Hello everybody. We are now at the beginning of the second session of this conference of this webinar. It's about law and politics. This session in particular will talk about between law and politics, return and continuity of displacement. This is one of the issues that at the heart of the right of return of the Palestinian people. It talks about law and politics and I would like to emphasize here one important issue in regard to law and politics and particularly law. It is one of the ways that we focus on in relation to the right of the Christian people to return. But it's also part of the problem that the Palestinians faced in their relationship with the structures of power that existed, especially currently and historically. So I hope our speakers will be addressing not just the analysis of the law and its importance but also what law brought in terms of in terms of actual displacement of the Palestinian people and actual problems to the whole question and besides that the problem of how we address the issue of law and how we deal with it, which is very important in relation to the question of law and Palestine in particular because of the heavy reliance of the Palestinian Authority on law and to a certain extent the non reliance of the Palestinian Authority on law. So we'll start with the RDCs, he will be talking about, he will be talking about the UNGA resolution 194 and the right of return in international law. Ardim says is at Queens law school, Ardim says is a professor, assistant professor at Queens University, Canada, he is a former UN advisor, owner advisor, legal advisor, and he also was the previous editor-in-chief of the Palestinian Book of International Law. Ardim please. Thank you so very much, Reem and thank you very much to the organizers of today's conference. I, as Reem has mentioned, I've been asked to address the status of UN General Assembly resolution 194 of 11 December 1948, and the right of return in international law. As we'll be seeing the subject matter is particularly dense as the resolution itself covers a number of refugee rights, additional to return, simplicity, and the international legal basis of those rights is to be found outside of the resolution itself. So my challenge will therefore be to cover the ground as efficiently as possible without sacrificing necessary detail in the short time that I have. Any unaddressed points can be taken up in question and answer which I eagerly look forward to barring which I'm also happy to receive questions via email from anyone who who cares to contact me. The talk is divided into three parts. First, I will briefly set out the immediate context within which General Assembly Resolution 194 was issued. Second, I will summarize the content of the resolution's terms as they relate to the right to return. And third, I will address the international legal status of the rest of the right to return as affirmed in the resolution. The immediate context. The so called 1948 war took place between December 1947 and July 1949, and was fought into general phases. The first phase was a non international armed conflict, a civil war effectively, and lasted for six months. It was waged between Zionist armed organizations and loose bands of Palestinian Arab irregulars. The protagonists were woefully mismatched as I'm sure you all know with the better equipped Zionist forces numbering about 50,000, mostly under a central command against the ill equipped and disunited Arab forces who numbered less than 10,000. There was approximately 300,000 or more Palestinian Arabs from within the borders of the proposed Jewish state under the UN partition plan General Assembly Resolution 181 of 29 November 1947 were forcibly expelled or to play. The remainder of the war was fought on an interstate basis, following the intervention in Palestine for Arab states Egypt Iraq Syria and trans Jordan on 15 May 1948 the day Israel proclaimed its statehood upon the departure of the British. During this second phase of the war Israel expanded its territory to control some 78% of mandate Palestine, well beyond the terms of the partition resolution and approximately 400,000 or more Palestinian Arabs fled or were expelled during that phase. As today in 1947 the Zionist leadership openly coveted the whole of mandate Palestine. Its problem was at the time it can only boast one third of the population and ownership of only 5.6% of the country. It was for these reasons that following the ethnic cleansing of the majority of the indigenous Palestinian Arab population in the 1948 war. This creation was barred by wartime decision of the Israeli cabinet in June 1948 and by the Zionists deliberate destruction of between 392 and 418 Palestinian villages that the numbers. Other studies indicate that the numbers are even higher than that. This deliberate wholesale denationalization of the Palestinian Arabs and alienation from their property would be reified by subsequent passage by Israel of a series of legislation, including the law of return of 1950 the absentee property law also 1950 and the nationality law of 1952 among others. This happened right under the nose of the United Nations, whose mediator for Palestine count full burners, reported to the General Assembly in 1948, and I quote. No settlement can be just and complete if the recognition if recognition is not accorded to the right of the Arab refugee to return to the home from which he has been dislodged and the hazards and by the hazards and strategy of the armed conflict between Arabs and Jews in Palestine. The majority of these refugees have come from the territory which under the assembly resolution of 29 November was to be included in the Jewish state. It would be an offense against the principles of elemental justice if these innocent victims of the conflict were denied the right to return to their homes. These refugees flow into Palestine and indeed at least offer the threat of permanent replacement of the Arab refugees who have been rooted in the land for centuries. And so it was in this context that General Assembly resolution 194 was passed on 11 December 1948 which called on Israel to repatriate the refugees quote at the earliest practical date. Resolution 194 also created the United Nations conciliation Commission for Palestine mandated to help the warring states arrive at a still elusive piece. The key element of which was to document the property losses of the Palestinian Arab refugees both movable and immovable, the latter amounting to roughly 93% of the total territory of what is today Israel. The agency followed by resolution 302 in, in which the assembly established on route the United Nations relief and works agency for Palestine refugees, which Reem had mentioned. I'd spent 12 years servicing some some time ago, mandated to provide humanitarian aid for the Palestinian refugees and till such time as they could exercise their right to return under resolution 194. According to the agency the Palestine refugees including their descendants now number approximately 5.6 million persons. They continue to remain in forced exile, and their property in the hands of others with reparations of any form denied them to say nothing of the incalculable intergenerational trauma that fosters on. In terms of resolution 194, which is what I'd like to talk about now state in relevant part that the General Assembly in paragraph 11 of resolution 194 in fact the General Assembly resolves that the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the highest practical date and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for the loss or of or damage to property which under principles of international law or an equity should be made good by the governments or authorities responsible. What does all that mean. In broad terms the resolution has been understood by the United Nations to encompass three individual and collective rights of the refugees of the 1948 war. These are, first, voluntary return to their homes and property from which they have been displaced and uprooted. Second, restitution to their homes and property or the right to be placed in the position the refugees would have been in, but for their illegal displacement. Third, compensation, both for the returning refugees in respect of property damaged or destroyed and for non returning refugees in respect of property they were alienated from, regardless if damaged or destroyed. In principle, all of this may be in addition to rights to indemnification and compensation that would arise in favor of the Palestinian refugees under general principles of international law in respect of moral damage for persecution, lost future opportunity, unjust enrichment and physical and psychological injury injury in in line with a variety of post World War two mass claims practice. The question arises, what is the international legal status of the right to return as affirmed in resolution 194. We talked about its substance. What is the status of the resolution. In short, it is an inalienable right rooted in both customary and conventional or treaty law that produces binding effects for all implicated by it first and foremost of course Israel. To illustrate it is best to look at two distinct but overlapping issues. First is the matter of the legal status of the resolution itself. Second is the matter of the international law bases for the content of the resolution. I shall address these now in turn. I say that General Assembly resolutions do not normally carry binding force and international law after remind my students of this all the time, but I also remind them that assembly resolutions can also be expressive of an already binding customary international law, as noted by Thomas Malison and others, the right to return is so commonplace going back to the Magna Carta and beyond that its existence as a customary legal right has never really been at issue. Simply for millennia humans have been daily exercising their rights to return to their homes. In this