Email |  Print | RSS | Comment |  

 Email |  Print

Tue, Aug 30, 2011 | WikiLeaks

Jordanian policemen stand guard as Palestinian refugees living in Jordan wave Palestinian (R) flags during a demonstration.

WikiLeaks: The Right of Return: What it Means in Jordan

The right of return for Palestinians is one of the issues at the heart of the debate over what it means to be Jordanian. Though our Government of Jordan interlocutors insist that the theoretical option of return remains, they are now more engaged with the issue of compensation, both for individual Palestinians and for Jordan itself. For Jordanians of Palestinian origin, the right of return is either an empty (if cherished) slogan or a legitimate aspiration. For East Bankers, the right of return is often held up as the panacea which will recreate Jordan’s bedouin or Hashemite identity.

The issue is inextricably linked with governmental and societal discrimination toward the Palestinian-origin community, and poses a challenge to Jordan’s political reforms. Jordanians of Palestinian origin (and many, but not all, of the East Bankers we speak to) assume that an end to the question of the right of return will lead to equal treatment and full political inclusion within Jordan. Yet neither East Bankers nor Palestinians are willing to make the first move toward publicly acknowledging this “grand bargain.”

In the absence of public debate — which would be both highly sensitive and taboo-breaking — or government action, the issues surrounding the right of return will continue to fester. In the absence of a viable and functioning Palestinian state, those who are charged with protecting the current identity of the Jordanian state will be loath to consider measures that they firmly believe could end up bringing to fruition the nightmare scenario of “Jordan is Palestine.”

Source: WikiLeaks

Reference	Created	Classification	Origin
08AMMAN391	2008-02-06 14:43	CONFIDENTIAL	Embassy Amman

 

VZCZCXRO0816
RR RUEHROV
DE RUEHAM #0391/01 0371443
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
R 061443Z FEB 08
FM AMEMBASSY AMMAN
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 1708
INFO RUEHXK/ARAB ISRAELI COLLECTIVE

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 06 AMMAN 000391

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

DEPARTMENT FOR NEA/ELA AND IPA

E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/05/2018
TAGS: PGOV PREF KPAL JO
SUBJECT: THE RIGHT OF RETURN: WHAT IT MEANS IN JORDAN

REF: A. 07 AMMAN 4762
¶B. AMMAN 140
¶C. ADNAN ABU ODEH – “JORDANIANS PALESTINIANS AND
THE HASHEMITE KINGDOM” (1999)

Classified By: Ambassador David Hale for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d).

¶1. (C) Summary: The right of return for Palestinians is one
of the issues at the heart of the debate over what it means
to be Jordanian. Though our GOJ interlocutors insist that
the theoretical option of return remains, they are now more
engaged with the issue of compensation, both for individual
Palestinians and for Jordan itself. For Jordanians of
Palestinian origin, the right of return is either an empty
(if cherished) slogan or a legitimate aspiration. For East
Bankers, the right of return is often held up as the panacea
which will recreate Jordan’s bedouin or Hashemite identity.
The issue is inextricably linked with governmental and
societal discrimination toward the Palestinian-origin
community, and poses a challenge to Jordan’s political
reforms. Jordanians of Palestinian origin (and many, but not
all, of the East Bankers we speak to) assume that an end to
the question of the right of return will lead to equal
treatment and full political inclusion within Jordan. Yet
neither East Bankers nor Palestinians are willing to make the
first move toward publicly acknowledging this “grand
bargain.” In the absence of public debate — which would be
both highly sensitive and taboo-breaking — or government
action, the issues surrounding the right of return will
continue to fester. In the absence of a viable and
functioning Palestinian state, those who are charged with
protecting the current identity of the Jordanian state will
be loath to consider measures that they firmly believe could
end up bringing to fruition the nightmare scenario of “Jordan
is Palestine.” End Summary.

Government Strategy: Compensation Trumps Return
——————————————— —

¶2. (C) The Jordanian government’s official stance on the
right of return has changed very little over the years. The
MFA’s current position paper on the matter notes that
“refugees who have Jordanian citizenship expect the State to
protect their basic right of return and compensation in
accordance with international law.” As recently as January
23, the King reiterated the standard line in an interview
with the Al-Dustour newspaper: “As for the Palestinian
refugees in Jordan, we stress once again that their Jordanian
citizenship does not deprive them of the right to return and
compensation.”

