Palestinians’ New Unity Can Be Just a Beginning
Helene Cooper

WASHINGTON, March 16 — With the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, now politically cohabitating with the militant Islamic group Hamas in a national unity government, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s attempts to stitch together a new Middle East peace plan just became even more complicated.

But if the new Palestinian political détente is a problem, a new strategy to get around it appears to be emerging — one that falls back on elements of Saudi Arabia’s five-year-old peace proposals, Arab and American officials said….

The New York Times runs this piece on how Washington is generally supportive of the Saudi plan but believes it needs some modification regarding the ‘right of return’ for Palestinians. The article notes that the plan calls for, ‘“an agreed, just solution” to the issue of Palestinian refugees and their descendants in accordance with United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194 of 1948.

That resolution said Palestinians had the right to return to their homes in Israel or to be compensated for their homes if they did not wish to return.’

I believe that nearly all Arab states have recognized that Palestinians and their descendants simply cannot all return to historic Palestine. There is both a need and a willingness to find a solution. And as I have stated often, the solution will come in the form of limited return and a lot of compensation. But it will also take a willingness on the part of several Arab states to make arrangements for refugees within their borders to become citizens of those states. That will require significant financial assistance—or incentives—to make it happen.