A referential drafting extracted from the Human Rights Covenants and human principles and the laws related to it based on the basis that Palestinian Arabs should have the same human rights as the rest of the peoples of the world. Also included in English are excerpts from relevant Covenants.
1- The Right of Return is the right for individuals and groups to return at any time to their land and homeland and the original and historical place of residence in which they actually used to live at the time the incidents took place which resulted in their leaving it, without considering their absence temporally for work, study and tourism as a diminutive of this residence.
2- The Right of Return is a natural right. Not only that, it is also a right that is human, absolute, unconditional, individual and collective, material and moral, regional and national, inheritable (even for those who were born in the diaspora=Ashatat) to all their children. It is irrevocable and cannot be relinquished nor can anyone be delegated to represent another in relinquishing this right or negotiating it, nor can it be exchanged for compensation. It is indivisible, there shall be no distortion and disguising of it or shall it be limited to particular time or date. It also depends on personal proprietorship that doesn’t terminate by occupation, and should not be subjugated to restrictions that deteriorate or contradict with what is stated in covenants of international human rights and/or human and international laws. It also not cannot be diminished or distorted under the motto of the right of self determination.
3- It is a right for individuals and/or a collective right for those persons or their relatives expelled or dislodged from their places of residence, or who have been displaced or left their land and homes by forceful driving away, or who voluntarily left their homes under threat, or who ran away due to oppression and massacres from their homeland to other places inside it, or who were outside their place of residence at the time of the war that resulted in leaving their land and its occupation and confiscating it by others or delivering it to others occurred. And in the case of repeated dislodging inside their land, the Right of Return means to original place of residence before the first displacement.
4- And in case of appropriating any land from any country with the aim of occupying or confiscating it, this land is considered the property of all the inhabitants of the mother country totally and without appropriating. As it is not permissible to occupy the land of others by force, and it will be the property of all its citizens of the mother country from which this piece of land was appropriated, the right of ownership of the appropriated land and the right to return to it.
5- It is not by any means permissible to exploit the sufferings that the owners of the Right of Return, to obtain the approval of an individual to abandon his Right of Return due to his lack of aptitude, he himself, to deny his children from the right to inherit the land and identity, it is not permissible to condemn them in advance to vagabondage, or to remain without identity or homeland, because the ownership of the land is communal for all its citizens presently and in the future.
6- As per all the above, the Palestinian Authority, neither the Arab summit meetings, nor any international conferences, are fit to represent the owners of the Right of Return in any projects or agreements to abandon their rights.
7- It is also not permissible for any Arab or non-Arab state or any international organization to hold agreements or take decisions, by the force of which to settle any of the owners of the Right of Return on its land or other’s lands or to displace them to distant lands from their original place of residence, to make place for those who settled (colonized) their land and build a state on it.
8- It is not permissible forthe international community to abandon the rights of any human community, or to deal with it or its members using double standards, and to sacrifice its rights to others, whatever the excuses and reasons are, such as practicality, security requirements or the presence of a formidable force on this land, and it is not permissible for him to record a precedence in history allowing for the first time to bestow legality for an aggression by gangs and colonizing groups against weak peoples, and it is not permissible the aggression to become legal natural entity the basis of power instead on the basis of legality and morality.
9- As for the matter of financial compensation that is suggested every now and then, in various international conspiratorial projects suggested a replacement of the Right of Return as a price for settling them away from their original place of residence. These financial compensations can be acceptable under what was stated above, except for the owners of the Right of Return, and all the above mentioned parties in place of years of displacement and suffering, to which they were exposed by the international community by its consent to displace them by establishing an illegal entity on their land, and in place of using their homeland, exploiting it for tens of years by invading colonizing groups that occupied their homeland. It is not for accepting their settlement or for surrendering their Right of Return to their original place of residence, and should be paid to them after their return to their original place of residence to help them to return to their natural lives.
10- There is nothing in this document, and it should not be understood from anything in it, that it permits any state, organization, body or person to participate in any activity that shall result in depriving the owners of the Right of Return from enjoying it fully and fully obtaining their entitlements as per the laws, covenants and the principles of human rights followed at the time and before writing this covenant.
Explanation and comments
The natural and human right is the right of man and natural groups and it grew and developed its society in a certain region during the development of the natural history, which is a right that man gains because he is a human, as he is naturally social and his sociability is tied with the place assemblage, allowing him to leave and return to his family and community without restrictions.
The absolute and unstipulated right, is a right without stipulations, inherited and not granted, without deficit and not regulated by laws.
Communal right is a right for the community as it is an individual right, which is due to man being social by nature.
