How can the Palestinian refugees be compensated fortheir misery and displacement?

Rabin in his memoirs discussed his involvement in the forced expulsion of 60,000 Palestinians from Al Lid and Al Ramalah (Coastal cities in Palestine) in 1948. Many Palestinian towns and villages around Jerusalem and other areas were depopulated of its indigenous Palestinian inhabitants and populated with Jewish immigrants. These are examples of forced expulsion that qualify for the right of return under international law. These acts of forced expulsion are crimes against humanity. How do you compensate people who were forced out and have been living in refugee camps for 50 years? Money cannot compensate such a plight. It is a complicated matter and the only way to solve it is to create a mechanism, a tribunal. Maybe a lump sum given to the Palestinian authority which will create a mechanism to compensate people. There is no fast political fix. A short term solution will not resolve this serious problem and will only result in further uprisings and violence.

When, why, and how did you get involved in the Question of Palestine?

It was in 1977, when Abdeen Jabara, a U.S. civil rights attorney and former Chairman of the American-Arab Anti Discrimination Committee (ADC), organized a human rights inquiry in the Occupied Territories sponsored by the National Lawyers Guild. I articipated with this group of lawyers and became familiar with the situation. At that time, I had no previous experience with these issues. As a result, I and the others came to the conclusion that it was necessary to write something about Israel's human rights violations in the Occupied Territories, which was published the following year. Unlike today, at that time there was very little attention by human rights groups on Palestine. As you know, the US government and main stream media are rarely critical of Israel's continued occupation and abuse of Palestinian human rights. How do people react to your unpopular position? There were some local groups in Columbus Ohio encouraging me not to speak publicly about Palestine. B'nai Birth, for instance, wrote many negative things about me and circulated it to their readers. So its been a very mixed reaction. Not entirely negative, however. Many people are interested to hear what I have learned in my visits to Palestine.

Why did you write "Palestine and Israel: A Challenge to Justice"?

I wrote the book for the Western audience. I made a conscious effort to base my book mostly on Israeli sources. Nevertheless, it reflects several decades of my experience and involvement in the Question of Palestine. In your most recent book, Palestine and Israel: a Challenge to Justice, chapter 28 is entitled: "TO MAKE A PEOPLE WHOLE: responsibility for wrongs in Palestine." What did you mean by `to make a people whole'? Well, it is impossible to bring about a situation that would put the Palestinian people where they were prior to their expulsion from Palestine. Maybe this was a bad choice of word on my part. I should have probably said to make a people as whole as possible. But I was looking for appropriate remedies, given the fact that Palestinians were expelled and deprived of their country. Still, I suggest that there should be a right of return, compensation, and reparation for property taken. I also believe that some of the Israeli leaders have done things in 1948 and 1967 that qualify as War Crimes and they should be accountable.

You exhaustively document Israel's violation of almost all international conventions addressing refugees and human rights? why is there no Western outcry?

It is in part a result of the weakness of the international mechanisms and in part a result of the UN having misapprehended the situation by initially in 1948, taking a position without realizing what it might lead to. The general assembly in particular, has taken many strong position critical of Israel's human rights violations and passed many resolution in support of Palestinian refugees' rights to return to their homes. But those resolutions have not been translated into any serious action that would bring about change for the sake of these refugees. Due to the US and Israel's insistence on this bilateralism, the UN has been backing away from the Question of Palestine. However, the Security Council tried to get back into this action last year when Israel was confiscating land from the Jerusalem area. The draft esolution proposed to the Security Council to condemn Israel's confiscation of land would have passed but for the US veto. I think if the UN can get actively invovled in the Peace Process we can expect a better outcome.

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