¶3. (C) Yet, behind the scenes, some officials strike a more
nuanced tone. “We consider ourselves realists” says Bisher
Khasawneh, former Director of the Jordan Information Center
and now Europe and Americas Bureau Chief at the MFA, where he
earlier served as Legal Advisor and Negotiations Coordination
Bureau (NCB) Director. “The modalities won’t allow for the
right of return.” Current NCB Director Nawaf Tal
acknowledges that while Jordan “cannot be frank about the
right of return,” it has essentially dropped the concept of a
“right” of return from its negotiating position. Officials
now emphasize the right of Palestinians to choose whether or
not to return, with the apparent assumption that many will
not exercise that right. Note: Regardless of the Jordanian
government’s lack of a public shift on the matter,
Palestinian-origin contacts we talk to see a change and
recognize it as consistent with the Palestinian Authority’s
own actual stance. End Note.

¶4. (C) Deputy Director of the Department of Palestinian
Affairs Mahmoud Agrabawi, whose agency works closely with
UNRWA in the refugee camps, told us that the most important
thing is that Palestinians be given the choice of whether to
go back or not. He declined to estimate how many would want
to exercise that right, but he did raise a point about
internal differences of status among the refugee population
in Jordan. Those who are most likely to want to leave are
the impoverished residents of refugee camps in Jordan – most
of whom are Palestinians (or their descendants) who fled in
1948 from what became the State of Israel. (Note: Roughly
330,000 of the 1.9 million Palestinian refugees in Jordan
live in camps. About half of those living in camps
originated from Gaza and, therefore, do not hold Jordanian
citizenship. End note.) They will not, however, want to
return to a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza
because they would be unable to reclaim their ancestral homes
inside Israel, and thus would in a sense (albeit not a legal
one) merely become refugees in a new country, said Agrabawi.

¶5. (C) Jordan’s government divides the compensation question
in two parts. The first (and primary) issue is compensation

AMMAN 00000391 002 OF 006

for individual Palestinian refugees. When asked about how
compensation would be delivered and determined, Tal indicated
to us that the Jordanian government was essentially agnostic
on the issue. He, like many other contacts, is concerned
more about the symbolic importance of personal compensation
than about its amount or means of delivery.

¶6. (C) Along with individual compensation for refugees,
Jordan expects compensation for the economic and social
burden of taking on massive influxes of people in 1948 and
1967, in addition to what Tal terms “damages” inflicted on
Jordanian infrastructure by Israeli military actions
throughout the years. The GOJ conducts periodic studies on
this issue, and in fact has an internally agreed upon amount
that it will use in negotiations. (Tal told us that the most
recent study is two years old, and the amount of expected
compensation is due to be updated soon.) According to Tal,
this amount has not yet been shared with the GOI (nor would
he share it with us).

Palestinian Expectations: The Dream and the Reality
——————————————— ——

¶7. (C) When it comes to thinking about the right of return,
Palestinians in Jordan fall into roughly two camps. In the
first are those who align themselves with the government
approach, keeping up the rhetoric for the sake of
appearances, but behind closed doors quickly abandoning
return as a political and logistical impossibility. This
group is more concerned about personal compensation (and
doubts that Jordan would ever have the chutzpah to ask for
“structural” compensation). In the second camp are those who
cling to the principle. For the most part, this latter view
is probably most prevalent among refugee camp residents who
hope to be plucked out of landless poverty by a peace
agreement and the compensation that may come with it. It is
difficult, if not impossible, to determine the breakdown of
how many people are in each group. Note: As noted in Ref B,
polling on Palestinian-origin versus East Banker political
preferences in Jordan is taboo, because it acknowledges
uncomfortable truths about the divide within Jordan’s
national identity. End Note.

