Ten Facts About the Palestinian Right of Return Everybody Should Know
The key to understanding Palestine's past, present, and future
The Palestinian Right of Return has been described by historians as “the only key to peace,” and since 1948, has remained a central demand of the Palestinian national movement, in the Occupied Territories and among the diaspora. Yet, for many, the Right of Return is either a foreign concept or vastly misunderstood. Even those who support the Right of Return in principle know very little about the tangibles.
I’m researching a forthcoming reported story that relates to the Right of Return. As I read through UN documents, Palestinian memoirs, academic papers, engineering dissertations, history books, institutional proposals, Palestinian literature and poetry, I was consistently astonished by how little I knew (a full list of resources can be found at the end of the piece).
The UN defines the Right of Return as “the right of an individual to return to their home in their native country.” It is a right guaranteed to every person under the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and one that has been denied to Palestinians since the 1947-48 Nakba, when 800,000 Palestinians were uprooted from their homes.
What follows are ten facts about the Right of Return that are fundamental to understanding Palestine’s past, present, and future.
1) A practical plan exists
One of the most frequent Right of Return rebuttals from well-intentioned people is “sure, maybe it’s morally justified, but returning 7 million refugees to Palestine just isn’t logistically possible.” The corollary to this statement is that Palestinians should accept that they will never return home.
But the premise that return “just isn’t practical” is both inadequate and inaccurate.
Palestinian researchers have spent decades meticulously making the case for how refugees can feasibly return home. One of the foremost researchers of the Right of Return is Salman Abu Sitta, a Palestinian engineer who for more than 30 years documented a practical plan for return. His books, The Right of Return: Sacred, Legal, and Possible (1999), The Atlas of Palestine (2004), and Mapping my Return (2017), build on each other, mapping a path home for Palestinians. Some key considerations that Abu Sitta has proposals for include:
Establishing a Palestine Land Authority: with 1500 members, roughly 3 representatives from each historic village, to represent the property rights of Palestinians.
Transforming UNRWA: from a refugee aid service into a development organization to amass international resources for rebuilding Palestine.
A plan for water and land usage: equitably shared between Jews and Palestinians.
Labor and engineering: many Palestinian refugees including Abu Sitta have engineering and construction expertise from developing the Gulf States. His organization, Palestine Land Society, hosts an annual engineering competition during which Palestinian engineering students submit plans for rebuilding their villages.
A partnership between two organizations committed to the Right of Return in Palestinian and Israeli civil society, BADIL and Zochrot, built on Abu-Sitta’s work. They offer a proposal for how relationships between Palestinians and Israelis can be repaired, a necessary condition of return, based on the following steps:
Recognition: of the Nakba by Israeli society.
Responsibility/Accountability: holding those accountable who were responsible for the Nakba and ongoing crimes.
Redress: restoring pre-1948 conditions whenever possible.
Restitution: returning land to dispossessed Palestinians.
Rehabilitation: creating a culture of return.
I highly recommend digging into the details.
2) No mass displacement
“But what about the Israelis?” It’s a question based on the underlying assumption that the return of Palestinian refugees would mean the expulsion of Jews from Palestine, and one the architects of the Right of Return have afforded much thought. Unlike the two-state solution, which necessitates mass displacement to cement distinct national borders, the Right of Return does not. This reality rests on one crucial little-known fact: the vast majority of Palestinian villages dispossessed and destroyed during the Nakba remain empty.
87% of Israeli Jews live on just 6% of Israel’s land and 85% of Palestinian villages were never built on. As Abu-Sitta writes, “When Zionism is abolished, most refugees can return home to their emptied land.”
For those remaining areas where Palestinians once called home and Israelis now live, especially cities such as Tel-Aviv and Jaffa, a couple solutions exist. Abu-Sitta proposes a canton model, based on Switzerland, in which different ethnic groups reside in different sectors of cities (you can read his full proposal here).
BADIL and Zochrot developed protocols for when Israeli property rights (considered “secondary rights”) are in conflict with Palestinian property rights (“primary rights”).
Offering compensation of property value, plus relocation expenses, to either party to relinquish property rights (primary first, then secondary).
For Israelis leasing from the state (the Israeli state and JNF own 92.6% of land in Israel), offer continued use until lease runs out, but leasing from Palestinian owners instead.
If neither is accepted, then cases are referred to the judicial body in the jurisdiction.