respect resolution 194 is understood not to have created any new rights, best thing in the Palestinian refugees but rather only to have a firm already existing custom under international law. This was certainly the understanding of the UN mediator when he present when he pressed the General Assembly to affirm the right and is supported by the drafting history of resolution 194. And it doesn't hurt that since its passage in 1948 resolution 194 has been reaffirmed by the assembly by overwhelming majorities on an annual basis. As noted by Judge Rosalind Rosalind Higgins formally of the International Court of Justice. The practice of the General Assembly can provide a rich source of evidence of customary international law, as the collective acts of states repeated by and acquiesced in by sufficient numbers with sufficient frequency, eventually attaining the status of law. So let me shift now to discuss the various international legal bases of the right to return as affirmed in the resolution and there are a number of subsets of international law that evidence to varying degrees. The existence of a right to return in 1948 under prevailing international law, which inspired the passage of resolution 194 briefly these are international humanitarian law. The law governing nationality upon state succession, the law of state responsibility and international human rights law, and I'd like to address these briefly as follows. That's so international humanitarian law. The right to repatriation is a fixed feature of the law governing armed conflict going back, going as far back as as the 1907. Hey regulations which by 1948 were regarded as binding customary international law on the authority of the Nuremberg and Tokyo war crimes tribunals. Hey regulations expressly provide that prisoners of war shall be repatriated upon cessation of hostilities logic would dictate that the same must at least be true for civilians affected by armed conflict, including those displaced as a result of war. I was recalling that the international military tribunal criminalized deportation of civilians and affirmed a number of provisions of the hey regulations, all of which were taken into account by the drafters of resolution 194, including those prohibiting pillage destruction or seizure of enemy property without military necessity and protection of private property. Another subset of international law that provided the basis of the right to return as articulated in resolution 194 is the law governing nationality upon state succession. When a territory experience as a change in sovereignty, the law on state succession requires that the succeeding or new state automatically recognized and accord nationality to the territory's habitual residents. It is termed in the terms of General Assembly resolution 181 the partition plan for Palestine, and remains a core precept of the law of nationality on succession of states today. As noted by judge James Crawford also of the International Court of Justice, quote, if a new state tried to deport a part of its permanent population, it would be acting in clear breach of its obligations and would be internationally responsible and quote. This responsibility would not only be owed in relation to the individuals affected requiring a right or an option in their part to return. But would also be owed to other states who would otherwise have to bear the burden of hosting denationalized persons. Yet another area of international law that undergirded resolution 194 binding character was the law of state responsibility. This area of international law has undergone considerable advances in recent decades. In 1948, it was sufficiently developed, such that it can safely be said that by the time by that time states responsible for internationally wrongful acts bore obligations to make reparation for those acts. By the Permanent Court of International Justice and the Chorzal factory case in 1928. It is a principle of international law that the breach of an engagement involves an obligation to make reparation in an adequate form. The essential principle contained in the actual notion of an illegal act is that reparation must as far as possible wipe out all the consequences of the illegal act and reestablish the situation which would in all probability have existed if that act had not been committed. So in the case of Palestinian refugees the illegal act in question is represented by their wholesale expulsion. Denationalization and expropriation of their property, which of course Israel is required to this day to make right on the strength of the principles that elucidate state responsibility. And a final sphere of international law that informed resolution 194 is international human rights law. Article article 13 subsection two of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted on 10 December 1948 by the very same General Assembly, that only a day later adopted resolution 194 provides that quote everyone has a right to leave any country, including his own and to return to his country. Now, although the Universal Declaration was not yet binding international law when it was immediately promulgated by the assembly, as noted the right to return had by then achieved customary status, thereby making article 13 subsection to binding. And in later years, the right to return would be further developed in other international human rights treaties to which Israel is party. Most notably the 1966 International Covenant on civil and political rights article 12 subsection four of which firms that no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of the right to enter his own country. The International Convention on the elimination of all forms of racial discrimination article 5D of which provides that a state may not deny on racial or ethnic grounds the opportunity quote to return to one's country. Much can and indeed has been written on the subject of resolution 194 and the issue of the right of return under international law. At this time I have had to address the issue I've attempted to provide a broad introduction to the relevant sources of law upon which the binding character of resolution 194 is based. Many aspects of what I've addressed may give rise to questions, including about the efficacy of the law, which Reem had opened with, which I'm happy of course to address. I wish to conclude with a broader point that will a doubtless color today's conference and certainly touches upon some of the themes that Reem introduced this panel with today. We have become accustomed to understand the Palestinian freedom struggle as one touching upon any number of hot button issues whether Jerusalem, self determination, statehood, borders, water, but make no mistake. In 2020, as in 1948. Since the passage of General Assembly resolution 194 if any issue encapsulates the question of Palestine in one discrete place. It is in the festering play to the Palestinian refugees. The Palestine problem as a whole is in essence embodied in the endless Calvary to quote Edward Said that these people have been made to endure some four generations on. And it remains our collective responsibility to do what we can to help keep their struggle for dignity and justice alive, including through affirmations. Yes. Of the importance of international law that although clearly honored in its breach, rather than its observance remains one of the few guideposts on the way to a new and hopeful day. So with that I'd like to conclude and pass it back to you. Thank you so very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for this good production. Excellent one. I think it will open up several questions in regard of law and legality and the relevance of it. And the way we can actually lies the right to return for Palestinian people through legal intervention that possible. And now we'll have Dr. Nemer Sulkani he will be is a public law lecturer at saw us he's also the current editor in chief of Palestine yearbook so we have both the previous and the current one and the number will be addressing actually the issue of internal colonialism and internal displacement. Thank you very much. So my presentation today will focus on the question of the internally displaced persons inside Israel, the Palestinian IDPs inside Israel in order to settle understandings that separate between assessments of the legal and political system in the so Israel proper and the 1967 occupied territories. These accounts that show that Israel exhibits colonial and apartheid features, they often focus on the 1967 borders and do not go beyond that. Yet, an accurate assessment of the status and the history of the Palestinian citizens in Israel challenges these limited accounts. In particular, the IDPs within this minority community exhibit even more clearly the repressed colonial element at the base of the constitutional structure and property relations that were established after 1948. The colonial project is obviously evident in the elaborate legal mechanisms that enable the confiscation of most of the Palestinian citizens lands and their general subordination by law. The most of the IDPs. There is a living reminder of the ethnic cleansing and displacement in 1948 at the basis of the Zionist project, which makes it worse than the South Africa apartheid, because its main instrument was not exploitation of labor, but rather ethnic cleansing. According to Onerwa, there were 46,000 IDPs in 1948 comprising 30% out of those who remained inside Israel and became second class citizens. These numbers do not include, however, those expelled after 1948. I'm not sure there is an issue with the video. Okay, thank you. So as I said, the numbers, the other one numbers in 1948 do not include those who were expelled after 1948 Palestinians who were expelled after 1948. And according to recent numbers, 2018 numbers by the deal. There are 400, 450,000 Palestinians were internally displaced inside the green line. The IDPs as a case study illustrates that the denial