Palestinian refugees just want to go home after protracted exile

A new book dives into the myriad laws that protect Palestinian refugees and their right of return. Its proposed solution, though, may be hard to swallow.

“Palestinian Refugees in International Law” by Francesca P. Albanese and Lex Takkenberg, Second Edition, Oxford University Press, 2020, 608 pages.

I was recently on a video call with a longtime Jewish Israeli friend from Jerusalem. He is a highly educated, deeply cultured, politically liberal, and progressive academic who is outspoken and well-written on the need for Israel to end its military occupation of Palestinians and to stop its discrimination against Palestinian citizens of Israel.

But our political conversation hit an odd silence when, during the course of our conversation, I told him that peace can only be realized once Israel recognizes the right of Palestinian refugees — who fled or were expelled during the Nakba in 1948, and whose descendants remain in exile — to return home. His rebuttal was a stutter, a clear dismissal of the idea that such a return could ever materialize.

I am used to such conversations, especially with Jewish Israelis and Jewish Americans. Upon learning the historical facts…