Many dispossessed Palestinians continue to hold and treasure the keys to their lost homes, and the key has become a symbol of Palestinian tenacity and their internationally declared right to return.
United Nations Resolution 194, passed immediately following the Nakba, declares the right of all refugees displaced and dispossessed by the Zionist militias to return to their homes. Almost a million had registered with the UN by 1950, and today there are over 4 million with UN-registered claims against Israel.
Compliance with 194 was one of the conditions for Israel's admission to the UN, to which they agreed but which they have never honored. This right is enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to which all UN member states are obliged to conform, and following 194 has been re-confirmed by many subsequent UN resolutions. It remains an international demand upon Israel.
But Israel has adamantly refused to consider this right throughout the various iterations of the "peace process" since refugee return would jeopardize their Jewish majority - perhaps the central obsession of Zionism. Israel declares itself a "Jewish" state, with almost all its land held in trust for the Jews of the world who are automatic citizens even if not residents of Israel.
This declaration of collective identity, the many discriminatory laws and practices assuring Jewish privilege and supremacy, and the absence of a constitution assuring equality, clearly define Israel not as a democracy but an ethnocracy. It is a democracy only for its Jewish citizens, and even then conditioned on their compliance with apartheid institutions.
This obsession is the key obstacle that blocks any solution acceptable to the Palestinians or consistent with international law.
The mechanisms to maintain this are several. One is to assign pro-Israel "peace process" mediators such as Dennis Ross, who founded a synagogue in Rockville, MD and co-founded WINEP - an Israeli lobby organization - with AIPAC support.
Another is to exclude most Palestinians who hold the right of return from peace process negotiations. Not only has Hamas been excluded from the "peace process" but the Palestinian diaspora has never been included. The most recent, "generous" offer by Israel would allow only limited return in numbers and to destinations determined by "the sovereign discretion" of Israel.
This of course represents no negotiation and puts forward no legally defensible proposal at all.
Demand Freedom, Justice and Equality in the Holy Land