Israel and Refugees: Explaining a Failure in Peace-making[i]
by
Howard Adelman
Structure
- In Context
- Prefatory Remarks on a Prefatory Remark: Owls
- Introduction: On Peacemaking
- Refugee Return as an Imperative
- Refugee Return: Jewish and Palestinian Identity
- The Possibility of Overcoming the Problem and Facilitating Peace
- Conclusion
ABSTRACT
This paper focuses on peacemaking as a prerequisite to peacebuilding. Using the case study method and the background to the Israeli-Palestinian already provided in a series of blogs[ii], this paper zeroes in on a key, and perhaps the key, obstacle preventing a peace agreement between Israelis and Palestinians, namely REFUGEE RETURN. Contrary to other analyses which focus on the differences between the hawks and doves on each side, and which often surreptitiously cheer on the doves as well as often ignoring the eagles which dominate the centre, this paper argues that hawks, doves and eagles play complementary roles on each side. It is that complementarity combined with the incongruency between the positions of the two parties in conflict that stand as an insurmountable barrier to peacemaking.
A. In Context
I first encountered Astri Suhrke through her writing on refugees with Ari Zohlberg and Sergio Aguayo when I was asked to review the manuscript by the Ford Foundation of what would become their 1989 book, Escape from Violence. Conflict and the Refugee Crisis in the Developing World. We all know what an intellectual historical breakthrough that was.[iii] The book highlighted refugees that escaped violence, the vast majority of refugees, more than ones who fled persecution as individuals or as members of targeted groups. This study focuses on refugees, both Jewish and Arab, who fled violence and persecution rather than those defined by the subsequent United Nations 1951 definition that zeroed in on persecuted refugees only and their need for protection.
The international institutions then designed to deal with them focused not on legal protection and new memberships (the United Nations High Commission for Refugees – UNHCR – created in 1951), but on humanitarian aid, development and resettlement – namely the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees [both Jewish and Arab] in the Middle East – UNRWA – created in 1949.[iv] Ironically, achieving that objective failed and UNRWA became the educational, health and welfare ministry for only Arab refugees from what became Israel. As such, UNRWA unintentionally helped propagate refugees as warriors determined to return under force of arms, as had the Tutsi refugees that Astri and I had dealt with in our study of the Rwandan genocide. The issue for them has been return, not settlement, resettlement or legal asylum as a form of protection. Nor was it then a “right” of return. Might at the time was to make right.
Further, the Aguayo/Suhrke/Zohlberg volume probed deeper into the “root causes” of the refugees who fled violence. This essay clearly suggests that being a refugee in itself can be a mode of reproducing violence, particularly when one group is in contention with another for a national homeland that will protect them. These are refugees who are not just seeking protection by a foreign state but, rather, creating a state in a territory that will guarantee their protection.
There is a third overlapping issue with respect to refugees with which this essay does NOT deal, namely “the right of return,” that is, not the right to be free from violence or even the right not to be displaced, but the right of return once displaced. I allude to that discussion and have a long endnote in reference to the issue, but I add nothing here to that dialogue.
On a quite different angle than refugees, the issue of failed or failing states (see Susan Woodward), in the long prolegomena that I wrote in a long series of blogs on Israel and its one-hundred-year war with Arab Palestinians, it is clear that though Israel has never been identified as a failed or even failing state, Israel has failed in one of the most important functions of a state, that is, to save its citizens from the scourge of war. At the same time, Israel is in the midst of a double paradox. It has reached a level of unimagined success, not only in economic and innovative terms, but even in terms of peace with its neighbours. Israel is currently in the “best position it has ever known.”[v]
On the other hand, both as a result of internal legal and political conflicts (issues which I never managed to analyze in my long series of blogs), as well as Israel’s interactions with: a) its own Palestinian citizens increasingly under the control of violent Arab mobsters; b) the Palestinians under occupation in the West Bank; and c) the Palestinians boycotted in Gaza, Israel is “at its most dangerous moment ever.”[vi] I wanted to make clear that success and failure were not polar opposites, but overlapping and interrelated categories. Further, I wanted to focus on failing as a process not on failure as a reified state.[vii]
There is another dimension to this paper. Though on the surface there seems to be no relationship between this paper and the many papers on Afghanistan, there is a critical overlap that I allude to, but one that needs much greater exploration. It is the relationship between religion, identity, theology and politics. After all, as I mentioned in my blogs, Zionism began as a Christian religious and ideological endeavour before it became a secular Jewish ideology.[viii] In its current phase, we are witnessing the re-fusion of the Jewish religion and nationalist ideology at war with its secular liberal heritage that, in the context over the fight over the Israeli judicial system, is proving to be the greatest internal threat Israel has ever faced. Religious convictions and views on judicial reform are strongly correlated. Currently, religious and ethnic conflicts have come to the forefront in defining Israel as a polity. Unfortunately, I never reached analyzing that aspect of Israel’s development.
However, some of the papers on Afghanistan do deal with many relevant themes alluded to in this paper:
- disinformation and distortion entailed both in the alliance of religion and ethnicity as well as in the analyses by outsiders coming from a post-modernist and post-objective historical perspective;
- the stress on both memory and its continuing reconstruction to create a driving and core belief versus the use of forgetting that creates mind blindness in analyzing an issue;
- the role of liberal compromise in intervention and attempting to resolve problems;
- the ideological differences among traditionalists, fundamentalists and Islamicists in the resistance movement.
I do, however, attend to the intersection of religion and secular nationalism in forging a new ideology that threatens to undermine what I will call the alliance of hawks, doves and eagles to the extent that it might even threaten the underling alliance among them despite all their differences.
There is one final contextual element I want to mention – my concern with owls or with what Susan Woodruff refers to as influencers on policy advisers and decision makers. I would contend that this is one of the most important as well as most disguised and camouflaged themes in my essay.
- Prefatory Remarks on a Prefatory Remark: Owls
Owls are traditional symbols of wisdom. At the end of the Preface to the Philosophy of Right, Hegel wrote: “When philosophy paints its grey in grey, then has a shape of life grown old, the Owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the coming of the dusk.”[ix] This is correctly interpreted as wisdom being retrospective rather than scientific knowledge which is predictive. Self-conscious reflection only takes place when one has matured in life and recollects upon one’s personal path of thought and action. But the shape assumedis old rather than embodying the creativity (and the self-ignorance) of youth.[x]
Philosophy also then paints a portrait of grey in grey so that the body is difficult to distinguish from the colour behind the object. The frame and the camouflage will make it exceedingly difficult to differentiate and separate foreground and background, frame and content. “They [owls] wear the look of the land around them to meld into it, a strategy known as crypsis. Masters of camouflage — streaked like grasses; mottled, speckled and striped like tree bark; pale like snow — they baffle the eye of both predators and prey.”[xi] Owls epitomize disguise. They are extremely hard to observe because they blend in with their background. Further, the reference to the owl spreading its wings at dusk suggests becoming more independent and self-confident as one rethinks one’s past and recollects everything anew, and, sometimes, radically new. The novelty of thought now rebalances the life of action.
