Summary
UN General Assembly resolution adopted on 11 December 1948, in Pappe’s account; it gave the Palestinian refugees the option to decide between unconditional return to their homes and/or accepting compensation, and Israel’s anti-repatriation policy — village demolition, the Custodian for absentee property, and a resettlement programme for Syria, Jordan and Lebanon — was built to defeat it.
Details
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The Palestine Conciliation Commission called for the unconditional return of the refugees, which the assassinated UN mediator Count Folke Bernadotte had demanded, and turned its position into the resolution, overwhelmingly supported by most member states and adopted on 11 December 1948 (The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, PDF p.222).
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Israel’s governmental decision of August 1948 to destroy all the evicted villages and transform them into Jewish settlements or ‘natural’ forests was deliberately accelerated to invalidate any discussion of refugees returning, since their houses would no longer be there (The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, PDF p.222).
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The Custodian for absentee property was a function the Israeli government created to fend off any possible fallout from Resolution 194, which insisted all refugees be allowed to return and/or be compensated; under its custody the confiscated lands became state lands that by law belonged to the Jewish nation and could not be sold to Arabs (The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, PDF p.250).
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Neither the USA and Britain, who responded favourably to Israel’s resettlement policy, nor the rest of the world invested much effort in pushing that policy forward, or in arguing for the implementation of Resolution 194 (The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, PDF p.247).
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Pappe writes that the Palestinians’ Right of Return was originally granted to them by the United Nations in 1948, and that close to sixty years later they remained steadfast in demanding it be acknowledged (The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, PDF p.270).
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Chapter 11 opens with the resolution as its epigraph and centres Lausanne (spring 1949) on it: the conference was based on Resolution 194 and centred around the call for the refugees’ Right of Return (The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, PDF p.272, p.274). Pappe argues the Right of Return it acknowledged is anchored in international law and that Oslo broke down in 2000 over it (The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, PDF p.290-291). See Right of Return.
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Manna (part 4) records communist bloc states opposing Resolution 194 out of unconditional support for Israel, Arab countries opposing for different reasons, and Maki opposing Sharett’s proposal to accept 100,000 refugees’ return under it (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.144-145).
Related pages
The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, Palestine Conciliation Commission, Folke Bernadotte, Jewish National Fund