of the Palestinian refugees return is primarily ideological in order to maintain Jewish supremacy as a colonial structure of this position, and not merely because of concerns about security. This is illustrated by the IDPs inside Israel, because their return neither changes the demographic situation inside Israel, nor does it present a credible security threat of any kind. It is thus explicable by the colonial desire to appropriate native lands to the service and welfare of one ethno national grouping and deny the natives right over their homeland. This ideology finds its clearest constitutional expression in the 2018 basic law Israel as a nation state of the Jewish people. The IDPs case illustrates that the colonial logic of displacing the natives and dispossessing them from their land is internal and not only external. It's not a logic confined to the 1967 occupied territories but can also be observed in Israel's approach to its Palestinian citizens. Thus, there is an overarching colonial logic that operates with respect to different Palestinian communities. And to the extent that colonialism is an ongoing structure that it sanctions and ongoing displacement. The ongoing nature of displacement is crucial to keep in mind, because the length of time does not weaken the right of return. Rights over homeland are not superseded by absence, nor by the acquisition of nationality elsewhere. Here it is instructive that in 1951, the Israeli Supreme Court, which ordered the return of Ikrith residents, and in another case the return of Al-Habisi residents, maintained in these cases that the state cannot argue that residents have no right to return because they established residents elsewhere. This is because the state itself illegally prevented their return. So we can call this the lack of clean hands argument. Indeed, after refusing to implement the Ikrith ruling, the state proceeded to confiscate the internal displaced persons lands and property in accordance with the land acquisition law of 1953 on the pretext that it did not possess or use the property. After being forbidden access to it. But let me focus for now on the security question. Because this in turn refutes the arguments by some academics will argue that although Palestinians have a right to return to Israel. Israel has no obligation to allow their return, given security concerns that can override the rights implementation. But the credibility of these security arguments flounders on two grounds. First, whether they employ an expansive notion of security that seeks to maintain Jewish supremacy, ethno-national control, and maintaining a status of demographic majority. In other words, security here is inseparable from ideology. This is accentuated in a situation in which the security argument is not temporary, but rather of a permanent nature. And secondly, if security is stretched to the case of the IDPs and shown as lacking in credibility, then one is allowed to question the same arguments when employed against refugees and not only IDPs. To begin with, it should be remembered that the security argument does not explain expulsions that happened after 1948. There is no prevention of return in the years that followed, often with the help of emergency regulations, defense orders, and military government apparatus that existed between 1948 and 1966. In the case of Ikrith and Beraim, there is no claim that the residents represented a security risk to the Zionist militias in 1948. But nevertheless, the militias displaced them from their homes. In Ghaby-Sie, residents were evacuated in 1948. They returned in 1949, but evacuated again in 1950. They returned in September 1951, but evacuated again. And then in November 1951, the Supreme Court ordered their return, but the army refused to implement the rulings. And the security argument explained why Beraim was destroyed by the army in 1953. And the Ghaby-Sie was destroyed in 1953 and 1955. Not only long after the end of the 1948 war, but also in defiance of Supreme Court orders. But let us consider two versions of the security objection to Palestinian return, as expressed in Israeli jurisprudence. The Supreme Court dismissed in 1981 a petition for return to Ikrith on procedural grounds of time lapse and delay. It also mentioned that the security situation does not allow return given the proximity to the northern border with Lebanon. Surely this is a curious security rationale, because it has nothing to do with the law abiding citizens or with their actions. Indeed, the court says that they were loyal. But rather, the security argument here refers to circumstances external to the region and beyond the IDPs control. The commission in 1997 followed the lack of implementation of the recommendations of a committee established in 1993 by the robbing government and chaired by David Levi. The committee recommended in 1995 a return to a limited area in light of the change in the position of the security apparatus with respect to Ikrith. The committee stressed that it is an exceptional case. Given lack of implementation of the committee's recommendations, the Ikrith residents petitioned the court again. In its 2002 ruling, the Supreme Court stated that the government conceded that in strict security sense, there is no problem with the return of Ikrith residents. But the government claimed that in an expansive security consideration, their return is harmful from a propaganda and political point of view, given the negotiations with the Palestinian Authority and the fear of setting a precedent regarding return in general. The court accepted the state's position and said that it has wide discretion in political questions. The dubious nature of the security rationale and its shifting meaning shows that the question lies elsewhere. But if the rejection of the right of return is not credible on security grounds or even demographic grounds, how can we achieve an integrated and comprehensive understanding of the colonial structure under question. The use of the IDPs highlights that the line between the external and the internal, the enemy and the citizen is hard to draw. On the one hand, the IDPs are refugees who did not cross the borders. But Israel's borders remain our mystic lines and are yet to be defined in the Constitution. Similarly, IDPs are both refugees and citizens. They are refugees who are internal to the category of citizenship. This shows that analyzing the status of Palestinian citizens inside Israel cannot be reduced to the question of citizenship without considering the colonial framework and the original act of ethnic cleansing in the process of which these citizens became second class, and in other cases, IDPs. Consider in this context the fact that in 1950, IDPs were under UNRWA's responsibility. Then in 1952 Israel decided that they are an internal issue and henceforth UNRWA seized to care for them. So they were external and then became internal. But as mentioned earlier in 2002, the Supreme Court accepted the government's position that return of IDPs can be prevented because of concerns related to wider refugee issues and the demand to the right of return. In other words, their return and property claims are not merely internal issues to be resolved internally. So we are back again to them being an external and not only internal issue. Additionally, the demand for return, which is embodied in UN resolutions like 194, is not merely a demand for those who are external to Israel to return inside Israel, but also, as is the case of the IDPs, is an internal demand to return to displaced villages, dispossessed property and stolen lands. Moreover, the absentee property law of 1950 is instructive. According to the law, absentees are those who left their ordinary place of residence after the 29th of November 1947, no matter why. This law does not distinguish between refugees and IDPs in terms of seizure of property. Instead, it treats all absentees property as enemy property. Thus, IDPs are in a curious position in which they are both citizens and their property is an enemy property captured in war. The Supreme Court emphasized in a case called Habab in 1954, that even if one returns and acquires a certificate that he is no longer an absentee, the custodian of absentee's property owes IDPs no fiduciary duty. The law Supreme Court said there was a suspicion of corruption in this case, in which the property was sold by the custodian, despite the return of the absentee, it affirmed that the custodian does not hold these properties for the benefit of quote unquote, the enemy. This enmity is obviously not compatible with notions of equal citizenship at the basis of an inclusive demos. More recently, the Supreme Court in 2015 ruled that the absentee's property law of 1950 is applicable to East Jerusalem, which was illegally annexed in 1980. And thus, the state can use the absentee's property law to confiscate Palestinian property in East Jerusalem. This means again that the line between 1967 and 1948 has been effectively and legally undermined in multiple ways, because the same legal instrument that was deployed against citizens is also deployed in an area occupied in 1967. These considerations illustrate that we need to see the similarities between Israel's treatment of different Palestinian communities, the ideology that animates it, and the structure that enacts it. Generally, and the IDPs in particular are an impediment to the settler colonial project a project that aspires to a totalistic conception of sovereignty, exclusive Jewish control of every part of Palestine. So this leads me to a final point. With such a colonial project, we need to observe the limitations of the discourse of rights or what I've been called in is a lecture, the legalism and humanitarianism. Here we can distinguish between two approaches amongst the IDPs inside Israel themselves. One hand legal individualistic focusing on the discourse of property rights. And on the other hand, a collective and a political