What is surprising for many about Hegel’s metaphor is how embodied it is rather than being abstract. Other than their hoots, when owls flap their wings, they have the most silent flight of any bird. They are enigmatic creatures. Further, in contrast to philosophers in the footsteps of Aristotle (and some believe Plato) for whom philosophy is associated with enlightenment, with the bright sunlight of daytime, the owl is a bird that hunts at night. Rather than being pronounced, wisdom becomes inconspicuous. Soundless in flight but not voiceless, almost invisible but perceived when one attends closely, the owl is the very antithesis of a bird like a peacock that spreads its feathers widely and proudly to attract a mate.
Recall that in the theatre, peacocks bring disaster and bad luck and adumbrate failure. With pride and vanity comes the fall. But when offered well wishes – “go break a leg” – one anticipates an impressive performance. In contrast, Lord Shri Krishna, proud and vain, wore a peacock feather in his hair and was addicted to astrology, to a pseudo-science of prediction rather than retrospective reflection. Owls, by contrast, appear out of nowhere only to vanish just as suddenly.
Immanuel Kant, perhaps the greatest philosopher in the enlightenment who expanded upon Descartes’s dictum about clear and distinct ideas, in the preface of his great work, The Critique of Pure Reason, set out the circumstances that gave rise to his volume, the end it was intended to achieve and the strategy for getting there. Hegel found such a preface to be inappropriate, misleading and superfluous. What then should a preface do? What purpose can it serve? First, it can indicate what it means to be superfluous. Distinctness and clarity do not entail univocal and specifically defined words. Owls are difficult to see but their profile stands out; they are easily recognizable. There is no other bird that looks remotely familiar to them. They stand upright. Their eyes look directly at you. They are unmistakable even though rarely seen except in a zoo. Yet they stay hidden during the day under our very noses,
When the owl flaps its wings at dusk, they fly high and with stealth. They lack the speed of an eagle or a falcon; they are slow flyers and remind us of Astri Suhrke’s dictum about peacebuilding – “Make haste slowly.”[xii] The prey of owls neither see nor hear them approach. Owls evade any type of radar. They are silent and soundless, slow and surreptitious.[xiii] Philosophers, too, must NOT be philosopher kings, but instead move quietly and possess a stillness to allow them to observe otherwise unnoticed sounds and sights in our phenomenological experience. They must think and reflect in the tradition of Machiavelli and Hegel rather than Aristotle and Kant.
C. Introduction: On Peacemaking
Ignoring spoilers, there are generally three main divisions on each side of two violently conflicting bodies. To continue our reference to birds, there are hawks who lead campaigns of force against an alien other;[xiv] as birds of prey, hawks are predators that attack and devour their prey. There are doves who insist on empathy with the other and searching for a resolution to violent conflict; doves symbolize gentleness and peace, love and devotion. They are also domestic prey for hawks, but usually escape that fate and elude hawks who, as versatile, fast and skillful fliers as they are, hunt doves down. The latter escape because they explode into flight at a remarkably high speed to escape being preyed upon.
What is often forgotten is that when two doves are put in the same cage, even a male and female, instead of their usual practice of preening each other with gentle nibbles around the neck, and although doves are known to care for and mourn their mates when they die, one will often peck the other to death when both are trapped in a single cage.[xv]
Hawks and doves are viewed as immortal enemies in the process of peacemaking. However, there is a third party in any peace process that is often dominant over both hawks and doves. Eagles and owls both often feed on hawk eggs and young hawks, eagles in direct attacks and owls in surreptitious ones. Bracketing owls for now, eagles occupy a mid-field between hawks and doves in the search for peace. Eagles, like hawks, are equipped with great curved talons and subsist mainly on live prey. While “hawk-eye” connotes sharpness of vision, the vision of a hawk does not compare to that of an eagle which can spot and focus on a mouse two miles away. While hawks are considered fearless, the adjective only truly applies when they are defending their own nests and will attack anyone or anything venturing too close. Eagles, in contrast, are very high-fliers with an enormous range and can be considered imperialists compared to protectionist hawks which hunt prey and dash out from a hidden perch. But eagles and hawks are both tenacious, grasping, holding and squeezing their prey with their sharp talons and strong feet ridged like a ratchet.
Thus, though hawks and eagles (as well as owls) are all considered raptors[xvi], eagles in many ways are not war hawks, but may be greater promoters of war under the guise of defending an ideal like democracy or human rights. It is not by accident that the symbol adopted by the United States is a bald eagle and not a hawk. A hawk’s territorial claim is relatively limited compared to an eagle. If Americans had been primarily hawks, they probably would not have expanded to appropriate a good part of Mexico as well as expand to the Pacific and even buy Florida and Alaska.
The eagle, unlike the hawk, is viewed as a formidable enemy of the evildoer, able even to slay dragons. In Revelation, when the dragon “persecuted the woman which brought forth the man child … two wings of a great eagle” were given to her “that she might fly into the wilderness.” On the other hand, the psalmist prayed for “wings like a dove.” John the Baptist envisioned “the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him.” Does peace depend on the might and vision of an eagle protecting a large territory or the olive branch of peace carried in the beak of a dove so that we will someday suffer war no more? This analysis of peacemaking focuses on the three main players – hawks, doves and eagles, viewed, of course, through the eyes of a fourth predator, an owl.
However, this analysis does not consider them primarily as contending forces even if that is how they appear, behave, and are generally regarded. Rather, they serve complementary roles in peacemaking. The hawks are akin to the comb of feathers on an owl’s wings with its barbs or serrations that project up on the leading edge of the wing and are critical in combating turbulence. The eagles are like the tailing ends of the rear of the wings brought into play to counteract eddies. And the doves are like the soft coating that cover an owl’s feathers that serve to suppress friction between the feathers, and, therefore, sound. Thus, the owl is a dialectical but relatively passive raptor that brings together a system to reduce turbulence, eddies, and feather friction to give owls their distinctive silent watchful glare.
These analogies are not just metaphors. Rather, they are ways of viewing what are usually seen as competitive forces as, in actuality, also complementary. Each plays a different role to create a united front beneath the differences. In a Freudian psychological model, the hawk is the id, the dove is the superego, and the eagle is the ego. In an analogy to artificial intelligence, the eagle is the central object while the dove is its refraction as a simulacrum, a spiritual ideal that is an imitation and representation, but without the object’s embodiment. In Jean Baudrillard’s terms[xvii], the hawks replace reality, not with an unrealizable ideal, but with a false image – false to such an extent that one can no longer distinguish between the real and unreal. As other authors in this volume have noted, we live in a post-modernist age of disinformation and distortion, an age in which objectivity is not only superseded by subjectivity but is denied altogether.
