Books of the Decade

Editor's note: Here is another installment in the "books of the decade" series. Many thanks to Dr. Shahira Samy at the University of Oxford for her contribution.

Records of Dispossession: Palestinian Refugee Property and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, by Michael Fischbach (Columbia University Press, New York, 2003). ISBN 0-231-12978-5

Michael Fischbach goes on an adventure. He flies to New York, disappears into the UN headquarters, locks himself up in the archives of the United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine (UNCCP), pours over some land deeds, leases and documents untouched for decades, and writes a book telling us the whole story. The Indiana Jones-style adventure is not entirely why I chose Records of Dispossession as my most favourite forced migration book for the first decade of the twenty-first century, although admittedly, its archival freshness is what makes it so valuable. The findings unravelled by this book will undoubtedly form the backbone of any peace agreement touching on the fate of the millions of Palestinian refugees, now well into their fourth generation of exile.

When over 700,000 Palestinians were uprooted from their lands in the late 1940s in the course of the establishment of the state of Israel and the first Arab-Israeli war, most of them were farmers whose livelihood much depended on land and property; assets now lost and subsequently expropriated by the Israeli government. Unlike its meek involvement in the present days, six decades ago, the UN was heavily involved in the politics of peace-making in Palestine. Specifically created to deal with the ramifications of the conflict, including the refugee issue, the UNCCP worked hard on identifying, evaluating lost property and even devising what might constitute viable compensation schemes. This estimation and evaluation work is the most accurate and comprehensive that has ever been undertaken. The problem is that we knew nothing about its scope, details and findings until Fischbach told us the story in his book.

These records form the backbone of any compensation package that will be offered to the refugees as part of a settlement to the conflict covering the displacement and dispossession issue. The international community often thinks of refugee matters in terms of humanitarian needs or within the regime of durable solutions weighing between options of return, resettlement and local integration. But what about losses? Restitution of property? Material reparations? Here is where the property issue and ensuing compensation schemes gain significance. Since the book also incorporates the story of the expropriation of the lost Palestinian property, it goes straight into how property restitution issues are incorporated into negotiating forms of redress to displacement problems and fostering demands for lost rights between parties to a conflict.

Decades on, the UNCCP is totally dead but not officially so. By telling the story, Records of Dispossession has reminded us of the history of its involvement, its early efforts, its struggle and why it has failed to achieve peace. With the records of these early efforts now out, the question arises as to whether this early failure may pave the way for a future success in redressing the displacement and dispossession of Palestinian refugees.

Dr. Shahira Samy
Jarvis Doctorow Junior Research Fellow in International Relations
and Conflict Resolution in the Middle East
St Edmund Hall & the Department of Politics and International Relations
University of Oxford

Access details:

- Publisher info
- Amazon
- Find the book in a library

Related posts:

http://fm-cab.blogspot.com/2009/12/books-of-decade.html
http://fm-cab.blogspot.com/2009/12/more-books-of-decade.html

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