Palestinian Refugees Insist: ‘No Alternative to Right of Return’
Israel: Palestinians Can Only Return to Their Future State

17/08/2003

Palestine Media Center- (PMC) [Offical arm of the PA]
http://www.palestine-pmc.com/details.asp?cat=1&id=996

A Palestinian “No Alternative to Right of Return Conference” in the West
Bank city of Ramallah on Saturday stressed that “it is impossible to achieve
a just and comprehensive peace” without guaranteeing the right of return for
“all” Palestinian refugees, amid an Israeli official and non-official
rejection of a statement by the PNA Foreign Minister to the same conclusion.

Hundreds of Palestinian representatives meeting in Ramallah condemned
“suspicious and marginal campaigns, which do not represent refugees,” and
compromise their Right of Return, the official news agency WAFA reported.

“The Right of Return is a legitimate right, guaranteed by international (UN)
resolutions. It is an individual as well a collective right. Nobody may
compromise it or waive it away,” the conference affirmed.

The conference was attended by representatives of various national, popular
and official institutions, and was organized by the Palestinian “National
Committee to Defend the Right of Return” and the “Grouping of the Natives of
Palestinian Villages and Towns Displaced in 1948,” which is based in
Ramallah.

Saji Salamah represented the Department of Refugees at the Palestine
Liberation Organization (PLO). He highlighted the importance of the
conference to stress the Palestinian people’s Right of Return, and reviewed
the United Nations resolutions guaranteeing this right, singling out the UN
General Assembly’s resolution number 194 in particular.

Salamah urged Israel to recognize its responsibility for the displacement of
Palestinian refugees and stressed that “peace cannot be achieved without
resolving the issue of refugees on a basis accepted by our people.”

Other representatives included Qais Abdul Kareem, a leader of the Democratic
Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), which is a PLO member, Jamal
al-Shati, chairman of the Refugees Committee at the Palestinian Legislative
Council (PLC), and Waleed Rajab who represented the natives of Palestinian
villages and towns whom the Zionist paramilitary gangs displaced by force in
1948.

Return of Refugees to Their Homeland is a must: Sha’ath

On Friday the Palestine National Authority (PNA) Foreign Minister Nabil
Shaath stated in Beirut that the right of return for Palestinian refugees to
their homes in Israel or the territories the Jewish state occupied in 1967
was guaranteed under the US-sponsored “roadmap” for peace.

"No condition has been set for a return (only) to an independent Palestinian
state. The right of return is no longer an illusion. It is an integral part
of the Arab peace initiative, which is one of the reference points in the
roadmap,” Shaath said, speaking at a hotel in the Lebanese capital Beirut.

"I want to be clear: this right includes returning to an independent state
and to Palestinian cities in the Jewish state. Whether a person returns to
Haifa (Israel) or to Nablus (West Bank), their return is guaranteed,” he
confirmed, quoted by AFP.

The minister was referring to the Saudi initiative adopted by Arab League
summit meeting in Beirut in March 2002.

The initiative calls on Israel to withdraw completely from the lands it
occupied in the 1967 war in return for normal ties with the Arab world, and
says there should be a “just solution” to the Palestinian refugee problem.

Sha'ath described the Palestinian refugee right of a return as "an integral
part of the Arab peace initiative, which is one of the reference points in
the roadmap.”

"We do not see a solution for our brothers [Palestinian refugees] in Lebanon
except their return to their homeland,” declared Sha'ath. "There is no other
political solution. The return to their homeland is a must.”

Israel Categorically Rejects Refugees’ Right to Return

Sha’ath’s statements drew furious Israeli reactions, both official and
non-official.

Israeli government spokesman Avi Pazner said the contention by Sha’ath was
false and unhelpful. He reiterated that Israel would never let the refugees
back in under any conditions, AFP reported.

"It's a statement that can only hurt things because it's false," he said.
"The roadmap says absolutely nothing about the (refugees') right of return
and this statement is detrimental” to implementation of the roadmap.

"Israel has no intention, under any circumstance and within any framework,
of accepting the return of refugees in Israeli cities which Nabil Shaath
terms Palestinian cities,” Pazner told AFP.

"The (refugee) Palestinians, if they want, can return to their future
state,” he said, referring to the ultimate goal of the US-sponsored
“roadmap,” drafted and adopted by the United States, Russia, United Nations
and European Union.

Israeli Health Minister Dan Naveh said any advances in the “roadmap” should
be dependent on Palestinians giving up the right of return to and within
Israel.

Similarly the opposition Labor party leader and MP Shimon Peres said that
Sha’ath’s statement was “unnecessary” and would not help the prospects of
reaching a settlement to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

“Israel would never risk its demographic situation and it seems the
Palestinians are preoccupied with issues that will never be realized,” Peres
said.

Meretz MP Ran Cohen called on the Palestine National Authority (PNA) Prime
Minister Mahmud Abbas to reject Sha’ath’s statement, and to clarify that
Israel and the PNA have a joint interest in finding solutions for the
refugee problem within the borders of a Palestinian state, and not in
Israel.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who signed onto the “roadmap” at a June
4 summit in Aqaba, Jordan, convened by US President George W. Bush, was
adamant that it included no right of return for Palestinian refugees.

"I will not allow any Palestinian refugee to come back to Israel, never,”
the prime minister told a convention of his right-wing Likud Party four days
later.

"I was clear in the past and I repeated it in Aqaba: the question of the
Palestinian refugees cannot be resolved on Israeli territory,” he said.

“The American administration fully understands the threat that the return of
Palestinian refugees would represent for the existence of the Hebrew state.”