Records of Dispossession

Records of Dispossession

Palestinian Refugee Property and the Arab-Israeli Conflict

No issue in the Arab-Israeli conflict has proven more intractable than the status of the Palestinian refugees. This work focuses on the controversial question of the property left behind by the refugees during the first Arab-Israeli war in 1948. Beyond discussing the extent of the refugees'losses and detailing the methods by which Israel expropriated this property, the book also notes the ways that the property question has affected, and in turn been affected by, the wider Arab-Israeli conflict over the decades. It shows how the property question influenced Arab-Israeli diplomacy and discusses the implications of the fact that the question remains unresolved despite numerous diplomatic efforts.

From late 1947 through 1948, more than 726,000 Palestinians—over half the entire population—were uprooted from their homes and villages. Though some middle class refugees were able to flee with liquid capital, the majority were small-scale farmers whose worldly fortunes were the land, livestock, and crops they left behind. This book tells for the first time the full story of how much property changed hands, what it was worth, and how it was used by the fledgling state of Israel. It then traces the subsequent decades of diplomatic activity on the issue and publishes previously secret UN estimates of the scope and value of the refugee property. Michael Fischbach offers a detailed study of Israeli counterclaims for Jewish property lost in the Arab world, diplomatic schemes for resolving the conflict, secret compensation efforts, and the renewed diplomatic efforts on behalf of property claims since the onset of Arab-Israeli peace talks.

Based largely on archival records, including those of the United Nations Conciliation Commission of Palestine, never before available to the public and kept under lock and key in the UN archives, Records of Dispossession is the first detailed historical examination of the Palestinian refugee property question.
  • Contents
  • List of Tables
  • Abbreviations
  • Acknowledgments
  • A Note on Transliteration
  • Introduction
  • 1. Refugee Flight and Israeli Policies Toward Abandoned Property
    • Flight of the Refugees
    • Initial Israeli Attitudes Toward Utilizing Refugee Land
    • The Legal Basis for Israeli Expropriation: The Custodian of Absentee Property
    • Policies of the Custodian of Absentee Property, 1948–1953
    • Early Israeli Estimates of the Scope and Value of Refugee Property: The Weitz-Danin-Lifshits Committee
    • The Custodian Sells Refugee Land to the Development Authority
    • The Jewish National Fund Acquires Refugee Land
    • Settling the Refugees’ Land with Jewish Immigrants
    • Disposal of the Balance of the Refugee Land
  • 2. UNCCP's Early Activity on the Refugee Property Question
    • Establishment of the UNCCP
    • Early American Approaches to the Question
    • Lausanne Conference
    • Clapp Mission
    • New Directions for the UNCCP
    • UNCCP’s Global Estimate
    • Paris Conference
    • UNCCP’s Compensation Efforts
  • 3. Early Israeli Policies Toward the Property Question
    • Secret Israeli-Jordanian Talks on Compensation
    • Lif Committee
    • Counter Claims for Prewar Jewish Property Abandoned in 1948
    • Counter Claims for Property Abandoned by Jews in Arab Countries After 1948
    • Linking German Reparations with Palestinian Compensation
    • Horowitz Committee
    • Release of Blocked Refugee Bank Accounts
    • Reorganization of Israeli Land Agencies
    • Secret Israeli Moves to Compensate Individual Refugees in the 1960s
  • 4. Early Arab and International Policies Toward the Property Question
    • Early Arab Estimates of Refugee Property
    • UNRWA Estimates of Refugee Property
    • Arab and International Efforts on Behalf of Refugee Property
    • Britain Disposes of Filmed Copies of Mandatory Land Records
    • The Property Question After the 1956 Suez War
  • 5. UNCCP Technical Program
    • Origins of the Technical Program
    • Identification of Arab Property
    • Work Issues
    • Valuation of Property
    • Final Statistics on Scope and Value of Arab Property
  • 6. Follow Up to the Technical Program
    • Johnson Mission
    • The UNCCP’s New Plan for Compensation Fails
    • UNCCP Solicits Refugee Inquiries
    • Response to the Technical Program
    • Demise of the UNCCP
    • The Arabs Obtain Copies of UNCCP Documents
  • 7. Refugee Property Question After 1967
    • 1967 War
    • Declining Interest in the Property Question
    • New Estimates of Refugee Property
    • Refugee Property and Diplomatic Sites in Jerusalem
    • Refugee Property and the Peace Process: Israel and Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon
    • Refugee Property and the Israel-Palestinian Peace Process
  • Conclusion
  • APPENDIX ONE Comparison of Studies on the Scope and Value of Refugee Property
  • APPENDIX TWO Chronology of Events Relating to Refugee Property
  • Notes
  • Bibliography
  • Index

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