In political theoretical terms, doves serve as covers for idealist-realists as they do battle with hard-hearted realists or hawks for the minds and soul of the body politic. By reference to one key issue in the Israeli-Arab conflict to which I have given my most attention, namely refugees, I will try to demonstrate why the Palestinian refugee problem has remained an intractable obstacle to peace and how the hawks, doves and eagles are not only competitors but complementary aspects on each side that have in reality joined forces to ensure the problem remains intractable and peacemaking becomes an impossibility.[xviii]
D. Refugee Return as an Imperative
Jeremie Maurice Bracka in his very recently completed LL.B. thesis for the Faculty of Law at Monash University in Australia on the Right of Return of Palestinian refugees, correctly described the issue of refugee return as “the lung through which the Israeli-Palestinian struggle breathes.”[xix] Most commentators believe that only a comprehensive peace agreement can resolve the refugee issue and that the refugee issue, along with the status of East Jerusalem, even more than the issue of borders between Israel and a Palestinian state, are the key irresolvable problems in arriving at a peace agreement. This paper will restrict itself to the Palestinian refugee issue as a political and peace problem rather than a debate over rights.[xx] The Palestinian-Israeli Oslo peace process did not include a reference to Palestinian refugee return let alone a right of return[xxi], but, instead, left such discussions for a final agreement supposedly within five years.[xxii] Let the discussion continue, but it will be irrelevant to peacemaking.
There is a general scholarly consensus that:
- About 30,000 of the Palestinian leadership in what became Israel left their homes BEFORE hostilities broke out to avoid the conflict
- The number of Palestinian refugees resulting from the 1948-1949 War of Independence and the Nakba totalled 720,000, give or take 20,000[xxiii]
- 150,000 Palestinian Arabs remained in Israel within the boundaries of the 1949 armistice agreement
- A small percentage of those were internally displaced and were not permitted to return to their villages, which were demolished
- There is now a general scholarly consensus that most of those who went into exile were forced to flee by the Israeli military forces[xxiv]
- Except for Haifa, Arab leaders did NOT request that the population leave their homes[xxv]
- Arab armies invaded Palestine both to prevent the emergence of a Jewish state and to advance their own strategic positions[xxvi]
- Jerusalem was divided between the Jordanian forces that occupied East Jerusalem and the Old City and the Israeli forces that occupied West Jerusalem
- The efforts of the UN to take control over Jerusalem as per the UN resolution authorizing partition were completely ignored by both sides
- About 37.000 Jewish refugees who fled the Old City, East Jerusalem and the West Bank became refugees within Israel leaving the Arab occupied areas Jüdenrein, empty of Jews
- Palestinian refugees in the West Bank or Jordan proper were granted citizenship[xxvii]
- Those Palestinian refugees who fled to Gaza occupied then by Egypt were not granted Egyptian citizenship
- Those Palestinian refugees who fled to Syria were given work permits but those that fled to Lebanon were not.[xxviii]
Disagreement remains over whether those of the 720,000 Palestinian refugees forced to flee were the result of a general Zionist plan or simply a product of the exigencies of war and/or a then widespread endorsement of population exchange as a method of resolving inter-ethnic conflicts. This issue emerges as important in the latter years of the one-hundred-year-war between Arabs and Jews in Palestine when the prospect of a two-state solution to the conflict came to the fore based on a mutual recognition of self-determination. In the immediate aftermath of the 1948-1949 conflict, refugee repatriation was a non-issue because the Arabs were determined to return behind a victorious Arab onslaught.
In this paper dealing with the politics rather than the right of return, much has been made of Count Bernadotte’s recommendations on the refugee problem which became reified in Article 11 of the UN General Assembly Resolution 184, namely that: “the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible.”[xxix] The dilemmas emerge when you parse the proposition.
First, return only applies to those who both wish to return and who also agree to live in peace with Israel. Since the Palestinians continue to be in a state of war with Israel absent a final peace agreement, there is no way of ascertaining which Palestinians wish to live in peace with Israel. More importantly, the proposition depends also on the conjoined condition that permission is required by Israel and, therefore, implies there is no return by right. Though the resolutions reads “should” as an imperative pressed upon Israel, the wording is hortatory rather than an international legal or even political obligation.
There is also the issue over the date of implementation. The original recommendation used the word “possible” rather than “practicable,” implying a much greater sense of urgency. Practicable could mean spreading out any intake over a number of years. The clause related to compensation also waters down the force of any imperative suggesting that this approach based on both the willingness of the refugee and of Israel – and/or the other political bodies held responsible for the flight of the refugees – to provide compensation could substitute for return. Finally, there is the fact that Resolution 184 only applied to those that fled and only later interpretations enlarged the circle of those to which it applied to descendants of those that fled.
Israel has refused permission for refugee return on a number of grounds:
- The Palestinians rejected Jewish immigration when Jews were desperate to get to Palestine to save their lives when Arabs were in a position of influence prior to 1948; why should Israel then reciprocate with humanitarianism when Palestinian Arabs are hosted by their ethnic cousins but not absorbed by most of them, when they are not in fear for their lives and when Israel is in a position of sovereign authority with the right to determine its own membership;
- In 1949, Palestinians rejected the offer of Israel to repatriate up to one-hundred thousand on humanitarion and family reunification grounds[xxx];
- Nevertheless, despite that rejection, an estimated 50,000 did return via this route;
- Neither the Arab states nor the UN has offered to compensate an equal or slightly larger number of Jews forced to flee Arab states in response to pogroms and persecution following the start of the Israeli War of Independence;
Though Arabs prior to 1948 used the argument of a limited absorptive capacity in Palestine making large scale immigration of Jews impossible, this is an argument rarely used by Israel against Palestinian refugee return, perhaps because it would be openly hypocritical since Zionists still position Israel as a haven for Jews around the world.
On the other hand, Israelis repeatedly attack the United Nations Works and Rehabilitation Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, UNRWA, for reinforcing through their education programs an antipathy to Israel. What is forgotten is that UNRWA was set up to serve all Palestine refugees, Jewish and Arab alike, but UNRWA became irrelevant for Jews because the 37,000 Jewish refugees from the areas occupied by Jordan were resettled in Israel. Further, any study on UNRWA makes it clear that UNRWA was set up initially to facilitate the resettlement and integration of Palestinian refugees in their host countries.[xxxi] This alone is a reminder that refugee return had not been part of the expectation of the international community at the time.
