Why not say yes to the ‘right of return’?

Whenever Palestinians declare a "right of return" for refugees to be essential to any future peace deal, as Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas did recently, Israelis become hysterical. The one thing Jewish Israelis of every political stripe agree on is that a "right of return" would spell the destruction of the Jewish state. Unfortunately, this knee-jerk response plays right into one of the most brilliant Palestinian negotiating tactics ever devised.

Once upon a time, Israeli panic over the "right of return" made sense: Immediately after the War of Independence, which created the refugee problem, such a right would indeed have spelled the new state's demise. Israel's population in 1948 numbered approximately 650,000 Jews and 150,000 Arabs, so allowing an estimated 600,000 war refugees to return would have created an instant Arab majority that would quickly have voted the Jewish state out of existence.

In the intervening 57 years, however, the demographic situation has changed drastically: There are now some 5.4 million Jews living in Israel, while only an estimated 200,000 of the original 1948 refugees are still alive. An additional 200,000 Arabs, most of them well past child-bearing age, do not pose a demographic threat to a Jewish population of 5.4 million. They would constitute a temporary burden on Israel's welfare system, but would have virtually no long-term effect on its demographics.

Thus the modern-day hysteria over the "right of return" derives not from reality, but from a U.N.-created fiction that has no parallel among any other group of refugees in history: the idea that refugee status can be passed on to one's descendants and their descendants, generation after generation, world without end. Clearly, adding in the original refugees' children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and so forth causes the number to balloon; using this definition, the U.N. Relief and Works Agency currently puts it at some 4.2 million. And another 4.2 million Palestinians, combined with Israel's own 1.3 million Arabs, obviously would spell the end of the Jewish state.

The problem is that Israel has tamely accepted this patently ridiculous definition of refugeehood — a definition that even the U.N. accords to no other refugees on earth. Under the definition used by the U.N. high commissioner for refugees, which applies to all refugees worldwide except Palestinians, only someone who himself fled his native land due to well-founded fear of persecution is a refugee. Refugee status cannot be inherited by children born later, who have never so much as set foot in the refugee's abandoned homeland.

This tame acceptance has grave implications for Israel's negotiating position — because once Israel agrees that there are indeed 4.2 million Palestinian refugees, it must refuse to recognize a "right of return." And then, to avoid being labeled an obstacle to peace, it is forced to compensate for its intransigence on this issue by offering major concessions on other issues.

The result is that an almost wall-to-wall consensus has arisen among the international community, as well as among the Israeli left, that the ultimate Israeli-Palestinian peace treaty will include a "grand bargain" under which Israel cedes virtually all its territorial claims, and especially its claim to the Temple Mount, in exchange for a Palestinian concession on the "right of return." In other words, by accepting UNRWA's warped definition of refugeehood, Israel has basically forfeited its claim to Judaism's holiest site in the eyes of the world.

However, it is not too late to dramatically alter the terms of the debate with a bold gesture: Israel should publicly announce that under any final-status agreement, it is prepared to accept all Palestinian refugees, plus their spouses and minor children — but according to UNHCR's definition of refugees rather than UNRWA's.

Such a gesture, as noted, would pose no demographic threat to Israel: Since the youngest of the original 1948 refugees are now 57 years old, most are unlikely to have more children, and most of their existing children will be over 18. Nor would demands for "family unification" be a problem: Even the most liberal interpreters of this alleged right do not extend it to adult children.

What such a statement would do, however, is immediately throw the Palestinians onto the defensive: Unless they were willing to give up their insistence on a "right of return" for the full 4.2 million, they would have to start trying to explain why Palestinian refugees deserve something accorded to no other refugees in history — the right to pass their refugee status on to their descendants. And that is a far harder sell than their current emotional appeals about the refugees' longing for their homes and Israel's coldhearted refusal to accept them.

Moreover, having made such a dramatic concession on its longstanding bête noire, the "right of return," Israel would then be in a position to demand reciprocal concessions from the Palestinians on issues such as the Temple Mount and the settlements.

As long as Israel continues its knee-jerk rejection of the refugees' return, the Palestinians will have no problem parlaying this rejection into international pressure for Israeli concessions on other issues. And that is precisely why even Palestinians who genuinely favor a two-state solution cling to this demand: They know perfectly well that Israel will never accept it, but it positions them favorably for getting what they want in other areas.

It is therefore high time for Israel to stop playing this game. The reasons that made a blanket rejection of the "right of return" essential 57 years ago no longer exist, and Israel should update its negotiating position accordingly. Only thus will it be able to protect its vital interests in other areas of the negotiations.




Evelyn Gordon is a veteran journalist and commentator. This column appeared previously in The Jerusalem Post.