The Nakba, or "catastrophe", designates the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and the near-total destruction of Palestinian society in 1948. It is now recognized as history’s largest and most tragic experience of dispossession and loss of a homeland that led to the creation of the Jewish-majority State of Israel. The process entailed the forced expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homeland.

Between 1947 and 1949, at least 750,000 Palestinians from a 1.9 million population were made refugees beyond the borders of the state. Zionist forces had grabbed hold of 78 percent of historic Palestine, ethnically cleansed and ravaged about 530 Palestinian villages and cities, destroyed 662 small rural communities, and killed thousands Palestinians in a series of mass atrocities and horrendous massacres.

These people and their descendants make up the total of the Palestinian refugee population, with nearly 7 million survived refugees scattered outside of Palestine and millions of others displaced inside the Palestinian territories. 2/3 of the Palestinian people are refugees.

Affidavits and testimonies by refugees, eye-witnesses, and historical documents prove that such claims are groundless and counterfeit. Modern Israeli historicists admit that 89% of Palestinian villages were ethnically cleansed by means of direct Israeli military intervention. In 10% of the destroyed villages, civilians fled their homes owing to the traumatic upshots and heavy psychological toll of displacement. Only 1% might have left their homes voluntarily, after they recognized that the situation had taken an alarming turn for the worse.

Over 35 massacres were perpetrated by the Zionist regime. Historical records also documented 100 cases of mass atrocities, mass killing, rape, water poisoning, and destruction of crops by fire.

Though the Palestinians have witnessed all kinds of atrocities, prosecution, blockade, displacement, dispossession for over 50 years, they have shown a strong, unyielding commitment to their right of return to their motherland. For the Palestinians, just as is the case for mankind regardless of the geographical location and socio-cultural discrepancies, home defines one’s sense of selfhood. For the Palestinians, the homeland is the place where their ancestors have been buried, where their collective identity has set up its first roots, and where their shared history has taken its unique shape and character. For those reasons, the right of return can never be turned into a bargaining chip. Even children born in the exile recognize their Palestinian origins and dream of returning to the villages from which their forebears have once been displaced.

The answer is no. The right of return is an individual right. Forfeiting this right voluntarily is a national crime, for the right of return is also a collective right as confirmed by a United Nations 1946 resolution placing the right of self-determination within the framework of international law.

In 1969, the UN recognized the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination - a right which stands to this day. The international body passed several resolutions granting them their right to return to their homeland and to determine themselves. However, Israel has consistently denied the Palestinians the right to self-determination using various pretexts which defy legal logic, and its continued occupation of Palestinian land since 1967 is the gravest violation of this right. In UN Resolution 3089 of December 7, 1973, which asserts equality of rights, the international body expressed its concern over the denial by Israel of the Palestinian people of their right to exercise their inalienable rights on their own land.

United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3236, adopted by the 29th Session of the General Assembly on November 22, 1974, recognizes the Palestinian people's right to self-determination as an inalienable right.

Within such an internationally-recognized and binding legal framework, any agreement or initiative seeking to deny an inalienable right is legally, morally, and historically invalid. The Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 states that any agreement between an occupying power and the occupied people or their representatives is legally void if it denies the people’s inalienable rights.

The right of return is an inalienable right recognized by the international law and relevant UN resolutions. Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states the following:

(1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state.

(2) Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.

American, African, and Arab treaties have all confirmed the inalienable nature of the right of return.

On December 11, 1948, just one day after the release of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the United Nations General Assembly adopted resolution 194 (III), resolving that “refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible.”

The international community corroborated Resolution 194 for over 135 times since 1948 and only Israel and the US (following the Oslo Accord) opposed it.

The legitimacy of the right of return also stems from the principle of inviolability of private property which should never be violated by the occupying power nor by any other party having sovereignty over the country.

Because it is a historical right that both results from and confirms their presence in Palestine. The right of return is a legally, morally, and historically legitimate right anchored in peoples’ inherent devotion to their native soil. The Palestinian right of return is older than the presence of the British people in Britain and the Americans in America.

The question obviously entails an erroneous belief. As clearly stated by Resolution 194, return only comes true when the refugee goes back to the same place from which the refugee or his/her forebears were expelled.

As per international law, the refugee status is only invalidated when the refugee returns to the same land or home from which he/she was expelled.

In Palestinian territories occupied in 1948, nearly 250,000 refugees hold Israeli citizenship cards and are legally entitled to return to their homes. Today, some of them live just a few kilometers away from their native land.

 A person’s decision to forfeit one’s right to return to the homeland and retrieve property is an individual, non-binding decision, that affects his/her children and grandchildren. Giving up the right of return means that the refugee will be denied his/her political and national rights in Palestine.

Receiving compensation in return for giving up the right of return wipes out the person’s right to recuperate his/her home, land, and property. All Muslim scholars said that accepting compensations for land or property in Palestine is forbidden and amounts to an act of treason.

The United Nations General Assembly adopts resolution 194 (III), resolving that “refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible.”

The resolution urged to apply the right to return as a basic and essential right in international law. It emphasized the need to allow the willing refugees to return to their homes. The choice is to be made by the refugee. Nobody can decide on his/her behalf or deny this right. It is a hostile act to use force to prevent a refugee from returning to his/her home. The resolution calls for the return of the Palestinian refugees in the earliest possible opportunity, which means at the end of the fight in 1948, when the truce was signed firstly with Egypt in February 1949 and then with Lebanon, and at last with Syria in 1949.

Israel’s continuous violation of the right of return is a violation of international law itself, which makes Israel liable to compensate the refugees for the psychological and physical loss and damage and their right of the rent of their property all the previous time. 

Every Palestinian citizen is entitled to freely exercise his/her right of return regardless of whether he/she owns a private land or not. Palestinians’ right of return is a direct result of the expulsion of the native residents from their lands and homes. Returning to the land of origin is therefore a return to a place and a recuperation of an identity that have been taken away by the occupying power.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and subsequent international human rights conventions stipulate that the right of return is an individual, inalienable right that cannot be denied under any circumstance or by any treaty or agreement. Nobody can decide on the refugees’ behalf or deny their right.

The right of return is rooted in the principle of inviolability of private property which should never be violated by the occupying power nor by any other party having sovereignty over the country. The right remains valid even after the establishment of an independent Palestinian State.

Any agreement or negotiations seeking to deny such an inalienable right are legally, morally, and historically invalid. Compensation does not by any means invalidate the legitimacy of the right of return. Return and compensation are two interchangeable, undivided faces of the same coin. Money can never be accepted as a compensation for the homeland.

The campaign comes at a time when efforts have been intensified by Israel and its allies, most notably the US, to negate Palestinians’ refugee status and, as a result, rescind their right of return to their homeland and delegitimize any institution providing assistance to the refugees. The US biased stance on the refugee cause gives Israel further greenlight to implement its agenda for permanent occupation of Palestine.

In the absence of a unified Arab pro-Palestine position, the need to launch “My Return” campaign has become more urgent than ever.