UNRWA and the Palestinian Refugees: A History within History

It is difficult to conceive a sustainable, long-lasting solution to the Palestinian– Israeli conflict without examining the refugee issue and identifying a just solution to it for both sides. Over time, and beside its emotional dimensions, the refugee issue has been increasingly regarded as a “problem” for the Israeli and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)/Palestinian Authority (PA) leaderships, who have generally taken uncompromising positions. The international stakeholders have been unable to suggest compromises acceptable to the parties concerned. In a recent work, M. Chiller Glaus reviews in detail the juridical debates and the political proposals of the last twenty years and concludes that “there will be no Israeli-Palestinian Peace agreement if the question of refugees remains unresolved, and the question of Palestinian refugees will not be resolved without the concrete prospect for an overall Israeli-Palestinian agreement”. 1 Sometimes depicted as “the original sin” of the Israeli State, 2 the displacement of more than 700,000 Palestinian civilians during the 1948 war contradicts the Zionist myth of the right to “a land without people for a people without a land”. Yet, for the Israeli population, the possible return of masses of Palestinian refugees is disconcerting as they view any such return as analogous to the effacement of Israel’s Jewish character. 3 Denying, ignoring or sweeping the refugee issue under the rug, therefore, has been the main approach of most Israeli governments since 1948. On the Palestinian side, and during the secret Oslo talks, the Fatah leadership accepted not to include United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) Resolution 194 of 1948 4 in the Declaration of Principles, signed in