United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194

Background

During the 1948 Palestine war, around 700,000The exact number of refugees is disputed. See List of estimates of the Palestinian Refugee flight of 1948 for details. Palestinian Arabs or 85% of the total population fled or were expelled from the territory Israel conquered. The UN Mediator for Palestine, Count Folke Bernadotte, believed that the Palestinians displaced had a right to return to their homes and wrote several UN reports to that effect. On June 28, 1948, during a truce he had arranged, he presented a series of suggestions for a peaceful settlement of the Palestine dispute. One of them was that the UN should recognize "the right of residents of Palestine who, because of conditions created by the conflict there have left their normal places of abode, to return to their homes without restriction and to regain possession of their property." Another was to incorporate Jerusalem into Arab territory which angered the Israelis. In the report he presented on September 16, he wrote: In the report, he argued that "[t]he right of Arab refugees to return to their homes in Jewish-controlled territory at the earliest possible date should be affirmed by the United Nations" and that the UN should supervise payment of "adequate compensation for the property" of those choosing not to return. Israel publicly rejected the report, but Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett acknowledged that "[i]t is not so nice or humanitarian to oppose something which is so basic, so simple: a person's right to return to the home from which he has been driven out by force."

While Bernadotte was assassinated by Jewish paramilitaries, his insistence on a right of return for the refugees formed the basis of resolution 194.

Views

Several organizations and individuals believe that resolution 194 enshrines a right for the Palestinian refugees to return to their homes in territory that Israel occupied in the 1948 war. The UN General Assembly has reaffirmed Resolution 194 every year since 1949 and other UN resolutions have reaffirmed the right of return, including General Assembly Resolution 169 in 1980.

Joshua Muravchik does not believe that resolution 194 enshrines a right of return, pointing out that the text states that the refugees "should be permitted" to return to their homes at the "earliest practicable date" and this recommendation applies only to those "wishing to... live at peace with their neighbors".

Palestinian and Arab views

The Arab states originally voted against resolution 194, but they began to reverse their position by spring 1949 and soon became its strongest advocates. The 2002 Arab Peace Initiative softened their stance by calling for "a just solution which must also be accepted by Israel."

Palestinian representatives initially rejected resolution 194 because they viewed it as being based on the illegality of the state of Israel. By their reasoning, Israel had no right to prevent the return of the "indigenous Arab people of Palestine". Later, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and other Palestinian organizations has come to view resolution 194 as one source of legal authority for the right of return. In an address in 2009, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas stated:

Abbas has on other several occasions referred to a "just solution" to the Palestinian refugees "on the basis of Resolution 194". Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the PLO Executive Committee has similarly declared that resolution 194 enshrines a non-negotiable right of return:

The Palestinian-led BDS movement asserts that Israel must comply with international law by, among other things, "[r]especting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN Resolution 194."

Israeli view

Israel does not believe that it has an obligation to let the refugees return, a view was promulgated by the Israeli leadership even before resolution 194 was adopted. In a cabinet meeting in June 1948 Israel's first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion stated: "They [the Palestinians] lost and fled. Their return must now be prevented.... And I will oppose their return also after the war." Ben-Gurion's words were echoed by Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir who in 1992 declared that the return of the Palestinian refugees "will never happen in any way, shape or form. There is only a Jewish right of return to the land of Israel."

Israel also argued that it did not have to compensate refugees for land and property that they had abandoned. In a press conference in 1949, Sharett stated:

In the debates about UN resolution 273 in May 1949, about Israel's admittance to the UN, Israel's UN representative Abba Eban promised that the state would honor its obligations under resolution 181 and resolution 194. El Salvador's representative asked: Eban replied: Israel was thus admitted to the United Nations in May 1949 on condition that it "unreservedly accepts the obligations of the UN Charter and undertakes to honour them from the day when it becomes a member of the UN." But Israel didn't comply with the right of return as reaffirmed in resolution 194.

