This article argues that Israel’s failure to provide reparations to Palestinian refugees over the past six decades is in blatant violation of international law. Almost 60 years later UN GA Resolution 194/1948, which demands that the refugees wishing to return to their homes should be permitted to do so and that “compensation be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property”, Israel continues to preclude refugees from returning to their homes and has also failed to restitute any of their property and provide compensation for their losses.

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According to El- Malak, the international community’s failure to put pressure on Israel to provide reparations does not only have implications for the Palestinian refugees of 1948. This political impotence has given Israel the green light to displace hundreds of thousands of Palestinians over the decades with the full knowledge that, once again, it would not be called upon to provide reparations to those it has wronged.

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