[Congressional Bills 118th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 388 Introduced in House (IH)]

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118th CONGRESS
  1st Session
H. RES. 388

      Recognizing the ongoing Nakba and Palestine refugees rights.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                              May 10, 2023

Ms. Tlaib (for herself, Ms. Omar, Ms. McCollum, Mr. Bowman, Ms. Ocasio-
  Cortez, and Ms. Bush) submitted the following resolution; which was 
              referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs

_______________________________________________________________________

                               RESOLUTION


 
      Recognizing the ongoing Nakba and Palestine refugees rights.

Whereas May 15, 2023, is the 75th commemoration of the Palestinian Nakba, 
        meaning ``catastrophe'' in English, a term which refers to Israel's 
        uprooting, dispossession, and exile of the Palestinian people from their 
        homeland, and Israeli politicians are increasingly threatening 
        Palestinians with a second Nakba today;
Whereas the Nakba is the root cause of the issues that continue to divide Israel 
        and the Palestinian people today, and a just and lasting peace cannot be 
        established without addressing the Nakba and remedying its injustices 
        toward the Palestinian people;
Whereas the Nakba is not only a historical event, but also an ongoing process 
        characterized by Israel's separate-and-unequal laws and policies toward 
        Palestinians, including the destruction of Palestinian homes, the 
        construction and expansion of illegal settlements, and Israel's 
        confinement of Palestinians to ever-shrinking areas of land;
Whereas, during the Nakba, Israel forcibly exiled or caused to flee for their 
        lives under duress of military campaigns, which frequently included 
        massacres and other atrocities committed against civilians, at least 
        750,000 Palestinians (approximately 75 percent of the indigenous 
        population that had lived in areas that became Israel), who became 
        refugees;
Whereas, by 1949, Israel had depopulated and destroyed more than 400 Palestinian 
        villages and cities, often demolishing all homes and other buildings, 
        planting forests over them, or confiscating and expropriating 
        Palestinian property to give to Jewish Israelis;
Whereas the United States voted in favor of United Nations General Assembly 
        Resolution 194 on December 11, 1948, which states that Palestinian 
        ``refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their 
        neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable 
        date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those 
        choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, 
        under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good 
        by the Governments or authorities responsible'';
Whereas Palestinian refugees right of return is not only stipulated in a General 
        Assembly resolution, but is also anchored in international law and in 
        Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states 
        that, ``Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, 
        and to return to his country.'';
Whereas, on December 8, 1949, the United Nations General Assembly adopted 
        Resolution 302 establishing the United Nations Relief and Works Agency 
        for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, which the United States has 
        financially supported on an almost continuous basis since its 
        establishment;
Whereas international law also recognizes that descendants of refugees retain 
        their rights as refugees, and that according to the United Nations, 
        ``Palestine refugees are not distinct from other protracted refugee 
        situations such as those from Afghanistan or Somalia, where there are 
        multiple generations of refugees, considered by UNHCR as refugees and 
        supported as such. Protracted refugee situations are the result of the 
        failure to find political solutions to their underlying political 
        crises.'';
Whereas a just and lasting resolution to the Palestinian-Israeli issue requires 
        respect for and the implementation of Palestine refugee rights as 
        enshrined in United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194 and the 
        Universal Declaration of Human Rights;
Whereas the United States Congress enacted the Elie Wiesel Genocide and 
        Atrocities Prevention Act of 2018 (Public Law 115-441) mandating the 
        President to identify, monitor, and report on potential and ongoing 
        atrocities, and to develop policies and programs to improve the United 
        States response, and noting that it is the policy of the United States 
        to ``regard the prevention of atrocities as in its national interest'';
Whereas Israeli politicians are increasingly threatening a second Nakba against 
        the Palestinian people, as did, for instance, former Deputy Minister of 
        Religious Affairs Matan Kahan, who stated on June 14, 2022, ``If there 
        was a button that could be pressed and all the Arabs could disappear--
        get on an express train to Switzerland, I would push it.'', and as did 
        Jerusalem city council member Yonatan Yosef, who led chants of, ``We 
