Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale.israele
Titolo: legge del ritorno

Articolo del New York Times:
solo 10% dei palestinesi sarebbero favorevoli alla legge del ritorno
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/14/international/middleeast/14MIDE.html?th
Palestinian Mob Attacks Pollster Over Study on 'Right of Return'
By JAMES BENNET
AMALLAH, West Bank, July 13 - A mob attacked an eminent Palestinian
political scientist today as he prepared to announce a striking finding from
a regionwide survey of Palestinian refugees: Only a small minority of them
exercise a "right of return" to Israel as part of a peace agreement.
The political scientist, Dr. Khalil Shikaki, the director of the Palestinian
Center for Policy and Survey Research here, had intended today to discuss
for the Arabic-language press the tensions and complexities of Palestinian
society. Instead, struck, shoved and pelted with eggs but not seriously
injured, he wound up starkly illustrating them.
From the wreckage of his office here, as workers swept up the broken glass
and shampooed the carpet, Dr. Shikaki offered a political analysis of the
attack. He said the dozens of rioters - who came prepared with their own
news release, in Arabic and English - were hijacking his news conference as
a signal to the Palestinian prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas.
"They are trying to send a message that the right of return is sacred, and
that you who are negotiating are on notice," said Dr. Shikaki, who is a
refugee himself.
Yasir Arafat, the Palestinian leader, has accused Mr. Abbas of botching
negotiations with Israel about a new American-backed peace plan. The two
leaders have not spoken to each other since Mr. Abbas threatened to resign
in an acrid argument last Monday night. "People are taking sides," Dr.
Shikaki said. "The accusations are flying, and no one is being civil."
The rioters marched from Dr. Shikaki's office to Mr. Arafat's compound a few
blocks away, where he received them, Palestinians here said. It was not
clear if Mr. Arafat knew what they had done.
The attack also reflected a degree of lawlessness in Palestinian cities like
this, where Palestinian security forces have yet to resume policing the
streets but Israeli troops have become less pervasive.
The violence sprang from tension over the right of return, perhaps the
deepest divide between Palestinians and Israelis.
Palestinians who fled or were driven from their homes during the 1948
Arab-Israeli war claim a right to live in what is now Israel. Israel rejects
the claim, fearing that Palestinians hope to achieve by demography what they
have failed to do by force of arms - erase Israel's Jewish character.
Palestinian refugees and their descendants now number about four million,
while Israel has roughly five million Jewish citizens and one million Arab
citizens.
In a broad, detailed survey, Dr. Shikaki's researchers questioned 4,500
refugee families living in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, Jordan and
Lebanon. More than 95 percent of them insisted that Israel recognize a right
of return, accepting their position in principle, he said.
The researchers then presented five options, like financial compensation and
moving to a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza. The options were
based on those negotiated but never formally endorsed by Israeli and
Palestinian officials in January 2001, and they assumed that Israel
recognized a right of return.
Only 10 percent demanded permanent residence in Israel, a proportion that
decreased if the refugees were told that they would have to take Israeli
citizenship or that their old homes were gone.
More than half - a total of 54 percent - said they would accept compensation
and homes in the West Bank and Gaza, or in land ceded by Israel in a swap
for West Bank land, Dr. Shikaki said. Others said they would elect to stay
in their host country or go to another country. Thirteen percent rejected
any deal at all.
The survey had a margin of error of less than three percentage points, Dr.
Shikaki said. It did not encompass the roughly 10 percent of Palestinian
refugees who live in Syria, where researchers generally face government
restrictions.
Dr. Shikaki said the poll's results showed that refugees were less
interested in being nationalist standard-bearers than in living fuller
lives. "Refugees are human beings with needs," he said. "These people want
to live their lives."
Dr. Shikaki's biography shows the diverging paths refugees can take. He grew
up in Gaza's dismal Rafah camp. His older brother, Fathi, a physician,
founded Islamic Jihad, bent on Israel's destruction. In 1995, Fathi Shikaki
was killed in Malta, apparently by Israeli agents.
