Summary
The United Nations Economic Survey Mission for the Middle East, established by the Palestine Conciliation Commission, whose report (Document A/AC.25/6) estimated 726,000 Palestinian refugees from the 1948 war and whose chairman recommended that compensation for abandoned property be separated from a general peace settlement (The Right of Return of the Palestinian People, PDF p.15, p.32-33).
Details
- The Mission’s estimate of 726,000 Palestinians who had fled as refugees superseded the Mediator’s preliminary figures; it also revised the Mediator’s preliminary estimate of Jewish refugees in the 1948 war from 7,000 to 17,000 (The Right of Return of the Palestinian People, PDF p.15).
- One of its assigned tasks, as the 1978 study gives it, was “to facilitate the repatriation, resettlement and economic and social rehabilitation of refugees and the payment of compensation” (The Right of Return of the Palestinian People, PDF p.32).
- Its chairman, after a legal analysis of compensation, recommended urging Israel to agree that payment of compensation for abandoned property, movable and immovable, be separate from a general peace settlement: the principle was clearly established by the General Assembly and basically acknowledged by Israel; the bulk of the refugees were not citizens of the Arab States at their displacement, so their right should not be confused with inter-state claims; and early payment to non-returning refugees would give them an incentive to resettle outside Israeli territory, conforming with the Israeli Government’s expressed wish. Israel continued to insist that return, including compensation, could only be considered in negotiations for a general peace settlement (The Right of Return of the Palestinian People, PDF p.32-33).
Related pages
Palestine Conciliation Commission, The Right of Return of the Palestinian People, Right of Return, Folke Bernadotte