Document(s) 2 of 14

PALESTINIAN REFUGEES SUFFER the twin misfortunes of being both the largest refugee population in the world, and one of the oldest. The refugee issue traces its origins to the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, an event that was accompanied by the forced displacement of some three quarters of a million of Palestinian Arabs from their homes within what had become the territory of the new Jewish state. The refugees fled to the then Jordanian-controlled West Bank, Egyptian-administered Gaza Strip, the east bank of the Jordan River, Syria, Lebanon, and further afield. The homes and properties that they left behind were seized by the Israeli government. Most refugees were barred from returning. In 1967, the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza (WBG) saw a further three hundred thousand or so Palestinians flee from those areas, mostly to Jordan. With the natural growth of this population and the passage of more than two generations of time, over four million Palestinian refugees are today registered with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), and a majority of Palestinians live in exile in the diaspora.

It has long been recognized that a fair and mutually acceptable solution to the Palestinian refugee issue is an essential component of achieving a just and lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians. What such an agreement might look like, of course, is far less clear. To what extent, if at all, would Israel recognize the refugees' 'right of return' or accept the return of some or any Palestinians to their original homes within Israel? What formula could be found to reconcile refugee rights and present realities? What forms and levels of compensation might be offered to refugees for their losses? How would host countries respond to a peace agreement, and what would be the fate of refugees resident there? Would any third countries offer to resettle any refugees, and if so how many and under what conditions? What resources and mechanisms would be available to implement a refugee agreement, and over what time frames? The issues are highly contentious, and outcomes are uncertain.

Despite this uncertainty, however, two things are clear. First, whatever the precise contours of any future refugee agreement, a significant number of diaspora Palestinians may choose to reside in a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza. Second, it is also certain that many Palestinian refugees already resident in the WBG may choose to stay, regardless of whatever other residential options may or may not be offered to them.

Given this, it is only prudent that those concerned with the well-being of a future Palestinian state and its citizens address the challenges of refugee absorption and sustainable development. Undoubtedly, such absorption will pose a number of social, economic, and environmental challenges. Palestinian labour markets, land and housing markets, infrastructure, social services, and natural resources will find themselves under growing pressure, in addition to the significant pressures that they face from the already high rate of natural population increase in the WBG. On the other hand, returnees are likely to bring with them a varied mix of skills, capital, and enthusiasm, all of which could represent substantial assets for the new state.

This book is about precisely these sorts of questions: the social and economic effects that might be anticipated from refugee repatriation and absorption, and the various policy options that could be adopted to deal with these. It emerges from papers presented on this and other Palestinian refugee issues at the 'Stocktaking II' conference, hosted in Ottawa in June 2003 by the International Development Research Centre, as well as from other work done under the auspices of the Palestinian Refugee ResearchNet (<http://www.prrn.org>). It is our hope that, by disseminating such research more widely, we might promote further dialogue and analysis on such key issues, facilitating the efforts and reflections of non-governmental organizations, donor agencies, Palestinian planners, decision-makers, and especially refugee stakeholders themselves.

In addressing absorption policies for a future Palestinian state, we are well aware of the sensitivity of the topic. Some refugee advocates might prefer that the issue not be explored at this stage, for fear that it could detract attention from demands for the refugees' right of return to their original homes within Israel. While understanding their concerns, the editors see no such linkage. Rights are rights, regardless of development planning. As will be discussed later, Palestinian planners and others have long recognized that a future Palestinian state will face absorption challenges, regardless of whether refugees also return to Israel. The path to long-term sustainable development in Palestine will require that such future demographic realities be addressed.

On the other side, there are undoubtedly some who would prefer that no refugees return to either Israel or the West Bank and Gaza, and still others who continue to oppose the very establishment of a Palestinian state. It is clear, however, that such thinking is confined only to a small minority: the need for a two-state solution to the Palestinian–Israeli conflict is widely accepted within Israel, and almost unanimously within the international community. An independent Palestinian state, in full control of its international borders, will have every sovereign right to control its own absorption policy. It will almost inevitably welcome refugees and others in the diaspora to come and join in the task of building Palestine.

