Bargaining away the rights of Palestinian refugees: the role of Norway
Palestinians constitute the world's oldest and largest refugee population. Of the almost four million registered as refugees by the UN, 850,000 live in Gaza (where they make up the great majority of the Palestinian population) and 600,000 on the West Bank (where they are a minority).
Living conditions for Palestinian refugees are wretched. 46% of West Bank families and 65% of those in Gaza live below the poverty line. Freedom of movement within the occupied territories and to Israel is denied. Worst off are the 400,000 refugees in Lebanon. Confined to camps, they are denied access to education, business and employment opportunities (see FMR 11, pp40-41). Though life for the 400,000 refugees in Syria is easier, none have been granted citizenship or the right to vote. Most of the 1.6 million Palestinian refugees in Jordan have become Jordanian citizens and are granted basic civil and political rights.
Within refugee law, the Palestinians' position is unique as they were forced to flee prior to the drafting of the 1951 Refugee Convention and the establishment of UNHCR (see FMR 13, pp44-45). However, numerous international legal instruments are of relevance to their plight. The Declaration of Human Rights states that all persons have freedom of movement, freedom to choose his or her place of residence within a county's borders and the right to leave any country and to return to his or her own country.
The Palestinian refugees' right of return is explicit in UN General Assembly Resolution 194 of 11 December 1948 which establishes that every Palestinian refugee who wishes to return to his or her home must be allowed to do so and that those who choose not to exercise this right should receive financial compensation. As it has been endorsed more than a hundred times since 1948, the resolution can be considered to have become part of international common law.
Determined to maintain its Jewish character, Israel - by virtue of the 1950 Israeli Law of Return and other discriminatory legislation - is today an ethnocracy in which one ethnic group is in a position of official supremacy. In the last decade Israel has welcomed nearly one million people from the former Soviet Union, a large number of whom have settled in the occupied territories. In defiance of both international humanitarian law and the spirit of the Oslo peace process, Israel has strengthened its occupation.
Norway, the US and most other actors in the Middle East silently accept Israel's ideology and ignore the obvious rights of Palestinian refugees. Their double standards are beyond dispute. Why were the EU, USA and NATO so committed to minority return to Bosnia? Why did they go to war to stop the displacement of Kosovan Albanians? Why was there never any doubt that one and a half million Hutus should return to Rwanda only a short while after one of history's bloodiest genocides?
The close historical ties between the Norwegian and the Israeli Labour party allowed Norway to play a prominent facilitatory role in the Middle East peace process. However, far from advancing the chances of return for Palestinian refugees, Norway may have made it more unlikely. Faced with the unwillingness of the US or EU to put pressure on Israel, Norway has acquiesced in allowing refugee rights to become a negotiation issue, equating withdrawal from the occupied territories and establishment of a Palestinian state with refugees relinquishing their right of return.
The Norwegian Refugee Council is committed to the Palestinian refugees' absolute right of return. All Palestinian refugees should have the right to decide whether or not they wish to return to their place of origin, settle in the country of exile or be resettled in a third country. NRC believes that these rights are inalienable and should not be subject to political negotiations for peace. We call on the Norwegian government to do all that it can to place Palestinian refugees on the agenda of the international community. NRC maintains that it is unrealistic to believe in the prospects for peace and development in the Middle East unless the refugee problem is solved in accordance with international law.