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Return, in the context of repatriation, is not a legal right according to the present development of international law. It is not enshrined in general human rights law, the law of nationality, the law of refugees or humanitarian law. Accordingly, Palestinians cannot speak of a “right” to return based on international law. Palestinians can neither base a right to repatriate on international law documents which deal specifically with the Palestinian problem. These documents are General Assembly or Security Council Resolutions which are not binding legal sources, but merely offer recommendations. The content of the resolutions is controversial and they offer alternative solutions to repatriation, such as resettlement and a “just solution.” Any negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians should take into consideration that repatriation of Palestinians to the State of Israel is not imposed upon Israel by international law.

Supporters of a Palestinian right of return assume that Israeli Jews bear responsibility for both the past and present suffering of the Palestinian refugees. Accordingly, the Palestinian claim for return is a demand to realise this responsibility ( inter alia ) by way of the return of the refugees to their places of origin or to uninhabited regions in the Land of Israel/Palestine. The purpose of this article is to examine the responsibility of the Israeli Jews for the Palestinian suffering and whether this responsibility ought to be realised by way of return of the refugees in light of the question of the justice of Zionism. Part I of the article presents various approaches rejecting or affirming Zionism. The subsequent parts investigate the implications of the disparities between these approaches rejecting/affirming Zionism and Zionism’s actual history as it unfolded in terms of Jewish responsibility for the Palestinian plight and the question of Palestinian return. I argue that some of the approaches to Zionism are irrelevant to the dispute over the Palestinian right of return as it is understood within the framework of Israeli internal discourse and the Israeli-Palestinian dialogue. However, my main point is that those approaches rejecting/affirming Zionism that are relevant, though they may vary in their implications for the scope of Jewish responsibility for Palestinian suffering, nevertheless lead to very similar conclusions with respect to discharging that responsibility by way of Palestinian repatriation.

The argument presented in this essay has been theoretical and mainly negative: the two main sources of doubt about the validity of claims for reparation owing to past injustices do not undermine the validity of the right of return of the Palestinian refugees. Neither the questions arising from the non-identity problem nor those arising from the supersession thesis significantly undermine the Palestinian refugees’ claims to reparations and their right of return. First, the common understanding of harm and its accompanying notion of reparation and compensation are applicable to those Palestinians who were forcefully and deliberately expelled from their homeland as well as to their descendants with respect to the harm done to them owing to the lack of effective measures of reparations for the initial harm. Second, even if we allow for the conceptual possibility of historic supersession of injustices, it seems highly unlikely that the Palestinians’ right of return has been superseded. Morally speaking, there does not seem to be a compelling case for considering the ongoing effect of the expulsion of the Palestinians from their homeland as just given current circumstances. However, this essay has not addressed the question of how the Palestinians ought to exercise their right of return or whether they (or many of them) might have good or compelling reasons to refrain from realising their right of return. Responding to this question would require consideration not only how best to serve the interests underlying the Palestinians’ right of return, but also how to respect and to accommodate the legitimate interests and rights of others, including the Jewish right to self-determination. Last but not least, we would need to pragmatically assess how best to serve the goal of establishing a legitimate and stable political order in the region.