Israel has offered to repatriate a number of refugees as part of negotiations: see the Lausanne Conference (April-September 1949), the 2000 Camp David negotiations, and Israeli–Palestinian peace process, §Camp David 2000 Summit, Clinton's "Parameters," and the Taba talks.

Polling

The Palestinian people have demonstrated strong support for a right of return based on resolution 194. In a 1999 poll by Elia Zureik, some 61.4% of the Palestinians in Israel said that a proper solution to the refugee issue should be based on resolution 194 and about half found such a solution feasible; in the occupied Palestinian territories, over 80% of the Palestinians considered resolution 194 to be a just solution to the refugee problem, and about 50% thought implementing 194 was feasible. In contrast, fewer than 5% of Jewish Israeli respondents thought resolution 194 was either just or feasible.

Voting results

The result of the voting was the following:

In Favor Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Ethiopia, France, Greece, Haiti, Honduras, Iceland, Liberia, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, South Africa, Sweden, Thailand, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay, Venezuela.

Against Afghanistan, Byelorrusian SSR, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan, Poland, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Ukrainian SSR, USSR, Yemen, Yugoslavia.

Abstaining Bolivia, Burma, Chile, Costa Rica, Guatemala, India, Iran, Mexico.

Related resolutions

Adopted in the aftermath of the Six-day war in 1967, Security Council Resolution 237 called upon Israel "to facilitate the return of those inhabitants who have fled the areas [occupied by Israel] since the outbreak of hostilities".

UN Resolution 3236 & 3237 adopted in 1974, and UN Resolution 3379 adopted in 1975 which determined that Palestine have international representation for self-determination, UN Assembly observer status, and that the Palestinian people seek redress having been subjected to racial discrimination respectively.

Full text

Having considered further the situation in Palestine,

Extends its thanks to the Acting Mediator and his staff for their continued efforts and devotion to duty in Palestine;

Requests the Security Council to take further steps to ensure the demilitarization of Jerusalem at the earliest possible date;

Instructs the Conciliation Commission to present to the fourth regular session of the General Assembly detailed proposals for a permanent international regime for the Jerusalem area which will provide for the maximum local autonomy for distinctive groups consistent with the special international status of the Jerusalem area;

The Conciliation Commission is authorized to appoint a United Nations representative who shall cooperate with the local authorities with respect to the interim administration of the Jerusalem area;

Instructs the Conciliation Commission to report immediately to the Security Council, for appropriate action by that organ, any attempt by any party to impede such access;

Instructs the Conciliation Commission to facilitate the repatriation, resettlement and economic and social rehabilitation of the refugees and the payment of compensation, and to maintain close relations with the Director of the United Nations Relief for Palestine Refugees and, through him, with the appropriate organs and agencies of the United Nations;

The Conciliation Commission will have its official headquarters at Jerusalem. The authorities responsible for maintaining order in Jerusalem will be responsible for taking all measures necessary to ensure the security of the Commission. The Secretary-General will provide a limited number of guards for the protection of the staff and premises of the Commission;

References

Notes

Citations

Sources

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References

1. United Nations General Assembly Resolution 169 (1980), Article 66.
2. [https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/israel-law-review/article/1948-refugees/1E997E364691F4379C6F77EC05BC84AD/core-reader "1948 Refugees."] ''Cambridge University''. 21 February 2018. 15 November 2020.
3. {{harvnb. Masalha. 2003. UNRWA: FAQ. Hart. 2010. Susser. 2017
4. "Resolution 194 ... speaks of the right of all Palestinian refugees to return to their homes in Israel. But even the [[Arab League]] modified this in 2002, with a new resolution proposing 'a just solution which must also be accepted by Israel.'" Amirav, M. (2007). We must learn from camp david. FT.Com, 1. Proquest.
5. {{harvnb. Radley. 1978
6. {{harvnb. Halevi. 2010
7. "Forty-Seventh Meeting". United Nations.
8. {{harvnb. ''UNGA''. 1948
9. "A/PV.186 of 11 December 1948".
10. "Mideast situation - SecCo debate - Verbatim record".