Madison-Rafah Journal

Between the Road Map and Unilateral Steps

206 Ingraham Hall, UW-Madison — Noon

On Thursday Khalil Shikaki of the Palestinian Center for Survey and Policy Research will give a talk entitled "The Future of Palestinian-Israeli Peacemaking Between the Road Map and Unilateral Steps." The lecture, sponsored by the Middle East Studies Program, will take place in 206 Ingraham Hall and is free and open to the public.

Shikaki, who was in the news over the summer for his research suggesting that most Palestinian refugees would not take advantage of any right to return to Israel as part of a peace agreement, has written extensively on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in both English and Arabic journals and appeared on talk shows such as NPR's All Things Considered.

See this for some commentary and links to other reactions to Shikaki's work.

Thanks!

Brian Ulrich
Middle East Studies Program

Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2004
Subject: critique of Shikaki on the refugee issue

Hi People,

If you are interested, Badil Resource Center published a critique of Shikaki's survey on the preferences of the Palestinian Refugees. It's short, and may give you an insight if you plan on attending his talk on Thursday.

There are major methodological problems with his work; surveys conducted under conditions when preferences are not realizable will produce vastly different results than the statistical distribution of outcomes if the options were actually available for the refugees. Aside from this issue, the right of return is a basic and inalienable human right guaranteed by international law. The categories used in Shikaki's survey do not reflect in any way the options available to the refugees under international law. We all have the right to free speech; if someone asks you whether you exercise your right to free speech and you reply negatively, does that provide grounds for restricting or denying you the exercise of that right in the future? No, absolutely not. Similarly, survey results of this sort - whatever they happen to predict - do not constitute a basis for governments, whether they be Palestinian, Israeli, Arab, or anything else to barter over the rights of millions of human beings.

I'm not sure what Shikaki's motivations are, but all too often, I have seen so-called Palestinian and 'intellectuals' (Sari Nusseibeh comes to mind) dress themselves up as 'pragmatists' when in actuality, they are unprincipled self-aggrandizers. It's a shame when even Palestinians fail to see even their own people are fully human. The refugees are not a pawn in the hands of the governments of the region.

Please feel free to forward this email to any lists you are on.

http://www.al-awda.org/shikakisurveyonror

Salam
Mohammed Abed