Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas received attention the other day with a remark about the possible return of Palestinian Arabs to Israel. He was asked in an interview whether he wanted to return to the town in the Galilee region where he grew up and from which he had been driven as a 13-year-old during the war in 1948 that accompanied the establishment of Israel. Abbas replied that he would like to visit the town but not live there. Although he described himself as a refugee, he referred to the boundary that lasted until a later Arab-Israeli war in 1967 and said that Palestine is on one side of that border and Israel is on the other.
The comment, despite being an apparently unscripted answer to an interview question, was seized on in various quarters as a significant concession on the longstanding issue of “right of return.” Some Israelis hopeful of meaningful peace negotiations, including President Shimon Peres, lauded Abbas's remark. Abbas's Palestinian rivals in Hamas denounced his comment, saying he had no right to make such a “concession” on behalf of the Palestinian people. Both sorts of reactions vastly overstated the significance of the remark.
Abbas hasn't really made any formal concessions on this issue. The official Palestinian position is still that there is a right of return, but when commenting at other times about the right of return Abbas has shown himself to be realistic. He has observed that if all the Palestinian refugees and their descendants, now numbering several million, were to return to Israel that would effectively destroy Israel, and he has no desire to do that, wanting instead to live alongside Israel. He has also appropriately questioned how many Palestinians would want to go back to live in their old home towns. Many say they would in principle, but if the reality would be to live as a minority in the Jewish state, most would have preferences similar to Abbas's own.
What the reactions to Abbas's comment illustrate, besides an overplaying of the comment itself, is a common tendency to confuse a position maintained for bargaining purposes with some kind of intractable bottom line demand. Some elements may have an interest in promoting such confusion—such as in this case Hamas, which tried to use the issue as a stick with which to beat Abbas. Partly because of such promotion, others may genuinely but mistakenly believe that a negotiating position is a rigid demand.
In any conflict with multiple major issues in dispute—and that is certainly true of the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians—it behooves each side not to make concessions even on issues on which it is willing to concede until and unless it gets something in return on other issues. Everyone concerned has long realized that a reasonable resolution of the issue of right of return would be some formula that lets Palestinians claim the right has been recognized but that involves only a symbolically small number—no more than a few thousand—actually moving to Israel, perhaps with monetary compensation provided to the rest. Palestinian leaders, however, would be foolish to offer such a formula without getting anything on other issues of concern to them, including borders and the status of Jerusalem.
Similar situations arise all the time, including on other matters of concern to Israel. Why should Hamas, for example, make unilateral concessions involving something such as recognition of Israel if it does not get in return something as basic as recognition of Hamas? On that all-preoccupying matter involving Iran's nuclear program, the Iranians have given ample indication of flexibility on restricting their enrichment of uranium and on much else. But they would be foolish to make unilateral concessions with no prospect of getting anything in return on matters of importance to them.
When someone seems to be adhering to a position that ought not to be a vital interest to them, we should not make the mistake of interpreting this as a mark of obduracy and unreasonableness. More likely it means they are willing to bargain.
Comments
Three points: (1) Abbas was talking about HIMSELF and only HIMSELF with regard to returning to Safed, and not about the Arabs, like him, who fled their homes and properties during Israel's War of Independence, 1947 to 1949. He didn't denounce the "right of return", which is really a claim of return only. (2) This last point was made made very clear during Abbas's interview the following day, this time no in English designed for external consuption, but in Arabic, live, on Egyptian TV. Mr. Abbas, in the interview, refered to the "right of return" as a sacred one that no Arab can give up on it, and "legally" justified it by, again, referring to UN General Assembly resolution 194. UN General Assembly, of course, by definition, are not part of the copus of international law; they are strictly proposals. Thus, 194 is of course not part of international law as Mr. Abbas claimed. (3) And, finally, the issue of "refugees" is one of the issues to be discussed during the negotiations with Israel that are aimed at reaching the Final Status Agreement. Mr. Netanjahu, therefore, responded in exactly the way he should have to Abbas's TV interview: The distance between Ramallah and Jerusalem is a seven minutes drive. Return to the negotiating table and we shall talk about this issue as well. But, sadly, Mr. Abbas, since 2009, has refused to return to the peace talks, and even when he placed preconditions which Israel met, he refused to do so and, instead, has attempted to bypass the talks by violating the agreement that he signed by going to the UN. It is high time Europe, North America, Australia and Japan told Abbas: ruturn to the negotiating table where Israel has been sitting since 2009 waiting for you and resolve the dispute there, or else!!
Q:What happens if the US government recognizes a Palestenian State with an announcement - like Truman made - based on a declaration that serves America's interest also? Will that harm the State of Israel?
I honestly thought the region has its rendition of smart people; i think the region is clueless about America's patience and underestimate its resolve. The bravado and language used to lecture, blackmail or entice guilt has its limits. Notice how much fuss we heard in the news when the US pivoted away from the Middle East - the countries could not tolerate being ignored. Thanks, T.
Why should the US act contrary to both international law as well as contrary to bilaterla agreements between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)? Indeed, shouldn't the US and any other country on earth stand by such agreements and demand of the PLO to simply sit down at the negotiating table and talk peace with Israel? After all, the PLO has been formally committed to doing just that, and Israel has been sitting at the table since 2009 awaiting the PLO's ladership to sit down and pursue peace talks.
Strange that you cite international law. We'll hear more of that in the UN later this month. -T