Sixty-Six Years of Ongoing Nakba – Back to Basics: The Right of Return is a National and Inalienable Right

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May 15, 2014 Israel
[Palestinian family in al-Ramla, 1948. Image via Palestine Remembered] [Palestinian family in al-Ramla, 1948. Image via Palestine Remembered]

Sixty-Six Years of Ongoing Nakba – Back to Basics: The Right of Return is a National and Inalienable Right

By : Jadaliyya Reports

[The following press release was issued by the below signatories on the occassion of the sixty-sixth commermoration of the Nakba.]

On the 66th commemoration of the Nakba, the movement for Palestinian liberation is in disarray. Political parties are divided, the Palestine Liberation Organization is dysfunctional, the Palestinian Authority is dependent on foreign donors with ulterior agendas and a collective national strategy is absent. Institutions do not fulfill their purposes and the Palestinian people’s capacity for grassroots mobilization is frayed.

These elements provide an opportunity for the Israeli regime to unilaterally impose ‘facts on the ground’ and its advocate, the USA, to strong-arm an unjust political solution. Both developments undermine the Right of Return of the Palestinian refugees – the core of the Palestinian cause.

Israel denies the Right of Return to the homes of origin for 7.4 million Palestinian refugees and Internally Displaced Persons. Meanwhile, Israel maintains efforts to resettle Palestinian refugees in exile and its leadership increasingly demands international recognition of the State of Israel as an exclusive Jewish state. As the Oslo negotiations falter forward, Israel attempts to legitimize ‘land swaps’, annexation of Area C, and control over natural resources especially fresh water. Additionally, Israel displaces Palestinians particularly targeting the Gaza Strip, the Jordan Valley, East Jerusalem and the Naqab.

As a consequence, Palestinians live under military control in the West Bank, under siege in the Gaza Strip, under institutional discrimination within Israel-proper and East Jerusalem, and in heartbreaking conditions throughout the exile.

Palestinians previously seeking refuge in Syria are living a multiplied catastrophe. They are undergoing war, further displacement, and the destruction of their lives in Yarmouk, Nierab, Sit Sainab, Khan Al Shiekh, Dar’a and other locations throughout Syria where Palestinian refugees resided. Palestinians doubly displaced to countries including Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey and Egypt face further humiliation and unbearable conditions leading many Palestinians to attempt escape by sea – a desperate act resulting in the deaths of hundreds of Palestinian refugees and those who disappeared without public acknowledgment.

66 years of continuous displacement instructs the Palestinian people to revert to our fundamental principles of justice and equality, and place faith in our people across the globe rather than incapacitated international and Palestinian institutions. This era calls for a return to the basics.

We, the undersigned organizations, affirm the following:

  1. After 66 years of targeted displacement by the Israeli regime, 66 percent of the Palestinian people are refugees or Internally Displaced Persons. Both in principle and practice, the Right of Return is a necessary condition for achieving self-determination of the fragmented and exiled Palestinian body politic;
  2. International law endows Palestinian refugees with the right to voluntary return to their homes, to restoration of their properties and to compensation. This inalienable Right of Return is not subject to negotiation, bartering, surrender or expiration;
  3. Displaced Palestinians hold the Right of Return collectively and individually. The right is only fulfilled when an individual is able to exercise his or her free choice;
  4. United Nations resolution 181 (1947) to partition Palestine into two states led to the displacement of between 750,000 and 900,000 Palestinians. Thus, the international community codified its responsibility to provide legal and physical international protection, humanitarian assistance and enable the Right of Return to the homes of origin for all refugees and displaced Palestinians through General Assembly resolution 194 (1948) and Security Council resolution 237 (1967);
  5. The Palestinian people’s heroic resilience and resistance to Israel’s denial of the Right of Return, to ongoing displacement of Palestinians and to absent international protection requires that an institution such as the Palestine Liberation Organization be based on authentic representation and inclusivity.

Longing for freedom and liberation, we say YES to Palestinian representation and holistic international protection, and NO to detracting from any of the rights of refugees.

