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Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2000 03:31:19 +0300
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Subject: For moderation - BADIL: PLO Response to Refugee 
Memorandum
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BADIL Resource Center
For immediate release, 28-6-2000.
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PLO Response to Palestinian Refugee Memorandum:

"We Are Making Efforts to Build International Support for the Right 
of Return" (Salim al-Z'anoun, head of the PNC)


During the past ten days, some 60 institutions and community 
organizations, as well as some one thousand individual activists, in 
the Palestinian refugee camps of the West Bank signed on a memorandum 
which, on 27 June, was presented to the head of the Palestinian 
National Council, Salim al-Z'anoun. In their memorandum, the 
signatories demand that the PNC take concrete steps for the defense 
of Palestinian refugees' right of return. Yesterday's meeting with 
the PNC-head coincides with the PLO's preparations for the convention 
of the PLO Central Council scheduled for early next month in Gaza. 

The memorandum and yesterday's meeting with the PNC-head are an 
initiative of the Follow-up Committee in Commemoration of the 52nd 
Anniversary of Al-Nakba (Palestinian eviction in 1948). The 
memorandum was presented to Salim al-Za'noun in the West Bank 
headquarters of the PNC in Nablus by a delegation representing the 
Follow-up Committee. It was headed by Taysseer Nasrallah (Yafa 
Cultural Center/Balata Camp, Adnan Ajarmeh (Union of Youth Activity 
Centers, 'Aida Camp) and political activist Khaled Mansour.

The memorandum affirms the importance and indivisibility of 
Palestinian refugees' right to return, restitution and compensation. 
It emphasizes the popular demand for a Palestinian negotiation 
strategy in the final status negotiations with Israel which clings to 
international law and UN Resolution 194 (see full text of the 
memorandum below). 

In response to the memorandum, PNC head al-Z'anoun affirmed the 
important role of community action. He promised to present the 
memorandum and the signatures to the upcoming convention of the PLO 
Central Council and added: "We will consider this meeting here in 
Nablus as an expression of the refugee voice in Palestine and in the 
Diaspora."
"You are right to worry, and your worries are legitimate", said al-
Z'anoun, "because even our friends in the European Community suggest 
to us that financial compensation should replace our return and argue 
that the right of return is outdated. We have been making major 
efforts, on the international level, in order to build a position 
supportive of our right of return. A good example for our efforts is 
the recent annual Conference of the Inter-Parliamentary Union held in 
Amman. There we succeeded to pass a strong resolution concerning the 
Palestinian refugee question which affirms UN Resolution 194." PNC 
head al-Za'noun also promised to place on the agenda of the upcoming 
PLO Central Council meeting the issue of a proper Palestinian 
response to the recent Israeli Knesset bill aimed at barring 
Palestinian refugees' right of return to their homes and properties.


Attached: Memorandum (full text):
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Follow-Up Committee						 
In Commemoration of the 52nd Anniversary of Al-Nakba
June 2000.					
To: Salim al-Za'noun, Palestinian National Council

Respected PNC Members,

Deeply concerned about the national and inalienable rights of our 
people and the dangers which threaten our national program of return 
and self-determination in accordance to international legitimacy, we 
re-affirm that international law and principles are the only basis 
for the final status negotiations.

Based on our belief in liberation, independence and the establishment 
of the independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, 
we demand the right of return, according to UN Resolution 194, for 
our entire Palestinian people to the lands of pre-1948 Palestine. We 
here re-affirm the following principles which we consider as the red 
lines that must not be crossed in the political negotiations: 

1. The refugee question, in Palestine and in the Diaspora is one 
issue and must not be divided.
2. UN Resolution 194 is the reference for the solution of the 
Palestinian refugee question.
3. The Right of Return is sacred and non-negotiable. It is an 
individual and collective right.
4. There is one meaning for the right of return: the return of the 
entire Palestinian people to the lands and properties from which they 
were evicted in 1948, and compensation for loss and damage caused to 
their properties.
5. All plans aimed at refugee resettlement or at the liquidation of 
the Palestinian refugee issue in the Diaspora are to be rejected and 
resisted.
6. Compensation as a substitute for the right of return is to be 
rejected, and all bargaining about the right of return in exchange 
for other political benefits must be stopped.
7. Any final solution for the refugee question, or any final peace 
agreement signed by the PLO with Israel, is not a just solution and 
will not be binding, if it does not include the implementation of our 
right of return according to UN Resolution 194. 
8. The massive commitment of the Palestinian people, in the past and 
in the future, to the PLO is based on the PLO's adherence to the 
program of liberation and return.
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BADIL Resource Center aims to provide a resource pool of alternative, critical and progressive information and analysis on the 
question of Palestinian refugees in our quest to achieve a just and lasting solution for exiled Palestinians based on the right
 of return.
PO Box 728, Bethlehem, Palestine; tel/fax. 02-2747346; email: [log in to unmask]; website: www.badil.org
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