On Tuesday 26November 26 2013 the Political Sciences Department in the Faulty of Economics and Social Sciences hosted the conference “Exile of the Policy of Collective Cleansing to Individual Displacement: Toward Strengthening Resistance to the Isolation Policy”. Attendees recommended referring to the International Criminal Court and International Court of Justice the issue of the return of isolated Palestinians to their homes. Furthermore, they demanded Arab, Islamic and friendly States do not stand for the criminal practices of Israel and use their presence on the UN Human Rights Council to push the issue of Palestinian deportees.

The opening session was attended by Prof. Sami Jabber, the Vice President for Academic Affairs; Tayseer Naser-Allah, a member of the Palestinian National Council; Samer Samara, the Director of the Ministry of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs for the Nablus District; representing the Minister of the Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs, Dr. Saqir Al-Jabali, the Head of the Organizing Committee; as well as hundreds of other participants including An-Najah students.

Dr. Al-Jabali welcomed the attendees and thanked An-Najah University administration for supporting the conference. He stated the conference aims to shed light on the issue of the forced displacement of Palestinians in its different aspects; the political, legal, historical, cultural, social and psychological. He went on to state it aims to push the decision-makers on the Palestinian, Arab, regional and international levels to take responsibility, and seek the return of the isolated to their homes and families, and stand up against the policy of displacement.

Dr. Al-Jabali described how the conference should aim to assist in developing a Palestinian national strategy that combats this policy, and which seeks to involve local, civil and international institutions, through raising the issue in the international courts.

Prof. Jaber welcomed the attendees, and thanked the Political Sciences Department for shedding light on an important case in the history of the Palestinian national struggle. He pointed out that the equation of the exclusion and deportation, both for the individual and collective against Palestinian citizens, is an equation that was started on the basis of the philosophy of the Judization of Palestine, the ethnic cleansing of the indigenous people, a policy that has started with the 1948 forced expulsion, where around 750, 000 Palestinians were denied their human rights by the occupying Israelis and the international community. This policy continued after the 1967 war and beyond, issuing military decisions based on unfair, illegal and racist laws and procedures. 

Prof. Jaber highlighted that the Israeli authorities are still practicing these policies, and that the city of Jerusalem is continually targeted through confiscation of land, demolition of buildings and homes that residents are denied the right to rebuild and the withdrawal of residents ID cards.

Mr. Samer Samara, the Minister of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs, talked with attendees about the policies of isolation that the successive Israeli authorities have pursued since their occupation of Palestinian lands.

Mr. Samara went on to demand the implementation of the international human rights conventions, with regard to the Authority’s rejection of any policy of displacement of prisoners.

Tayseer Naser-Allah, addressing the conference, expressed his thanks to An-Najah University for constantly raising the important issues concerning Palestine and Palestinians, and stated that the this conference discusses one of the most important tragic cases in the history of Palestine: the false propaganda of the occupier that Palestine was “a land without a people for a people without a land”.

He observed that the policy of exile has escalated and also called for the implementation of laws that demand the return of the deportees to their homes and homelands, and talked about his personal experience in 1989 with a group of his colleagues.

Mr. Naser-Allah greeted Mrs. Kifah Harbm, the wife of the exiled martyr Abdullah Dawoud, on her efforts regarding deportees from the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem in 2002, and establishing the national campaign for the return of those exiled “Alive”.

The conference then heard from leading academics and law makers on topics ranging from the history of Israeli ethnic cleansing in Palestine to analysis of international law and its application.

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Notes:

1. The conference addressed three main themes; the political, legal and social. The political theme discussed the historical background of the exile policy, the goals of the Israeli authority regarding its policies of exile and ethnic cleansing.

 The legal theme dealt with the status of the Palestinian land, the extent of the application of humanitarian and international law, particularly the right of return. This included the Israeli authority’s individual and collective crimes in this regard and how to prevent them in the future.

 The humanitarian theme focused on the impact of exile on individuals, psychologically and socially, as well as the policies of cultural exhile practiced on the population. It included first hand stories from exiles.

 Papers were presented from the following:

 Dr. Kamal Alawneh, the Palestine Technical University (Kadoorie, Tulkarem) - “The Goals of the Israeli Authority in Exile and Racist cleansing”;

 Dr. Fadi Shadeed, An-Najah University - “The Crime of Exile according to the rules of the International and Humanitarian Law and the International Criminal Law”;

 Ahmad Izz Al-Deen, social worker (Bethlehem) - “The Ethnic Cleansing: As a Colonial settlement multi- dimensional and indications impact”;

 Dr. Omar Rahhal, Director of the Center of Human Rights and Democratic Participation, (SHAMS, Ramallah) - “The Israeli violations of the right to freedom of movement, and in accordance with the rules of the human law”;

 Dr. Muhammad Innab, the Modern University College (Ramallah), and Mr Naser Balawi, An-Najah University - “Forced Migration and Deportation: its Tools and Methods in the Israeli Governmental Policy toward Jerusalem”;

 Dr. Nadiya Abu Zahir, the Palestinian Legislative Council, and Mr Husam Al-Dajani, writer and analyst from Gaza - “The Israeli Policy toward Exiling the Palestinians: the Exiles of the Church of the Nativity Model”;

 Mr Muhammad Abdul-Rahman presented Dr. Waleed’s paper, the Islamic University-Gaza, “The Transfer in the Zionist Thought 1987-2007” – Dr. Waleed was unable to attend because of the siege on Gaza; and

 Dr. Adawiya Al-Sawalmah, An-Najah University - “Formulation of the Psychological Alienation in the Light of Israeli Policy of Banishment”.