- Refugee Return, Jewish and Palestinian Identity
The intractability of the refugee problem is not just a matter of moral and legal right or of pragmatic politics. The refugee issue goes to the heart of how both the Jews and Palestinians see themselves. It is the identity issue and the accompanying symbolism that makes this aspect of the conflict so difficult to overcome. To quote Bracka again,
“the return to one’s ‘homeland’ is an essentially symbolic right, a matter of principle.” It is inscribed: “in the communal memories and ethos of two competing nationalisms. For Palestinians and Israelis alike, narratives of return are inextricably bound to mutually exclusive political identities, and in a sense constitute ‘the bare bedrock upon which other layers of the conflict are mounted’.”
After all, Zionism was built on the premise of return of Jews to their ancient homeland. Further, this continues to be part of the purpose of Israel until this day and moving forward. In 2022, Israel welcomed 100,000 more Jews. Further, the rejection of Palestinian Arab return is viewed as an existential security issue lest such return undermine the self-determination of Israel as a Jewish state even if doves and eagles prefer to depict Israel as a state for all its citizens. It does not help that Palestinian past nationalist claims and current positions reinforce a fear that Jewish majoritarianism in its own state will end or that critics of current Israeli creeping annexation depict Israel and Palestine as a de facto unitary state.[xxxii]
This is also true of the Palestinian identity for whom return (awda) restoration (isit’adah) and liberation (tahrir) have always been the ultimate goal of all leaders of the Palestinians – hawks, doves and eagles. Citing “return” and holding out the keys to the family’s home in Israel are nostalgic rites signalling the centrality of return to the Palestinian identity as well as their collective quest for self-determination and recognition.[xxxiii] As I and Elazar Barkan wrote in our 2009 volume (see endnote xxii i), the PLO was founded on the presumption of armed conflict, defeat of Israel and return behind an Arab military force.
In the end, though he initially indicated a determination to sign, Yasser Arafat could not conclude a peace agreement with Israel despite the very generous terms on offer because he did not want to be seen or go down in history as betraying the central tenet of Palestinian identity with respect to refugee return.[xxxiv] For It is the key (no pun intended) symbol for righting the injustice that Palestinians feel was inflicted upon them by the international community. As Bracka wrote, “The right of return is the existential umbilical cord linking the Palestinian people to selfhood and nationalism.” In opposition to the creeping annexation of the Israelis, the Palestinians countered with the doctrine of a phased recovery of land by first creating a Palestinian state in whatever territory that could be initially liberated even though that could be perceived as recognizing the de facto reality of Israel.[xxxv]
Explaining the willingness to engage in extreme self-sacrifice may be a conundrum, certainly for those who stress self-interest as the predominant or even sole motivating force behind behaviour. However, whether characterized as heroism or terrorism, individuals sacrifice their lives for the sake of the group to which they belong. Why? Courage, adventurism, group hostility, or kin psychology? Or perhaps all of these to different degrees wherein extreme self-sacrifice is motivated by identity fusion according to some social-psychologists – an evolutionary-cultural adaptation in the face of threats from another group characterized as “a visceral sense of oneness with the group, resulting from intense collective experiences (e.g., painful rituals or the horrors of frontline combat) or from perceptions of shared biology.”[xxxvi] This is what may motivate extreme self-sacrifice. Facilitated by changes in communication, from its primitive origins, fusion has spread to much larger groups based on religious belief, ethnic loyalties and ideology.
On the other hand, there are those who claim that a conscious cognitive bias determines the willingness of individuals to make extreme sacrifices[xxxvii], for people do go out of their way at significant personal expense to help others, including refugees. In that case, the context of principles, institutional framing and pragmatic opportunities may play a crucial role.
It is not for me to determine which motivation is the correct one. Nor do I need to do so. Whether it is the ‘wisdom of crowds’ or ‘conscious collective decision-making,’[xxxviii] it suffices to say that wars are more about the willingness to sacrifice oneself, to die rather than to kill others. And wars are often won by the smaller and even objectively weaker side based on the stronger will of one group rather than another. Witness the current Ukraine-Putin War. Witness the Irish rebellion against the might of the British Empire.[xxxix] The one-hundred-year war between the Zionists and Arabs in Palestine might offer another example, particularly in the first third of that long conflict.
However, my focus is not on providing an account of motivation but simply noting the importance of group loyalty in facilitating the willingness to engage in extreme self-sacrifice. And when the identity issue is virtually identical, though from opposite perspectives, AND when a conflict is over the same territory, the combination of group identity and territorial conflict emerges as a lethal combination.
This portrait behind the intractability of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been noted many times. And different observers have bet on different factions on each side to break the logjam. However, my claim is that it is because of the underlying unity of purpose of the factions on each side, whatever the differences in ideals, strategies and world views, that is, the unity in terms of fundamental identity of hawks, doves and eagles, when combined with an essential and irreconcilable incongruency, that makes a conflict immune to any peacemaking solution.
With very minor dissent from outliers, Israeli doves share with hawks and the eagle middle-roaders the commitment to a right of return – but for Jews only. This is also true on the Palestinian side. Doves provide the moral cover for hawks without surrendering that fundamental commitment. Eagles try to forge a leading and far-sighted bridge that embraces both the power of group survival and the commitment to lofty moral principles.
If this bleak picture is indeed the case, how can a peace be forged?
- Overcoming the Problem and Facilitating Peace
My answer is that one cannot overcome such struggles. However, one can mitigate the severity of such conflicts. Mitigation, not resolution, becomes the byword. One attends to minimizing risky outcomes and inputs. I have a heart condition. Doctors cannot heal my heart. But they can surgically intervene to reduce the risk of a fatal outcome. They can also offer medicines that reduce dangerous symptoms. But they do even more. I am required to monitor my blood pressure, the oxygen in my blood, the degree of edema in my legs. In inter- or intra-state conflict, early warning systems can be helpful if used with serious intent. Fearing the worst, one can prepare for the worst. One can also prepare by improving conditions through exercise, diet and recreation. But what if all the exercises in anticipation, intervention, and mitigation fail? Communications can be crucial – between the sides and with interested bystanders. And parties can plan for and prepare contingent responses that instead of exacerbating a crisis, cool the temperature.
All of these are well-known truisms to avoid and minimize the outbreak of violence. Some areas of conflict can even be rectified, at least over time. However, I would also suggest emphasizing the reduction of the impact when violence does break out and providing peace reinforcing and violence compensation measures and mechanisms in advance. Unfortunately, political leaders may do the reverse and stir up trouble for their own benefit.
To explicate the most dangerous condition that can exacerbate a conflict and bring it to a boil entail introducing two other birds to the panoply of doves, hawks, eagles and owls – ostriches and vultures. Though ostriches will eat lizards and snakes, fish and frogs, they are primarily herbivores unlike the raptors. The latter category includes vultures, but the latter primarily eat carrion in contrast to other raptors that love live prey.
