right to compensation.122 Right after Israel’s admission to the UN, the
Israeli Representative signed a protocol with the UNCCP, which accepts
Resolution 194 regarding Palestinian refugees, including “the respect
for their rights and the preservation of their property.” At around the
same time, though, he pointed out that no restitution would take place
for Palestinian refugees, stating that Israel retained the right to use the
“abandoned” property as it saw fit and may “enact legislation for the
more rational use of absentee property.”123
In this regard, with Resolution 36/146C, in 1981, the UN General Assembly
recognized that Palestinian refugees are entitled to their property and to
the incomes derived from that property, in conformity with the principles
of justice and equity. Most notably, it requested the Secretary-General to
take “all appropriate steps,” in consultation with UNCCP, for the protection
and administration of Palestinian property, assets and property rights in
Israel, and to establish a fund for the receipt of income derived therefrom,
on behalf of their rightful owners.124 This Resolution has been reaffirmed by
the General Assembly in every annual session, but the fund has never been
created and Israel steadfastly insists on rejecting its implementation.125
Denial of the Right to Restitution
As explained previously, under international law, reparations should, as far as
possible, “wipe out all the consequences of the illegal act and re-establish the
situation which would, in all probability, have existed if that act had not been
committed.”126 However, in the same way that Israel has refused to recognize
122 Michael Fischbach, Records of Dispossession, Palestinian Refugee Property and the Arab-Israeli (New
York : Columbia University Press, 2003) [hereinafter Fischbach, Records of Dispossession], 86, and
Adnan Abdelrazek, “Israeli Violation of UN Resolution 194 (III) and Others Pertaining to Palestinian
Refugee Property”, Palestine-Israel Journal,15, No. 4; 16, No. 1, available at: http://www.pij.org/
details.php?id=1220 [accessed 7 June 2018].
123 Fischbach, Records of Dispossession, supra note 122, 86.
124 UN eneral Assembly, Resolution 36/146 United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees
in the Near East, A/RES/36/146(A-H), 16 December 1981, available at: https://unispal.un.org/DPA/
DPR/unispal.nsf/0/16DC32D615D8176B852560D9005860C5 [accessed 20 September 2018].
125 See its latest recall in UN General Assembly, Palestine refugees’ properties and their revenues,
A/RES/72/83, 14 December 2017, available at: http://www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.
asp?symbol=A/RES/72/83 [accessed 27 Jul 2018]; and as for Israel’s rejection policies see United
Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), Palestine refugees’
properties and their revenues, A/72/334, 14 August 2017, available at: https://undocs.org/A/72/334
[accessed 27 Jul 2018]; UNRWA, Palestine refugees’ properties and their revenues, A/71/343, 19
August 2016, available at: https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N16/263/72/PDF/
N1626372.pdf
126 Lena El-Malak, “Reparations for Palestinian Refugees”, Forced Migration review, 26 (2006), available
at: http://www.fmreview.org/sites/fmr/files/FMRdownloads/en/FMRpdfs/FMR26/FMR2624.pdf
44
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