ABSTRACT
This chapter demonstrates how the primacy assigned to geopolitics have not only resulted in the marginalization of Palestinian rights, particularly refugee rights, but also have eroded the earlier consensus built around General Assembly Resolution 194(III), adopted on December 11, 1948. It traces the developments that led to the present situation, where the fulfillment of the right of return seems more remote than ever, and where local and international civil society are now assuming a more active role in the struggle for refugee rights. The Palestine policy of the United States in the 1940s can be described as inconsistent, if not altogether incoherent, vacillating between acknowledging self-determination for the Palestinians and, alternatively, justifying its denial by colonial-settler Jews and a Palestinian Jewish minority. For Israelis across the ideological spectrum, including members of the so-called peace camp, the return of refugees constitutes a clear and present danger, a real demographic threat to an exclusively Jewish state.