Dr. Shikaki, who rejects violence, earned his Ph.D. from Columbia University
and now directs the polling organization here. For his independent views, he
has been threatened by both Mr. Arafat and Hamas.
He consults regularly with Israeli political scientists and plans to travel
to Washington this week to present his new findings to the Brookings
Institution, the Council on Foreign Relations and others.
Asked how he would respond to his survey, he said he would choose to keep
living in Ramallah, not to return to his family's village in what is now the
Israeli town of Rehovot.
Today, many refugees remain confined to camps like Rafah, unable to vote or
otherwise join in the life of surrounding towns or cities. Some Palestinian
experts say Arab and Palestinian leaders prefer to maintain the refugees as
an open political wound, rather than help them integrate into other
societies.
The release by the group that invaded Dr. Shikaki's office said his study
"claims the vast majority of Palestinian refugees are prepared to renounce
their right of return" - which Dr. Shikaki called a deliberate
misrepresentation - and it maintained that his results were fake.
The mob's statement carried the letterhead of the Palestine Liberation
Organization. Saji Salameh, director general of that body's refugee affairs
department, disavowed any connection to the rioters and criticized the
violence. But he said of Dr. Shikaki's study, "We don't believe that it
reflects the reality and the position of the refugees."
Asher Arian, an Israeli political scientist, called the right of return the
most important issue to Israelis. But, he said, "we've seen Israeli public
opinion very flexible when legitimate leadership makes an effort to lead it
in that direction."
During the attack, Dr. Shikaki locked himself in his office. After trying to
break down the door and wall, some in the crowd smashed a window onto the
balcony, then broke through the window into his office. But he said that
while some attacked him, others tried to restrain them. No one was armed, he
said.
In the Amari refugee camp here, two young men said they had joined the mob
because they had heard that Dr. Shikaki had found that 70 percent of
refugees rejected a right of return. "Our message to Shikaki was that he was
not going to decide the right of return," said Ashraf Abu Ghadab, 18. "I
thought if the people managed to reach Shikaki, they would kill him."
Mr. Abu Ghadab spoke outside the camp's youth center. Inside, one wall
displayed a poster of 31 people from the camp who have died in the conflict,
some from Israeli fire and others from blowing themselves up in attacks.
Another wall was covered by a picture of an alpine stream running among
pines and maples.
A new poster was going up today, decorated with knotted ropes that seemed to
imply a political message. But its Arabic titles proved to be more literal
than that - instructions for local scouts on how to tie bowlines, clove
hitches and other knots.

 Palestinian Mob Attacks Pollster Over Study on 'Right of Return'
toccare gli idoli effettivamente suscita la rabbia degli idolatri.
Ecco qua un articolo in italiano (da Il Foglio del 2003-07-16)
 Maurizio Stefanini - «Un palestinese viola il tabù del diritto al ritorno
(e la paga)»
L'altro giorno,nel riportare l'intervista a K.Shikaki sul Corriere della
Sera, lo definivamo "coraggioso". Ecco che, puntualmente, il fanatismo
islamico ci dà ragione. Shikaki rischia la vita per le sue idee.
Roma. Spintoni e uova in faccia al palestinese che dice come per i
discendenti
dei profughi del 1948, in realtà, tornare nel territorio di Israele non sia
proprio la principale delle preoccupazioni.
Sul dottor Kahil Shikaki, vittima della contestazione violenta di duecento
scalmanati, vanno chiarite subito due cose. Prima: è lui stesso un
palestinese vittima delle vicende che hanno accompagnato la creazione dello
Stato ebraico, visto che è nato in un campo profughi di Gaza e che suo
fratello Fathi fu ucciso nel 1995 dagli israeliani dopo essere stato un
fondatore di Jihad Islami. Insomma, un falco dei falchi. Secondo: Shikaki
non ha espresso un'opinione o un voto. Stimato politologo con laurea alla
Columbia University, si era limitato a svolgere una ricerca per il suo
Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research, provando a chiedere
direttamente ai discendenti dei 750 mila profughi del 1948 cosa
effettivamente farebbero se avessero la possibilità teorica di tornare alle
terre da cui alcuni di loro scapparono da giovani, ma di cui la maggior
parte ha soltanto sentito parlare da genitori e nonni.