Ostriches, unlike raptors – or other birds for that matter – cannot fly. But, contrary to the popular myth, they do not bury their heads in the sand when attacked or even just frightened. Though very anxious birds prone to panic, they, in fact, do not suffer from the Ostrich Effect, the cognitive bias of people who avoid negative information that can assist them in determining how to respond and instead bury their heads in the sand. Ostriches will, however, roll over and play dead.
They have very small heads (as well as brains) relative to their huge bodies. When they bend over to nibble at grass, they only appear to be burying their heads in the sand. Since they scratch holes in the sand where they lay their eggs and nurture their young, again they may appear to be burying their heads when, in fact, they are preoccupied with the task of rotating their eggs and feeding their babes. Further, ostriches, like chickens, and unlike raptors, are communal birds. They even will lay their eggs in a common nest in the sand with other ostriches.
Though very large, indeed huge, ostriches are birds with small heads but astoundingly enormous eyes, yet they still do not have the visual acuity of an eagle or a similar ability to see in the dark like an owl. Nevertheless, they do have acute long-range vision and can see for fifty meters in pitch darkness. But their vision is not there to hunt prey; they are wary defensive birds not normally prone to attack.
If attacked, they can run away when they can, for they have long legs and can travel at enormous speeds over land – up to 70 kilometres an hour and, unlike chetahs, they can sustain that speed for quite some time. They are marathoners and not just sprinters. Further, using their wings as rudders, they can weave and brake.
But what if the opportunity to flee is no longer available? The real danger comes when they cannot flee and when flopping to the ground and remaining still in the effort not to be noticed and to blend in with the environment does not work. In the expectation of an attack, when flight is not available, when the ostrich feels trapped, an ostrich in desperation will fight for its life, especially in defence of its eggs or young offspring. They have mighty kicks. Ostriches can kick with a force of 140 kilograms per square centimetre. Their sharp claws can cut through the neck of a lion.
When ostriches are panicked and stirred from their propensity to attend primarily to eating and nurturing their young, they either flee in panic or can become a formidable force. Given a proneness to anxiety and panic, in one type of response, they can be stirred into attack mode by enemies disinterested in their well-being and, sometimes, more entranced by their performance. Ostriches are not the most rational of creatures. They have even been known to engage in their exotic and erotic performances to seduce an automobile. If they are led to believe that their offspring or territory is under attack, they can turn from tame birds to fearless and dangerous opponents.
Here, we have to introduce vultures who can provoke ostriches to flee rather than fight. When a flock of vultures repeatedly harass a group of ostriches sitting on their nests but keep enough distance to avoid the sharp beaks or powerful feet of the ostriches, eventually the ostriches become disoriented and abandon their nests to escape the onslaught.
For vultures, ostrich eggs (and hatchlings) are gourmet meals. But the shells of ostrich eggs are thick (1/8”) and strong. No other raptor can break into them – except vultures. Vultures are not simply the garbage-picker-uppers, cleaning up the remains of other kills, but they are very clever intelligent birds, one of the very few types that have learned to use tools. Once they have frightened the parents to leave their nests, and to do so away from the source of the rocks they need, they select rocks that they can handle that are properly rounded so the inside of their mouths will not be injured. They fly to the sources of rocks and carefully select a rock, usually egg-shaped, with the appropriate weight. They return to the nest and thrust the rock with tremendous force and drop it repeatedly against the very same spot on the surface of the eggs until the egg finally cracks. After they toss their heads back, forcefully drop the rock heavily against the hard shell, they retrieve the tool and repeat the motion. Whether the behaviour is innate and part of their DNA or learned by mentoring, or a combination of both, weight, force of the thrust, accuracy in targeting and repetitive hammering together finally break open the egg and provide vultures with a feast equivalent to two dozen chicken eggs, unless, of course, the egg robbers are robbed in turn by crows such as the even more intelligent Egyptian raven.
That is why one of the greatest dangers in exacerbating violent conflict is the emergence of populist leaders who dress like eagles but lack their courage, strength and vision and are more akin to vultures. They certainly lack the moral principles and peaceful presentation of doves and easily ally with hawks, though given their cowardice, they are vastly different than hawks. Instead, they rely for their strength on stirring up and panicking masses.
In our polity, ostriches are not the high-fliers. They are not fliers at all, but the ordinary and average, largely apolitical, inhabitants of our society. Both intelligent and caring, they endanger no one despite their huge size. They are focused on their families. However, they are subject to the strategizing, manipulation and tool-users, the vultures who may interrupt a diet of dead meat bought at the supermarket to feed off the offspring of others in a hierarchy of manipulation and deception, parasitism and exploitation, though, in turn, they may be tricked by the even more intelligent, and much trickier, black ravens – but the latter is a story for another day.
Just as societies can suffer from periodic epidemics beyond human control, populism may also emerge to stir up mobs and offer pseudo leadership that uses deception and manipulation to keep the masses distracted. Further, the polity, like ostriches, may turn aggressive and go into attack mode even when no substantive attack is underway.
I began with owls. In particular, the Owl of Minerva. But I have paid no attention to Minerva, only owls. Minerva, from menos thought, is both the Roman goddess of wisdom and poetry and heir of the Greek goddess, Athena. Medicine and entrepreneurship, artisan crafts and courage in warfare, science and technology, politics and justice, are all part of her purview. Minerva is NOT a patron of violence but of strategy in preventing and conducting defensive wars. Her sacred companion is the owl, the famed Owl of Minerva. In both Greek and Roman culture, Athena and Minerva occupied the pinnacle of what it is to be a god or, more importantly, a goddess.
Minerva’s birth and her early conception were unique. She was born fully armoured and grown when Vulcan used a hammer to split open the head of Jupiter (in Greek mythology, Zeus), Minerva’s father, and ruler of the heavens and earth. Vulcan did so to relieve Jupiter of his agonizing headaches. Athena was always more of a pain in the head for irresponsible rulers than a pain in the ass.
Minerva’s mother was Metis, the goddess of good counsel and daughter of the Titans, Oceanus and Tethys. Jupiter ate Metis when she was pregnant, either inadvertently or deliberately. Why would he do so? Because he was paranoid that she would give birth to a son who would, like he did, become a rival to the father and commit patricide.
Minerva inherited her father’s paranoia, but it was directed more to mortals who might aspire to be godlike or rivals to the gods. For example, Arachne was known as a brilliant and highly artistic weaver and embroiderer. She even claimed that she was better in those arts than Minerva (Athena). Minerva, furious at such an upstart, took up her challenge. Arachne wove a tapestry revealing the weaknesses and shortcomings of the gods. Minerva wove a tapestry warning humans not to get above their station. Rather than entranced by what Arachne had produced, Minerva was furious at her chutzpah and touched Arachne so that she became ashamed that she had challenged Minerva. Arachne hung herself in remorse. Minerva felt guilty, resuscitated Arachne, but turned her into a spider as punishment.