approach, focusing on the return discourse and connecting the IDPs to the general question of stateless refugees. Smith and Bram followed generally the first path as part of a citizen citizenship discourse. They emphasized in their petitions to the court that this is a special case that there was no hostility or fighting in 1948, when they were displayed, and that they are not part of the general right to return. In this limited discourse, they refused the alternative of monetary compensation, they refused the option of compensation with other lands and demanded return to the villages themselves. But this legal venue within the Israeli legal system failed. Because even in the aerial cases of victory, these were procedural and technical in their reasoning and did not affirm or endorse or advance a right to return. And moreover, they were not implemented by the army, which proceeded to demolish the villages. And finally later decisions showed an approach of judicial difference to political considerations. Thus, this approach arrived at a dead end. And after Oslo, we saw an effort towards collective organization to make the IDPs issues a national question for the personal minority inside Israel as a whole, culminating in establishing in 1995 a committee to represent and mobilize the IDPs. This at consciousness raising included neck back commemorative days and visits to the sides of demolished villages. And finally, internationalizing the IDPs question beyond the confines of citizenship by ways of submissions to UN committees. Another approach offers a better anti-coronial framing. In the Zionist discourse, whether the right wing Sharon or the liberal Zionist Aaron Barack, Palestinian citizens have rights in the land, but they do not have rights over the land. Such discourse erases history does not acknowledge historical injustice and recognizes Palestinians as individuals rather than a collective with self determination rights. As the IPPs case shows, Palestinians have a right over their homeland and the return to their homeland has to be a part of the fulfillment of their collective right to self determination. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Now we'll be with Sahar Francis. Sahar is the director of the Damihr. She's a human rights lawyer and director of the Damihr. Damihr is a prisoner support and human rights association. And she will be talking to us about Jerusalem and internally displaced in Jerusalem. Good evening and thanks a lot for the Center for Palestinian Studies in Sowas for organizing this and everyone who was involved and thanks Nimr for inviting me to attend in this session. It's great to follow on your discussion about the internally displaced and focusing on what's going on in East Jerusalem, but I think it's very important to keep in mind that Israel, since its creation as a colonial project was using low actually as a tool to impose power and to impose control over the Palestinians definitely inside the state. And later on when they continued occupy like the occupation in 1967, they used more or less the same military regime that was imposed in the 48 areas and with the military laws they developed all the structure of power that controls still today. The life of the Palestinian people that the case of Jerusalem actually reflects a lot this contradiction at some points between the low, the elaboration on the low and the political well. And when it comes for frames like security, what it would be affecting the rights of the people how Israel treated the Palestinian population in East Jerusalem. After the occupation and it shows that actually the colonial apartheid regime is continuing and it never stopped in 1948 and I would argue that without the the complicity of the international community, it wouldn't work and it wouldn't continue all these years and maybe when getting into much details about the cases of the Jerusalem residents and how Israel were displacing them and deporting them and using the low in order to confiscate their IDs and how the international community is not interfering and not stopping these crimes and still claiming that East Jerusalem is an occupied territory and talking about two state solution. This is complicity and this is what gives Israel the green light actually to continue in their violations. So immediately after the occupation Israel was implementing the Israeli low in East Jerusalem they imposed the military regime in the rest of the West Bank and Gaza but for East Jerusalem, much before the annexation and the low of Jerusalem as the capital of the state of Israel, the basic low of 1980 actually since the beginning Israel implemented the Israeli low on East Jerusalem which meant for the population that they became not with their well of course residents of the state that occupied them and Israel was fully aware that these population are Palestinians that they are not willing to be Israelis but still they granted them the permanent residency and with all particularly of course with all with all what it means to be a resident inside the state but still in different ways of course and not just directly in the lows that was related to the like residency and nationality and entering to the state, but also through policies of housing, land, economical situation, taxation and so on. They did everything in order to push Palestinians to leave their city for different reasons and buy this to get minimum people in the city and to keep this supremacy of the Jewish people living in East Jerusalem. Actually it's a very detailed subject if we want to discuss all the issues of family unification, leaving Jerusalem to live in the West Bank or in Gaza, leaving Jerusalem to live abroad for study or for work or no matter for what reason if you leave the city and all the are known as the city tax policies, all the house demolitions and the policy of like the custodial absentee's property load that was lately imposed as well in East Jerusalem with the wall that excluded neighborhoods of Jerusalem in order to minimize the Palestinian population. I would focus just on the issue of the it's not a new policy but this is was used actually after the Palestinian election for the parliament in 2006 when it happened in East Jerusalem as well, revoking residency of permanent residents in Jerusalem based on the claim that they are breaking allegiance to the state of Israel. And it started actually with four Palestinian parliamentarians who were elected in 2004 for the Palestinian Legislative Council they were all from East Jerusalem. Immediately when they when the election and it was declared that they became members of the parliament, the Israeli Interior Minister decided to revoke their residency based on the claim that they are now hostile to the state of Israel because they became members of the Palestinian parliament. Although Israel in the Oslo agreement accepted that the election will take place including in a in East Jerusalem not just this in the election of 2006 actually Israel government was in a discussion with the Palestinian government at that time and they enabled the election to take place. Not just in Jerusalem in the Israeli post offices in East Jerusalem they facilitated the election they were aware that Hamas is sharing as well in the election and they never oppose this. They just started to three months before the election to arrest Hamas activists and Hamas political leaders who were involved in the election. Of course later they arrested more than 48 parliamentarians and by this they totally paralyzed the Palestinian parliament since then. But with these four people they revoked their citizenship based on this allegation and then these people in June 2006 were arrested actually by the Israelis with the other parliamentarians. The petition that they submitted against this decision of the Interior Ministry to the Israeli High Court were free because they were arrested the discussion started whether this is was legal or illegal based on article 11 a of the law of nationality and the entry to Israel, whether the Interior Minister really have the right to revoke the residency of the people from Jerusalem based on allegations and the discussion in the High Court were continued just after their release. Some of them were released in 2010 some of 2011 but the four of them for some period they were entering to the office of the Red Cross and in the Red Cross sorry in East Jerusalem and they were living there for more than one year and the half at one point that the Israeli police invaded the Red Cross premises and they arrested them again and so on all the time the discussion in the High Court was delayed and delayed till actually in 2018 the High Court decided that the Interior Minister don't have the right to revoke the residency of the people in Jerusalem based on allegations because actually they were aware as a state that these people are Palestinians residents of or citizens of Jordan Israel wants to they actually before the establishment of the Palestinian Authority most of the Jerusalem people were with Jordanian passports and this is why Israel were considering them as well Jordanians and the High Court in the same decision on the case of these four parliamentarians the case is known as Abu Arafi after Khaled Abu Arafi the parliamentarian was rejecting the decision but they enabled the like they said the fulfilment of the decision would be freeze for six months and then we will enable the Interior Ministry to go to the Kineset and to try to get amendment to the law of 1952 and this is what happened actually the law was amended in 2018 and in March 2018 actually and after the amendment the Interior Minister again issued a decision to revoke the residency of the four people and the four people were deported to Ramallah because in this case these people they don't have any other residency so Israel and Jordan of course closed the borders Jordan since 2000 the break of the second Intifada they have a very