Another interesting fact is that only 7% of property in Israel is privately owned, (as opposed to 60% in the U.S.) which means the primary parties returning land will be the Israeli government and JNF, not individuals.
3) We have the receipts
Palestine is one of the most well-documented places in the world. Historians have collected records by the British during the Mandate period (1917-48), by Zionists planning the ethnic cleansing of Palestine before/during the Nakba, and by the UN immediately after Israel’s founding. We have documentation on 531 villages, their location, land ownership, population before 1948, where the descendants live, how they were occupied/de-populated, descriptions of villages as they remain today. This information was compiled into a database by the Palestine Land Society,
For decades after 1948, the records held by Israel were inaccessible, but this changed when Israeli historians with access to the archives, such as Benny Morris and Ilan Pappé, publicized them. Salman Abu-Sitta spent years in Britain collecting files from the Mandate period. He dedicated much of his life to collecting these documents and turning them into maps in his Atlas of Palestine.
This information is invaluable because it provides a clear roadmap for refugee return and will reduce the need for lengthy court proceedings to determine who lived where. Other attempts at restitution following the toppling of oppressive structures, such as South African apartheid, were derailed in property courts. This can be avoided in Palestine.
4) We can afford it
“If we get what the U.S. pays Israel in one year, that would be enough to cover the entirety of the expenses to rebuild Palestine.” - Salman Abu-Sitta
Short and sweet.
5) Population Density
Some advocate for a two-state solution that includes the return of Palestinian refugees, not to their ancestral homes, many of which are in present-day Israel, but exclusively to the West Bank and Gaza. Assuming Palestinians would be willing to accept this compromise, logistical hurdles remain, including the issue of population density. Gaza is already one of the most densely populated places in the world, with roughly 6,000 people per square km. If refugees in the Palestinian diaspora were to return to Gaza, this number would only increase.
70% of Palestinians living in Gaza are internally-displaced refugees whose ancestors’ homes are in present-day Israel. Before the construction of the apartheid wall around Gaza, some could even see their homelands from their refugee camps. If refugees in Gaza were able to return to their villages, they would be returning to sparsely populated land where only 6 people per square km. currently live.
The Right of Return under one democratic state would avoid mass displacement and make all of Palestine more liveable.
6) It is absolutely legal
There is no question as to the legality of the Right of Return. The UN’s Declaration of Human Rights, which is legally binding to all nations (including Israel) and is considered the basis for international human rights, states: “Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own and to return to his country.”
Following the establishment of the UN partition plan under Resolution 181, UN Mediator Count Bernadotte traveled to Palestine to draft a report of recommendations to the UN. His report read: “The right of innocent people, uprooted from their homes by the present terror and ravages of war, to return to their homes, should be affirmed and made effective, with assurance of adequate compensation for the property of those who may choose not to return.”
Bernadotte was assassinated by Israelis during his mission, however the UN General Assembly accepted his recommendations to formally establish the right of return of the Palestinians.
This culminated in UN Resolution 194, which enshrined the Palestinian Right of Return in international law.
“Refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property.”
Since Resolution 194, the UN has affirmed the Palestinian Right of Return over 110 times. Bringing Israel into compliance with international law includes the Right of Return.
7) A condition of Israel’s statehood
The UN partition plan, which was the legal basis for Israel’s creation stated that Israel was under legal obligation to safeguard the fundamental human rights of minorities, which, yes, includes the Right of Return. The UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, established in 1975, has since confirmed:
“Israel… was under a direct obligation to respect the principle of the right of return established by the United Nations… and to cooperate in its implementation.”
The Right of Return is not a nebulous concept to which no nation bears responsibility for, rather its fulfillment a legal condition of Israel’s creation, and its continued existence.
8) Israel passed legislation barring its discussion in negotiations
While the Right of Return is a central demand for the Palestinian national movement, it is illegal for Israeli negotiators to even mention it.
Following the Oslo “peace process,” which crumbled partially because Palestinian negotiators refused to concede on the Right of Return, Israel passed “The Law for Safeguarding The Rejection of the Right of Return.”
Why are Israelis so opposed to the Right of Return? Israeli historian Ilan Pappé has one theory. To accept the principles of the Right of Return would mean questioning the foundational myths of Israel’s creation in 1948 and would require viewing Palestinians as victims of Israel’s founding. “Israel Jews would have to recognize that they have become the mirror image of their own worst nightmare,” writes Pappé.