We also recognize that the terminology of the Palestinian refugee issue can be confusing. As has become standard usage, most of the authors in this book use the term '1948 refugees' to refer to those Palestinians who fled in 1947–1949 from their homes within what became the state of Israel, together with their descendants. By contrast, the term 'displaced persons' is used to refer to those who fled from the West Bank and Gaza upon or after the Israeli occupation of these territories in 1967, as well as West Bankers and Gazans who found themselves outside the occupied territories and were refused permission to return. Of course, many displaced persons were also 1948 refugees, having first fled to the WBG and then further afield. The generic term 'refugees' usually refers to 1948 refugees and 1967 displaced persons alike. 'Return' is usually used to refer to the return of 1948 refugees to their home areas within what is now Israel. By contrast, 'repatriation' – the focus of this study – is used to refer to the movement of refugees and displaced persons to the territory of a future Palestinian state. Somewhat confusingly, perhaps, both we and most of the contributors use the term 'returnees' to refer both to refugees returning to 1948 areas, and/or refugees and displaced persons repatriating to a Palestinian state.

Understood in this way, all of these terms generally reflect the way they have been used by Palestinian and Israeli negotiators themselves in the period since the signing of the 1993 Declaration of Principles ('Oslo Accord').

FINAL STATUS NEGOTIATIONS AND REFUGEE REPATRIATION

The idea that remaining in, or repatriating to, a future Palestinian state would be one of the major options presented to refugees was reflected in the permanent status negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA)/Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) that took place in 2000–2001. In particular, in the 'Clinton Parameters' of December 2000, then US President Bill Clinton listed 'five possible final homes for the refugees', namely:

1. The state of Palestine;
   
   
2. Areas in Israel being transferred to Palestine in the land swap;
   
   
3. Rehabilitation in a host country;
   
   
4. Resettlement in a third country;
   
   
5. Admission to Israel.

Moreover, while 'rehabilitation in host countries, resettlement in third countries and absorption into Israel will depend upon the policies of those countries', President Clinton stressed that 'the agreement will make clear that the return to the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and the areas acquired in the land swap would be a right to all Palestinian refugees' (Clinton 2000). The Clinton Proposals were accepted by Israel, and welcomed but not unequivocally accepted by the Palestinians. With regard to the question of residential choice, the Palestinian side concurred with the principle, but felt that some sort of recognition of the refugees' 'right of return' to their original homes (in Israel) needed to be included. However, they also emphasized that they were

prepared to think flexibly and creatively about the mechanisms for implementing the right of return. In many discussions with Israel, mechanisms for implementing this right in such a way so as to end the refugee status and refugee problem, as well as to otherwise accommodate Israeli concerns, have been identified and elaborated in some detail.

(PLO NAD 2001)

At the Taba negotiations in January 2001, the initial Palestinian position did not frame residential choices in the same way, being largely focused instead on modalities for the right of return (PA/PLO 2001). However, the Israeli 'private response' of 23 January 2001 – which, in practice, reflected positions to which both sides were tending – did once more emphasize the same five sets of options that Clinton had outlined (ISRAEL 2001). The draft working paper on implementation mechanisms drawn up jointly by the two sides called for the establishment of a 'return, repatriation, and relocation committee' – charged, it can safely be assumed, with the return of refugees to Israel, their repatriation to the Palestinian state, or their relocation to third countries should they not remain in present host countries (PA/PLO/ISRAEL 2001).

The Taba negotiations ended without agreement, and the failure of the parties to reach a deal on the refugee issue has sometimes been cited as a primary reason for this. There is little evidence for this view. Indeed, members of both negotiating teams have affirmed explicitly to the editors that the two sides were serious, creative, and positive in trying to reach an agreement that would be fair and acceptable to both sides. The failure to resolve the refugee issue fully, they suggested, was a product of time constraints rather than inability to make progress.

A similar approach was also reflected in the unofficial 'Geneva Accord', produced by prominent Israel and Palestinian figures and published in December 2003 (see Geneva Accord 2003.) This too identified five residential options: the Palestinian state; former Israeli territories swapped to Palestine; Israel itself; third countries; and present host countries. Since admission into Israel would be at Israel's 'sovereign discretion' (although loosely related to offers of refugee resettlement by third countries), the number of refugees allowed to return would likely be very small. Consequently, the Geneva Accord, like the Taba negotiations and the Clinton Parameters before it, presumed that the Palestinian state itself would be a major destination of Palestinians wishing to return to their homeland.

REPATRIATION, DEVELOPMENT AND STATE-BUILDING

A critical first step in any thinking about refugee absorption is to examine the possible population that might choose to repatriate to a Palestinian state, as well as the existing refugee population in the West Bank and Gaza that would likely remain there. According to UNRWA, there were almost 4.2 million refugees registered with the Agency as of mid-2004 (see Table 1.1).

