Nakba revisited: Tragedy of Palestinians and centrality of right of return

TEHRAN,Dec.25(MNA)--It must have been 2007, although I cannot remember the exact date. I do recall getting lost in what seemed like a futile search for the headquarters of the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) in Rome. There was a meeting of NGOs and some General Assembly body, consisting of several UN ambassadors, dedicated to the ‘Question of Palestine’. I was asked to attend on behalf of one NGO. Timidly, I agreed. Knowing in advance how such meetings often conclude -- reiterating old statements, rehashing old text, reaffirming this and reasserting that -- I still attended. The subject of the discussion was the Palestinian refugees, who, for most Palestinians, aside from Mahmoud Abbas’ Palestinian Authority, still represent the core of any just solution to a decades-long Palestinian struggle for freedom and rights. I was compelled by a greater sense of urgency than the need to restate and reconfirm official UN text. A few days earlier in London, I had received a worrying call. The caller was a young Palestinian man named Hossam who was stranded at the Jordan-Iraq border. Two of his brothers had been killed in Iraq in recent months. One was executed in the Baladiat neighborhood in Baghdad, which then hosted mostly Palestinian refugees. The other was killed by U.S. forces. Before the U.S. invasion of 2003, a small community of 35,000 Palestinians resided in Iraq. They were intentionally shielded from any political involvement in the country and unlike Palestinian refugees in Lebanon were treated well. But when the U.S. invaded, they became an easy target for various militias, U.S. forces and criminal gangs. Many were killed, especially those who couldn’t afford paying heavy ransoms haphazardly imposed by gunmen. Most of the refugees fled, seeking safe havens in Iraq and when that was no longer possible, they sought shelter in neighboring countries. Allowing Palestinians entry into Arab countries is not so simple. For this reason thousands were stranded in newly constructed refugee camps at the Jordanian and Syrian borders. They subsisted, some for years, fighting the elements in punishing deserts and surviving on UN handouts. Finally, many of them were sent to various non-Arab countries. It was a pitiful spectacle of an Arab betrayal of Palestinians. The more passionate Arab regimes seem to speak of Palestine, the more inconsiderate they actually are of the plight of Palestinians. History has been consistently cruel this way. Hossam simply wanted to cross back to Jordan. He was born and raised there, but his residence was capriciously terminated as often is the case when Palestinian refugees grow in number to pose a demographic concern to the host country. He asked me to help, pleading that his mother was old and that he was the only remaining son. Of course, I was, and remain powerless. However, when I was asked to attend the Rome meeting on the plight of Palestinian refugees, I thought it would be a suitable platform for Hossam’s hardship to be placed within an urgent political context. It turned out not to be because the old textbook prevailed over seemingly trivial present concerns. Iraq’s Palestinian refugees belonged in Palestine. Those with the moral courage to say so, such as the UN ambassadors in Rome, have no power except for giving fervent speeches. Those capable of enacting long-neglected UN resolutions that insist on the Right for Return for Palestinian refugees are submissive before U.S. domineering pressure and Israel’s resolve in denying entry to the land’s native population. UN Resolution 194 of Dec. 11, 1948 remains ink on paper. As long as Israel continues to flout international law, millions of Palestinian refugees will remain captive in regional struggles that use them as political fodder or see them as a demographic problem, or even worse, a threat. And with the U.S. ensuring that no meaningful action is ever taken to alleviate the suffering of the refugees, thousands will continue to find themselves at some border, queuing for food and pleading their cases to anyone willing to listen. Syria is now the latest episode of that long drawn tragedy, which is being manifested in unprecedented ways since the Lebanese civil war (1975-1990) and the Israeli invasions of Lebanon (1978 and 1982). There are twelve refugee camps in Syria. Nine of them are registered as official camps by the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and have a population of more than 496,000 refugees. Yarmouk alone, near Damascus, hosts an estimated 150,000 refugees. This camp has been a recurring target for various militant groups. Other camps have also been targeted in the brutal conflict, including Dera’a, Husseinieh and Neirab among others. (By Ramzy Baroud )