So much for the simplistic version of the men and women who occupy the spires of academe. Minerva may have been a goddess of wisdom, but she was also competitive and fully capable of irrational fears, jealousies and prone to vengeance. So much for dispassionate reason! So much for the owl on the surface being impassive and impenetrable. Rational detachment could serve as a cover for jealousy, rivalry, and revenge even if counteracted by shame for her own excesses. After Minerva caught Medusa kissing Neptune, it was Minerva who turned her into a monster with wriggling and hissing snakes instead of hair.
But perhaps the most telling tale of Minerva is what happened to Medusa after her head was cut off by Perseus. From her blood emerged the horse Pegasus, who was domesticated by Minerva and gifted to the Muses. Like Moses hitting a stone with his shaft to allow water in the desert to gush forth, a kick from Pegasus as powerful as that of an ostrich opened the fountain of Hippocrene and subsequently led to Pegasus partnering with Bellerophon to fight the Chimera, in other words, to allow reason and truth to beat back lies and illusions. Thus, does the Owl of Minerva serve truth very indirectly. Though driven by passion, jealousy and rivalry herself, Minerva is self-conscious of her shortcomings and, in the end, would fill Agueros, the very jealous sister of Herse, with so much envy that she turned into an unfeeling stone.
Thus, word to the wise and a final warning. Owls have their place in the panoply of raptors and great birds. But their superficial passivity is but another form of camouflage. They may serve truth and wisdom, but the route they take may be indirect and full of their own passions, rivalries and jealousies. It is important not only to recognize the shortcomings as well as strengths of hawks, doves and eagles, but of the owls who spread their wings at dusk and interpret past experience for the rest of us. But their ultimate greatest virtue is that they have the best hearing. They are terrific listeners.
I This paper focuses on peacemaking given the distinctions Boutros Boutros-Ghali made in his Agenda for Peace between peacemaking that aims to resolve violent conflicts, and peacebuilding that requires “rebuilding institutions and infrastructures of nations” damaged or destroyed in civil or inter-state wars, and a bridging mechanism, peacekeeping.
[ii] The series of thirty blogs distributed to participants in the symposium prior to that symposium dealt with the question of whether Israel was a failing state, but only reached the period before the Israeli War of Independence and the Nakhba where this paper starts. The series did not reach the stage of attempting an answer.
[iii] Cf. the papers by Terj Einharsen, Kathleen Newland and Alex Aleinikoff
[iv] Some commentators viewed this change as a shift from the particular to the universal even while acknowledging that the universal legal category left out the vast majority of refugees from the protection regime. (See Terie Einarsen ) I believe this is the wrong way to characterize the shift. I also suggest a critique of taking the thoughts and intentions of the framers of the Refugee Convention as too authoritative in interpreting history. Providing a rational explanation of why they decided the wording of the refugee convention in terms of their thoughts and words does not mean that these were predominant reasons. Other, and perhaps more powerful, motives, may have been in play, such as the desire of states to limit entry. That motive may have been omitted from the deliberations.
[v] Daniel Gordis blog, 13 June 2023.
[vi] Op. cit.
[vii] Cf. Susan Woodward (2017) The Ideology of Failed State: Why Intervention Fails, Cambridge University Press. My essay is not on failed states and is tangential to Woodward’s thesis. Further, my analysis of why intervention failed in this case is quite different than Susan’s approach.
[viii] Philip Earl Steele (2023) Birthing Zionism – Studies of 19th-century British Christian Zionists: George Eliot, Laurence Oliphant and Rev. William Hechler, Fathom eBooks. “19th-century British Christian Zionism did more than to shape thinking across British society and to hone the aims of a host of political figures including Lord Shaftesbury, prime ministers Palmerston, Disraeli and Salisbury, and Princess Helena and her brother Edward, the later King Edward VII.” It had a profound influence on both the first Zionist movement of the 1880s, Hoverei Zion, but also Theodor Herzl’s second Zionist iteration in the 1890s.” See also Gershon Shafir (2017) Balfour 100: Christian Zionism and the Balfour Declaration.
[ix] Howard Adelman (1984) “Hegel’s Phenomenology: Facing the Preface,” Idealistic Studies 14:2, 159-170.
[x] Cf. for example, Clark Clifford’s 1969 essay where he wrote that, from a cold war hawk and his role as President Johnson’s Secretary of Defence, he “plodded painfully from one point of view to another, and another, until he arrived at the unshakable opinion he possesses today,” namely a severe critic of the Vietnam War.
[xi] Jennifer Ackerman (2023) What an Owl Knows: The New Science of the World’s Most Enigmatic Birds.” See the extracted essay, “What Owls’ Silent Flight Tells Us About the World,”
New York Times, 10-06-2023.
[xii] Astri Suhrke et al (2002) “Reflections on Peacebuilding” Bergen: CMI. 13-14.
[xiii] This results not only because owls have big wings and hollow bones for their body size, but use a dialectical interplay of three types of wing feathers: a comb, a row of fine hairlike bristles that extend forward along the leading edge of the wing where it meets the oncoming air; a belt of wispy vane fringes on the wing’s trailing (or rear) edge; and a soft layer of velvet coating the whole wing that together reduce turbulence, wind eddies and act to suppress sound.
[xiv] In the build up to the War of 1812 between Britain and its colonies, Upper and Lower Canada, US Republican Congressman dubbed others in his own party, Henry Clay and John Calhoun, as “war hawks”.
[xv] In the most domestic of birds – chickens, doves, etc. – can turn a peaceful bird into one that pecks its mate even unto death.
[xvi] For my still meagre knowledge of raptors, I am indebted to the Raptor Rescue Society which operates a sanctuary on 1877 Herd Rd. in Duncan, British Columbia, just north of where I am now living.
[xvii] Cf. Jean Baudrillard (1994) Simulacra and Simulation, University of Michigan Press.
[xviii] That it is intractable becomes forcefully clear in Eyal Lewin’s 2016 essay, “The inevitable dead end of the Arab-Israeli conflict.” (Cogent Social Sciences 2:1) Lewin analyzes the five subjects in contention at the 2000 Camp David summit where it becomes clear that even endorsing the right of return in principle if not in practice is an insurmountable barrier to peacemaking in this conflict.
[xix] Cf. Jeremie Maurice Bracka (2023) “Past the point of no return? the Palestinian right of return in international human rights law,“ Melbourne Journal of International Law 6, which is a modified version of his thesis.
