Canada's role in the 'right of return'
by David Bedein
March 23, 2001
National Post

JERUSALEM - A cardinal principle of the Arab information campaign
against Israel since the inception of the Jewish state 53 years 
ago has focused on the plight of Palestinian Arabs who left their 
homes and villages while seven Arab armies invaded the new Jewish 
state.

Following the 1948 war, United Nations Resolution 194 was enacted 
to assure Palestinian Arab refugees that they have the "inalienable 
right of return" to the homes and villages they left in 1948. Under 
the premise and promise of the inalienable right of return, the 
United Nations and neighbouring Arab countries have confined 
Palestinian Arab refugees to the squalor of UN refugee camps to 
this very day.

Indeed, a UN refugee aid agency, UNRWA, was created, whose purpose 
is not to rehabilitate and resettle refugees, but instead to prepare 
them for the return to their homes of 1948, whether they still exist 
or not.

This principle has even been adapted by the Palestinian Authority, 
which has forbidden Arab refugees from moving into homes and 
villages in the West Bank or Gaza because that would violate their 
right to return to Jaffa, Haifa and more than 500 villages inside 
pre-1967 Israel.

In December, 2000, the Palestinian Authority issued a new 56-page
illustrated brochure, Witness to History: The Plight and Promise 
of Palestinian Refugees, with an introduction by PLO spokeswoman 
Dr. Hanan Ashrawi, promoting the right of Palestinian Arab 
refugees to repossess the 531 villages they lost in 1948, even if 
those villages have been absorbed by Israeli cities, collective 
farms or woodlands.

That the PA would issue such a brochure calling for the 
implementation of UN "right of return" Resolution 194 is not 
surprising.

What is surprising is that the brochure was funded and distributed 
by the Canadian government, through its Canadian Representative 
Office in Ramallah. This office, which I have had the opportunity 
to visit, acts as a de facto Canadian embassy to the Palestinian 
Authority. Last May, when I met with Tim Martin, the chief 
representative and his assistant John Laine, they both indicated 
they understood the Palestinian commitment to the idea of the 
"right of return," and they handed me the April 2000, booklet
printed by the PA on the subject.

Mr. Laine went on to describe in great detail (and with great 
pride) how the Canadian government was actively trying to help 
with job training programs in these refugee camps.

A year later, it would seem Canada's mandate has been expanded 
from helping reduce Palestinian refugee unemployment to helping 
fan the flames of a Palestinian refugee war to conquer all of 
Palestine.

The brochure, replete with pictures of suffering Palestinian Arab
refugees over the years, calls Israel's "denial of the right of 
return" a continuing breach of international law, while defining 
the entire history of the Middle East conflict in terms of the 
"Palestinian dispossession and will to survive." The 1948 war is 
defined as if Israel's purpose was to kick out Arabs, without 
mentioning that seven Arab armies invaded the new Jewish state 
with the support of local Palestinian Arab villagers.

UN refugee education is described in innocuous terms, "their 
lifeline to the future," without any mention of the schoolbooks 
published by UNRWA that encourage a new generation to liberate 
all of Palestine.

Canada is the gavel holder for the refugee working group that 
was established to negotiate the future of Palestinian Arab 
refugees under the Oslo process in 1993.

By publishing "Witness to History: The Plight and Promise of 
Palestinian Refugees", Canada appears to have taken a partisan 
PLO position that will compromise any constructive role the 
country may play in solving the tempestuous refugee issue of 
the Middle East peace process.

David Bedein is Media Research Analyst and Bureau Chief, 
Israel Resource News Agency, Beit Agron International Press 
Center, Jerusalem.