Material and moral right is the right of land, home and homeland ownership, as it is the right of the ownership of the moral identity connected to with the belonging to the homeland and the community, and the ownership of the homeland does not require the availability of documents and deeds to prove it. This right is extended to the right of residence around holy places, visiting them and holding complete, unlimited rituals with full freedom. In Islam, in particular there are clear texts that give special importance to the homeland and religion, as it is considered to fight man in his religion and expel him from his homeland the peak of oppression that couldn’t be accepted or which we cannot be silent about.
The regional and national right is a result of that the victorious international community in the First World War and the Western force of invasion to the Arab region (called colonialism). It appropriated Palestine from greater Syria and the whole Arab homeland in preparation to hand it over to the Zionist invaders, in the San Remo conference, which is the conference that decided on executing the Sykes Picot Agreement between France and the United Kingdom, when Palestine was taken from the Arab homeland and given to gangs and groups that came from all over the world, to establish in it through invasion, colonialism, displacement and replacement – illegal and immoral colonization, and to produce a permanent danger against regional and national security in the Arab region. This is a breach to all legal conventions that enforces on colonialists to return the land to its owners completely and without deduction. All of this means that the owners of Palestine are not simply its direct inhabitants, but they are the inhabitants the Arab homeland from which Palestine was appropriated, they have in it all the rights of any French citizens from northern France in the lands of southern France, which is his homeland, and he has the right to claim it if it was exposed to occupation. This is only an example and not in general. This the national right that is added to the regional right.
Everybody should be reminded of the massacres and oppression that Zionist gangs had committed in the land that came to be called the state of “Israel”, in violation of United Nations laws and any other moral legitimacy. In order to expel the Arab people from Palestine, (for Example the Deir Yassin massacre).
The international legitimacy covenants imposed by the victors in the Second World War, such as the Declaration of Human Rights, and the 4th Vienna agreements 1949 and the international laws related to the cause, and the clear and direct texts that endorse this right of all the above mentioned owners of the Right of Return to their original place of residence or that which was a part of their regional or national homeland, and it is not permissible to exempt any human being from this right whatever the are the excuses such as the presence of a formidable force on this land, and reaching a state of stability in the diaspora (Al-Shatat) and other excuses.
To return the Right of Return to some of its owners while settling others in any place in the Arab homeland or outside it, in addition to being an actual infringement of their human rights among which is the Right of Return, this shall expose them under threat of sedition and the danger of fighting each other and individual and collective killing that would deprive them of security. That is one of the important axis in the international charter of human rights. The massacres of Sabra and Shatilla as well as the Black September incidents, and what Arab Iraqi groups under occupation were exposed to; the Sudan incidents of Sudan and Kosovo as well as in many African states all form striking proof on this. And it is not the right of anybody to expose human groups to these dangers; so it is not possible to accept any guarantees to provide protection to any group, because security should be natural and impulsive and not under any artificial protection, which could be wiped out by a political decision at any time.
All the human race should recognize that it cannot enjoy stability and security now and in the future, just while abandoning the rights of some of its members whether individuals or groups, and sacrificing them to others, dealing with them with double standards under any excuses or reasons, which applies to dropping the Right of Return, which creates a precedent in human history, by which it shall bestow legitimacy for the first time to aggression committed by colonizing gangs and groups against the weaker peoples and give it the right to change after the aggression into a legal entity, relying on the power of the force of arms and terror instead of legality and morality.
Selective supportive texts from some covenants and state laws:
Texts from the International Covenant of Human Rights, as adopted and published as per the decision of the United Nations General Assembly 217A (D-3) dated Dec. 10th 1948
Article 1
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
Article 2
Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.
Article 3
Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.
Article 13
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 their own, and to return to their country.
Article 15
1. Everyone has the right to a nationality.
2. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality.
Article 17
1. Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others.
2. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.
Article 30
Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein.
Excerpts from Resolution 194 of the United Nations dated 11/12/1948
The resolution: Resolves that the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property
The same resolution also resolves: “of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible; (The resolution doesn’t specify who these neighbors are!!!) It is clear that this part of the resolution contradicts with human rights upon which the above-mentioned covenant states, which results in settling groups outside their homeland: thus their offspring shall not be able to inherit it, and separates them from their communities, as well as exploits their sufferings to impose on them to accept compensation, it also imposes other Arabs the right of proprietorship of what was occupied and separated from their homelands by force and conspiracy, and permanently threatening their security.
Agreements and documents on which the author relied upon in our understanding of Human Rights:
The Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment of Punishment,
The Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War,
The Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and Relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts,
The Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons,
The Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness,
The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide,
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,
The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights,
The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination,
Convention on the Rights of the Child.
The above was translated from Arabic by: Adib S. Kawar, revised by Mary Rizzo
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