Nasser Hasan Aruri is UMass Dartmouth’s Chancellor Professor of Political Science Emeritus, a former member of Amnesty International, author of 9 books (most recently Dishonest Broker: The Role of the United States in Palestine and Israel) and countless articles and has contributed to and edited dozens of other volumes, including Palestinian Refugees: The Right of Return. On Tuesday, April 29, Aruri came to UMass Boston to deliver a lecture on the subject of the latter, addressing an audience at the Chancellor’s Conference Room on the 3rd floor of the Quinn Building.

Introduced by Dispute Resolution Program Professor David Matz, Aruri began his talk by briefly outlining the history of the Palestinian refugee question, from the initial exiling of 83% of the Palestinian population following the establishment of the Israeli state in 1948 to the present day advances (or lack thereof) by the current duo of Bush and Sharon towards amending the mistakes made by past American and Israeli governments with regard to the status of the refugees. He brought to light the consistent failure of Israel to abide by UN Resolutions Nos. 194 (12/11/1948) & 273 (5/11/1949) which admitted Israel into the U.N. General Assembly as a sovereign state, with the stipulation that they allow for the full, uninhibited right of return for any Palestinian refugees displaced from their homes, as well as the Palestine Liberation Organization’s (PLO) conscious decision to put the issue on the back burner, resolving that the refugees would be accommodated by a unitary state once it was established.

Aruri, also a member of the Palestinian National Council, gave a summary of each U.S. administration’s attitude towards this issue, from Kennedy onward, including Lyndon Johnson’s incorporation of a plan to resettle the refugees elsewhere into his campaign platform of 1964, and Jimmy Carter’s acknowledgement of a “selective privilege of return.”

After this summary of the history of neglect towards the Palestinian refugees, Professor Aruri went on to explain how at present most key Israeli officials see the right of return as posing a “clear and present danger” and a “real demographic problem” to the maintenance of the Zionist state.

He also noted the Israeli government had officially recognized its responsibility in creating the refugee problem, and would allow the right of return to a Palestinian state, but not to Israel itself, which Aruri personally saw as an effective refusal of return, given the current unlikelihood of a two-state solution to the conflict. The professor also pointed out the fact that the comprehensive peace settlement (dubbed “The Framework”) authored by Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazin – recently selected to become the first Palestinian prime minister by PLO chairman Yasser Arafat) and Yossi Beylin stated that, “implementation of the right of return declaration was rendered impracticable by circumstances and realities going on since 1948.” The Framework also stated that all refugees were the responsibility of the Palestinian Authority, to which Aruri’s own initial reaction was, “Do these guys read?”

Aruri concluded by prognosticating that the Bush-Sharon coalition seems intent on delivering the “knockout punch” to the right of return. The “Road Map” peace plan (aiming to establish a Palestinian state by 2005) that was submitted for approval to the Israeli and Palestinian governments just last week will, according to Aruri, require Palestinians to renounce the right of return if it is to work. “As things stand,” Aruri said, “the road to return will be very, very difficult.”

Upon ending his prepared speech, Aruri fielded a number of questions from the audience. People attending raised a variety of issues, including poor living conditions of refugees in Arab-run camps, and the apparent death of the right of return issue in 1993, to which the professor responded by pointing to widespread activism on this front since 2000, including on the campus of Boston University, adding that in 1993, “nobody wanted to be more Palestinian than Yasser Arafat.” Replying to a question about reasons why Europe has not been significantly involved in the Middle East peace process, Aruri explained that Israel has been adamant that only the U.S. could participate in the process, in rejection of the 1980 Vienna agreement that called for a multilateral resolution.