        Want Nakba Now!'' during a provocative march through occupied 
        Palestinian East Jerusalem on January 13, 2023;
Whereas, on December 29, 2022, Israel formed its most extremist government to 
        date, which includes in its cabinet Bezalel Smotrich, who previously 
        stated to Palestinian citizens of Israel in Israel's parliament, 
        ``You're here by mistake, it's a mistake that [Israeli Prime Minister 
        David] Ben-Gurion didn't finish the job and didn't throw you out in 
        1948.'';
Whereas, after Israeli settlers committed a pogrom in the Palestinian West Bank 
        village of Huwara on February 26, 2023, in which settlers killed one 
        Palestinian, injured more than 100 others, and set fire to hundreds of 
        houses, Smotrich also stated on March 1, 2023, that ``I think the 
        [Palestinian] village of Huwara needs to be wiped out. I think the State 
        of Israel should do it.'';
Whereas, since its formation, the current Israeli Government has intensified its 
        violent military rule over the Palestinian West Bank, has increased the 
        scope of its illegal settlements there, has taken steps to de jure annex 
        the Palestinian West Bank through the transfer of the Coordinator of 
        Government Activities in the Territories from military to civilian 
        responsibility, and has advanced legislation to undermine the 
        independence of Israel's judiciary; and
Whereas the United States is complicit in Israel's ongoing Nakba against the 
        Palestinian people by providing Israel with weapons and diplomatic 
        support even as it advances plans to destroy more Palestinian homes and 
        forcibly remove more Palestinians from their land in places such as 
        Sheikh Jarrah, Silwan, and Masafer Yatta, and is also currently 
        advancing plans to build a diplomatic facility in Jerusalem on land that 
        Israel expropriated from Palestinian refugees, including United States 
        citizens: Now, therefore, be it
    Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of Representatives that 
it is the policy of the United States to--
            (1) commemorate the Nakba through official recognition and 
        remembrance;
            (2) reject efforts to enlist, engage, or otherwise 
        associate the United States Government with denial of the 
        Nakba;
            (3) encourage education and public understanding of the 
        facts of the Nakba, including the United States role in the 
        humanitarian relief effort and the relevance of the Nakba to 
        the modern-day refugee crises;
            (4) continue to support the provision of social services to 
        Palestine refugees through the United Nations Relief and Works 
        Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East;
            (5) support the implementation of Palestinian refugees' 
        rights as enshrined in United Nations General Assembly 
        Resolution 194 and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights;
            (6) condemn all manifestations of Israel's ongoing Nakba 
        against the Palestinian people, including--
                    (A) Israel's illegal theft of Palestinian land in 
                the West Bank, including East Jerusalem;
                    (B) Israel's displacement of Palestinians by 
                destroying their homes and forcing them from their 
                land; and
                    (C) the daily brutality and violence inflicted by 
                the Israeli military and Israeli settlers against 
                Palestinian civilians;
            (7) request from the President the application of the Elie 
        Wiesel Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act of 2018 (Public 
        Law 115-441) to the treatment of Palestinians by Israel (both 
        state and nonstate actors), including--
                    (A) a report on the situation in the mandated 
                annual reporting to the Congress;
                    (B) training for United States Foreign Service 
                Officers stationed in the United States Embassy to 
                Israel per section 4 of such Act and section 4028(d) of 
                title 22, United States Code; and
                    (C) supporting and protecting Palestinian and 
                Israeli civil society groups and human rights defenders 
                working to monitor, document, prevent, and respond to 
                atrocities;
            (8) denounce as incitement all threats, either implicit or 
        explicit, by Israeli politicians to commit a second Nakba, or 
        to finish what Israel began in 1948, or similar such 
        statements; and
            (9) ensure the United States ends its complicity in 
        Israel's ongoing Nakba against the Palestinian people by--
                    (A) prohibiting United States weapons from being 
                used to destroy Palestinian homes and forcibly removing 
                Palestinians from their land;
                    (B) ending United States diplomatic support for 
                such actions; and
                    (C) refraining from building any diplomatic 
                facility on land expropriated by Israel from 
                Palestinian refugees, including United States citizens.
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