Azerbaijan, Baku, 5 November / Trend , corr. U.Sadikhova, A.Gut/ The HAMAS resistance movement is invalid to tackle the problems of million of Palestinian refugees because the issue is solved by the UN Security Council and agreement of Israel to repatriated Palestinians.
"HAMAS is not a member of an international organization or a part to the talks between Palestine and Israel. Therefore, the movement can only contribute to tackling the problem regarding the Palestine Autonomy, but cannot remove the problem independently," Yossi Mekelberg, the Associate Fellow of the Middle East Programme at the Royal Institute Chatham House, said to Trend from London by a telephone.
Ismayl Haniya, the first secretary of HAMAS, said at the meeting with the Lebanon President Michel Suleiman that the Islamic resistance movement stands against settlement of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, and wanted to accelerate the process on their repatriation to Palestine, the Aljazeera channel reported. Currently, 4.5 million Palestinian refugees live in Arab countries with 400,000 refugees in Lebanon camps. The main flow of Palestinian refugees was observed after the war in 1967, when Israel took a control over the West Coast and Jerusalem.
Last time the problems of the Palestinian refugees were considered at the meeting of the Middle East quartet in September. However, also the quartet is the key points of Palestinian-Israeli peace process; the problem has not been moved from dead point within 40 years.
The Head of the Palestinian Autonomy Mahmoud Abbas stated that Palestine and Arab countries have already demonstrated unambiguous position on the issue- refugees must be repatriated to their historical motherland.
The UN Security Council and Israel still postpone the consideration of the issue. According to the Israeli analyst Guielle Frish, if Israel lift the issue on repatriation of Palestinian refugees to Israel , the West Coast or Gaza Strip, then it will cause a demographic catastrophe in the region.
"There is no place for Palestinians to return, as many villages and houses were destroyed, but Arabian buildings have been occupied by Jewish repatriates or destroyed," Dr. Hillel Frisch, an expert of the Bar-Ilan University Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, told Trend .
Therefore, the statements by HAMAS regarding tackling of the problems of refugees are untimely at the current political situation in the region, when the Israeli Government has not been formed and the presidential election in Palestine will be held.
Furthermore, Israel opposes HAMAS to be occupied with the tackling of the problem, which has a catastrophic result for economy and demography of the country, taken into account that the movement does not take even an official participation at the talks.
"Israel stood against repatriation of refugees in 1948 - then the number of refugees touched 750,000, and now the country against this , when the number of refugees reaches million, as a quarter of this number is enough to break the demographic and economic policy in the region," the Israeli expert said.
The official Beirut supported HAMAS in the tackling of the problems of refugees, considering that the Palestinian people would restore its international right. However, Lebanon's main reason for support to repatriate Palestinians was rather to strengthen security in the country.
In 1975 civil war flared up in the country, center of which was Palestinian refugee camp in Beirut. The refugee camp was divided into the leftists and radicals. Moreover both sides were well armed. Because of this in Lebanon confrontation occurred between the Christians and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) that require the Lebanese government to provide independence, which developed into the civil war of Christians and Moslems.
Therefore, positive result for Lebanon in the returning of
the Palestinians will become strengthening safety in the country doubly, said
Karim Karima, the Lebanese expert of the Beirut Institute of Foreign Relations.
"For a period of decades, Lebanon, rendering aid to
Palestinians, plunged itself in the civil war. Result in the country, as
before, is the difference between the political groups," analyst Karim told
Trend by telephone from Beirut.
Many Lebanese groups are armed due to the arms, which are bought to the camp of Palestinian refugees, he said.
"The Arab world will obtain two benefits from returning of the Palestinians: international rights of the Palestinians will be restored and Lebanese government will be able to better control security in the country," said Karim.
However, together with the international
positivism, it is not worth to exclude internal problems of Palestine, such as
the division of region into two zones of influence, Gaza Strip and West Bank, and the problem of economic blockade.
Therefore, taking into consideration the closed borders and economic blockade,
HAMAS unlikely will manage the flow of refugees into the Gaza Strip, which it
keeps under control.
"It is important to know, where the refugees will return. There are two problems on the West Bank: the Israeli troops, which do not accept the Palestinian refugees, and the collapsed economy. In the Gaza Strip - the eternal confrontations between the Islamic groups and the closed borders with neighboring Egypt," Palestinian analyst George Rishmawi, Director of International Middle East Media Center, told Trend by telephone from Ramallah.
The present Palestinian Administration can not render material support to the refugees, and therefore, shifts this question to the UN Security Council. But it is oriented towards the agreement of Israel to accept these refugees back. But, Rishmawi said that these are not those territories, which refugees left 60 years ago, 80% of population of West Bank and Jerusalem is comprised of Jews.
Therefore, even if HAMAS wants to solve the
problem of refugees, but it can not make this independently, it is not worth to
hope that Israel will listen to this, Palestinian analyst said.
Israeli analyst Frisch said that refugees of Palestine became the response of Israel to the mass deportation of Jews after 1948 from the Arab countries.
Generally nearly 550,000 Jews left the Arab countries in
the beginning of the 1950, and mainly they were the Arabic-language Jews of
Iraq, Yemen, Egypt and Maghreb countries.
The deported Jews populated the Israeli regions of Jerusalem and other territories of West Bank.
The war between Palestine and Israel began in 1948 after declaration of independent State of Israel in the Palestinian territories. However, conflict took the widest dimensions in the war of 1967, when Israel took control over Jerusalem. After the second intifada (uprising of the inhabitants of West Bank) in 2000, Palestinian and Israeli sides developed "road map" with the support of Middle Eastern quartet (Russia, United Nations, the European Union, the USA). Basic purpose of this project is to create two states, Israel and Palestine, on one land with the common capital Jerusalem.
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