• ISBN: 9957-440-00-4
• Hard Cover,   152 Pages Size: 17 * 24  
• Publisher: Refugees Studies and Research Center    Publication Date: 1/11/2003
• Language: English
• Price: 25 USD

The present work researches what may be viewed as one of the most important issues to have arisen from Israel’s occupation of Palestine in 1948 and the associated forced migration of large numbers of Palestinians, who today number more than 5,000,000 refugees.

I have devoted Chapter 1 to a discussion of the origin of the Palestinian cause beginning in the post-World War I period, at which time Palestine was under British mandate, as well as the responsibilities of the mandatory state under international law and an analysis of UN Resolution 181 calling for the establishment of two states in Palestine.

Chapter 2 deals with the causes which led to the occupation of Palestine and the terrorist acts committed by Zionist gangs which targeted the lives of civilians in order to plant terror in their hearts, thereby obliging them to leave their country. This was followed by the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian lands and the bringing in of Jews to replace the land’s Palestinian owners. Chapter 2 likewise deals with the various estimates of the numbers of Palestinian refugees based on records of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).

Chapter 3 is devoted to a discussion of the definition of “refugee”; in addition, it offers a legal analysis of the 1951 Geneva Convention and the degree to which this convention applies to the Palestinian refugees in order to arrive at a definition of Palestinian refugees and the distinction between the terms “refugee” and “emigrant.”

Chapters 4 and 5 offer an analysis of the subject of Palestinian refugees’ right of return based on the principles of international law and the international human rights charters which guarantee refugees’ right to return to the homes which they were forced to leave by the occupying state. In addition, they deal with the measures and UN resolutions which have sought to guarantee the Palestinian refugees’ return, and in accordance with which UN mediator Count Bernadotte was appointed to conduct a dialogue with the parties to the conflict in order to arrive at an agreement which would guarantee the refugees’ return. These chapters likewise present an analysis of the legal dimensions of UN Resolution 194 (111), which calls for the return of the Palestinian refugees, as well as other UN General Assembly and Security Council resolutions which call for the application of UN Resolution 194 and for enabling the refugees to exercise their right of return.

In Chapters 6 and 7, I discuss the Palestinian refugees’ right to compensation, in accordance with international law, for the material and nonmaterial losses which they have suffered as a result of having been forced to migrate from their homeland. In addition, I deal in these chapters with the practical mechanisms which might be adopted in connection with compensation for the Palestinian refugees, and the historical precedents from elsewhere in the world in which compensation has been paid and to which reference may be made in discussing the matter of compensation for the Palestinian refugees.

As for Chapter 8, it presents the various stances which have been taken on the refugee issue by the Palestinian and Israeli sides and by refugees’ host countries, as well as the matter of refugees’ living conditions and rights in their respective host countries based on such countries’ own local laws.