The Palestinian Return Centre is an independent academic/media consultancy founded and registered in the United Kingdom in 1996. It specializes in the research, analysis, and monitor of issues pertaining to the dispersed Palestinians and their right to return. It also serves as an information repository on other related aspects of the Palestine Question and the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Origins:

There is a popular sentiment among the Palestinian, as well as Arab public, that the Israeli-Palestinian Accords (Oslo-Cairo) failed to recognize or guarantee the basic rights of the Palestinian people. Foremost among these rights are: the right to return and self-determination, the right of sovereignty over Jerusalem, and the right to establish an independent Palestinian state with all the necessary instruments and organs of sovereignty. Worse still, Israel's continued expansion of settlements in the territories that it illegally occupies has added insult to the injury caused by the denial and violation of these rights.

The ethnic cleansing of Palestine that began more than sixty years ago has turned the overwhelming majority of Palestinian people into refugees. There are about five million Palestinians who are presently denied the right to return to their homes. Most of them live in 58 camps scattered throughout the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. Hundreds of thousands more are exiled in the Americas, Europe and Australia. That none of them can return except by the expressed permission of Israel is a flagrant violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) since "Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country."

After six decades of persecution and untold suffering, it has become increasingly clear that the right of the dispersed Palestinians to return to their homes can no longer be postponed or compromised. It was, therefore, as a direct response to the need of ending this nightmare of exile that the Palestinian Return Centre was founded.

Aims:

To highlight the issue of the right of return both as a humanitarian and political concern.

To preserve the Palestinian identity and resist attempts to resettle the dispersed Palestinians in their places of refuge.

To increase and widen awareness of the suffering of the Palestinians in the Diaspora.

To inform the general public in Europe and Britain in particular about the true dimensions of the Palestinian issue.

The Identity of our Centre:

Although our Centre is Palestinian in its nature and character, it is not affiliated to any particular organization or party. It, however, fully respects the political beliefs and persuasion of anyone who participates in a personal capacity in its activities. Because the Palestinian people have never exercised or enjoyed the right to live in their homeland in peace, freedom and dignity, our Centre remains resolutely committed to the mobilization of Palestinian and Arab efforts to secure the restoration of all the usurped Palestinian national rights.

Board of Trustees

Mr. Zaher Birawi, Mr. Ghassan Faour, Mr. Majed Al-Zeer, Mr. Majdi Akeel and Mr. Mohammad Hamed.

Funding:

The Palestinian Return Centre depends primarily upon donations from people who believe in its cause. It accepts contributions in money and kind from any source as long as there are no strings or conditions attached. Hence it urges all interested persons and investors to support its efforts.

The founders of the PRC believe that the refugee issue is much larger than the efforts of any single institution, organization or grouping. For this reason the Centre aspires to share the responsibility of explaining this issue to the public and directing it toward the final return of the refugees to Palestine.

Accordingly, our work complements and does not contradict any other effort aimed at realizing Palestinian national aspirations. The PRC will, therefore, coordinate with and place all its resources at the disposal of any individual or group working for the advancement of our cause.

Activities:

Public relations:-The PRC attaches special importance to public relations and the establishment of contact with opinion, policy and decision-makers in the United Kingdom. Toward this end, it lobbies members of parliament and informs them of its concerns about all matters which directly or indirectly affect the dispersed Palestinians. It cooperates with several official Arab and British Islamic institutions.

As part of its ongoing mission to increase public awareness about the refugee problem and the right of return, the Centre has, since 1996, organized more than twenty lectures and seminars in which it hosted many internationally acclaimed scholars, commentators, and diplomats.

Publications:

The Palestinian Return Centre publishes two periodicals; a fortnightly analysis newsletter in Arabic called "Al Awdah" and a related English monthly called the "Return Review." Both publications are widely distributed to individual subscribers and institutions in the United Kingdom, Europe and other parts of the world. The ongoing increase of our readership, both locally and internationally, is in many ways a testimony to the accurate reporting and in-depth analyses provided by our London staff writers and regional correspondents in Damascus, Beirut, and Nablus.

Additionally, the PRC has initiated an Occasional Studies Series of publications on the right of return. These are for the most part papers presented at seminars and lectures organized by our Centre. By popular demand we have recently released the second revised edition of Dr. Salman Abu Sitta's "Palestinian Right to Return … Sacred, Legal and Possible." Other publications in this Series include Dr. Ahmad Sidqui al Dajani's "Britain's Obligations Towards the Arabs Concerning Palestine and Ibrahim Dirwish's (ed.) "Khamsun Aman Min al Nakba, Matha Ba'd"? The latter constitutes the proceedings of a one-day seminar organized by the Centre to mark the fiftieth year of the Nakba.

Still in order to get our message across to the widest possible audience we have set-up a site on the world-wide-web. This facility contains some rare photographic exhibitions on life in the refugee camps. It also provides up to date news, commentaries, and reports concerning the refugees as well as our own activities.