dismissed as dreamers, impractical, and
irrelevant. Some international think tanks even
go so far as to suggest that in the Palestinian
case the basic human right of return is at war
with peace. No one bothers to explain what makes
Palestinian refugees so different from every
other refugee in the world. No one bothers to
explain why basic human rights, including return
and restitution, do not apply to Palestinian
refugees. No one bothers to explain why a
Palestinian refugee who expresses a sincere
desire to return and live in peace as a citizen
of Israel is accused of incitement, as a
supporter of violence, or even terrorism.

How ironic that as the international community
seeks to 'bring' the Palestinian people into the
fold of nations, it also seeks to permanently
exclude Palestinian refugees, who comprise the
majority of the Palestinian people, from those
universal rights accorded to individuals around
the world. This it seems is the 'historic
compromise', the 'price of peace' demanded of
the Palestinian people. In all fairness, the
'price' is 'historic' - no other refugee group
has been so pressured to cede basic rights at
both the starting point and end game of
negotiations. This so-called 'compromise' for
'peace,' however, cannot even be characterized
as the proverbial 'emperor with no clothes.' The
real compromise that is demanded is the
emperor's very soul.

Why? Most international policy makers that
avoid, contest, or even deride the right of
return in the Palestinian case point to the
balance of power. The argument is not without
its merits. Israel has used blatant military,
legal and administrative power to block the
return of Palestinian refugees. Then again, so
did Slobodan Milosevic in Bosnia and Kosovo. The
difference is that in the Balkans the
international community did not shy away from
challenging the underlying ethnic, national, and
religious policies governing the use of power to
first expel and then block the return of
refugees. This is where the international
community and its policy wonks fall silent in
the Palestinian case. This is where support for
multi-ethnic democracies and respect for human
rights becomes nothing more than chimera. Even
the occasional article in the Israeli press is
more honest. If Israel would joint the EU,
recently noted one commentator (Ha'aretz, 10-12-
02), it "would have to nullify the Law of Return
[...] and all of the laws that
discriminate favourably toward Jews. [...] In doing so, it would all at once
become a 'state of all its citizens'" - including Palestinian refugees.

In spite of the shameful lack of
political support from western powers for human rights and international
law
as a framework for crafting durable solutions for Palestinian refugees, the
'road map' to a durable peace in Palestine/Israel, adopted by the
international
community in New York
on 11 December 1948 is as relevant today as it was more than 50 years ago.
The
conformity of Resolution 194 with the development of international legal
principles and state practice over the past five decades lends further
weight
to its value as a normative framework for durable solutions for
Palestinian refugees today. From Africa, to
Asia, to Central America, to Europe, the
international community has lent its support for
more than 50 years to those refugees simply
seeking to go home, recognizing that a durable
peace is not possible against the unrequited
desire and right of refugees to return home.
Palestinian refugees deserve no less.