If Palestine drops the refugees' right of return to Israel, would the peace process become successful?

Question

It seems to me that this is the thorn in the side for Israel, that they cannot compromise on something that they didn't create. It is punishment for a defensive war that was made necessary by the rejection of the partition by Arab and Palestinian leaders. The Arab armies attacked first and told the refugees to leave. Many just got caught in the crossfire or chose to leave beforehand because they didn't like the partition and decided to move elsewhere into Arab-held territory. Israel is willing to compromise on Jerusalem and do a land swap with the building of houses or financial compensation for the settlements along the '67 border. They will clear out any others and return the seized land. They also could be asked to clear out any other settlements that are smaller and in the way. So it seems to me this is the issue that can't be resolved.

It reads on the Fateh website that 'the refugee's right of return is the winning hand for (our desire for) the end of the Israeli state'.

I understand the anger and cynicism but it won't solve this problem and means that Israelis maintain the occupation of Palestine and Palestinians live under occupation. I think the situation is intolerable for both. This needs to solved for both sides. I don't condone racism, intifadas, rockets, terrorism or the hard line on refugees. Still, they live without aid, jobs, decent housing, movement, access to their own land, and do not have their homeland free of settlements and with East Jerusalem as a capital. I can understand a moderate argument in support of a Palestinian homeland. It is the political mentality of Palestine that works against them but they don't see it that way.

Answer 1

The right of return is only one of the vexing problems that need to be resolved in trying to achieve peace.
But in respone to this particular point, let me ask you:

Would you be satisfied if I told you I made a new country for my people where your home/property is and said sorry, here's a few bucks for your troubles? Go live in Canada. They speak English.

Would that be ok with you?

Israel is not going to let all of these people back because demographically it would be a disaster for them. Interestingly, many Jews claim that the vast majority of Palestinian displacement was at their own hands and that the Israeli tried to get them to stay, didn't want them to leave, and issued edicts sanctifying their property. Really, I wasn't their so I can't say. But, the preplexing part of this argument is that if that was really the case, why would they not welcome them back after hostilities ended? Wouldn't the same demographic issues have been present for the new state of Israel that are present now? That is why I am skeptical about the claim that Israel did not want anyone to leave and therefore it's not their problem to solve.

While Israel may make some token land return jestures, it is not going to dismantle major settlements in the occupied land that international law does not allow them to keep. They need to change the "facts on the ground" by installing as many settlers as possible to justify keeping us much land as possible and that is what they are doing.

I wish that both sides were honestly trying to achieve peace, but most of the major players on both sides are not. Sometimes it seems baffling to us on the outside, but that is because we (hopefully) are trying to look at the problem objectively and fairly. For the people of the region on both sides, that is usually not possible. There is too much emotion and national identity and pride written into the equation.

Answer 2

It would help a bit, and it is a vital and neccessary step, but it will not make the peace process successful.

That is because the underlying flaw of the peace process is still not addressed. The underlying flaw is who Israel's negotiating partners are. If the partners are terrorists whose stated goal is to destroy Israel then nothing else matters. It is doomed to fail. The past 14 years have taught us nothing else but that.
Address that problem, and there may be hope. Then again, the situation on the ground indicates that it will be a problem for decades to come.

Answer 3

There will never be peace between Arabs and Jews. Period.Ehud Barak laid everything the Palestinians wanted on the table and Arafat backed away. Israel has bent over backwards trying to achieve a secure peace. Nothing works. They gave the Gaza strip to the Palestinians. They responded by firing rockets into Israel from Gaza, as Netanyahu said they would. There will never be peace between Arabs and Jews.

Answer 4

I'm sorry to disabuse you of your mistaken idea of history, but in fact the Zionist/Israelis DID create the refugee problem. That is historical fact. Benny Morris, authoritative Zionist historian who studied Isreali military archives of the 1948 war, determined that 80% of the refugees left because of Zionist military actions. For example, upon the surrender of an Arab village, selecting a few men and executing them, shooting a bunch of civilians or POWs and dumping their bodies into wells, blowing up houses or mosques with the people inside, killing them. Zionist/Israeli forces did this numerous times in that war.

It is true that the Arabs didn't like the partition, but given the number of atrocities committed by Zionist forces before the Arab armies attacked the statement that "the Arab armies attacked first" is arguable, and certainly far from the whole truth. It is true in a minority of cases Arab forces or local leadership decided to tell their civilians to evacuate to avoid threats to their life, but mostly it was the Zionists with a clear goal of getting rid of as many Arabs as possible to create the Jewish state, a goal some Zionists had advocated for 50 years.

Your statement that Israel is willing to compromise on Jerusalem seems more like you are falling for Israeli doublespeak - when they say "compromise," they mean Israel gets pretty much all of it, including the land underneath the Al-Aqsa mosque, and maybe rename the village of Abu Dis several kilometers away to Al Quds ("the Holy"), an Arab name for Jerusalem. But anyway, why should Israel keep any of occupied East Jerusalem? It doesn't belong to them under international law.

The sum this "compromise" and all those offered by Israel is that Israel gets to keep large portions of the land that doesn't belong to it in the West Bank, all of the confiscated land inside the greenline with not even an offer of acknowlegdement or compensation for the ethnic cleansing.

The Palestinian organizations cannot give up the right of return, because it's an individual right. Individuals can and have given it up. To get Palestinian organizations to "give up" that right and to get them to cede more of the occupied territories, Israel has applied extreme duress. Before Hamas was elected something like 40% of all Gazans were "food insecure," and malnutrition among children was widespread. Not to mention requiring permits of Palestinians for just about everything and denying them at a whim, beatings, bombings, torture, murder of Palestinians allowed in many cases with impunity, pogroms and forced exile applied over the years (see http://www.btselem.com). Israel's "compromise" amounts to taking territory and land by state violence applied at many levels on behalf of one ethnic group.

If Israel agreed to get completely out of the occupied territories and allow Palestinian sovereignity, it would be a big step towards peace. But that is unlikely, even if every single Palestinian agreed to give up their right of return.

Answer 5

Who cares