Such figures, however, do not necessarily reflect the actual number of refugees. Some have suggested that refugees, and hence the Agency, may under-report deaths, and hence the figures may be slightly exaggerated. On the other hand, UNRWA only registers refugees in its areas of operation, and hence does not include non-refugees in these areas (including those who failed to register in the 1950s), nor Palestinians outside these areas in the broader diaspora (such as the approximately 50,000 Palestinians in Egypt). Many refugees registered in one area with the Agency may actually be living and working elsewhere. This is particularly true in the case of Lebanon, where as little as half of the refugees registered there with UNRWA may actually be resident in the country.

Estimates by the PLO Department of Refugee Affairs (2001, cited in Table 2.1 in Chapter 2 of this book), for example, suggest that there are some five million refugees worldwide. The BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights has suggested that there were seven million or more refugees and displaced persons as of 2003, including four million registered with UNRWA, approximately 1.5 million unregistered 1948 refugees, over 750,000 1967 displaced persons, plus those Palestinians who were internally displaced in Israel in 1948, or in the West Bank and Gaza in 1967 (BADIL 2004). For its purposes, the PA Ministry of Planning uses a figure of some 9.3 million Palestinians worldwide in 2002, of which 4.7 million reside in the diaspora, outside the borders of historic Palestine (see Chapter 7).

Table 1.1: UNRWA-Registered Refugees (mid-2003)

Quite apart from the numbers of refugees and diaspora Palestinians, there is the question of their demographic and socioeconomic characteristics. Effective repatriation policies should be informed by a sense of local conditions for existing refugees in the WBG, as well as by the possible age distribution, educational profile, labour force skills, capital assets, and past living conditions of those who might choose to repatriate.

In this book, Abu-Libdeh, Hanssen-Bauer and Jacobsen, and Hanafi all offer valuable insights into the central question 'who are the refugees'. Hasan Abu-Libdeh highlights the contribution of statistical data in addressing the refugee issue. Following an account of the development of Palestinian statistical capacity in the form of the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, he offers an overview of the socio-economic characteristics of refugees in the West Bank and Gaza as well as opinion survey data on refugee attitudes towards a possible resolution of the refugee issue. He also identifies important gaps in our existing information on the refugees and their circumstances, suggesting the need for further research on Palestinian absorption capacities, the profile of refugees in host countries, and potential returnees.

Jon Hanssen-Bauer and Laurie Blome Jacobsen focus on precisely this issue, examining the conditions of refugees in host countries as revealed through a series of living condition surveys undertaken by Fafo, the Norwegian Institute for Applied Social Science, and local partners. These findings suggest that, in general, there is little difference between the conditions of refugees and those of host country populations. The situation of refugees in camps is somewhat poorer, although not all camp populations have homogenously poor conditions. The major reason for these generally positive findings, they suggest, is the array of health, education, and other services provided by UNRWA. Among host countries, Hanssen-Bauer and Jacobsen find the situation in Lebanon to be the most pressing, especially in the camps where poverty is particularly high.

Sari Hanafi examines the range of factors that may shape the repatriation and return decisions of refugees. These include the social and economic conditions of refugee populations, the nature of social kinship networks, the 'migration culture' of many refugees, and the situation of 'camp' and 'noncamp' refugees. Investment and labour market opportunities, he stresses, are shaped not only by economic realities, but also by familial and other social networks – a fact that might facilitate refugee absorption through diaspora investments in the WBG. Moreover, his work suggests that repatriation and return need not be thought of as dichotomous – some Palestinians may well maintain transnational lives, with residences and/or investments in multiple locations, with strong social relations to all of them. Finally, Hanafi suggests a number of possible return, repatriation and resettlement scenarios, based on differing assumptions about Israel's willingness to accept the return of some refugees to 1948 areas.

Local and international policy analysis on refugees, refugee repatriation, and absorption, is explored in detail in the chapters by Dumper, Brynen, Elwan and Krafft, Nijim, Alterman, and Aronson. Here, all of the authors reflect on what sorts of policies might best serve both the refugees and a future Palestinian state. Although there are some differences of opinion, many more areas of convergence are apparent.