good policy that if Israel wants to deport any Palestinian from the occupied territories whether is Jerusalem or the West Bank or Gaza they don't accept they close their borders so there's no other way they remained in Ramallah and they petitioned again the Israeli High Court in the same time in 2016 the anti-terror law was issued in Israel and of course this law changed the definition and widened the definition of an act of terror actually to include a very wide range of political activism if it's done under a party or organization that is defined by the Israeli law or the military orders as an act of terror organization so these people now are considered to be terrorist members in Hamas of course and this is why they are trying to revoke their residency. It was used also since 2015 against a Palestinian who are convicted or awaiting trial to be involved in attacks against Israelis in East Jerusalem. Two of them actually in the same period of 2015-2016 they were also arrested for being involved in attack and immediately the Interior Ministry issued the same decision to revoke their residency. In this case actually Hamukhid the Israeli Human Rights Center issued the petition in their name while they are still in prison inside Israel and the Interior Ministry and again the High Court delayed the ruling the ministry didn't react. Just this year in September the Interior Ministry said that they withdraw from their decision without actually exhausting the case in the High Court. In the same month in September 2020 our colleague in Domeer our lawyer from Jerusalem Salah Hammuri he was also an ex-prisoner he received a decision from the Interior Minister that his residency would be revoked as well based on the same claim that he broke allegiance to the state of Israel. Because he was arrested in 2004 and sentenced for seven years on a crime like to be involved in planning to kill Ovad Yusuf the Interior Minister in Israel. He's from the same party of this religious rabbi Ovad Yusuf and this shows that there's no like clean intention for the Interior Minister Salah Hammuri it's not of course the only harassment against him or the attempt to deport him from the country. After his release in 2011 in the exchange deal actually and he almost served the whole sentence. He was re-arrested under administrative detention his French wife was deported from Palestine she was living with him in Jerusalem working in the French embassy actually and she was deported to give birth. She was pregnant in the eighth month deported back to France to deliver their child and by this actually they the Salah's child cannot get the Jerusalem ID. Now they came with this claim and imagine like all the all what Salah was involved in happened much before the initiative of this law that changes the amendment much before the anti terror law of 2016 and still they want to implement it retroactively. Of course, this is not just against Salah we believe that this is a test case. Currently in the other cases of the four parliamentarians and another Jerusalem. The High Court on the 26th of October asked the Interior Minister with the acceptance of course of the Interior Ministry to freeze the decisions till the High Court take decision on the cases of the parliamentarians and still the Interior Ministry issued the decision against Salah and they are asking him for a hearing the oral hearing would be in three days in the Interior Ministry to hear his arguments against this decision. Of course this policy of using the anti terror law the entry to Israel law against the people from Jerusalem without any consideration that these populations is a protected population under the international law as is Jerusalem is considered to be an occupied territory. So the fourth Geneva Convention definitely gives protection for the civilians inside the city that the state cannot deport them. The state cannot enforce, of course, enforce allegiance on people and their occupation this is according to the Hague agreement. Article 45 of the Hague and of course Israel don't accept fairs they don't agree that is Jerusalem is considered to be an occupied territory and then they don't implement the international human rights or international humanitarian law when it comes for the occupied territory so in paradox, while they don't agree that is Jerusalem is occupied they still don't consider the people in is Jerusalem as full citizens of the state that they should get the full rights of the people and of course, while the international community, the international UN with hundreds with tens of UN resolutions confirming that is Jerusalem is still occupied and I think that most of the countries members of the UN knows the situation, definitely the European countries and those who have good relations with the Palestinian Authority and they have impasses and they have representative offices in the occupied territories with the Palestinian Authority are fully aware about all these policies and restrictions of the Israeli side in order to evacuate Jerusalem of course with all these expansion of settlements in the different neighborhoods in East Jerusalem and the project is very clear but still they are very silent nothing is happening in the international level, nothing is enforcing Israel actually to abide to the international law and to their and to protect at least the rights, the basic rights of the Palestinian people, the basic right of to remain in their own city to remain nationals of their own city to be able to leave the city and to come back to the city because one of the procedures for long years that is used against Palestinians in East Jerusalem if you leave the country for three years and you don't come back you will lose your residency and if you leave for seven continuous years that's it, it's over you will never be able to go back all the difficulties for those who left to live in the West Bank and they were enforced because Israel decided to revoke their residency because they considered after like that leaving to live in Tubaitlehem or Ramallah would mean that you are not anymore a Jerusalem resident, thousands of people lost their residency by this policies and they were like enforced to come back to rent one room in East Jerusalem just in order to show that still the center of your life is East Jerusalem and to be able to continue to live in your city, by the years I will end just with a few statistics about how many Jerusalem residency were revoked just based on the fact that people left Jerusalem, no matter what as I said whether to study, whether to live, to work abroad from 67 till 2018 actually 14,643 Palestinians were losing their residency in Jerusalem because they either left to outside the country or to the West Bank so I think what we need to do is to really think about the question that was raised in the previous section about the international law and the international human rights law and the use of this mechanism and the importance of this mechanism when the powerful state actually have the right and have the will and have the political decision to impose and to enforce international law in such context like Ukraine and the Kerm with Russia and Sudan and other realities but never against the Israelis when it comes for the protection of the rights of the Palestinians. Thank you. Thank you Sahar. This is a question for all the panelists I think that one you raised. Now we'll have Dr. Gilbert Ashkar who is who will be presenting about the right to return between fantasy and reality. Professor Ashkar is a professor of development studies and international donation at SEWAS. Please. My name is Sukran Reem. Yeah, and many thanks to Nimr and Aki for the organization of this conference, the organization of the agenda by Nimr and Aki's for his help in the technical organization, especially on the weekend. Thank you very much. I mean, Ardi gave us a very learned presentation on the legal aspect of UN General Assembly Resolution 194. And I will address the question of the right of return from the political angle, as a compliment, one could say to the legal dimension that was discussed previously. The title I gave, the right of return between fantasy and realities indicative of what I mean, which would be focused on the representations if you want or the imagination of return and of the right of return and how it has evolved with time, because it's very important also to take into consideration. We are dealing with a conflict which is 70 plus years old. I mean, since the creation of the Israeli state, which in terms of history, it's not a very long period since people have been through that. It's still in living memory for a lot of people. And so, of course, there has been a shift or an evolution over time of the representation of that and of what return means or the right of return. So, the initial representation of that, which is the time of the General Assembly's resolution. So in 1948, and in the period between 48, one could say, and 67, and the June 67 war and the occupation of the rest of Palestine by the Zionist state. That was a period when the representation was understandably so, I would say, one of a return, massive return of the Palestinians to their homes and properties between court marks, referring to the terms used in the resolution. So it was a matter of return of people who have been replaced, expelled, deported or have fled, simply fled the war in the hope of returning. I often say that whatever discussion one may have about the reason why the Palestinians left their homes in 48, even if all of them just fled, this doesn't change anything to the right of return and to the fact that the Israeli state prevented them from doing so. And that is the user patient in that fact in the prevention of return and that's what the right of return is about. As I was saying, the initial representation in the immediate 48 and post-48 period was one of that kind of, how to say, it was a representation of, if you want, the