5The argument that the only way toresolve the Palestinian refugeeproblem pursuant to interna-tional law is by allowing the refugeesto exercise their purported “right ofreturn” into Israel is fundamentallyflawed both legally and factually. Inter-national law is not on the Palestinians’side. The Palestinian refugee problemis rooted in the 1948–1949 Arab-IsraeliWar. In 1947, realizing that the Jewishand Arab communities of Palestinecould not live together in one state, theUN General Assembly adopted Resolu-tion 181(II), which recommended par-titioning Palestine into two states—oneJewish and one Arab.While the Jews accepted this plan,the Arabs rejected it, claiming that all ofPalestine belonged to them. WhenIsrael declared its independence in1948, all Arab states attacked it in anattempt to prevent its creation. In thewake of this war, hundreds of thousandsof Jewish refugees fled from Arab coun-tries to Israel, and, at about the sametime, between 600,000 and 750,000Palestinians fled to Arab states from theportion of Palestine that is now Israel.This population exchange mirroredfar larger population movements fol-lowing the end of World War II, whichinvolved millions of Hindus and Mus-lims in India and Pakistan, as well asPoles, Germans, and other nationali-ties in Central and East Europe. Thesepopulation exchanges were resolvedthrough the integration of all refugeesinto the host states. While Israelabsorbed the Jewish refugees, the Arabstates refused to allow such resettle-ment and integration of their Palestin-ian brethren, preferring instead toexploit the Palestinian refugees to servetheir own political agendas.Palestinians often refer to the UNGeneral Assembly’s 1948 Resolution194(III), which called for permittingrefugees to return to their “homes,” aslegal support for an alleged “right ofreturn” to the Jewish state. Contrary tothis assertion, however, Resolution194(III), like all other UN GeneralAssembly resolutions, is nonbindingand not part of international law. More-over, it was specifically rejected not onlyby Israel, but also by all Arab states,which voted against it (because theyfound it insufficiently anti-Israeli).Additionally, Resolution 194(III)emphasized that refugees should bepermitted back only if they wished to“live at peace with their neighbors.” Infact, the Palestinian insistence on a“right of return” to the Jewish state hasalways been intertwined with the rejec-tion of Palestine’s partition into twostates and the continued Palestinianaspiration to destroy Israel. Thus, theinfamous PLO’s Palestinian Covenantof 1968, which adopted the destruc-tion of the state of Israel and the liq-uidation of the “Zionist presence” inPalestine as its main goals, stated in itsArticle 9: “[a]rmed struggle is the onlyway to liberate Palestine. Thus it is theoverall strategy, not merely a tacticalphase. The Palestinian Arab peopleassert their absolute determination andfirm resolution to continue their armedstruggle and to work for an armed pop-ular revolution for the liberation oftheir country and their return to it.”This fundamental point should beunderstood clearly and without illusion:When supporters of the Palestiniansspeak of implementing their “right ofreturn” to Israel, they are not speakingof peaceful accommodation with Israel;rather, they are using a well-understoodcode phrase for the destruction of Israel.Indeed, the several hundred thousandPalestinian refugees who actually leftthe area that is now Israel have multi-plied into more than 3.5 million people,most of whom are not refugees, but sec-ond- and third-generation descendantsof the original refugees.The fact is that there are currently 23Arab states and only one Jewish state,which now consists of five million Jewsand one million Israeli Arabs. If Israelopened its gates to an additional 3.5 mil-lion Palestinians, who account for morethan half of the Palestinian people, itwould quickly disappear and be trans-formed into the 24th Arab state.During the decades that followedthe adoption of the Covenant, the Pales-tinians continued to insist that any solu-tion of the Palestinian problem mustinvolve the destruction of Israel,validating former Israeli Foreign Min-ister Abba Eban’s observation that the“Palestinians have never missed anopportunity to miss an opportunity.”In 1993, however, the Palestiniancontinued on page 8In fact, the Palestinianinsistence on a “right of return”to the Jewish state has alwaysbeen intertwined with therejection of Palestine’s partitioninto two states and thecontinued Palestinian aspirationto destroy Israel.No Palestinian ‘Return’ to Israel *by Joel Singer **Point/Counterpoint is an occasional feature of the Human Rights Brief. The purpose of Point/Coun-terpoint is to encourage meaningful, intellectual discussion on contemporary issues in human rightsand humanitarian law through the presentation of two diverse, though not necessarily opposing, opin-ions on the subject at hand. Opinions for Point/Counterpoint are generally solicited by the Brief; theEditorial Board, however, welcomes all submissions, comments, and suggestions. Point/Counterpointdoes not allow authors to review the opposing opinion prior to publication. counterpoint8Liberation Organization (PLO), actingas the representative of the Palestinianpeople, agreed in Oslo, in the contextof the Israeli-Palestinian Mutual Recog-nition Agreement, to provide severalcommitments to Israel.These commitments include: a PLOrecognition of “the right of the State ofIsrael to exist in peace and security,” aPLO acceptance of UN Security Coun-cil Resolution 242 and its companionResolution 338, and a PLO undertakingto annul the Palestinian Covenant’s pro-visions quoted above, together with allother similar provisions calling forIsrael’s destruction.Accordingly, a continued Palestinianinsistence on a “right of return” to Israel,apart from being built on originally ques-tionable legal foundations, also is incon-sistent with these very fundamentalpremises of the Oslo Agreements.First, the PLO agreed to relinquishits assertion that the Palestinians havethe exclusive right to the historic Pales-tine and agreed to divide Palestine intotwo states—one Jewish and one Pales-tinian. For the Palestinians to now revivethe demand that more than half of thePalestinian people have the right toimmigrate to the Jewish state repudi-ates the spirit, if not the letter, of theOslo Agreements.Second, UN