BEIRUT, Lebanon, April 28 (UPI) -- Wisdom, equity and realism on Arab-Israeli issues are scarce commodities among former or serving American officials. So it is noteworthy when one of the most experienced and respected ex-American diplomats suggests, as did former U.S. Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Thomas R. Pickering last week in Qatar, that a key to peace-making should be Israeli recognition of the right of Palestinian refugees who fled or were driven out in 1948 to return to their homes and lands in what is now Israel.
Pickering achieved the personal rank of career ambassador, the highest in the United States Foreign Service, at the peak of his 40 years of government service. More recently, he worked in the private corporate sector, from which he has just announced his retirement. Speaking in his personal capacity at the inaugural seminar of the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar, established in conjunction with the Qatar Foundation, he outlined steps that he thought could pave the way for progress in the ongoing conflicts in Iran, Iraq, and Israel and Palestine.
On the latter, he argued that a two-state solution required a return of Palestinian land occupied in 1967, "approaching 100 percent, with negotiated tradeoffs," giving Palestinians control over their own internal security and foreign guarantees for their external security. Jerusalem's status would be resolved according to the Ehud Barak-Bill Clinton ideas of 2000 (essentially: what's Arab is Arab, and what's Jewish is Jewish).
Pickering's call for Israel to recognize the right of return of the 1948 Palestinians is noteworthy. No serving or retired American official of such stature and firsthand personal knowledge of the conflict has ever explicitly called for Israeli recognition of the Palestinians' right of return. I pursued the matter privately with Pickering after his public talk, and asked if he was referring strictly to the generation of Palestinians who became refugees in 1948. He replied affirmatively, and explained:
"The right of return is controversial and the Israelis don't want to actually admit or honor this right, for the simple reason that they see it as a slippery slope. Over a period of time they think that the Palestinian and Arab objective is to flood Israel with returning refugees, and therefore, in a sense, 'demograph' it out of existence. The real question is whether a right of return could be recognized within negotiated limits. This would give to the Palestinians the recognition they feel is important for themselves, but at the same time protect Israel against a flood of returnees."
How would his proposal work in practice? "I would say there are three or four steps", Pickering explained. "First, recognize the right of return. Second, define it. One way to define it in the narrowest way would be to say that anybody who left in 1948 could return, but not their progeny born after 1948. Another way would be to say anybody who left in 1948 could return, along with some family unifications, up to a limit of, say, 25,000, 50,000, 100,000 or whatever the two sides agree on. Third, the other individuals who were involved over the years in one way or another obviously have to be dealt with in a serious way, including by the international community. There, I suggest those others who live elsewhere -- Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Brazil, wherever -- would have a right within some limits set by the Palestinians themselves to go to the new state of Palestine in the West Bank and Gaza. Obviously (the Palestinian state) could not absorb everybody. So point number four would be an international program, very liberally funded, for relocations, in places like Canada, the United States, Australia -- whoever is willing to offer to take individuals who have no place (to go) but want to start a new life somewhere and who need international help to do that."
I asked Pickering if he thought his ideas would be accepted by the parties. He replied: "I came to this answer by asking how a fair and objective observer would try to deal with this problem in an equitable manner, having in mind Palestinian and Israeli interests. I have a sense that when I tried out my ideas, people found objections on both sides, but they were minimalist objections. They were basically objections of trust, or lack of trust, rather than objections of principle."
Pickering's suggestion is an important contribution to the long-running but intractable debate on how to resolve the Palestinian refugee problem according to international legitimacy, while also respecting legitimate Israeli concerns and rights. His are serious ideas, which deserve serious discussion so they can be refined, improved, rejected, modified or adopted. But they should not be ignored, because the refugee issue remains at the core of the Arab-Israeli conflict, and generating new ideas to resolve it equitably should be high on everyone's priority lists.
If perhaps the single most experienced and respected former American career diplomat, with intimate knowledge of both sides in the conflict, grasps the pivotal importance of implementing the Palestinian right of return in a negotiated and equitable manner, the rest of us should listen up.
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(Rami G. Khouri writes a regular commentary for THE DAILY STAR. This article is distributed by the Common Ground News Service.)
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(Distributed by the Common Ground News Service.)
