of "family reunification." This reflects a mistaken attitude. Instead, it is the open return, in the framework of the right of return, which is necessary as a symbolic act of conciliation. The number mentioned is, of course, ridiculous.
Nobody claims that Israel, which has just successfully absorbed a million new immigrants from the former Soviet Union, is economically unable to absorb a reasonable number of refugees. The argument is clearly ideological and demographic: that the return of any number of refugees will change the national-demographic nature of the state.
If the irrationality of the argument needs proof, one need only mention that the extreme right in Israel demands the annexation of the Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem and is quite ready to grant Israeli citizenship to the quarter of a million Arabs living there. The right wing also demands the annexation of big "settlement blocs," which include many Arab villages, without being unduly worried by the increase in the number of Arab citizens of Israel.
It is also worthwhile to remember that in 1949 the government of David Ben-Gurion and Moshe Sharett offered to take back 100,000 refugees. Whatever the motives that inspired that offer, and even if this was merely a diplomatic maneuver, the offer is an important precedent. In proportion to the Jewish population in Israel at that time, this number is equivalent to 800,000 today. In proportion to the number of refugees at that time, the number would be half a million now.
The decisive question is: How many can be brought back? Minimalists may speak about 100,000, maximalists about half a million. I myself have proposed an annual quota of 50,000 for ten years. But this is a subject for negotiations, which must be conducted in a spirit of goodwill with the intent of putting a successful end to this painful issue, always remembering that it concerns the fate of living human beings who deserve rehabilitation after tens of years of suffering.
At present 1.1 million Palestinian-Arab citizens live in Israel. An increase of that number to 1.3 or even 1.5 million will not fundamentally change the demographic picture, especially when Israel is absorbing more than 50,000 new Jewish immigrants every year.
Yet this concept arouses deep fears in Israel. Even the historian Benny Morris, who played such an important role in exposing the expulsion of 1948, is ready only for "perhaps a trickle of refugees being allowed to return to Israel-a few thousand, no more."
I am aware that the offer far from satisfies the Palestinian demands. But I am convinced that the great majority of Palestinians know that there is a price that both sides have to pay in order to leave behind the