Palestinian discourse on the right of return has long been, de facto, divided between "pragmatists" and "purists." Purists - for example, Salman Abu Sitta and the al-Awda groups - insist that the Palestinian national movement should under all circumstances reject any settlement of the conflict that does not implement the right of return in an unlimited way. Usually implicit in their discourse is the idea that if the RoR were justly and correctly implemented, it would naturally result in the actual return of millions of Palestinians to Israel and the end to any Jewish-majority state. Therefore it is in many respects tantamount in practice to a one-state solution.
The pragmatists argue that while Palestinians must never renounce the *right* of return as a principle of law and morality - and should insist that any settlement incorporate that principle - they should also acknowledge the reality that it will not be possible to force Israel to accept an unlimited implementation of the RoR - i.e., the sort of implementation that could conceivably result in millions of returnees and the swift end to a Jewish-majority Israel. Therefore a stance of rejecting en bloc any settlement lacking unlimited return would merely perpetuate the intolerable status quo forever and should be abjured. They also note that in any case a large share of Palestinian refugees would, under realistic circumstances, not actually want to return to Israel.
Let me give some examples. In the 90's, there was a series of unofficial meetings between prominent Israelis and Palestinians intended to try to bridge differences in view of a settlement. The working paper on the refugee issue that emerged from the meetings stated:
http://www.wcfia.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/WCFIA_98-07.pdf
> The compromise solution espoused by the Palestinian members of the
> Joint Working Group would insist
> that Israel acknowledge both its responsibility for creating the
> refugee problem and the individual moral
> right of Palestinian refugees to return. But it recognizes that, in
> view of the changed situation of the
> refugees over 50 years, and taking into account Israel’s constraints,
> the return of only a limited number
> would be feasible. Israel would pay both individual and collective
> compensation. The Palestinians’ case
> for an Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 borders would be strengthened as
> a result of their willingness to
> absorb the refugees in the Palestinian state.
For the record, those Palestinian members included:
Ibrahim Dakkak, the head of the Palestinian National Steering Committee (the umbrella nationalist political group in the territories, post-Camp David) Ghassan Khatib, a PA minister, a member of the Pal. delegation at Madrid. Karma Nabulsi, a senior PLO external representative, founder of the Palestinian Women's Union. Yezid Sayigh, PLO negotiator
Or there's Nabil Shaath:
> You cannot deprive the Palestinians of a right to return. We have to
> center on
> the issue of the implementation of that right as an agreed solution to
> end the conflict
> between us. There has to be a win–win situation....The option to
> return to the Palestinian state has no limitations. The option to return
> to areas annexed from Israel to the Palestinian state through swap
> processes is
> unlimited. The refugees’ right to return to homes and villages in
> Israel has to be
> negotiated and the numbers, timeframe and modalities have to be agreed.
Or Ziad Abu Zayyad, former Palestinian MP and minister and weekly columnist in al-Quds:
> The Palestinians, who were uprooted from their own homeland and are now
> scattered all over the world, believe deep in their hearts that a
> tremendous injustice
> has been done to them, and that ultimate justice cannot be achieved
> unless they
> are all allowed to return to their homeland. However, many of them are
> convinced
> now that facts and realities on the ground do not make such an
> ultimate justice
> possible. Taking that into account, relative justice becomes
> desirable....The circumstances under which the Palestinian refugees
> have lived since 1948,
> and the suffering which they have endured and are still enduring, have
> forced
> many of them to view their return as the acquisition of national
> independence and
> dignity, and not necessarily as a literal return...Palestinians
> continue to believe that they are entitled to their claim to the Right
> of Return, but they are prepared to bring it to the negotiating table.
> This claim
> can be satisfied either through the actual return of a mutually
> acceptable number
> of refugees, or a symbolic number of them, or through compensation, or
> even
> through the implementation of any other option agreed upon through the
> negotiations on a comprehensive settlement to the Palestinian–Israeli
> conflict..
And, of course, there are the actual diplomatic proposals on the refugee issue supported by the PLO negotiating team at Taba in 2001, which were described in minute detail in a previous post of mine: http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/2010/2010-June/008665.html
Many more examples could be given.
Having said this, I should acknowledge that this debate among Palestinians has a very specific character that may inadvertently lend itself to misinterpretation. Given the great difficulty the Palestinians have in getting the outside world - and of course Israel - even to acknowledge the simple fact of the Nakba and the legal right of return (or even the right to a full withdrawal from the 67 territories), there is an asymmetry in the way pragmatists and purists express their views. Purists are free to expound their opinions in forceful and expansive terms, since after all, they're merely offering a literalist reading of the Palestinian national consensus. The pragmatists, on the other hand, are hesitant to publicly push their views too insistently or strongly, for several reasons.
First, because there is a real danger that outsiders will take their views as a concession that can be "pocketed," and then used as the starting point for demands for further concessions. Second, (in part due to this very fear) the pragmatists are vulnerable to a sort of "peer pressure" dynamic from purists. This was exemplified in the link Joe posted recently regarding the views of Mustafa Barghouti - a pragmatist - on the refugee issue. When the al-Awda group noticed he'd expressed his pragmatic view, it engaged in a tactic similar to what Grover Norquist does when he sees a Republican politician flirting with something that can be construed as a tax increase. The group wrote a letter to Barghouti expressing concern about his statement and asking for clarification. They got back from Barghouti a ritual expression of support for the RoR, couched in a somewhat vague formulation about what is "realistic" or "unrealistic" to expect. The result was that everyone could be satisfied: Barghouti was permitted to telegraph his pragmatist position, yet constructive ambiguity was maintained, allowing al-Awda to be able to reaffirm yet again that the "Palestinian consensus" was intact. Everyone was happy.
The somewhat stilted nature of the intra-Palestinian debate may have some dangers, but it is probably the inevitable result of the structural position the Palestinians find themselves in.
But what is extremely objectionable, and in fact dishonest, is (1) Joe's utterly poisonous practice of calling anyone who accepts the "pragmatist" position a "Zionist," a "racist," and a "supporter of ethnic cleansing"; and (2) his falsely pretending that no Palestinians embrace the "pragmatic" position, that they are all unambiguous purists, and that all supporters of the "pragmatist" position are (white/Jewish/western) "racists" and "Zionists" like Chomsky, Finkelstein, etc.
This very frustrating type of amalgam is related - in certain direct or indirect ways - to the debate over BDS. But that would be a subject for a different post.
SA