¶8. (C) In conversations with us, many Palestinian-origin
Jordanians readily acknowledge that the right of return is
merely a fantasy. “It’s not practical,” says political
activist Jemal Refai. “I’m not going to ask Israel to commit
suicide.” Adel Irsheid, who during the 1990s served as
Director of the Department of Occupied Territories Affairs at
the Foreign Ministry, said Palestinian-origin Jordanians
still harbor the emotions associated with the right of
return, but do not seek it on a practical level. Taking a
few specific steps down the road to practicality, Ghazi
al-Sa’di, an independent Palestinian National Council (PNC)
member, told us in confidence that there will have to be a
tradeoff between the right of return and the uprooting of
Israeli settlements in the West Bank – the only realistic
destination for Palestinians who “return”.

¶9. (C) As noted, however, the principle of the right of
return still holds considerable sway among others. “There is
no question about the right of return. It is a sacred
right,” contends Palestinian-origin parliamentarian Mohammed
Al-Kouz. During a meeting with Amman-resident PNC members,
one contact said: “The right of return is my personal right,
and my humanitarian right.” Indeed, this is how many
Palestinian-origin contacts in Jordan think about the right
of return – as something they are owed as part of a de facto
social contract supported by Arab politicians and enshrined
in UN Security Council and General Assembly resolutions for
60 years.

¶10. (C) An interesting piece of the debate is the way in
which perceptions on the right of return (usually expressed
in conspiracy theories) become part of the mythology and
assumptions of Palestinian-origin Jordanians. Refai
hypothesizes that government pressure, not genuine feeling,
produces doctrinaire statements on the right of return among
Jordanian Palestinians. He insists that the General
Intelligence Department (GID) and the government foster an
atmosphere in which anything other than a solid endorsement
of the right of return is met with official scorn, and thinks
that the debate would shift if this atmosphere was changed.
Other Palestinian figures such as PNC Member Isa Al-Shuaibi –
a newspaper columnist who runs Palestinian chief negotiator
Ahmad Qurei’s Amman office – express the dominant feeling
that the Muslim Brotherhood-linked Islamic Action Front
(which fires up its base with talk about Palestinian rights –
Ref C) is the prime mover in stoking the fires of Palestinian
nationalism in Jordan around the right of return. In a
typical parliamentary speech, IAF member Hamzah Mansur

AMMAN 00000391 003 OF 006

recently decried “President Bush’s confiscation of the
Palestinian refugees’ right to repatriation.”

East Banker Expectations: Waiting for Their Country Back?
——————————————— ————

¶11. (C) East Bankers have an entirely different approach to
thinking about the right of return. At their most benign,
our East Banker contacts tend to count on the right of return
as a solution to Jordan’s social, political, and economic
woes. But underlying many conversations with East Bankers is
the theory that once the Palestinians leave, “real”
Jordanians can have their country back. They hope for a
solution that will validate their current control of Jordan’s
government and military, and allow for an expansion into the
realm of business, which is currently dominated by
Palestinians.

¶12. (C) Palestinian-origin contacts certainly have their
suspicions about East Banker intentions. “If the right of
return happens, East Bankers assume that all of the
Palestinians will leave,” says parliamentarian Mohammed
Al-Kouz. Other Palestinian-origin contacts offered similar
observations, including Adel Irsheid and Raja’i Dajani, who
was one of the founding members of the GID, and later served
as Interior Minister at the time of Jordan’s administrative
separation from the West Bank in 1988. Dajani cited the rise
of what he called “Likudnik” East Bankers, who hold out hope
that the right of return will lead to an “exodus” of
Palestinians.

¶13. (C) In fact, many of our East Banker contacts do seem
more excited about the return (read: departure) of
Palestinian refugees than the Palestinians themselves.
Mejhem Al-Khraish, an East Banker parliamentarian from the
central bedouin district, says outright that the reason he
strongly supports the right of return is so the Palestinians
will quit Jordan. East Banker Mohammed Al-Ghazo, Secretary
General at the Ministry of Justice, says that Palestinians
have no investment in the Jordanian political system – “they
aren’t interested in jobs in the government or the military”
– and are therefore signaling their intent to return to a
Palestinian state.

