French President Emmanuel Macron welcomes Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas at the Elysee Palace in Paris, France, Nov. 11, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Benoit Tessier

When then-Palestinian Authority (PA) leader Yasser Arafat walked away from Israeli peace deals in 2000 and 2001, his main pretext was reportedly a refusal to compromise over the Palestinian demand for a so-called “right of return” to pre-state Israel for Palestinian refugees of 1948 and their descendants.

In 2004, the UK newspaper Al-Quds Al-Arabi published an account of an associate of Arafat that confirmed this:

I admit that I was very close to the Palestinian president, Yasser Arafat, but the period when I was close to him was at the height of his lean years, particularly the period of the first Gulf War and after it … President Arafat was not willing to sign a permanent agreement with the Hebrew state, because he knew full well that that agreement would put him among the traitors in the annals of history, as it [the agreement] would be at the expense of conceding the right of return and most of the sovereignty over East Jerusalem. [emphasis added]

[Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper (UK), Nov. 19, 2004]

This was corroborated by a White House insider as well:

Professor Alan Deshowitz: I can tell you that President Clinton told me directly and personally that what caused the failure of the Camp David-Taba accords was the refusal of the Palestinians and Arafat to give up the right of return. That was the sticking point. It wasn’t Jerusalem. It wasn’t borders. It was the right of return.

[Debate, Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, Nov. 29, 2005]

As Palestinian Media Watch has documented, the PA’s leaders endlessly cite UN General Assembly Resolution 194 as though it were some kind of instrument of “non-negotiable rights” under “International law”:

Mahmoud Al-Habbash: “It is the right of Palestinian refugees, according to Resolution 194 published by the UN in 1948, to return to the villages and cities from which they were expelled. This is an authentic and non-negotiable right.

The right of return and compensation is an authentic right of the Palestinian refugees. We say that the solution to this issue will be implemented based on Resolution 194 published by the UN. There may be agreements here and there, but the basis for solving this problem is Resolution 194, which concerns the return of refugees and compensating the refugees for the suffering and leaving their towns, cities, and villages, from which they were forcibly and violently expelled in 1948 during the Palestinian Nakba.” [emphasis added]

[Mahmoud Abbas’ Advisor on Religious Affairs and Islamic Relations Mahmoud Al-Habbash, YouTube channel, Sept. 23, 2025]

However, there is no “right of return,” which is not a right at all. Palestinians distort Resolution 194’s interpretation and mask their intent behind their demand for it — which is to demographically erase the Jewish majority in Israel in the PA’s vision of a “two-state” outcome. Moreover, like all UNGA resolutions, Resolution 194 was non-binding.

Currently, the Palestinians are in the process of drafting a “constitution” that aims to tie the hands of future Palestinian leaders who might make peace with Israel in a variety of ways, but specifically by making the right of return part of Palestinian law and thus make any concession on the “refugee” issue unconstitutional.

The PLO Department of Refugee Affairs, in cooperation with the Center for Refugee Policy Research, held a dialogue meeting under the title “Draft Interim Constitution of the State of Palestine for 2026: Constitutional Approaches and Strengthening Refugee Rights in Light of the Current Challenges.” The meeting discussed the status of the refugee issue and the right of return in the draft interim constitution.

The meeting was attended by PLO Executive Committee members Ahmad Abu Houli, Ahmed Majdalani, and Bassam Al-Salehi. Also present were representative of the Constitution Drafting Committee Ammar Dwaik, secretary of the Constitution Committee Mounir Salameh, and Secretary-General of the [PA] Parliament (Legislative Council) Ahmed Abu Hashish.

The participants noted that the PLO, as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, holds the original and sole authority in handling the refugee issue, and that this issue and the right of return are at the core of the Palestinian cause. They also emphasized that the right of return is a non-derogable and inalienable ‘supra-constitutional right.’” [emphasis added]

[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, March 27, 2026]

“Non-derogable,“ you could say, is not a household word. It is, however, terminology lifted from the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). It describes a fundamental human right that cannot be suspended, restricted, or taken away by a government under any circumstances — even during times of war, public disaster, or a state of emergency.

This is far from the only problematic aspect of the emerging “Palestinian constitution” — an attempt to graft the Palestinian war against Israel’s existence into the core identity of any potential future Palestinian state.

It’s but one more compelling argument why a PA-Palestinian state would be a disaster for the world. It would not bring peace, but guarantee endless war.

The author is a contributor to Palestinian Media Watch, where a version of this article first appeared.