BF2S Forums This forum believes Palestinians should give up their right of return.

The right of Palestinian people to return and claim their lands and property in what is now Israel is a highly controversial issue. There is no doubt that they are entitled to do this, their right of return is enshrined in 4 seperate bodies of international law. The Palestinian government refuses to give up this right and the Israeli government refuse to allow the Palestinian people to exercise their right, claiming that adhesion to this law would lead to "the destruction of the Jewish state".

For those who are unfamiliar with the concept of the right of return, Wikipedia describes it as:

The term Right of return refers to the principle in international law that members of an ethnic or national group have a right to immigration and naturalization into the country that they, the destination country, or both consider to be that group's homeland, independent of prior personal citizenship in that country.

UN General Assmbly Resolution 194 calls for the Palestinian refugees to be allowed to return to their homes and all branches of international law back the Palestinians claim to their lands.

Should the Palestinian people give up this right, in the hopes that it may help the peace process? What if it does nothing to help the peace process? It is their last legal right and the central principle that the Palestinian people have been fighting to preserve for decades. If they give it up they have nothing left but the hope that their sacrifice will bring peace.

Many of those who oppose this motion believe that should Israel acknowledge the right of return of the Palestinian people and that this acknowledgement would add a dimension to the peace process that has never been seen before.

The supporters of this motion believe that should the Palestinians surrender their right of return, as Israel have requested they do on numerous occasions, the peace process could move forward and that the Israeli government would be more inclined to make greater concessions for peace.

Illan Pappe of Haifa University is one of those who opposes the motion.

My parents were German Jews who were kicked out of Germany and most of their relatives were killed in the holocaust. Because of this, I strongly support any struggle against oppression, dispossession, colonisation, like the one that has been inflicted on the Palestinian in the past and in the present. I believe that by acknowledging the right of return, Israel will acknowledge the ethnic cleansing it perpetrated against the Palestinians in 1948 when it dispossessed half of Palestines population, demolished half of Palestines villages and destroyed half of Palestines towns. This ethnic cleansing is the cause and the root of the problem.
I believe that by acknowledging the right of return Israel would be transformed from a racist and ethnic state into a democratic state. Where the prinicple of one person, one vote, would be the basis for the state and not the ethnicity and religion of the person. If we look at the peace process and the peace efforts ever since the creation of the state of Israel, all these efforts have failed because of the attempt to bypass the right of return, which is acknowledged by the United Nations, and to bypass the refugee issues. Therefore all the peace efforts so far have produced more bloodshed and more hostility.
By accepting the right of return as the basis for a comprehensive solution in Palestine, we can bring peace and reconciliation to Palestine, stability to the Middle East and also significantly improve the relationship between the West and the Arab and Islamic world.

Yossi Beilin, a member of the Knesset, is a supporter of the motion.

There won't be peace, without a solution to the refugee problem. A solution that is dignified, a solution which is fair, a solution which is agreed upon by both sides. There is no Israeli partner, from the right or from the left,
who is going to agree, that there will be both a Palestinian state based on the '67 borders and side by side there will be an Israel with a Palestinian majority, it will not happen. So, people can say "let them continue and fight for it" but it will not be implemented in Israel. And this is why I believe that, when you speak about a solution, when we speak about a compromise, we must speak about a solution. There are dreams on both sides, Israelis dream about a greater Israel, about a Jerusalem united, about sovreignty over the temple mount, al-ḥaram al-qudsī ash-sharīf, but they know that eventually al-ḥaram al-qudsī ash-sharīf will be under Palestinian sovreignty, if they want peace. The same goes for the Palestinians, who know that sometimes you use the right of return just to provoke Israelis and say you must give it to us, knowing that if you speak about the right of return there is no compromise, there is no peace. The role of the politicians is not to kill these dreams, people may go on and dream, the role of the politicians is to prevent these dreams from becoming nightmares, and this is what we are trying to do.

Is the right of return an obstacle to the peace process or is it an important part of any workable solution?

Should the Palestinian people who have; no free movement, no right to work, no secure tenure, give up this right of return and trust the Israeli government, who have continued to expand their settlements which are deemed illegal by Britain and most other countries. Would the sacrifice of this right be the key to a package that could bring peace, or is it yet another right of the Palestinians that Israel seek to erode in order to strengthen their own position in this conflict?