¶14. (C) When East Bankers talk about the possibility of
Palestinians staying in Jordan permanently, they use the
language of political threat and economic instability. Talal
Al-Damen, a politician in Um Qais near the confluence of
Jordan, the Golan Heights and Israel, worries that without
the right of return, Jordan will have to face up to the
political challenges of a state which is not united
demographically. For his part, Damen is counting on a mass
exodus of Palestinians to make room for East Bankers in the
world of business, and to change Jordan’s political
landscape. This sentiment was echoed in a meeting with
university students, when self-identified “pure Jordanians”
in the group noted that “opportunities” are less available
because there are so many Palestinians.

¶15. (C) The right of return is certainly lower on the list
of East Banker priorities in comparison with their
Palestinian-origin brethren, but some have thought the issue
through a little more. NGO activist Sa’eda Kilani predicts
that even (or especially) after a final settlement is
reached, Palestinians will choose to abandon a Palestinian
state in favor of a more stable Jordan where the issue of
political equality has been resolved. In other words, rather
than seeing significant numbers return to a Palestinian
homeland, Jordan will end up dealing with a net increase in
its Palestinian population.

¶16. (C) As with their Palestinian counterparts, conspiracy
theories are an intrinsic part of East Banker mythology
regarding the right of return. Fares Braizat, Deputy
Director of the Center for Strategic Studies at Jordan
University, told us two of the most commonly held examples
(which he himself swears by). The first is that Jordanians
of Palestinian origin choose not to vote because if they were
to turn out en masse, Israel (and/or the United States) would
assume that they had incorporated themselves fully into
Jordanian society and declare the right of return to be null
and void. The second conspiracy theory, which has a similar
theme, is that after the 1994 peace agreement between Jordan
and Israel, the Palestinian leadership in the West Bank
issued a deliberate directive to “all Palestinians” residing
in Jordan to avoid involvement in Jordanian politics so as
not to be perceived as “going native.” The main point of
both theories is that Palestinians are planning to return to
a future Palestinian state, and therefore have nothing
substantive to contribute to the Jordanian political debate –
a convenient reason for excluding them from that debate in

AMMAN 00000391 004 OF 006

the first place.

The Nexus Between the Right of Return and Discrimination
——————————————— ———–

¶17. (C) The right of return in Jordan is inextricably linked
with the problem of semi-official discrimination toward the
Palestinian-origin community. Braizat claims it is “the
major reason that keeps the Jordanian political system the
way it is.” As long as the right of return is touted as a
real solution, East Bankers will continue to see Palestinians
as temporary residents in “their” country. This provides the
justification to minimize the role of Palestinian-origin
Jordanians in public life, since they are “foreigners” whose
loyalty is suspect and who could in theory pack up and leave
at any time. Note: The suspicion of disloyalty is deeply
rooted in Black September, when Palestinian militants
attempted to wrest political control from the Hashemite
regime. Since then, Palestinians have been progressively
excluded from the Jordanian security forces and civil service
(Ref D). End Note. The suggestion that Palestinians should
be granted full political representation in Jordan is often
met with accusations that doing so would “cancel” or
“prejudge” the right of return. For their part, many
Palestinian-origin Jordanians are less concerned with
“prejudging” the right of return, and more concerned with
fulfilling their roles as Jordanian citizens who are eligible
for the full range of political and social rights guaranteed
by law.

¶18. (C) Al-Quds Center for Political Studies Director Oraib
Rantawi, whose institute has been organizing refugee camp
focus groups, cites widespread discrimination that is
semi-officially promoted by the government. In his
estimation, the prospect of a “return” to Palestine is linked
to the sense that Palestinian-origin Jordanians are “not
Jordanian enough to be full citizens.” He asserts that this
sentiment on the part of the ruling elite is increasingly
trumping the idea of right of return as the primary political
concern among Palestinian-origin Jordanians. According to
Rantawi (and many other contacts), the sense of alienation is
most widespread among the poorer, more disenfranchised
Palestinians of the refugee camps, but he cited growing
alienation among the more integrated and successful
Palestinians in Jordan. “Palestinians feel that something is
wrong, whether they live in a refugee camp or (the upscale
Amman district of) Abdoun. We have to take Palestinians out
of this environment,” says former minister Irsheid. This
tracks with the conventional wisdom which theorizes that an
integrated Palestinian-origin community would have a stake in
what happens in Jordan, and therefore less reason to be
perceived as a threat.