9) The key to peace
To understand the historical failures of peace negotiations between Israel and Palestine, look no further than the Right of Return. What is depicted as an insurmountable gap, boils down to this one central condition.
Immediately after 1948, there was some discussion of refugee return by Israeli negotiators in peace talks, including during the 1949 Lausanne Conference, when a deal seemed near. However, according to Palestinian historian Rashid Khalidi in The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine, this deal was torpedoed when David Ben-Gurion who saw the Right of Return as a “demographic threat.” Any proposal that threatened Israel’s status as a Jewish ethno-state was a nonstarter for Ben-Gurion.
This principle was cemented after the 1967 War, when Israel adopted a new axiom of negotiations: recognizing the Nakba and ethnic cleansing was non-negotiable. This strategy, which has been in place ever since, effectively sidelined the Right of Return from all subsequent peace talks.
It also explains the breakdown during the Camp David Summit, mediated by the U.S., which only allowed discussion of the Israeli proposal, and excluded the Right of Return. Arafat refused to sign, citing the absence of Return.
10) Palestinian youth believe Return is possible
A recent survey of Palestinian youth in the diaspora and the Occupied Territories, conducted by BADIL, found that 81.3% of all Palestinian youth believe the Right of Return is achievable, including 97.3% of refugee youth.
Where does this Sumud, or steadfastness come from? Perhaps from ancestors who shared stories of their homes and never gave up hope of return. Or from Palestinian writers and poets, such as Mahmoud Darwish, Suheir Hammad and Refaat Alareer, whose words of olive trees and birds conjure vivid images of reconnecting with stolen lands.
The Right of Return is at the heart of Palestinian art, identity, and resistance. “It is through return, writes Palestinian American poet Suheir Hammad, that we ground the self and hence provide the means to move forward into the future.”
Palestinians haven’t given up hope, and neither should the rest of us. Justice may seem far away, and growing more distant each day, but the thing about the future is that it hasn’t happened yet. We get to shape it. We decide what values to uphold, what movements to stand with, and what hills to die on. The Right of Return is one of those hills.
Bibliography
1) A practical plan exists
“The Conditions of the Palestinian Population on the Occasion of the World Population Day,” by Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, (2024) (source)
The Right of Return: Sacred, Legal, and Possible, by Salman Abu Sitta, (1999) (source)
The Atlas of Palestine, by Salman Abu Sitta, (2004)
Mapping my Return, by Salman Abu Sitta (2017)
“Practical Approaches to Refugee Return” by BADIL and Zochrot, (2011) (source)
2) No mass displacement
“The Right of Return: the Only Key to Peace,” by Salman Abu Sitta (2019) (source)
“The Right of Return is Still the Issue,”by Salman Abu Sitta, in Mondoweiss, (2025) (source)
“Israel Lands - Privatization or National Ownership?” by Jewish Virtual Library (source)
3) We have the receipts
The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine by Ilan Pappé, (2006)
“The Right of Return: the Only Key to Peace,” by Salman Abu Sitta (2019) (source)
Mapping my Return, by Salman Abu Sitta (2017)
4) We can afford it
“The Right of Return: the Only Key to Peace,” by Salman Abu Sitta (2019) (source)
5) Population Density
“The Feasibility of the Right of Return” by Salman Abu Sitta (1999) (source)
6) It is absolutely legal
“The Right of Return of the Palestinian People” by the UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, (1978) (source)
7) A condition of Israel’s statehood
“The Right of Return of the Palestinian People” by the UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, (1978) (source)
“A Forgotten Detail: The Right of Return was a Condition of the Establishment of the State of Israel,” by Shahd Hammouri, (2024) (source)
8) Israel passed legislation barring its discussion in negotiations
The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine by Ilan Pappé, (2006)
9) The key to peace
The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine by Ilan Pappé, (2006)
The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine, by Rashid Khalidi, (2020)
10) Palestinian youth believe Return is possible
“The Practicality of Return: A Survey of Palestinian Refugee Youth,” BADIL, (2018) (source)
“On Writing and Return: Palestinian-American Reflections” by Lisa Suhair Majaj, (2001) (source)
You can subscribe for free to be notified when I share new writing.
If you’re able to financially support my work, paid subscriptions allows me to keep this going! Free subscriptions and sharing with friends is also helpful and I am appreciative of each and every one of you.
hi, I want to read this in more depth...yashe koach to you for writing it...so scholarly
reminds me of the Doctors Against Genocide zoom webinar I attended today, Michele Gelboin