Last week, Palestinians commemorated the 65th anniversary of Al-Nakba, or “Great Catastrophe,” when more than 700,000 Palestinians from more than 400 villages were dispossessed and expelled from their homes, forced to become refugees in foreign lands.
My grandparents’ livelihoods were taken away in 1948, when their villages of Beit Jibrin and Tell et-Turmus were systematically destroyed. They found refuge in a small camp in the southern hills of Hebron in the West Bank and have been waiting to return since.
More than half of all Palestinians now live outside Palestine. The refugees and their descendants, now more than 5 million, continue to hope for their Right of Return. Yet their plight is often ignored by those who say they support a just and peaceful solution to the conflict. The myth that refugees are an impossible obstacle to peace is just that — a myth.
Like many before it, the peace process initiative by Secretary of State John Kerry is sure to omit the Palestinian refugees. We deserve better. Any durable solution must address the refugee issue in a just manner to ensure a long and lasting peace.
The Palestinian Right of Return is a human right, and to deny it is to deny the Palestinians something they have been waiting on for 65 years.
It is ingrained in several international mandates, most directly in United Nations General Assembly resolution 194 from December 1948, which “resolves that (Palestinian) refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so.”
Two years after that, Israel adopted its own Law of Return, which said any Jew living in any region of the world may emigrate to Israel and attain immediate citizenship. As a Palestinian refugee, I am offended and baffled by those who deny my right to return, yet believe in the hypocritical actions of the Israeli state. This blatant act of discrimination is but one of many stifling acts committed against the Palestinian people.
The Palestinian struggle will persist until justice prevails and the Right of Return is achieved. For 65 years, the Palestinian people have persevered in the face of injustice only to face persistent and oppressive backlash, yet we remain hopeful. The memories of this great tragedy are forever engraved in the veins of every Palestinian and will never be forgotten or erased.
In the words of the great Palestinian poet, Mahmoud Darwish, “To be a Palestinian means suffering an everlasting hope that has no remedy.”
