Solomon2
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Wednesday, January 08, 2014
The PLO acknowledges the Jewish "right of return"
When the Palestine Papers were released by The Guardian and Al Jazeera in 2011, only stories that fit the narratives of those papers were published. I went through them at the time and found many astounding memos that the media ignored (and still ignore today.)
One of the biggest bombshells was a draft memo from the PLO's Negotiations Support Unit that detailed Jewish land ownership in the territories. I covered it here, but it is worth revisiting because it explicitly says that Jews have the "right of return" to areas they lived in before 1949.
Legally, the "right of return" doesn't exist in the way that the Palestinian Arabs and NGOs claim it does nowadays. However, the PLO realized that if they are going to claim the "right of return,", then Jews must have the exact same claims in the other direction:
Jews who were habitually resident before 1948 in the areas that became the OPT enjoy a right of return. It should be noted that the right of return extends not only to those persons who held the nationality of the prior sovereign, but also to persons who had a substantial connection to the prior state and who, therefore, were entitled to its nationality.3 The right also extends to the descendents of such Jews.
Furthermore, the right of return is separate and distinct from any property right the holder may also enjoy.4 That is, a person may have a right of return even if he does not own property in the home country. Conversely, a person may not necessarily enjoy a right of return even if he owns property in the country.
As of 1948, there were 500,000 to 600,000 Jews in Palestine. Most of them were not nationals of Palestine. Of the 400,000 or so Jews who immigrated to Palestine between the two World Wars, 100,000 were naturalized. So, probably fewer than half of pre-1948 Jews were nationals, but most were probably permanent residents.5 According to international law, Such Jewish Palestinian nationals or permanent residents have a right of residency in the future Palestinian state if they were residents of the areas that became Gaza and the WB.
To be sure, the memo tries to find reasons why it wouldn't apply (and it even mentions that if the PLO recognizes that Jews who were expelled from their homes are entitled to compensation, then Arab countries would have the same obligation - and this could affect relations between the PLO and Arab nations!)Furthermore, the right of return is separate and distinct from any property right the holder may also enjoy.4 That is, a person may have a right of return even if he does not own property in the home country. Conversely, a person may not necessarily enjoy a right of return even if he owns property in the country.
As of 1948, there were 500,000 to 600,000 Jews in Palestine. Most of them were not nationals of Palestine. Of the 400,000 or so Jews who immigrated to Palestine between the two World Wars, 100,000 were naturalized. So, probably fewer than half of pre-1948 Jews were nationals, but most were probably permanent residents.5 According to international law, Such Jewish Palestinian nationals or permanent residents have a right of residency in the future Palestinian state if they were residents of the areas that became Gaza and the WB.
Still, it would be difficult for the UN, Amnesty and Human Rights Watch to disagree with the main point - if the RoR exists, it exists for all. Even UNGA 194, touted as the source for the "right of return," doesn't distinguish between Jewish and Arab refugees of Palestine.
What this means is that, if the UN and EU and NGOs are to be consistent, they cannot regard some Jewish settlements as illegal.
For example, the PLO memo admits that Jews owned Atarot and Neve Yaakov and were expelled in 1948. It mentions parts of the old city of Hebron owned by Jews. Much of the Etzion bloc and areas near Maale Adumim are admitted by the PLO to be owned by Jews. And, of course, Jews owned land and lived in theOld City of Jerusalem. Significant portions of Gaza also belonged to Jews who became refugees in 1948.
Yet I have not seen any of these NGOs distinguish between land owned by Jews, land that Jews were expelled from, and any other land in the territories. I've never seen any of them call for the PLO (or Egypt or Jordan) to compensate Jews for land stolen from them in 1948.
On the contrary: the EU has condemned Israel allowing building in Neve Yaakov. The UN has called Gush Etzion "illegal."
So why do the NGOs that advocate the bogus "right of return" not recognize the symmetric rights of Jews?
The answer, as we've seen many times, is that the UN and EU and "human rights" NGOs set their policies irrespective of international law or logic or consistency. They then try to shoehorn bizarre interpretations of international law to their predetermined outcomes.
If they aren't going to be consistent about the application of actual international law, why should we expect consistency when they apply incorrect interpretations of that same law?