film of Zionist conquest being run in reverse. Reversing the film of Zionist conquest and getting back to the pre-48 situation. And that entailed what we could call a bourgeois representation of return in the sense that when you have the concept of property, it is by definition, you are by definition within the bourgeois law. And here I want to quote from a book that came out in 1970, which was a collection of essays actually by Sardegh Jalal Al-Azam in 1970. Diraset Yasseriyah Filqadi Al-Falustinia, left-wing studies in the Palestinian, about the Palestinian cause. And that's how he was describing at that point the representation of liberation, which is directly connected of course to return, right of return, between 48 and 68. I'm quoting here. Liberation used to generate in people's imagination a view of Arab armies entering Israel as conquerors, after which every Palestinian would dust off his old papers and go to the Arab conqueror to show him a document proving his property of this house or that piece of land. The victor would then give back to each of the rights as if nothing had happened. In other words, liberation meant that the feudal landlord would get back to his property, the big bourgeois to his trade and capital, the petit bourgeois to his shop, the worker to his hard labor and the destitute poor to his homelessness and misery. End of quote. And indeed that's quite accurate, I mean, description of the kind of representation that was dominant until then, and also in the official Arab discourse and the official Palestinian discourse that existed at that time. And it has, it's a symmetric counterpart in designers representation of return. So you had some kind of symmetry and therefore resemblance between designers representation of the return of the Palestinians. And the, the representation of that return by. I mean, the, if we take to representative or more or less representative bodies of the time, the, the, the post 48 Arab higher committee, that is, I mean, Hussaini, and the P68 PLO, and Ahmad El-Shukairi. And what they have in common is, is this kind of conception of liberation with the idea that all the Jews that came after 1948, 48 should, should go back from from where they came should go back to Europe or wherever. I mean, the idea that they have no right to remain there. That is related to this return as return to land property houses and all that, which means that all those that came up for after 48, and took them over should be be leaving in the sixties this developed also in a, in a kind of belief at the beginning of the idea of arm struggle and the rest. The Algerian scenario was very much the one through which this representation would take place. And we know how it happened in Algeria, which is after independence you has, you had a mass exodus of the, of the European settlers in Algeria. And therefore you have a kind of similar representation that the liberation of Palestine will be something akin to the Algerian scenario with a mass exodus of the Jews to, to Europe, or the United States or whatever. Now, after 67 you had a shift, a major shift in the representation of, of liberation and of all that. And gradually you had a repudiation by the post 68 PLO, which after being taken over by the Palestinian resistance organizations. You had a repudiation of gradually repudiation of this idea of, of expelling, you know, or denying the right of part of the Jewish population to remain and hence you had the these formulas that were formulated since that time. Since 68 69 the Democratic secular state in Palestine. You had a liberal conception of the binational state in Palestine, and you had also a socialist conception that was at that time. In the early time the Democratic front to the socialist socialist binational also comes a view of a future state in in Palestine. And of course, these were not only the result of of political evolution, but they reflected also the effect of of time, and also of shifting military realities. The war of 1967, the, the 1970 the the crushing of the Palestinian resistance in Jordan, the end of of Nasser and what he represented all this ended to a large degree the military conception of liberation. Then you had a military conception of liberation as war as I said conquest in reverse. Now you have this this gradually ended. And of course this will be taken forward by the empty father in 1988, and the completion of of the post 1970 shift of the PLO towards the two state perspective. And of course, as we know to Oslo where the right of return or was basically put on the shelf for future negotiations that was parked with Jerusalem and other issues of the issues that were not even the settlements actually were not decided upon in the Oslo agreement. Now, the key issue here is that with despite all the shifts in the realities that I mentioned the right of return persisted, and I would say rightly so throughout all these phases as part of the fundamental and prescriptive and Palestinian rights and they, I mean the term in prescriptive and would deserve a comment on it, but it's very important, because that's exactly what what this right is is about it doesn't end with time, or with anything else as previously also presenters have said, and hence we find, for instance, this right reaffirmed in the, in the, in the last statement of some kind of collective Palestinian view which was the prisoners, the 2006 prisoners document, which included this formulation, the traditional right of the refugees and quoting to return to their homes and properties from which they were expelled and to get compensated. So this is a formulation that reproduces that of the UN resolution and remains within the same conception that we had at the beginning and what I described from, let's say the point of view of the sociology or philosophy of right as a bourgeois conception of return and we have it illustrated just recently yesterday, Nasir Qudwa, a former minister in the Palestinian Authority, who published an article where he says we have decided to open the records for every Palestinian to be able to check on their property, and in certain cases obtain the documents if they don't have them, establishing the property and for this, a database was established with 210,000 owners and 540,000 parcels of land, and this is based on research in British land and tax registers. Now, I mean, this may be interesting. Historically, but I would say this is in my view of quite limited use compared to the much more useful work of Salman Abu Sita in in covering the designers eraser of Palestinian villages. How I mean, under the Israel there is Palestine and Palestine has been erased by the Israeli state as Zionist project. And from the property perspective, unless precisely we are looking at each one's property, as this what I just quoted would mean, it is sufficient to know that only close to 6% are the I think mentioned that of British mandate Palestine, that doesn't belong to Jews before before 48. And, and despite that we know that they were given 56% of the land by the UN 1947 partition, and they ended up seizing if you calculate what doesn't belong to Palestinians in Palestine and historical lands would be the designers control more than 75% or more than 75% of this land. So to conclude with the crucial point here, what does the right of return mean today? Are the quoted from the resolution, I would say there are two principles there. One is the right of return. Two is the right to reparations. Now the right of return is a right, of course, like any right, I mean, you may use it, or you may not that is, there's no obligation to return, it's a right. The conception of that today cannot be through war, we know that the realities of the military realities, anyhow may make that kind of scenario impossible, but through a political process. But it can't be a return to homes and properties 72 years later, but a return to the territory of Palestine where the settlement of returnees should be organized and funded, and that is related to a right also of statehood, either by national solution, or even, I mean, this is up to the Palestinian people to decide even maybe a new partition, not the 78 slash 22 kind of partition that prevailed after 58, but a reconsideration of all that, and how people live on the territory of Palestine, and here there's a distinction between the right of return which is an individual right, and the right to self determination which by definition is a collective right, and the second point, and this is the right to reparations, and these have to be paid by the, as the law itself says the, not the law the resolution by, when it doesn't say it directly but implicitly by the Israeli state, and I would say by international contributions so and has a direct responsibility in the creation of, of the this, the strategy, and this would be these reparations are to be paid for the sake of a, the collective settlement of returnees, and be the individual compensation for non return for refugees, but that would be then on an egalitarian basis, since suffering cannot be measured, and is certainly more important than lost property. I mean, we know that the poorest suffer the most in refugee camps. And so, if, I mean, if compensation is based on what people, what kind of belonging that before that would be completely unfair and unjust. And the second point I end with that is what I see as the necessary complement to the right of return, which is disconnecting this right as previous speakers said from the condition of refugee, and in the same way that if you get citizenship in America or elsewhere that is your right of return and everything that entails. I, I, it's, I think it's very important to emphasize the right of diasporic Palestinians to live in live in the Arab countries and where have been based for the case and most of them today has been reborn the right to acquire equal citizenship rights and end this other apartheid that exists in the most blatant