¶19. (C) In Irsheid’s view, the refugee question would be
resolved when Palestinians in Jordan obtained justice and
political rights and benefited from economic development
(note: Palestinian-origin Jordanians already dominate many
areas of the economy, especially in the retail sector).
Offering a litany of familiar complaints about
discrimination, Irsheid lamented that treatment of
Palestinians in Jordan ignores the disproportionate
contribution they have made to Jordanian society. He said
that when Palestinians were allowed in key positions
throughout the government they were “more qualified and more
loyal” than others.

¶20. (C) While Jordanians of Palestinian origin are not shy
about their origins, many stress just as strongly their
strong connections and loyalty to Jordan. Jemal Refai says,
“I consider myself Jordanian. Nobody can tell me otherwise.”
Mohammed Abu Baker, who represents the PLO in Amman, says,
“if you tell me to go back to Jenin, I won’t go. This is a
fact — Palestinian refugees in Jordan have better living
conditions.” PNC member Isa Al-Shuaibi simply notes that
“Palestinians in Jordan are not refugees. They are citizens.”

¶21. (C) While the idea of the right of return is extolled at
the highest levels, ordinary Palestinians see backwards
movement when it comes to the practicalities of their
citizenship. Many of our contacts resent the
“Palestinian-origin” label that appears on their passports
and national identity cards. Former Interior Minister Raja’i
Dajani recounted a meeting that he and several other
Palestinian-Jordanian notables held with the King last year
in which they raised concerns that Palestinian-origin
Jordanians who returned from extended stays in the West Bank
were being told they would only be able to receive a
temporary Jordanian passport on renewal – a backhanded way to
deprive Palestinian-origin Jordanians of their citizenship
rights. According to Dajani, the King “ordered” that a
commission be formed by Dajani, former Prime Minister Taher

AMMAN 00000391 005 OF 006

al-Masri, and GID Director Muhammad Dahabi to discuss the
issue, but that all efforts to follow up with Dahabi were
ignored.

A Grand Bargain?
—————-

¶22. (C) A common theme that emerges from discussions with
Palestinian-origin contacts and some government officials
(although not necessarily East Bankers as a group) is a
“grand bargain” whereby Palestinians give up their
aspirations to return in exchange for integration into
Jordan’s political system. For East Bank politicians and
regime supporters, this deal could help solve the assumed
dual loyalty of Palestinians in Jordan. For
Palestinian-origin citizens, the compact would, ideally,
close the book on their antagonistic relationship with the
state and open up new opportunities for government employment
and involvement in the political process.

¶23. (C) “If we give up our right of return, they have to
give us our political rights,” says Refai. “In order for
Jordan to become a real state, we have to become one people.”
Rantawi calls for a comprehensive peace process that would
resolve issues of identity and rights for Palestinians in
Jordan as part of the “package.” This, he says, would
require major reforms in Jordan, its transformation into a
constitutional monarchy in which greater executive authority
is devolved, and external pressure on the Government of
Jordan to ensure that equal rights for Palestinians are
enforced.

¶24. (C) If a peace agreement fails to secure political
rights for Palestinian-origin Jordanians as they define those
rights, many of our contacts see the right of return as an
insurance policy through which Palestinians would vote with
their feet. Refai asks: “If we aren’t getting our political
rights, then how can we be convinced to give up our right of
return?” Palestinian-Jordanian Fuad Muammar, editor of
Al-Siyasa Al-Arabiyya weekly, noted that in the past few
years there has been a proliferation of “right of return
committees” in Palestinian refugee camps. This phenomenon,
he said, reflected growing dissatisfaction with Jordanian
government steps to improve their lot here and an increased
focus on Palestine.

