NOVANEWS
The Right of Return Conference was held at Boston University on April 6 and 7, 2013. The conference featured keynote presentations by Dr. Salman Abu Sitta, Dr. Joseph Massad, Noura Erakat (Badil) and Liat Rosenberg (Zochrot).
Keynote speaker : Salman Abu Sitta
They took my home at gunpoint and I want it back
“Israeli self-defense is a myth”
Salman H. Abu Sitta is a Palestinian researcher who writes about Palestinian refugees and the Palestinian Right of Return. Abu Sitta is a former member of the Palestinian National Council, the founder and President of the Palestine Land Society and is the general coordinator of the Right of Return Congress. He has written over 300 articles and papers on Palestinian refugees and the Right of Return.
Among his published works are:
The Return Journey (2007) in Arabic, English and Hebrew, Atlas of Palestine, 1948 (January 2004), Atlas of Palestine 1917-1966, two editions, Arabic and English, and Nakba 1948: The register of depopulated localities in Palestine (Occasional Return Centre studies) (1998 reprinted 2000).
http://www.nouraerakat.com/1/
The Oslo Accords sought to establish two ethno-nationally homogenous states as a remedy to Israel’s settler-colonial regime. Not only did the Plan fail to deal with the root cause of conflict in the region but it also failed to thwart the ongoing forced displacement of Palestinians both within Israel Proper as well as the Occupied Palestinian Territory. In the shadow of the Peace Process, for example, Israel has accelerated its Judaization campaign of East Jerusalem, where it administratively revoked the residency rights of 4,800 Palestinian Jerusalemites in 2008 alone.
Oslo excluded refugees from its consideration all together when it relegated the fate of 6.6 million Palestinian refugees to final status negotiations—which remain elusive. Since then, Israeli officials—like Avi Dichter—have made clear that the return of refugees is a red line in any negotiated solution. In response to a PA official’s mention of refugees in 2011, Dichter declared “The ‘right of return’ will not be included in the peace process…. Talk about the ‘right of return’ is meaningless. Everyone understands that there will not be a solution that includes ‘return,’ no matter who says what.”
The right to return, however, is not only a political matter. It is a humanitarian one governed by international law and precedent. Those precedents include the return of, restitution to, and compensation of refugees to East Timor, Bosnia, and South Africa. In particular regard to Palestinians, and universal one to all refugees, those laws include:
- UN Resolution 194 (passed on 11 December 1948 and reaffirmed every year since 1948):?
“…the [Palestinian] refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible.”? - Article 13 (2) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:?“Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.”
- Article 5(d)(ii) of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination: ?“…State Parties undertake to prohibit and to eliminate racial discrimination on all its forms and to guarantee the right of everyone, without distinction as to race, color, or national or ethnic origin, to equality before the law, notably in the enjoyment of…[t]he right to leave any country, including one’s own, and to return to one’s country.”
- Article 12 (4) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights: ?“No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of the right to enter his own country.”