form I would say in a country like Lebanon, for instance, where there is, there's no other term that applies to the conditional conditions in Lebanon than the one of apartheid. And this is also something that should be. Thank you. Thank you very much. We'll now move to the question and answer, we have a separate question, a question. So we'll start with the question about the status of our Arab states position in regard to 194 UN resolution 194. And does this position matter anymore, did it ever. This is one question. The second question is addressed to are the, in regard to the efficacy of the available international legal frameworks in relation to Palestine and relation to issue of right to return. Also, there's asking me about the present Palestinian internally displaced person is Jerusalem, our product of the colonial structure that caused the placement of 1948 Palestinian refugee, then shouldn't these receive protection and assistance from Onerwa, who really protecting who really protect them. Okay. Question again to our do you use patient law as an obstacle to both Palestinian refugees and internally displaced person is occupation law violent as both a question of law and politics. There is also a question in regard to what extent is the Israeli refusal to uphold and recognize the nine, the 194 resolution on security security grounds, limiting potential diplomatic peace negotiation. So we have a question about the status to start the status of Palestinians as stateless in Jerusalem, and their situation as internally displaced how do you understand these intersections intersections of being stateless and internally be displaced at once. So we have to read which wants you to actually repeat how many people lost their residency between 1967 and 2018. Can we answer these questions and move to the next ones. What do you prefer. I'm happy to to take the questions that have been put to me mean, I just can't open my video so I'd be grateful if you could. Thank you for that. As to what the best action to improve the efficacy of the implementation of the right to return that's a big question. My, my general sense is that, and this goes to at least one or two other questions on the efficacy of international law and law as as a construct. There's a lot of on heightened expectations over the years put in by elites put in the hands of or formed by the general public as to what law can actually produce. Here for instance from Nimr and Sahar today about how law has been abused domestically by Israel that is within its domestic legal systems to further effectively a political course. We know what the political course is. We know what the issue is the framing for Israel is how do you and I'm quoting now normal salha, how do you establish and maintain a Jewish state in a place full of non Jews. Right, you necessarily have to manage that demographic problem. And of course the Palestinian refugee problem is the apex of that, and their ethnic cleansing is enter law. And that is merely a tool to be used, ideally to balance out interests between unequal parties and give a sense of justice and arrive at some form of solution that is Pacific Pacific settlement of disputes between on even parties. At this time it doesn't operate in those in those terms and in that way. Law can be used indeed has been used historically and this is not unique to Israel or Palestine. Law has been used and can be used historically to oppose suppress others and other individuals in in furtherance of immoral and what might be at one point legal but later on be understood as illegal practices. For instance, the Nuremberg laws were laws apartheid was legal at a certain time and so forth. This does not mean that law does not matter and it does not at all mean that the right to return under international law or international law generally does not matter. My understanding of how law operates in the human world is to appreciate that it has embedded with the in it, both, and I'm quoting now or paraphrasing now Marty Koskinyemi. An apology for power, but also a plea for utopia or a better place a better society, etc. So the answer to the question, what efficacy the right to return and how might it be implemented or for instance has the law of occupation been violated or been used to violate the rights of refugees and other such. The short answer is that law is but one tool to be used both in the hands of those who fashion it oftentimes states who might use it to abuse people's rights. These are the right victims, who use it as entry points to press the legitimacy of their claims. Now it is clear that the Israelis have violated the right of the Palestinian people to even exist in the land. They dispossessed them, and we have a right, the Palestine refugees have a right to return to that land it is affirmed. It would be folly for by the General Assembly annually of the United Nations, it would be folly for us to say while law does not matter. We can make use of it. And that means practically speaking to do what you and I are doing here now, but also to insist that the refugee plight through the lens of law, it's bourgeoisie origins not withstanding. Thank you very much for that. Continue to be the framework through which we envision or understand the Palestine problem. The Palestine refugees needs to be placed back on the agenda front and center, and this is this is on the Palestinian leadership it's on the Palestinian people. It's on us to make sure that this happens. Why would that be the case, because uniquely the issue of the Palestine refugees uniquely among all the issues that are outstanding as between the Palestinians and the Israelis. This is the essence of the problem before us. How do you create a Jewish state and maintain it in a place full of non Jews, you must necessarily get rid of them. And that's what happened. And at the bottom, we have a settler colonial movement that covets more Palestinian land with less Palestinians in it. The next most just resolution of how to deal with that necessarily requires that the original sin of what took place in 1948 be righted. And this requires us to affirm, despite the fact that the law is not adhered to the continually affirm at every moment we get the right of the Palestinian refugees indeed the right of every refugee, no matter who they may be to return to the homes from which they are in this place. I'll stop there right now. So, Sahar Angel bear for the thanks, but I should emphasize again that this is a joint conference with between so as the investor Houston, and the BSA it so I would like to thank also remain with me and have a security for their being co organizers of this conference and helping make it happen and a possibility. So, I would like to address a few points. The first point is the question that Osama raised with respect to the Arab states position we're talking here about a handful of states, who were members of the General Assembly at the time. of the UN, who opposed the 194 resolution. Now in order to understand their position, there are different factors so I'll mention one of them only because they 194 is not only about the right of return. It's also about establishing the UCCP, the Consoliation Commission, but also importantly for our case here is the question of internationalizing Jerusalem. Let me read you these section, I think it's number eight in 194 it says that in view of its association with three world religions, the Jerusalem area including the present municipality of Jerusalem, plus the surrounding villages and towns, the region of which shall be abodees, the most southern betlehem, the most western and including also the built up area of Mutsa, the most northern shofar should be accorded special and separate treatment from the rest of Palestine, and should be placed under effective United Nations control. So I'm mentioning at this point only to say that, and here I recommend an article by Anne Irfan on the question of internationalizing Jerusalem, which is in 181 as well as 194 and other UN attitudes and international attitudes that seek to separate Jerusalem from Palestine and give it a new colonial status and to be supervised by a non-Palestinian authority, a non-Arab authority. So there were also grounds to object to some of the formulations of the 194 resolutions and in order to assess the Arab state's position we need also to remember those. With respect to perhaps question about the Jerusalem and IDPs, I didn't mention that in the West Bank there are 344,000 or so IDPs, including Jerusalem, and obviously Onerwa is supposed to care for those as well. Now I wanted to address one point that Gilbert raised, which is the question of the separation or the distinction that he posited between the right of return on the one hand and the right of self-determination on the other, postulating that the right of return is individualistic while the right of self-determination is collective. And it can be fair to say that 194 resolution presents the 194 right to return as individualistic. That is not necessarily true for a political perspective. So if you wanted to adopt a political rather than a legal perspective, which you endeavor to do, then if we look at the political theoretical discussions of the right to return such as David Miller, and of course, Raif as Raik and others, what we see there, in order to justify the right of return, you need to be cognizant of the collective aspects of even the individualistic aspect of the right of return because the idea of the right of return in its uni is part of occupancy in homeland. And in order to return, you need to return in concert with others in order to reconstruct political committees, part of which you were and social fabric part of which you were. The only reason and only meaning and only justification for the right of return, whether you conceive of it as individualistic or collective. And in this sense, you cannot separate between the right of return. And this is what I try to