 

Signed by the following organizations, institutions and coalitions:

1.       BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights

2.       Occupied Palestine and Syrian Golan Heights Advocacy Initiative (OPGAI)

3.       Defence for Children International - Palestine

4.       Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association

5.       Center for Defense of Liberties and Civil Rights "Hurryyat"

6.       Popular Struggling Coordination Committee (PSCC)

7.       Palestinian Grassroots Anti-apartheid Wall Campaign (Stop the Wall)

8.       Kairos Palestine

9.       Civic Coalition for Palestinian Rights in Jerusalem

10.     Union of Health Work Committees

11.     Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights

12.     Golan for development

13.     Alternative Information Center

14.     Alternative Tourism Group

15.     Joint Advocacy Initiative

16.     Land Research Center (LCR)

17.     Palestine land Society

18.     Environmental Education Center

19.     Baladna - Association for Arab Youth - Palestine

20.     The Palestinian Center of Youth Action for Community Development (LAYLAC)

21.     Lajee Center, Aida Refugee Camp

22.     Popular Committee for Refugees, Qalqeliah

23.     Popular Committee for Refugees, Salfit

24.     Social Youth Center, Aqbat Jaber Refugee Camp

25.     Social Youth Center, Aida Refugee Camp

26.     Muntada Al-Tawasol Association, Gaza

27.     Shoruq Association, Dhiesheh Refugee Camp

28.     Ansar Center, Walajeh

29.     Ibda’a for the Development of Children Capacity, Dhiesheh Refugee Camp

30.     Al- Rowwad Center, Aida Refugee Camp

31.     International Women`s Peace Service/ Palestine

32.     International Organization for the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (EAFORD)

33.     Union of Arab Jurists- Geneva

34.     General Arab Women Federation

35.     Housing and Land Rights Network/ Habitat International Coalition

36.     International Youth and Students Movement at the UN

37.     Mouvement contre le racisme et pour l’amitié entre les peuples (MRAP)

38.     Association Latino-Américaine Nueva Utopía

39.     Geneva International Centre for Justice

40.     Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel- Spain

41.     Red Solidaria contra la Ocupación de Palestina (RESCOP) –Spain

42.     Asociacion Palestina Biladi- Spain

43.     Slovenia Solidarity Committee- Slovenia

44.     Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement- Slovenia

45.     Greece Committee for the Right of Return- Greece

46.     Association of Tunisians in Switzerland- Switzerland

47.     Tamkeen-Arab Group- Switzerland

48.     Association Belgo-Palestinienne- Belgium

49.     Palestina Solidariteit- Belgium

50.     Friends of Al-Aqsa- United Kingdom

51.     Boycott Divestment and Sanctions Italia- Italy

52.     Palestina Rossa- Italy

53.     Fronte Palestina- Italy

54.     Rete di Solidarieta’ con la Palestina – Milano - Italy

55.     Friends of Sabeel - Sacramento Region- United States of America

56.     Palestinian Association of Stockholm- Sweden

57.     Committee for Fair Peace in the Middle East (CPJP) - Luxembourg

58.     Finnish-Arab Friendship Society- Finland

59.     French Jewish Union for Peace (UJFP) - France

60.     Nederlands Palestina Committee (NPK)- the Netherlands

61.     Palästinensische Gemeinde Deutschland (PGD) e.V.- Germany

62.     Palästinensische Gemeinde Bonn e.V.- Germany

63.     Boycott Divestment and Sanctions Group Bonn - Germany

64.     Palestine Aid – North Ireland

65.     Society for Austro-Arab Relations- Austria

66.     Women in Black- Vienna- Austria

67.     Services and Research Centre Palestine - the Netherlands

68.     Solidarity for Development and Peace(SODePAZ)- Spain

 

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Feb 16, 2011 Lebanon
Jadaliyya Reports By :
Jadaliyya Reports

Past is Present: Settler Colonialism Matters!

On 5-6 March 2011, the Palestine Society at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London will hold its seventh annual conference, "Past is Present: Settler Colonialism in Palestine." This year`s conference aims to understand Zionism as a settler colonial project which has, for more than a century, subjected Palestine and Palestinians to a structural and violent form of destruction, dispossession, land appropriation and erasure in the pursuit of a new Jewish Israeli society. By organizing this conference, we hope to reclaim and revive the settler colonial paradigm and to outline its potential to inform and guide political strategy and mobilization.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is often described as unique and exceptional with little resemblance to other historical or ongoing colonial conflicts. Yet, for Zionism, like other settler colonial projects such as the British colonization of Ireland or European settlement of North America, South Africa or Australia, the imperative is to control the land and its resources -- and to displace the original inhabitants. Indeed, as conference keynote speaker Patrick Wolfe, one of the foremost scholars on settler colonialism and professor at La Trobe University in Victoria, Australia, argues, "the logic of this project, a sustained institutional tendency to eliminate the Indigenous population, informs a range of historical practices that might otherwise appear distinct--invasion is a structure not an event."[i]