[xx] Ruth Lapidoth, ‘The Right of Return in International Law, with Special Reference to the Palestinian Refugees’ (1986) 16. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Israel Yearbook on Human Rights both endorse the right to move, leave and return to one’s own country. See also Adina Friedman (2003) “Unraveling the Right of Return, Refuge 21:2 and Kurt René Radley (1978) “The Palestinian Refugees: The Right to Return in International Law,” American Journal of International Law 72 (published online by Cambridge University Press, 27 February 2017). The problem is that the Palestinians claimed what became Israel as their own country by right while the Zionists made Israel their country de facto. There are other reasons for sidestepping the rights issue, quite aside from the enormous difficulty of applying such standards in a violent conflict. Rights, which appear to be universal, have exigencies. The right to move, enter, leave or re-enter a state requires not only membership in that state for the person making the claim, but the caveat that such movement cannot interfere with the freedom of others. Israelis argue that massive Palestinian repatriation would undermine their right to self-determination, an argument that Arabs in Palestine once made with respect to Jewish refugees. Public order and the welfare of a democratic society might also be threatened. While acknowledging that refugee return has increasingly been defended as a right, especially when applied to Palestinian refugees, and especially in the United Nations General Assembly, and that such a right has increasingly been recognized in international customary law, this paper largely brackets the long debate over whether refugee return is a right and focuses instead on the impact of the debate on peacemaking. It is noteworthy that not one of the peace agreements (with Egypt and Jordan), or normalization agreements with Arab states, include any provision that Israel recognize a right of return of Palestinians. Finally, reference needs to be made to the writings of the young Palestinian refugee scholar, Hadil Louz. She is a research scholar in a double sense as both a Palestinian refugee from Jabaalia Refugee Camp in Gaza and an academic engaged in work on Palestinian refugee issues. She has focused on social anthropology and the way memories are used and reconfigured relative to current experiences to reinforce Palestinian solidarity and a core principle of the Palestinian resistance. Her 2019 Masters thesis at Oxford Brookes University is entitled “Refugees: ‘right of return’ to their homeland, with special reference to Palestinian refugees.” In that thesis, she claims that ‘the right of return’ is a “legally binding, unconditional, and inalienable right”. The evolution of international customary law has confirmed it as a right even if it has not been applied in practice in reversing the ethnic cleansing of Palestine which began more than seventy years ago. The UN has been ineffective in enforcing this customary international right that has systematically been undermined by Israeli laws – the Israeli Law of Return and its Law of Nationality. Louz is currently working on her PhD at St. Andrews University. In contrast to her position, Andrew Kent in his 2012 article, “Evaluating the Palestinians’ Claimed Right of Return” published in the University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Law 34 refutes Louz’s claims. His abstract is worth quoting in full. “This Article takes on a question at the heart of the longstanding Israeli-Palestinian dispute: did Israel violate international law during the conflict of 1947-49 either by expelling Palestinian civilians or by subsequently refusing to repatriate Palestinian refugees? Palestinians have claimed that Israel engaged in illegal ethnic cleansing, and that international law provides a “right of return” for the refugees displaced during what they call al-Nakbah (the catastrophe). Israel has disagreed, blaming Arab aggression and unilateral decisions by Arab inhabitants for the refugees’ flight, and asserting that international law provides no right of the refugees to return to Israel. Each side has scholars and advocates who have supported its factual and legal positions. This Article advances the debate in several respects. First, it moves beyond the fractious disputes about who did what to whom in 1947-49. Framed as a ruling on a motion for summary judgment, the Article assumes arguendo the truth of the Palestinian claim that the pre-state Jewish community and later Israel engaged in concerted, forced expulsion of those Palestinian Arabs who became refugees. Even granting this pro-Palestinian version of the facts, however, the Article concludes that such an expulsion was not illegal at the time and that international law did not provide a right of return. A second contribution of this Article is to historicize the international law relevant to the dispute. Many relevant areas of international law have changed significantly since 1947-49-such as the law of armed conflict, refugee law, human rights law, and law regarding nationality, statelessness, and state succession. Previous scholarship and advocacy finding that international law requires return of Palestinian refugees have impermissibly sought to hold Israel to legal standards developed decades after the relevant events. This Article’s third contribution is to assemble detailed data, summarized in several tables in the Appendix, on the actual practices of states regarding expulsions of ethnic groups and repatriation of refugees. Analysis of these data sets allows the Article to conclude that Israel’s actions regarding the refugees of 1947-49 was legal and consistent with the actions of many other members of the international community.”
[xx] Cf. Are Hovdenak (2009) “Trading Refugees for Land and Symbols: The Palestinian Negotiation Strategy in the Oslo Process,” Journal of Refugee Studies 22:1, March, 30-59. Between 1993 and 2001, the peace process failed. The PLO flirted with the idea of getting land in return for conceding on the right to return in execution though not in principle, for the latter concession would undermine the legitimacy of the Palestinian leadership and, even more importantly, the core belief in the Palestinian nationalist ideology. However, separating the principle of return from its implementation was insufficient and unpalatable for the Israelis given their own nationalist ideology. The Palestinian unwillingness to surrender return as a principle and the Israeli refusal to recognize such a principle even as a face-saving gesture became the straw that broke the camel’s back. See also Susan M. Akram and Terry Rempel (2000-2001) “Recommendations for Durable Solutions for Palestinian Refugees: Challenge to the Oslo Framework,” Palestine Yearbook of International Law 11, 1-72. In examining the international
legal framework for refugee protection, the protection of stateless persons and the alleged regime created to provide protection for Palestinian refugees, they reinterpret the legal provisions applicable to Palestinian refugees in light of the drafting history and scope and purpose of the provisions. They also offer a legal analysis of the right of return in comparison to restitution as a durable solution. See also Terry Rempel (2009) “The Right of the Palestinian Refugees to Return to their Homes in Theory and in Practice,” International Conference on Palestinian Refugees, Conditions and Recent Developments.
[xxii] The late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and the late Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat signed the Israeli-Palestinian Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, that entered into force 28 September 1995, Israel–PLO, 36 ILM 557 (1997). Oslo’s demise is commonly attributed to the political intractability over the right of return conundrum. Op. cit. Bracka, 148.
