While it may never have the cultural and literary impact of Lord of the Rings, I’m pleased to report of the third and final book in Palestine Refugee ResearchNet’s trilogy on the Palestinian refugee issue has now been published: Rex Brynen and Roula el-Rifai, eds., The Palestinian Refugee Problem: The Search for a Resolution (London: Pluto Press, 2013).
In this unique volume, leading analysts – many of whom have been actively involved in past negotiations on this issue – provide an overview of the key dimensions of the Palestinian refugee problem. Mindful of the sensitive and contested nature of the subject, none offers a single solution. Instead, each contribution summarises and synthesises the existing scholarly and governmental work on the topic.
Each paper develops an array of policy options for resolving various aspects of the refugee issue, written in such a way as to provide a broad menu of choices rather than a single narrow set of recommendations.
The book is the product of a longstanding collaboration between Roula and myself, and between the International Development Research Centre and PRRN. Our two previous volumes examined Palestinian refugee compensation (Pluto Press, 2013) and refugee repatriation and development (I.B. Tauris, 2007)
The book was published just in time for a recent Chatham House workshop on refugee compensation, where the chapters by Norbert Wühler and Heike Niebergall were invaluable. Many thanks to Pluto Press for rushing the first copies to Minster Lovell.
List of Tables
Preface and Acknowledgements
1. Research, Policy and Negotiations and Resolving the Palestinian Refugee Problem
Rex Brynen and Roula El-Rifai
2. Implementation Mechanism: Policy Choices and Implementation Issues
Norbert Wühler and Heike Niebergall
3. Whither UNRWA?
Liana Brooks–Rubin
4. Return, Repatriation, Residency and Resettlement
Rex Brynen
5. An Offer They Can Refuse: Host countries and a Palestinian-Israeli Agreement on Refugees
Roula El-Rifai and Nadim Shehadi
6. Refugee Compensation: Policy Choices and Implementation Issues
Heike Niebergall and Norbert Wühler
7. Addressing Jewish Claims in the Context of a Palestinian-Israeli Agreement
Michael Fischbach
8. Refugee Absorption and Development
Rex Brynen
9. Intangible Needs, Moral Acknowledgement and the Palestinian Refugee Issue
Michael Molloy, John Bell with Nicole Waintraub, Ian Anderson
10. Managing Refugee Expectations
Khalil Shikaki
11. A Never-Ending End to Claims
Geoffrey Aronson
Appendix
Index
PRRN 