Rantawi: US bill is a denial of Palestinians' right of return

The right of return for Palestinian refugees is one of the most important topics in Palestinian-Israeli negotiations. This topic was the reason why the negotiations have stalled during its several stages until they totally stopped, as Israel refuses to recognise the rights of the Palestinian refugees as stated in the UN resolutions, particularly Resolution 194 issued in the year 1948. Last Thursday, 30 members of the US senate introduced a bill to the US Department of State to answer the question: “How many of the five million Palestinians who receive aid from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) have really been displaced from the occupied land of Palestine or from Israel? This bill was adopted by the Republican Senator Mark Kirk during a meeting of the Appropriations Committee in Congress. The bill has significant flaws concerning the refugees issue. Not only does it deny the right of return on the one hand, but it even denies the existence of the Palestinian refugees. On the other hand  it puts heavy responsibility on the hosting countries, particularly Jordan. In a follow-up on this subject, the May 28 issue of Al Ghad newspaper published a report by Taghreed al-Rashq, where the Director General of the Al Quds Center for Political Studies Oraib Al Rantawi, explained the risks and challenges that would result because of this bill. The question about the number of Palestinian refugees in the world and whether their descendants are considered as refugees, is facing an American controversy, with which the right of return of the new generation may be discussed, in light of the absence of most of the parents and grandparents who left Palestine during the Nakba in 1948. This controversy arose when one of the members of the Appropriations Committee in the US Senate, requested the population figures of Palestinian refugees through a bill that demands the American Department of State, which allocates $250 million of its budget per year to support UNRWA, to determine the number of those who left Palestine due to the Nakba, in addition to their children and grandchildren. US analysts fear that aid which is being sent to refugees will be cut. They also showed concern for Jordan which is the most significant host of these refugees, as the country is currently suffering a stifling economic crisis and many political burdens A Congress member, responding to a question asked by an American journalist about the reason behind this controversy at the present time, said that this issue is related to the right of the  US taxpayer  to know where the aid money to  UNRWA is going, as American citizens partially finance it. For his part, the writer and political analyst Oraib Al Rantawi sees that this movement affects Jordan most as a large number of its inhabitants are Palestinian refugees, a fact which will cast furt burdens on it. Rantawi points out that there are about three million Palestinian refugees in the Kingdom, two million of which are registered with UNRWA, while many others are not, plus there are some who do not have a national identity number. Rantawi highlighted the need for a large-scale Jordanian involvement before this decision becomes official US policy, commenting that usually such issues start at Congress and are then referred to the official administration. Rantawi expressed the importance of activating the terms of  international law and the decrees of the United Nations, particularly those that identify who the Palestinian refugees are. According to the definition of UNRWA, Palestinian refugees are those who were living in Palestine between June 1946 and May 1948, and those who lost their homes and livelihoods as a result of the 1948 war. The definition also provides that, the services of UNRWA should be available to all those refugees who live in the areas of its operations and for whom this definition is applicable and  are registered at the agency and in need of help, adding that the descendents of those indigenous Palestinians deserve to be registered in the records of the agency. Congress members who adopted this law are unclear whether there are actually five million refugees or 30,000, in reference to the number of refugees who fled Palestine in 1948 whom the Congress committee have estimated as 750,000 of which a large percentage have died leaving just 30,000. Rantawi comments on this saying that the notion is to limit the definition of refugees to the first generation only, whose actual population is 850,000 not 750,000. He says: “Congress members who support this law believe that this generation has died or those who remain are of an age when they will shortly die, therefore their children have no right of return nor of compensation.” Rantawi adds: “By this, they think that the remainder will have died by the time the negotiations end.” Rantawi considers what is more serious than the denial of the right of return is “the denial of the existence of refugees,” although the main objective of the bill, he believes, is the abolition of the right of return. At the time this abrupt step was taken by the Republican Senator Mark Kirk, who is known for his support of Israel, the issue received high-profile media attention in the United States, from both supporters and opponents. Some news reports said that this step "will harm Jordan, which is considered a key ally of America in the Middle East.” On the other hand, some other newspapers said that “the Department of State and Jordan are against a bill to determine the number of Palestinian refugees,” while the Israeli press, particularly the right-wing ones, have received this news positively, reporting the Congress meeting in more than one newspaper with headlines:  “US starts Palestinian census.” The Foreign Policy magazine quoted a source in the US State Department on Friday  commenting on the bill, saying  that the US government considers the descendants of the Palestinian refugees as refugees. The magazine said that a senior official in the ministry mentioned that the number of  Palestinian refugees  has reached five million in a message to the Congress. American politicians agree that raising this issue would harm the already stalled negotiations and will complicate things as the right of return is one of the most important Palestinian conditions.