Therefore, the classification of the Zionist movement as a settler colonial project, and the Israeli state as its manifestation, is not merely intended as a statement on the historical origins of Israel, nor as a rhetorical or polemical device. Rather, the aim is to highlight Zionism`s structural continuities and the ideology which informs Israeli policies and practices in Palestine and toward Palestinians everywhere. Thus, the Nakba -- whether viewed as a spontaneous, violent episode in war, or the implementation of a preconceived master plan -- should be understood as both the precondition for the creation of Israel and the logical outcome of Zionist settlement in Palestine.

Moreover, it is this same logic that sustains the continuation of the Nakba today. As remarked by Benny Morris, “had he [David Ben Gurion] carried out full expulsion--rather than partial--he would have stabilised the State of Israel for generations.”[ii] Yet, plagued by an “instability”--defined by the very existence of the Palestinian nation--Israel continues its daily state practices in its quest to fulfill Zionism’s logic to maximize the amount of land under its control with the minimum number of Palestinians on it. These practices take a painful array of manifestations: aerial and maritime bombardment, massacre and invasion, house demolitions, land theft, identity card confiscation, racist laws and loyalty tests, the wall, the siege on Gaza, cultural appropriation, and the dependence on willing (or unwilling) native collaboration and security arrangements, all with the continued support and backing of imperial power. 

Despite these enduring practices however, the settler colonial paradigm has largely fallen into disuse. As a paradigm, it once served as a primary ideological and political framework for all Palestinian political factions and trends, and informed the intellectual work of committed academics and revolutionary scholars, both Palestinians and Jews.

The conference thus asks where and why the settler colonial paradigm was lost, both in scholarship on Palestine and in politics; how do current analyses and theoretical trends that have arisen in its place address present and historical realities? While acknowledging the creativity of these new interpretations, we must nonetheless ask: when exactly did Palestinian natives find themselves in a "post-colonial" condition? When did the ongoing struggle over land become a "post-conflict" situation? When did Israel become a "post-Zionist" society? And when did the fortification of Palestinian ghettos and reservations become "state-building"?

In outlining settler colonialism as a central paradigm from which to understand Palestine, this conference re-invigorates it as a tool by which to analyze the present situation. In doing so, it contests solutions which accommodate Zionism, and more significantly, builds settler colonialism as a political analysis that can embolden and inform a strategy of active, mutual, and principled Palestinian alignment with the Arab struggle for self-determination, and indigenous struggles in the US, Latin America, Oceania, and elsewhere.

Such an alignment would expand the tools available to Palestinians and their solidarity movement, and reconnect the struggle to its own history of anti-colonial internationalism. At its core, this internationalism asserts that the Palestinian struggle against Zionist settler colonialism can only be won when it is embedded within, and empowered by, the broader Arab movement for emancipation and the indigenous, anti-racist and anti-colonial movement--from Arizona to Auckland.

SOAS Palestine Society invites everyone to join us at what promises to be a significant intervention in Palestine activism and scholarship.

For over 30 years, SOAS Palestine Society has heightened awareness and understanding of the Palestinian people, their rights, culture, and struggle for self-determination, amongst students, faculty, staff, and the broader public. SOAS Palestine society aims to continuously push the frontiers of discourse in an effort to make provocative arguments and to stimulate debate and organizing for justice in Palestine through relevant conferences, and events ranging from the intellectual and political impact of Edward Said`s life and work (2004), international law and the Palestine question (2005), the economy of Palestine and its occupation (2006), the one state (2007), 60 Years of Nakba, 60 Years of Resistance (2009), and most recently, the Left in Palestine (2010).

For more information on the SOAS Palestine Society 7th annual conference, Past is Present: Settler Colonialism in Palestine: www.soaspalsoc.org

SOAS Palestine Society Organizing Collective is a group of committed students that has undertaken to organize annual academic conferences on Palestine since 2003.

 

[i] Patrick Wolfe, Settler Colonialism and the Transformation of Anthropology: The Politics and Poetics of an Ethnographic Event, Cassell, London, p. 163

[ii] Interview with Benny Morris, Survival of the Fittest, Haaretz, 9. January 2004, http://cosmos.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/php/art.php?aid=5412