Christians for Fair Witness on the Middle East
Christians for Fair Witness on the Middle East advocates among mainline Protestants and Roman Catholics in North America for fairness in the churches’ witness on issues related to the conflict between Israel and its Arab neighbors.
Earlier this year Al Jazeera released nearly 1,700 files of Palestinian Authority documents
memorializing a decade of Israeli/Palestinian peace talks.1 Christians for Fair Witness on the Middle
East has carefully reviewed these documents which have become known as the “Palestine Papers.”
Included in the “Palestine Papers”2 are numerous documents concerning the “Right of Return.”
There has been a good deal of “hype” and sensationalism surrounding the media coverage of the
Palestine Papers. Therefore, it is important for the public to read the documents for themselves and
make their own assessment.
With regard to the “Right of Return,” the Palestine Papers reveal that the Palestinian leadership
perceives the issue of refugee rights as central to both the creation of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict
and to its resolution. And while there have been claims in the media that the Palestinian Authority
was willing to offer great compromises on refugees, the Papers reveal that this was not the case.
While Palestinian negotiators spoke publicly about compromise on refugees, privately they spoke
of the “Right of Return” as a matter of individual choice that would have to be extended to each of
over seven million “refugees.”3 They anticipated the potential “return” of millions of Palestinians to
the State of Israel, with Palestinians retaining the open-ended right to try to negotiate additional
“returns” beyond any number initially agreed upon in a peace treaty.