Mick Dumper explores the evolution of European Union (EU) policy thinking on the refugee issue, focusing on consultant studies prepared for the EU Refugee Task Force in 1999 and 2001. As lead researcher for the latter, he is able to point to a number of key issues that emerged in the course of the study. In particular he points to the challenges posed by uncertainty as to possible repatriation numbers, Palestinian development prospects, and the fiscal health of the PA and a future Palestinian state. He highlights debates among Palestinian planners as to whether a future Palestinian state should adopt an expansive (and expensive) 'big bang' approach to repatriation through the construction of new cities for returnees in less populated areas, or whether instead an 'incrementalist' approach of building on existing capacities might be preferable. Dumper raises the question of the future of UNRWA, and whether the Agency should be transformed after a peace agreement to take a lead role in refugee absorption ('UNRWA plus'), or whether other institutions are better suited to this ('UNRWA minus'). He summarizes the key policy recommendations of his study. Finally, he highlights the difficulty of assessing policy impact, given the opacity of the EU policy process as well as the eruption of the second intifada and the consequent diversion of European attention to more immediate and pressing concerns of humanitarian assistance.

Rex Brynen offers an overview of a dozen policy lessons that, in his view, emerge from work by the World Bank and others in the area of refugee repatriation and development. These include the need for repatriation to be voluntary; the need to avoid bureaucratic impediments and other perverse incentives that might distort population flows; the limited utility of any concept of 'absorptive capacity'; the need to integrate repatriation/absorption strategies into broader demographic policy planning; the dangers of large-scale public housing programmes for refugees; the unlikelihood that refugee camp populations could ever be relocated or rehoused en masse; the limits of using evacuated Israeli settlements for refugee housing; the need to reduce the transaction costs of relocation for refugees; the importance of addressing housing issues within the framework of a larger Palestinian national housing strategy; the importance of housing finance initiatives; the likely limits of donor resources; and the importance of (Israeli) compensation payments to refugees as part of the broader absorption, repatriation, and development equation.

One key aspect of previously unpublished work by the World Bank – housing and infrastructure programmes for refugees – is discussed in much greater detail by Ann Elwan and Nick Krafft. In particular, they summarize analytical work that has been done, in two phases, on the potential public and private infrastructure costs of upgrading existing refugee camps, the expansion of existing urban areas to accommodate returnees, and the construction of new towns and cities. Their chapter also emphasizes the importance of broader housing policy reform. In the end, they suggest four key 'baskets' for a repatriation programme: status-based benefits to refugees (as refugees), intended to mitigate past losses; needs-based housing assistance for both returnees and existing WBG residents; housing finance programmes to assist all low-income households; and direct public investment in both general infrastructure (roads, sewage, and sanitation, as well as health, education and other social services) and sites-and-services programmes for new residential areas. In terms of future analytical work, they point to the value of extending their earlier work to other possible residential sites in the WBG; planning pilot projects so as to help further identify the policies, procedures, and actions that would be required; and investigating how private land could be brought into use for housing on a larger scale. They also emphasize the need to examine how incentives might be used to encourage municipalities to attract returnees; the potential role of public and private infrastructure construction; and the ways in which implicit and explicit subsidies can encourage absorption yet remain within the constraints of likely available resources.

Khalil Nijim outlines Palestinian Authority policy planning on the issue of refugee absorption. As he notes, PA planning for future refugee absorption has been complicated by the uncertainty regarding other relevant aspects of a peace agreement, notably with regard to territorial, economic, and natural resource issues. He also highlights the extent to which planning for refugee-specific issues – compensation, absorption, the future of refugee camps, and the future of UNRWA – are intimately linked to the broader challenges of development planning for a Palestinian state. In preliminary planning, the PA assumed the repatriation of some 760,000 Palestinians to the WBG by 2015, resulting in a one-third increase in the WBG population growth rate. Such migration, it was assumed, would be free and unencumbered by regulation. PA planners have then sought to examine the push- and pull-factors that might shape migration, the possible profile of returnees, their associated needs (for housing, services, and employment), the human potential of the returnee population, and the development and financial implications of all of these factors. Particular, if preliminary, work has been done on issues of residential options, such as the construction of new towns or the expansion of existing urban areas in the West Bank.