Si tratta di una massa di persone compresa tra i 3 e i 5 milioni, che
neanche gli israeliani più "colombe" sono disposti ad accettare in blocco,
pena la distruzione del carattere ebraico dello Stato. Senza contare il
sovraffollamento di una terra dove già vivono 5,5 milioni di ebrei e 1,2
milioni di arabi. Ovviamente, i falchi palestinesi ribattono invece che non
c'è problema, eccetto quello di buttare a mare quegli ebrei che non possano
dimostrare di essere di famiglia già residente in Terra Santa da prima del
1948. Per chi invece vuole trattare, da Oslo in poi uno dei problemi
maggiori resta lo stabilire che diritti possano avere i membri della
diaspora palestinese. E poi quali indennizzi simbolici o concreti il governo
israeliano sia eventualmente disposto a dare loro.
Solo il 10 per cento ne usufruirebbe davvero
Poiché, mentre ci si incaponisce sul rebus, gli attentati degli estremisti
palestinesi e le rappresaglie degli israeliani continuano, Shikaki ha allora
provato a verificare se effettivamente per i rifugiati palestinesi il
diritto al ritorno resti una condicio sine qua non irrinunciabile. E per
questo ha mandato un dettagliato questionario a un campione di 4.500
persone, residenti a Gaza, West Bank, Libano e Giordania. Ed effettivamente
il 95 per cento ha risposto di ritenere che Israele debba riconoscere il
loro diritto di ritorno nella terra degli avi. Ma se questo diritto fosse
poi loro concesso, ne usufruirebbero? Ben il 54 per cento ha risposto che
accetterebbero volontieri di essere compensati con indennizzi monetari o con
case nella West Bank o a Gaza. Un altro 17 per cento resterebbe in Libano o
in Giordania, che ormai considerano i propri paesi, e un 2 per cento
emigrerebbe in una terza nazione. Alla fine, solo il 10 per cento dice che
tornerebbe nel territorio che oggi fa
parte di Israele. E questa cifra cala ulteriormente quando si chiede se
farebbero lo stesso sapendo che le loro case non esistono più, e/o che
dovrebbero diventare cittadini israeliani.
Insomma, non c'è niente di straordinario, ma solo il risultato che si
otterrebbe facendo le stesse domande a qualsiasi altra diaspora a oltre
mezzo secolo di distanza dai fatti. Compresa quella degli italiani di
origine istriano-dalmata, che furono espulsi in un contesto drammatico ma
che non si sono costituiti in "Martiri di Pola" o "di Capodistria". Ma
quando Shikaki
ha provato a esporre i risultati di questa ricerca in una conferenza a
Ramallah, domenica scorsa, è stato appunto assalito da un commando di
attivisti, che hanno sfasciato i mobili del locale e hanno picchiato i
membri del Centro. "Il nostro diritto al ritorno è sacro", hanno gridato.
Che era appunto lo stesso che avevano detto gli interpellati nel sondaggio.
Solo
che una cosa è un'affermazione di principio, un'altra la sua traduzione
concreta.
Senza sponsorizzare ufficialmente la spedizione squadrista, la stessa Olp
aveva
criticato il questionario, dicendo che le domande erano state poste in modo
capzioso. Ma in realtà i quesiti sono gli stessi considerati dai negoziatori
israeliani e palestinesi nel gennaio 2001, quando si iniziò a discutere di
quali opzioni concrete si potessero offrire ai rifugiati. Yasser Arafat
aveva poi finito per rifiutarle. Ma, finora, senza che nessuno avesse mai
provato
a chiedere ai rifugiati cosa effettivamente ne pensassero.