From Orient XXI. Translated from Arabic by Nada Ghosn.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could not have been clearer when he declared, during his meeting with a delegation of ambassadors to the United Nations (UN), on January 31, 2024, that the mission of the The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) should end, because, according to him, it only “keeps the question of Palestinian refugees alive, and it is time that the The UN and the international community understand that this must stop.” Several Western countries, led by the United States, then rushed to take measures to help Netanyahu achieve his ultimate goal: abolishing UNRWA or rather the legal principle at the origin of its existence.
Apart from the attempt to sow doubt on the integrity of the reports of UNRWA and related organizations – in the wake of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) order of January 26, which was largely based on its reports – , Netanyahu’s statement reveals the true strategic objective of the violent Israeli campaign against the organization, during which Israel accused 12 of its employees of having participated in the October 7 attacks, or of having expressed joy following the event. Remember that these accusations concern only twelve individuals out of more than thirteen thousand workers in the organization.
The institutionalization of a right
The Israeli Prime Minister thus reiterates a well-established Israeli position on the question of refugees and the right of return, which Israel perceives as a threat both historically and geographically. Simply recalling the refugee question of 1948 would thus undermine the foundations on which the State of Israel was created. As for the right of return of refugees, whatever the solutions previously proposed concerning it within the framework of the Oslo Accords, it would certainly have a geographical and demographic impact which would change all the equations on the ground.
By erasing the issue of Palestinian refugees, the Israelis want to perpetuate the lie of “a land without people for a people without land”. And by trying to abolish UNRWA, the Israelis are trying to make the whole world forget how their state was created, either through a process of ethnic cleansing and the displacement of 750,000 Palestinians, even as they seek to do so. forget themselves.
We can cite here a study published in 1994 by the Center for Strategic Studies of Tel Aviv University, carried out by Shlomo Gazit who was between 1974 and 1978 head of military intelligence after having worked as coordinator of activities in the territories busy. This research, which was part of a set of documents prepared in anticipation of possible negotiations set by Oslo on a permanent solution, was devoted exclusively to the “Palestinian refugee problem”.
The refugee question was officially among the questions linked to a permanent solution, supposed to be discussed from May 1996 according to the agenda decided in Oslo, negotiations which Israeli prevarications managed to prevent for more than five decades, namely since 1948 .
In preparation for what could be (but never was) the Oslo negotiations on a permanent solution, Shlomo Gazit warns Israel’s future negotiator that the first step should include “the abolition of UNRWA” and the transfer of the responsibility of the camps to the host countries. This was to abolish the “legal/official status” of refugees which allows Palestinians to acquire the “right of return”, in accordance with resolution no. 194 of the United Nations General Assembly (December 11, 1948). ), stipulating in its eleventh article that the General Assembly
- Decides that refugees who so wish should be allowed to return to their homes as soon as possible and live in peace with their neighbors, and that compensation should be paid as compensation for the property of those who decide not to return to their homes and for any lost or damaged property when, under the principles of international law or in equity, such loss or damage must be made good by the responsible Governments or authorities.
However, from a purely legal point of view, the resolution of the UN General Assembly is still valid and the international community has not taken any subsequent decision to cancel or modify it.
Even if no one in Arab governments cares about this issue or makes the necessary efforts to activate (or at least recall) international resolutions, the fact is that Netanyahu, like his predecessors, has not forgotten that UNRWA, by its legal status, is the agency which consolidates the legal status of refugees by granting the refugee card, and by establishing the refugee camps as units beyond the responsibility of the host States, and distinct from their natural environment, with all the legal consequences that this entails.
A historic position
Just like his predecessor Naftali Bennett, who made similar remarks during an interview on CNN on February 2, 2024, Netanyahu is only repeating old Israeli positions here. We remember a first American proposal in 1949, stipulating that Israel authorize the return of a third of the total number of Palestinian refugees, “on condition that the American government assumes the expenses linked to the resettlement of the remainder refugees in neighboring Arab countries. However, David Ben-Gurion, founder of the State of Israel and its first Prime Minister at the time, quickly rejected the American proposal, even before the Arab countries concerned had spoken out.
There is therefore nothing surprising in the Israeli position which is perpetuated from Ben-Gurion to Netanyahu, insofar as recognition by Israel of the right of refugees would imply recognition of its responsibility in the emergence of the problem and what legally arises, i.e. the right of return. There is nothing surprising either in the position of the Israeli leader with regard to UNRWA, which is the legal embodiment of the refugee problem.
At the time of UNRWA’s creation, it was believed that this agency would be “temporary”, under the two General Assembly resolutions creating it (resolution 212 in November 1948 and resolution 302 in December 1949). Her work, indeed her very existence, was to end when the Palestinian refugees she cared for returned to their homes and land seized by Zionist militias in 1948. Instead, their numbers grew as the State of Israel seized more territory during the 1967 war. Then Netanyahu came to try to end this refugee problem, not by allowing them to return to their homes, as would seem to be the natural solution faced with such a problem, but by eliminating the international organization which “reminds them of their existence”.
In conclusion, the Israeli campaign against UNRWA has several objectives, including two main ones. Firstly, it has an immediate objective which, as the eminent Anglo-Israeli history professor Avi Shlaim argues, is linked to the ICJ’s decision. In anticipation of its next deliberations, the Israeli campaign intends to distort the image of UNRWA, intimidate its officials and push them to remain silent on the Israeli violations which have not stopped, in addition to undermining the credibility of his reports and statements on which the court relied in its initial decision. Most likely, as lies lawyers usually do when they lack evidence, this will be the main card presented by the Israeli defense when the hearing resumes (at least for propaganda reasons). The second objective of the Israeli campaign is strategic, with a deeper impact. This is a new and old attempt to completely erase the refugee issue which, from the point of view of international law, is still relevant and has not yet been eliminated.
Although Netanyahu wants to forget the refugee issue, with all its legal and humanitarian dimensions, his position on UNRWA and his clear statement on this subject reveal that, like other bearers of the standard of Zionism like idea and strategy, he has not forgotten what is said in the statutes of the United Nations agency on the definition of refugee; it can be assigned to any person
- who had his normal residence in Palestine for at least two years before the 1948 conflict and who, as a result of that conflict, lost both his home and his means of livelihood, and found refuge, in 1948, in one of the countries where UNRWA provides relief
According to UNRWA records, the number of Palestinian refugees exceeds six million. So this figure would be a demographic threat to Zionism? Would Israel’s idea, strategy (and state) be above any attempt to take this issue to where international law could be applicable — and effective?
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