46 THE QUESTION o f PAI.KSTINE IV Palestinian Rights But here, as with most o f the other matters in the question of Palestine, we need to connect things with each other, and see them, not as they arc hidden (no evidence I cite here and elsewhere is arcane or obscure; most of it is to be found in easily available docum ents), but as they are ignored or denied. The proper context for dealing with the refugee problem is ready at hand: D o the Palestinian refugees want to be repatriated, or com pensated, or resettled elsewhere? Second: Is there international and moral consensus on the theoretical as well as the practical answers to these questions? Third: What mechanism is there in Israel for making European and Am erican Jews into immigrants, then citizens, and how does this mechanism prevent A rab Palestinian refugees from bene­ fiting themselves? The answers to all o f these questions are m oral, of course, but they are interesting and important because of their political reality; these are not academic questions, in other words, but questions that bear directly upon the lives o f millions o f people, upon states, upon the international order. Let us review these questions dispassion­ ately now. B efore 1948, the majority o f the territory called Palestine was inhabited beyond any doubt by a majority o f A rabs, who after Israel came into being were either dispersed (they left, or were made to leave) or were enfolded within the state as a non-Jewish minority. A fter 1967, Israel occupied more A rab Palestinian territory. A s a result, there are at present three types o f A rab Palestinians: those inside prc-1967 Israel, plus those inside the Occupied Territories, plus those elsewhere outside former Palestine. There has never been a plebiscite conducted am ong Palestinians as to their wishes: there are obvious reason for it— the sheer fact of their greatly complicat­ ed and dispersed presence, under several jurisdictions; the political impossibility o f conducting such a plebiscite, especial­ ly in countries under whose auspices no elections are held