Palestinians celebrate January 1st of every year as the beginning of their revolution born in 1965 in the refugee camps of the diaspora.

For more than 20 years (from the “Catastrophe” until the first years of the revolution) the refugees kept in their hearts the dream of the right to return to their homes and properties. That dream was hidden from the eyes of the instruments of Arab repression, as they were aware that these regimens were the principal ones behind the Al-Nakba (the “Catastrophe”) in 1948.

Likewise, they learned the bitter lessons of Arab interventions into the Palestinian cause before Al-Nakba, as well as its desertion that led to such a catastrophe that transformed the Palestinians into a dispersed people with its nation torn apart.

The experience of the contemporary Palestinian revolution with Arab regimens was not better than that of the Palestinian National Movement left in the shadow of British colonialism and forced to confront savage Zionist conquests.

Although the main enemy of the Palestinian Revolution and its people is Israeli occupation and aggression (with the shameless open and covert support of the United States), the battles of the revolution against some Arab regimens were no less violent and dangerous. This was because intervention and plans were sometimes hidden under resounding slogans of nationalism and other symbols of sovereignty of those countries, though they deserted Palestine in the face of Zionist aggression and lifted the sword of national zeal against the Palestinian National Movement and the refugee camps.

In the “1991 Madrid Peace Conference,” the official Arab situation revealed its bitter realities regarding the Arab-Israeli conflict. The causes of the conflict became border problems, such that the Palestinian question transformed from being the main Arabic cause to a merely a Palestinian one.

With the beginning of the first Intifada in 1987 and the second in 2000, Arab governments felt the danger that threatened them should the intifada of the occupied Palestinian territories expand to the neighboring countries and to become Arab Intifadas. Arab initiatives thus arose to assimilate the Palestinian situation under the motto of "a just peace.”

These initiatives were constructed on the basis of accepting the annulment of the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties and to instead search for a solution that guaranteed a permanent place outside of the homeland as expressed in the Arab Summit which took place in Beirut in March 2002.

All political events confirmed that the refugee question –despite attempts to marginalize it– remained the main issue of programs and initiatives as all are aware that it is impossible to find a permanent solution to the conflict with the Hebrew state without solving the refugee problem.

In fact, the pressure exercised by the refugees and their determination to stand up for their national rights prevented the coming to incomplete arrangements, and it remained quite clear that without discovering a solution to the problem of Palestinians in the diaspora, the Middle East area will have neither stability nor peace.

It is certain that the door to returning is still closed; but it is no less certain than the path to the naturalization of refugees outside the homeland is also closed due to their own struggle.

The difficult situation and the sufferings that he/she is victim the Palestinian people whose majority lives under subhuman conditions and far from their land, will not weaken their decision of continuing fighting sturdily.

The increment of the movement of the refugees and their committees created in defense from the right to the return reaffirm once again that the will of returning to its native floor is every bigger day.

* Director of the Palestinian Magazine “Al Hourriah”