suggest in my own presentation in this panel, and between the right to self-determination, the right to self-determination for the Palestinians is empty, is vacuous, is null and void, does not include a right of return that will allow the substance of any form of self-determination because self-determination without Palestinian status refugees is obviously not a self-determination at all. On the other hand, the Palestinian status refugees are two thirds of the Palestinians. Another point of this is to say that the right, the Palestinian refugees rights to property are individualistic and therefore are bourgeois. One difficulty with this question is, we, the critical legal scholars in their critique of the Marxist view of property rights and rights in general, is that the Marxists see rights and property in particular as constant, as not flexible. While rights have proven as malleable, as proliferating and as capable of being interpreted in different ways for different purposes in different contexts, and serve opposite sides of the the battleground, including, as David Harvey shows in his book, a brief history of neoliberalism. So the idea of property is usually disaggregated into what we call in critical legal studies, a bundle of rights because there are different ways to understand property and there are different effects depending what it means in a specific context. Now in terms of the individualism and bourgeois character of the property right, we need to remember that with respect to the transfer of Palestinian property in between 1948 and 1960 in particular under the Israeli legal regime, from Palestinian hands to Israeli hands, what happened here is that most of these were small Palestinian landholders, farmers in villages and their lands were transfor, collectivized and confiscated for the ownership of the state of Israel. So they are hardly can hardly be called as bourgeois in this sense. Thank you. Sorry, very shortly. On the question of the statistics, it's 14,643. So, and on the issue of how much difficult it makes for those in East Jerusalem to be stateless and displaced in the same time. Actually, so far, all those that Israel decided to exclude outside the wall, like the full neighborhoods, for example, the part of Calandia and what is known in between Ramallah and Jerusalem. They still hold the Israeli ID, but they are not living in East Jerusalem as considered the borders, the municipal borders so actually it's very, very difficult for families for different reasons economically and sociology that they are finding themselves in force to go back to rent one room in Jerusalem. It's very expensive. It's very difficult. And to prove that their center of life is still in Jerusalem in order to protect their ID residency. Those who lost their residency while they traveled abroad. I think thousands they didn't came back those who went to the United States or the Gulf countries or other countries to study and to remain there. So they lost their residency. Those, there's the huge problem of those who get married with Palestinians from the occupied territories and they are in the process of family unification. Israel frozen the family unification procedures since the second and the father and there's hundreds of Palestinians, whether women or men that they are living in the city without any documents and literally they are afraid to go out to the street, especially women because if they would be arrested they would be deported back to the West Bank. So I think it's really a very, very difficult situation with lots of details how Israel actually is using the issue of the law in order to make more difficult for the Palestinians to stay in their city and all of course at the end of the day in order to keep the expansion of the Israeli neighborhoods, the settlements around Jerusalem and to change the reality. So in any future negotiations, there's nothing that is considered is Jerusalem to negotiate about. Thank you. Shall we move on to another. Okay, Gilbert. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I would like to respond to Nimor. I hope I have enough time because he's quite quite at length. But I try to make it as brief as possible. First of all, yes, there is a distinction between the right of return right to self determination in the sense that you have no obligation to return. So it's a right.  You can there's can't be a collective decision about returning with which everyone should abide. Even by that, that the return is not individual return. Well, that's what I said, maybe you couldn't listen carefully to what I said, but I spoke of the collective settlement of return ease. I didn't speak of an individual return I speak of the collective settlement of return ease. So the return should be organized collectively, but as a right it's an individual right everyone decides. So with determination, I don't need to explain how it is by definition, I collected. The second point is about the bourgeois character of when we're not going to enter into a discussion about Marxism, and which you seem to do to disagree with the Marxist conception of property but that's you don't need to get there. The definition of bourgeois right is related to the notion of property itself. Now, whatever the issue. I'm not going to discuss philosophy with you. I'm just going to discuss one thing. The right of some of compensation, if it has to be based on what people own before would be completely unfair as I explained, because precisely those small owners as you say, and the others who didn't own anything are those who suffered most because there's very much that the Palestinian bourgeoisie the Palestinian aristocracy and all that had those who are who went into the diaspora among them lived a much better life than those who were kept in the camps. And that's why I'm saying that the compensation should be on an egalitarian basis base because precisely suffering cannot be measured. And it's more important than lost property. And that's the key point I was making and that's where I think the conception of returning I mean compensating sorry it's about the reparations everyone on the base of what they own is a very flawed one. Thank you. I don't think we can go for another round of questions, but there are questions that you might be able to address quickly in relation to basically Sahar if there is a change in the law in regard to residency in Jerusalem. And if there is possible to restore the ID through court decision high court decision, someone saying that was possible if you stay three years in the country. I'll give you time to reply as well. And do the panellists think that Israeli recognition of the reality and consequences of 1948 and its responsibility for it is important for implementation of the return. And whether the panellists think that there has not yet been any such Israeli recognition why there is no such recognition today. We have. Yeah, if if we can address these questions and then we'll add the ones also to say something as well. So shall we start with our decrease. Thank you, Green. Very, very briefly as you bear you had mentioned the release recently just two days ago I think by the SRF at Foundation through Nasser al-Qudwa of the records of Palestinian land ownership these records are in fact the United Nations Association Commission records from 1963 that are only housed historically in the hands of a few parties the Egyptians the Israelis the United Nations the Palestinians, perhaps one more. The point is, I actually think it's vital and vitally important to have made these records open and public. So to compare them for instance to the very fine work of the Palestine land society and Salman Abusetta's work and say one is more important than the other. I see no reason why we should do that. In fact, they can, they're not mutually exclusive and this goes to the very first question that was put to us today. What practical actions can be done to help ensure keep alive the right of Palestinian refugees to return. And these are two very important ones. And that's, that's, that's all I wanted to say on that point as to the question that was just asked just 20 seconds as to whether or not Israeli recognition of the rights return would be required I think that's self evident the answer is yes. There needs to be some form of atonement, but we're not there yet. And hopefully one day we will be. There's a question that it is required, however, because you can't have a right that is implemented unless the one who's the wrong, the party who acts wrongly acknowledges that that that right exists. Thank you. But you want to say something as well. Yeah, can I say something briefly. Are the, as I said that may be interesting for historical from the historical point of view that I mean making these archives available. I mean, I'm not disputing the historical interest. I'm discussing the political interest, which is in my view is limited because we know anyhow that the amount of land taken over by the Zionist project is far beyond even what is recorded. And when just the figure that you mentioned and I also quoted the fact that 6% is is was owned before 48 by the on the Zionist side so that's that's enough in itself to tell you about the amount that the proportion of of user patient that anyhow that's I think I don't think there is a disagreement here and that's discussing the political perspective in which the this kind of release came and and this issue of providing everyone with their documents about their property. Thank you very much. I would like to have time for another questions. I would like to thank the panelists I would like to send the audience attendees as well. There were many questions that we couldn't answer them but they hope through the answers that you already heard that would be addressed that address some of these questions. We are closing the session and there is sort of half time for the next one and hope to see you there again. Thank you. Thank you.