Fate of refugees still divides Israel, Palestine

By Inge Guenther

JERUSALEM (DPA): Trying to reconcile the Palestinian refugees' absolute insistence on preserving their right to return to the land they fled when Israel was born in 1948 with the Israeli fear that a flood of returning Palestinians would destroy the Jewish character of their country is one of the biggest problems facing negotiators for the two sides in the current Camp David meetings.

The refugees, promised the right to return to the land they left behind by United Nations Resolution 184, have helped to keep the Arab-Israeli conflict boiling for years now. Palestinian insistence on that right spawned the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in 1974 and fanned the flames during the years of the Intifada. For many Palestinians, the idea of compromising that right is the same as high treason.

The very size of the problem itself helps make any hope of the refugees returning to their promised land after a peace agreement between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat seem unrealistic.

Numbering more than 3.6 million, the Palestinians make up the world's largest group of refugees. About a third of them live in refugee camps operated by the United Nations Works and Relief Agency. Most of them are the descendants of the 700,000 panicky Palestinians who fled ahead of advancing Israeli troops during the 1948 war for Israeli independence. Some of them were forced to uproot themselves a second time and flee again during the 1967 Six-Day War.

For all Palestinians, Israel's Independence Day -- May 9 -- marks el nakba, the anniversary of the start of their diaspora. Thousands of refugee families still have the keys to their houses in Haifa or Jaffa or in the villages of Galilee. But, the houses now stand right in the middle of Israel's heartland if they still stand at all, housing Jewish immigrants who moved in on the heels of the fleeing Palestinians. Often, Arab property was razed, flattened to make way for a kibbutz or a supermarket.

By now, even the Israelis agree that the Palestinian refugees should be compensated for their lost property and they have even said they are willing to contribute a "substantial" sum to an international foundation, one administered perhaps by Sweden or Canada. But Barak still flatly rejects the idea that Israel has a moral responsibility for the refugee problem, just as he rejects the idea of the refugees returning to what used to be their land.

The Israelis see the plight of the refugees primarily as the result of an Arab war of aggression and partly as the consequence of PLO policies calculated to keep international awareness focused on Palestinian interests.

Arafat, on the other hand, still insists that Israel recognize the Palestinian right to return, at least in principle.

As irreconcilable as those two positions sound at first, some signs indicate they may still allow some room for interpretation. Barak, for instance, has indicated that Israel could absorb as many as 100,000 refugees as part of a program of reuniting families. Were the Palestinians to accept that step as a recognition of their demand, Israel would hardly object and both sides would have saved face.

The Palestinian side could learn to live with that sort of arrangement. Arafat's adviser on refugee matters, Mohammed Rashid, recently suggested US$20 billion as an acceptable sum for Israeli reparation payments to displaced Palestinians.

Beyond that, the Palestinian Autonomy authorities are already working on developing a repatriation program for the state of Palestine -- which will include the West Bank and Gaza Strip regions -- that would operate regardless of the outcome in Camp David. The 300,000 refugees living under particularly dehumanizing and oppressive conditions in Lebanon are supposed to be the first to benefit from that program.

Because the Palestinian public is still far from ready for a pragmatic solution that may involve compromises, Arafat has to play for time to sell his constituency on that idea.