¶25. (C) Comment: Just because there is a logic to trading
the right of return for political rights in Jordan does not
mean that such a strategy is realistic, and it certainly will
not be automatic. There are larger, regime-level questions
that would have to be answered before Palestinian-origin
Jordanians could be truly accepted and integrated into
Jordanian society and government. In the absence of a viable
and functioning Palestinian state, those who are charged with
protecting the current identity of the Jordanian state will
be loath to consider measures that they firmly believe could
end up bringing to fruition Jordan is Palestine – or
“al-Watan al-Badeel.” It is far from certain that East
Bankers would be willing to give up the pride of place that
they currently hold in a magnanimous gesture to their
Palestinian-origin brethren. Senior judge Al-Ghazo told us:
“In my opinion, nothing will change in Jordan after the right
of return. East Bankers will keep their positions, and the
remaining Palestinians will keep theirs.” Likewise, none of
our Palestinian contacts who saw a post-peace process
environment as a necessary condition for their greater
integration in Jordan offered a compelling case as to why it
would be sufficient. End Comment.

(Not) Preparing for the End Game
——————————–

¶26. (C) In the absence of concrete movement on the right of
return, Palestinian-origin Jordanians and East Bankers blame
each other for not doing enough to either promote social
harmony or prepare public opinion for an abandonment of the
right of return. Both sides are used to trumpeting the same
lines about unity in the Palestinian cause, and are hesitant
to deviate from the standardized rhetoric lest they be
perceived as offering “concessions” to Israel. Similarly,
each is waiting for the other to make the first move, while
hoping that an external agreement between Israel and the
Palestinians will emerge so they will not be forced to
compromise and accept the current “temporary” situation as
permanent.

¶27. (C) “The problem is not the return, the problem is the
right of return,” says Al-Shuaibi. The concept of returning
as a right which is guaranteed by UN resolutions and Arab
solidarity will be difficult to change in the event of a
comprehensive settlement. He posits that in the end,

AMMAN 00000391 006 OF 006

Palestinians who hold orthodox positions on the right of
return are the same people who are unlikely to accept any
peace agreement, no matter how generous. He thus sees little
need to prepare the ground for a shift in tactics, as
“reasonable” Palestinians have already recognized that
abandoning this particular demand is inevitable.

¶28. (C) Jordanian government officials are adamant that the
right of return issue must be resolved before the question of
Palestinian identity can be dealt with in a domestic
political context. In a meeting with a Congressional
delegation, Chief of the Royal Court Bassem Awadallah
asserted that once the Palestinian issue is solved, a whole
raft of political reforms (including proportional
representation) could be in the offing (Ref A). “We tried
starting this debate in the 1990s, when things were better,”
says Nawaf Tal of the MFA. “We talked about the potential
for reform in the context of an agreement. In the end,
nothing happened in the peace process, and we looked like
liars. We have learned our lesson.” Having been burned
once, Tal predicted that the GOJ will not resume a public
debate until peace talks are “at an advanced stage.”

¶29. (C) Both sides in the debate over right of return
complain that the first move in the solution to the issue of
Palestinians in Jordan is not under their direct control.
The blame for this situation automatically falls on Israel,
often with a corollary involvement of the United States. The
standard argument says that if the United States pressured
Israel and the Palestinians to come to an agreement, that
would cause Jordan to deal with the discrimination issue.
Parliamentarian Al-Kouz told us the typical refrain of his
largely Palestinian-origin constituents: “If it wanted to,
the United States could solve the Palestinian question in
half an hour.” In spite of all the public posturing, there
is behind the scenes recognition that a 180 degree turn on
the issue will be difficult. Nawaf Tal told us frankly that
“the current national debate over the role of Palestinians in
Jordanian society is damaging,” but nevertheless would remain
stifled until the issue of return was solved definitively.

Comment
——-

¶30. (C) As Israel and the Palestinian Authority reengage on
final status issues after a seven-year negotiations hiatus,
the “Right of Return” is sure to become a difficult emotional
and substantive centerpiece of talks. In practical terms,
this is the question that has greatest impact on Jordan –
home to more Palestinians than any other country and the only
Arab state that, as a rule, grants Palestinians citizenship.
Yet, there is no consensus on how it should be dealt with and
what its resolution will, or should, mean for Jordan.
Conversations with our interlocutors – East Bankers and
Jordanians of Palestinian origin – leads to the conclusion
that this issue is less about Israeli-Palestinian peace than
it is about the very nature and future of Jordan.

Visit Amman’s Classified Web Site at
http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/nea/amman/

HALE