Last Thursday evening, I joined a large group of Islanders to discuss one of the most intractable issues from one of the most explosive regions of the world: the right of Palestinian refugees to return home to land now within the borders of Israel.

Hosted by the Lutheran Church, two knowledgeable and experienced men led our discussion — Israeli Eitan Bronstein from Tel Aviv-based Zochrot (Hebrew for ‘remembering’), and Muhammad Jaradat of the Bethlehem-based BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Refugees. They were on a national tour sponsored by the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC).

As an active member of the AFSC I was reminded of a story told by Kathy Bergen, the national director of the organization’s Middle East Programs. She visited the Eastern European village and home where her Jewish family had once lived, from which they were expelled during a pogrom (a riot directed against a particular group, historically often Jews, and characterized by destruction of their homes, businesses and religious centers).

Nervously, the current residents invited her in; nervous because they feared she wanted her family home back. They were relieved to learn she only wanted to see it.

I would feel nervous if a member of the tribe that once lived on Vashon came knocking on my door and asking to walk around my property because it was the place of her grandmother’s birth. It is an issue for Israelis that to them threatens the country’s very existence. It is an issue that we tried to step out of our comfort zone to discuss with humanity and understanding.

When Jewish fighters declared the state of Israel in 1948, the war produced a refuge for Jews in the wake of the Holocaust. It also produced some 800,000 Palestinian refugees who fled the fighting and/or were expelled.

They camped around the edges of the Israeli state; in Gaza, in Jordan, in Lebanon. They are still there and, astonishingly, have increased their numbers in the harsh conditions of the refugee camps and, since 1967, Israeli military occupation.

The occupation forces harsh choices on Israel. Resistance to the occupation has created a virtual state of war. If Israel agrees to a Palestinian state out of these occupied territories (The West Bank and the Gaza strip) will it be a launching pad for larger attacks on Israel?

If Israel annexes the occupied territories to include them in Israel’s democracy — the only one in the Middle East — non-Jewish Palestinians will outnumber and out-vote Jewish citizens. If Israel drives Palestinians from the occupied territories, replacing them with Jewish settlers, it will have committed a crime some would call genocide (similar to the United States’ treatment of Native Americans).

What is to be done? Our two speakers related their own efforts.

Jaradat appealed to his listeners to understand that “first, we are people and we have rights: the right to be accepted and respected.”

In 1948, 800,000 Palestinians were evicted or fled from their homes, communities, and livelihoods. I was distressed by slides of Palestinians carrying their children out of their villages, walking along dirt roads to Jordan. From self-supporting they became dependent on international aid.

The solution now, he told us, is clear: in 1948 the United Nations ratified resolution 194 which has been reaffirmed every year since then by the General Assembly. It states: “Refugees who wish to return to their homes should be allowed to do so as soon as possible.”

With impressive statistics he explained that there is plenty of room for Palestinians to live within the land of Israel without displacing Israelis. His goal is what he calls a win-win position: one secular and democratic state for all inhabitants — Christians, Jews, Muslims and non-religious, a democracy like the United States.

Bronstein’s organization is dedicated to reclaiming the history of Palestinians that Israel has erased along with 500 villages and homes. “We are about to celebrate the 60th anniversary of al-Nakba, or Day of the Catastrophe, the expulsion of Palestinians from their homeland,” he told us.

He showed pictures of a Palestinian village in the Latrun area near Jerusalem before 1948; immediately following the expulsion bulldozers destroying it; and today the trees and plants of a national park that has replaced it.

His organization has struggled with the government to have signs placed at the site where the remains of a mosque are visible, describing the village that was once there. At first the government tore down the sign and replaced it with a historical depiction of the Roman ruins unearthed beneath the mosque without mention of the Palestinian village. Finally the Israeli Supreme Court has ordered the work of signing the sites of former villages to go forward.

I understand the fear of Israelis that they might once again be dispersed into the diaspora of a hostile world. What I don’t understand is that they continue to perpetuate the same expulsion and dispersal of Palestinians, who are Semites as well.

— Jim Hauser is a member of the Vashon Quaker Worship Group and on the corporate board of the American Friends Service Committee.