Vol. 16 No.2 (February 2006), pp.116-118

 

EXILE AND RETURN: PREDICAMENTS OF PALESTINIANS AND JEWS, by Ann M. Lesch and Ian S. Lustick (eds).  Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005.  368pp. Cloth. $45.00/£29.50.  ISBN 0-8122-3874-5.

 

Reviewed by Michael Dumper, Department of Politics, University of Exeter, UK.  Email: Mick.Dumper [at] exeter.ac.uk

 

The conflict between Palestinians and Israelis has come full circle since the beginning of the last century.  From primarily a conflict between the two main protagonists, it broadened out and was subsumed into a region-wide Arab-Israeli conflict.  Since the signing of the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty in 1977, active hostility to the Israeli state has gradually been replaced either by further peace treaties or a wary stand-off.  As a result, the conflict has returned to its basic core, that of the dispute over possession over historical Palestine. To a large extent scholarship has reflected this trend and recently there have been an increasing number of studies focussing on what is at the very heart of the conflict: the future of the Palestinian refugees and their relationship to Israel.

 

It is possible to distinguish two main phases in the recent literature on Palestinian refugees, with the 1991 Madrid Middle East Peace Conference and the 1993 Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organisation serving as the watershed.  The first phase was largely characterised by descriptive studies that revealed the socio-economic conditions of the Palestinian refugees. To some extent this was driven by the close links between researchers and aid and development agencies who were interested in improving the delivery of their services to refugees.  Thus, there was a focus on case studies emanating from ad hoc projects that were less directed at political solutions but more at humanitarian concerns.

 

Following Madrid and Oslo there was a major re-alignment between the political arena and research and an increased donor and institutional involvement in research on Palestinian refugees.  The governments of Canada and Norway and the European Union took on leading roles in sponsoring policy relevant research. In this second phase, the focus was more directed towards in-depth studies on Palestinian capacities and solution-orientated studies. The role of UNRWA and the living conditions of the refugee camps, for example, were the subject of major studies.  In addition, there were important and influential expositions of the positions of the main protagonists, the PLO and the Israeli government. This new phase was also characterised by a concentration on modalities for implementation. In the main, much of the government and major agency funded research adopted what could be loosely termed a “political realist” approach.  There was a welcome recognition that the future of the refugees constituted an important item on the negotiation agenda, but the emphasis was more on it as a problem that had to be overcome or finessed.  In the late 1990s, and particularly after the Camp David summit in 2000 between [*117] Israel, the PLO and the US, there emerged a body of research with a strong human rights agenda.  This was largely in response to the indications that many in the leadership of the PLO, supported by the big donor countries, were considering the possibility of trading the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes in exchange for a state in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPTs) of West Bank and Gaza Strip.

 

It is into this milieu that Ann Lesch’s and Ian Lustick’s book arrives and provides a welcome collection of contributions which both add new empirical data and provide an opportunity for more philosophical reflection and to take stock of where the research is heading. While explicitly not the intention of the editors, the book does, through its wide-ranging themes, serve as a useful reader for understanding the state of the sub-discipline and as an engaging and thoughtful introduction to some of the more difficult questions regarding identity, the legitimacy of the use of force, moral culpability.

 

The book begins with a general introduction by Lesch and Lustick which seeks to place the studies in their political context. Unfortunately, the prose is dense and at times the meaning is quite unclear, which does not do justice to the writing that follows. The rest of the contributions are divided into five parts.  Part I includes pieces by Laleh Khalili, Elie Podeh and Sari Hanafi dealing with the broad theme of “collective memories and actual choices.”  These offer highly nuanced empirical studies which emphasize the complexity of experience and how this is to be understood in policy terms.  The second part on “Truth and Political Consequence” comprises two contributions. The first is by Elazar Barkan whose previous research on historical injustices elsewhere would lead one to anticipate a wealth of comparative data to help construct a balanced approach to moral responsibility. However, while impressive on the more philosophical aspects of the issue, the comparative work is disappointing and the conclusions a bit thin. The second contribution by Lustick exhibits all the hallmarks of his scholarship – forensic analysis structured by an overarching argument.  In this case he addresses the very important precedent of a German apology for the Holocaust and how it was politically finessed.

 

The next two sections are devoted to solid empirical studies.  Part III, entitled “Practical Consequences of Exile and Return,” contain contributions by Amal Jamal, Ann Lesch and Ze’ev Khanin on the internally displaced in Israel, on Palestinians in Exile in Kuwait, and Soviet Jewish migration to Israel respectively.  Part IV, on property issues for Arab and Jewish migrants and refugees, includes a contribution by Michael Fischbach on the comparability of Palestinian and Mizrahi Jewish property claims, largely based on previous work, but it gives prominence to a neglected and increasingly sensitive area of research. Yehouda Shenhav’s detailed analysis of documents gives short shrift to Israeli government attempts to characterise the Palestinian [*118] exile as a population exchange with Arab Jews, and Salim Tamari offers a finely phrased and incisive examination of the strengths and weaknesses of options being discussed with regard to Palestinian property claims, and suggests a three-pronged approach to tackling this crucial question.

 

The final part, entitled “The Refugee Issue in Context,” comprises three contributions dealing with the long-term issue of Palestinian return.  The first is a blistering and brutally clear account of the process of Palestinian dispossession and exile by Nadim Rouhana, in which he lays bare the moral and political choices available to both Palestinian and Israeli societies. The last two contributions are in essence a dialogue between two Israeli perspectives. The first, by Ilan Pappe, argues for the radical path of Israel recognising the Palestinian right of return; while the second, by Gershon Shafir, challenges this view and argues that a stable peace can only be achieved by a full Israeli withdrawal from the OPTs.

 

In their introduction, the editors outline the aims of the project which led to this publication, namely the development of “new thinking” from a range of political, philosophical and disciplinary perspectives.  While some of the contributions are clearly based on existing work and in this sense have not met the objectives of the project, their combination and their juxtaposition alongside contrasting works ensure that, taken as a whole, the volume does offer much that is, indeed, “new thinking” and in this way is both refreshing and suggests more hope than much of the literature hitherto.

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© Copyright 2006 by the author, Michael Dumper.