[xxiii] Cf. Howard Adelman and Elazar Barkan (2009) Rites of Return. New York: Columbia University Press. See also Howard Adelman (2010) “Refugee Return: By Right and By Law,” in Dan Avnon and Yotam Benziman (eds.) Plurality and Citizenship in Israel: Moving Beyond the Jewish/Palestinian Civil Divide,London: Routledge, 31-52; Howard Adelman (1986) Middle East Focus, Guest Editor, Palestinian Refugees, 9:2; Howard Adelman (2002) “Repatriation of Refugees Following the Signing of Peace Agreements: A Comparative Study of the Aftermath of Peace in Fourteen Civil Wars” in Stephen Stedman et al Thematic Issues in Peace Agreements Following Civil Wars. Boulder, Lynne Rienner Publishers; Howard Adelman, (1996) “Refugees, the Right of Return and the Peace Process,” Economics of Peace in the Middle East, Bashir Al Khadra, ed., Yarmouk University; Howard Adelman (1995) “Report of the Working Group on Refugees,” in Promoting Regional Cooperation in the Middle East, Policy Paper # 14, ed. Fred Wehling, University of California: Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation; Howard Adelman (1995) “The Palestinian Diaspora,” in Robin Cohen, ed., Cambridge Survey of World Migration, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 414-417; Howard Adelman (1995) “The Multilateral Working Group on Refugees: Cover-ups in Preparation for a Breakthrough,” in Practical Peacemaking in the Middle East: The Environment, Water, Refugees, and Economic Cooperation and Development, ed. S. Spiegal and David J. Pervin, New York: Garland Publ., 199-214; Howard Adelman (1994) “Refugees: The Right of Return” in Group Rights, ed. Judith Baker, University of Toronto Press, 164-185; Howard Adelman (1988) “Palestine Refugees, Economic Integration and Durable Solutions,” in Refugees in the Age of Total War, ed. Anna Bramwell, London: Unwin Hyman, 295-311; Howard Adelman (1986) “Palestinian Refugees and Politics,” Middle East Focus, 9:2; Howard Adelman (1984) “Palestinian Refugees and the Peace Process,” Perspectives on Peacemaking, eds., Janice Stein and Paul Moranz, London: Croon‑Helm Ltd.; Howard Adelman (1983) “Palestine Refugees: Defining the Humanitarianism Problem,” World Refugee Survey, Washington, DC.: US Committee for Refugees, 20-27.
[xxiv] Benny Morris (1987) The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem 1947–1948.
[xxv] Simha Flapan (1987) The Birth of Israel: Myths and Realities. When I interviewed Flapan in 1973, he claimed that it was absurd to believe that the invading Arab armies, dependent on the local population for food, sustenance and intelligence, would encourage Palestinians to leave their homes. Flapan died in the year his book was published in English. However, in spite of illogic and factual evidence, there are still apologists who insist that Muslim leaders encouraged the population of Arabs in Israel to leave. Thus, in spite of this scholarship, Toby E. Block wrote in a critique of an article in Jewish Currents that, “The article operates under the framing that Palestinians were forced from the land that became Israel. The reality is that two-thirds of the Arabs who fled Palestine in the 1940s left the area before the events of 1947–48. It is well documented that the Arabs who deserted left on the heels of the elite, who had moved to their summer homes, or fled at the behest of Arab leaders so as to minimize collateral damage. The Zionist community in Palestine, the leaders said, would be quickly crushed, and the Arab population would be able to return and enjoy the spoils.” June 15, 2023. https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?hl=en&shva=1#search/Currents/FMfcgzGsnBjsJhcGjwKMHmtWJbgbhdGg
[xxvi] Robbie Sabel (2003) “The Palestinian Refugees, International Law and the Peace Process,” Refuge 21:2.
[xxvii] While it is normally the case that refugees who acquire citizenship surrender their refugee status, this has not been the case with Palestinian refugees. In fact, some scholars argue that this should not be the case for any refugee. Cf. Mazen Masri (2015) “The Implications of the Acquisition of a New Nationality for the Right of Return of Palestinian Refugees,” Asian Journal of International Law 5:2, 356-386. “The paper argues that since the right of return is independent of refugee status, the cessation of the latter should not necessarily abrogate the former. By examining the underpinnings of the right of return to one’s own country, especially the link between the individual and her territory, this paper argues that this link is somehow weakened in a situation of naturalization in a different country. However, this weakening of the link should not automatically lead to the deprivation of rights. The circumstances that lead refugees to leave their country of origin, the circumstances preventing their return, and the decisions made by the individuals in view of their available options, should be examined.”
[xxviii] Rosemary Sayigh (1995) “Palestinians in Lebanon: Harsh Present, Uncertain Future,” Journal of Palestine Studies 25:1, Autumn, 37-53.
[xxix] Progress Report of the United Nations Mediator on Palestine Submitted to theSecretary-General for Transmission to Members of the United Nations, otherwise known as the Bernadotte Report, UN GAOR, 3rd, sess, Supp 11, UN Doc A/648, 16 September 1948.
[xxx] At the Lausanne Conference in the summer of 1949, the Arab delegations rejected partial repatriation and Ben Gurion withdrew his offer to absorb 100,000 Arab refugees on humanitarian grounds.
[xxxi] Howard Adelman (1992) “On UNRWA,” Review Article of Milton Viorst, Reaching for the Olive Branch: UNRWA and Peace in the Middle East in Middle East Focus, 14:2, 11-15. See also Wadie E Said (2003) “Palestinian Refugees: Host Countries, Legal Status and the Right of Return,” Refuge 21:2.
[xxxiii] The assertion of return as a principle and a symbol of justice is forcefully stated by Salman Abu Sitta in (2004) “The Palestinian Right of Return: The Unfulfilled Human Right,” Mediterranean Journal of Human Rights, 8, “While the enslaved people in the world are enjoying their freedom, the opposite was happening in Palestine. The national majority of the inhabitants of Palestine, who lived there from time immemorial and have never left it en masse, suddenly found themselves in 1948 the victims of the largest planned ethnic cleansing operation in modern history. The Palestinian society has been destroyed in its homeland; the inhabitants of 530 towns and villages, representing 85% of the population of the occupied land in 1948 found themselves dispersed by expulsion, massacres and military assaults; their physical landscape destroyed, their culture and history erased, their identity and mere existence on their homeland denied. Who did this? The latent settler European colonial movement which came from the very same European countries which now proclaimed the rule of law and justice. Soldiers, money, ideology and political clout have been extracted by Jewish Europeans from the old colonial powers and thrust themselves on a new part of Asia, while other European soldiers and colonial officers were leaving it. It was an aberration of history. It was an anomaly in colonial history itself and a challenge to the very same elementary principles of justice for which the UN was created, not to speak of the geopolitical odds it had to overcome.”
[xxxiv] Ibid, endnote.
[xxxv] Cf, Rashid Khalid (1992) “Observations on the Right of Return,” Journal of Palestine Studies 22:4, 417–438.
[xxxvi] Harvey Whitehouse (2018) “Dying for the group: Towards a general theory of extreme self-sacrifice,” Cambridge University Press, Online, 07 February.
[xxxvii] Christopher Y. Olivola (2018) Behavioral and Brain Sciences , 41, 27 December..
[xxxviii] The wisdom of crowds refers to the aggregation of many independent judgments without deliberation and consensus; collective decision-making is aggregation with deliberation and consensus.
[xxxix] David Fitzpatrick (1995) “The Logic of Collective Sacrifice: Ireland and the British Army, 1914-1918,” The British Journal 38:4, December, 1017-1030.