The Palestinian Right of Return Under International Law

The just resolution of the Palestinian right of return is at the very heart of the Middle East peace process. Nonetheless, the Obama administration intends to impose a comprehensive peace settlement upon the Palestinians that will force them to give up their well-recognized right of return under United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194(III)) of 1948; accept disjointed chunks of territory on the West Bank in Gaza; and, even expressly recognize Israel as "the Jewish State". All this will fail, for the reasons so powerfully and eloquently stated in this, Francis A. Boyle's new book. In elaborating what the Palestinians must now do to realize their international legal right of return, Boyle offers nothing less than a paradigm shift in understanding the actuality of the state of Israel created on the territory of Palestine in 1948. While contemporary analysts may view present day Israel as having evolved from a purportedly vulnerable "David" to the Goliath of the Middle East, Boyle recalls not only its historic dependence on Western imperial powers, but its ongoing client status. No matter how foreign and domestic Zionists might be able to manipulate US Middle East policy to Israel's advantage, Israel remains, as recently acknowledged by Shimon Peres, dependent for its continued existence on the United States. Drawing the parallels between Israel's creation and sustenance, first by the UK and then the US to further their own imperial interests in the Middle East, Boyle highlights its modern day client relationship to the United States. Netanyahu's demand for Palestinian recognition of Israel as a "Jewish State", belatedly injected into the peace negotiations, is a blatant attempt to once again lead the talks towards collapse. But such a notion is noxious not just for the Palestinians, whose final ethnic cleansing it portends. It bears profound ramifications for the future evolution of international law as it relates both to the key principles of universality (one law for all) and of religious and ethnic nondiscrimination. If the Palestinians must recognize Israel as "the Jewish State", then must the world as well? And if so, is there to be one law for Israel, accepting of its institutionalized racism, and one law for the rest of the states - or will the Israeli example entice states backward from their progressive acceptance of multinationalism and nondiscrimination, towards a search for ethnic purity. What are the Palestinians to do? Francis Boyle's solution, delivered in this, his last instruction to the Palestinians, goes to the heart of the matter. the right of the Palestinian refugees to return to their homes. The reader must study this book in order to understand why the realization of this right goes to the very heart of the Middle East peace process between Israelis and Palestinians. Persistent failure and refusal by the governments of Israel and the US to heed the profound words of wisdom contained in this book will only produce at least another generation of violence, bloodshed, and tears between Israelis and Palestinians.