Given its history of absorbing large numbers of Jewish immigrants, the Israeli experience may hold valuable lessons for a future Palestinian government in terms of what absorption policies might work best. The chapter by Rachelle Alterman offers precisely this perspective, reviewing the strengths and weaknesses of Israeli absorption policy over more than half a century. As Alterman notes, not only has Israel faced very different levels and types of Jewish immigration over the years, but also it has adopted very different policies for dealing with these immigrants at different points in its history: highly centralized and statist policies of direct allocation of public land and state construction of housing in new or existing residential areas; more market-oriented systems of land allocation, decoupled from absorption policy; below-market-value provision of land to private developers; and various forms of housing grants, subsidies, and housing finance/mortgage subsidy programmes. Throughout her study she highlights the Israeli government's mistakes as well as its successes, and the importance of learning from both. While recognizing the very different circumstances of Israel and a future Palestinian state, Alterman is nonetheless able to offer some policy suggestions, most of which are rooted in what she sees as the successes of Israeli absorption policy in the 1990s. This policy saw some government construction of emergency housing, but largely relied on private housing investment fortified by an array of carefully designed subsidy, incentive, and guarantee programmes. Moreover, all of this took place – in contrast to the early 1950s – in a context of 'direct absorption'. Immigrants were expected to find their own housing solutions, while the state focused on the provision of transitional direct grants (rental allowances) to immigrants, and appropriate housing finance mechanisms, as well as those subsidies and incentives needed to stimulate construction and housing supply.

Geoffrey Aronson and Jan de Jong examine the extent to which the evacuation of Israeli settlements might contribute to the absorption of refugees (whether camp dwellers or returnees) in the WBG by increasing the land and housing resources available to the new Palestinian state. This issue has grown in importance in recent years with Israel's decision to disengage from Gaza and evacuate its settlers and settlements there. They argue that in both the immediate term (Gaza withdrawal) and long term (an eventual peace agreement), ex-settler housing stock is unlikely to make a significant contribution to Palestinian housing needs, even assuming that Israel chooses to leave it intact. Part of the reason for this, they argue, is that Israel is likely to retain permanent control of most of the largest and most densely populated settlement blocs, as was envisaged in the Camp David and Taba negotiations. It is far from clear, moreover, that existing settler housing and existing settlement land uses are optimal for Palestinian needs. What is likely to be of greater utility to the Palestinians, Aronson and De Jong suggest, is the underlying infrastructure investments (roads, electricity, water, sanitation, communications) in evacuated settlements and the contributions that these assets might make to future Palestinian housing and broader Palestinian development efforts.

CONCLUSION

In 2004 to 2005, a combination of Israel's Gaza disengagement plan and a transition in Palestinian leadership spurred hopes for a reinvigorated peace process. Many expressed the desire that this would lead to the timely implementation of the Quartet 'roadmap', the establishment of an interim Palestinian state, and renewed negotiations on full statehood and a permanent peace agreement. In 2006, Israeli unilateralism, the election of a Hamas-led Islamist Government in Palestine and an escalating cycle of violence, all seemed to darken any hope for a return to meaningful peace negotiations, let alone peace itself.

As we noted at the outset of this introductory chapter, a mutually acceptable resolution of the refugee issue must be a central part of any just and lasting Palestinian–Israeli peace agreement – regardless of when, and how, such an agreement might come about. It is also clear that, when and if a Palestinian state is established in the West Bank and Gaza, it will be the destination of choice for many Palestinians in the diaspora. Repatriation and the absorption of returnees will thus pose a substantial challenge to both Palestinian development planners and their partners in the international community.

This in turn underscores the need for continued research, analysis, and dialogue on the refugee issue in all its dimensions. This book is a modest step in that direction. However, as so many of our contributors make clear, there is a great deal more still to do.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Badil (2004) Facts and Figures, Bethlehem: BADIL; available from <http://www.badil.org/Refugees/facts&figures.htm>.

Clinton, B. (2000) The Clinton Parameters, Washington DC: White House.

Geneva Accord (2003); available from <http://www.heskem.org.il/Heskem_en.asp>.

Palestine Liberation Organization Negotiations Affairs Department (PLO NAD) (2001) Remarks and Questions from the Palestinian Negotiating Team Regarding the United States Proposal, Ramallah: PLO NAD; available from <http://www.nad-plo.org/nclinton2.php>.

Palestinian Authority/Palestine Liberation Organization (PA/PLO) (2001) Palestinian Statement on Refugees, Taba: Palestinian Authority; available from <http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/cahier/procheorient/refugeespal-en>.

Israel (2001) 'Non-Paper': Private Response to the Palestinian Refugee Paper of January 22, 2001, Taba; available from <http://www.mondediplomatique.fr/cahier/proche-orient/israelrefugees-en>.

Palestinian Authority/Palestine Liberation Organization/Israel (PA/PLO/ISRAEL) (2001) Refugee Mechanism Draft 2, 25 January 2001.

United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) (2004) UNRWA in Figures, Gaza City: UNRWA.

Document(s) 2 of 14