On Friday 25 November, Israel returned the bodies of three Hezbollah terrorists who were killed earlier that week while they attempted to seize Israeli soldiers to trade them for Arabs jailed in Israel. Israel acceded to the request of the Lebanese government to return them to Lebanon to prevent further tensions along the Israel-Lebanon border. Haaretz wrote:

Security sources said they consider Lebanon's official request to be a positive development, and they hope it shows that the Lebanese government wishes to enforce its sovereignty in the south of the country where Hezbollah is dominant.

Lebanese minister Mohammed Jawad Khalife warned Israel to return the bodies to prevent Hezbollah to take it's own measures to get them back:

"It is known that the resistance will try to secure the return of the bodies one way or another, and this usually ends up in negotiations to trade them for the bodies of Israeli soldiers or for prisoners."

This is a bit strange, as the death of the Hezbollah fighters was a result of their attempt to kidnap Israeli soldiers. The leader of Hezbollah, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, made it very clear that there will be no calm as far as Hezbollah is concerned:

Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrilla group said on Friday it had a duty to try to capture Israeli soldiers and swap them for Arab prisoners in Israel, hours after Israel returned the remains of three militants.
"It is not a shame, a crime or a terrorist act. It is our right and our duty which one day we might fulfil," he told thousands of supporters chanting 'death to Israel'.

It is probably asked a bit too much to expect that the Hezbollah would have reacted gratefully and reconciliatory, but one may ask what use it has to be nice to such people. People like Nasrallah hate Israel whatever it does, or does not, and will translate Israel's quick turnover of the bodies as a sign of weakness, not a reconciliatory gesture that has to be responded in kind. Of course, the turnover is meant as a gesture towards the Lebanese government in the first place, in the hope that it will act against Hezbollah. Analysts also claim that a border escalation between Israel and Lebanon would have been a welcome diversion for Syria, from the UN investigation into the assassination of former prime minister Rafik Hariri and especially Syria's role in it, and Syria's role in Lebanon in general. As Hezbollah is under strong influence of Syria, it is probable that the border raid earlier this week was carried out for this very reason, and that Syria somehow hoped that it would turn into major fights - pursuing its own interests over that of the Lebanese people, who would probably have been the main victims of such an escalation. This raises the question what Lebanon's interest is in keeping a state of enmity with Israel. There are no territorial disputes, although Hezbollah claims that Israel still 'occupies' the Sheba Farms, a tiny piece of land that Israel captured from Syria in the Six Day War but had been Lebanese before. The UN has officially announced that Israel's withdrawal from Lebanese territory was complete after it left the so called 'security zone' in the summer of 2000. Few people in Lebanon are bothered about the Sheba Farms anyway.

The main reasons Lebanon cannot or doesn't want to make peace with Israel are that it is not in Syria's interest, and the about 500.000 Palestinian refugees, who live under miserable circumstances in refugee camps. Denied Lebanese citizenship - because that would disturb the precarious ethnic-religious balance -, they are severely limited in finding jobs, good housing and other provisions. Besides that, or probably because of that, they demand to return to Israel with the aim of turning it into an Arab state, and they would probably make quite some trouble if there would be peace with Israel without being granted the 'right to return'.

This touches on the refugee problem in general, which is a major obstacle for peace between Israel and the Arab world. Although resolution 194 of 1949, which Arab states and the Palestinians refer to as proof for the 'right to return according to international law', calls for the possibility of refugees who want to do so, to return to Israel, this resolution doesn't call this an inherent and inalienable right. Moreover, this resolution referred to people who fled or were expelled one year earlier, not to people who have lived in other countries for 50 years and their descendants. From the over 4 million Palestinian refugees only a small number fled in 1948. But the most important objection to the 'right of return' is that it is incompatible with a two-state solution. For many people in the Arab world, including the Palestinians, the right of return is a deliberate means to destroy Israel and turn it into an Arab state. Some people view the refugees as a human tragedy and feel compassion for their fate, and think the right of return a way to do them justice in the end. However noble that is, these people should keep in mind that it was the Palestinians who started the war that caused their fled and expulsion. They started it because they didn't want to live in a Jewish state. However understandable this might be, it is also understandable that Israeli's don't want to take in hundreds of thousands of people that are hostile to their state (which, I fear, would lead to a terrible civil war). It is not only understandable, it is common sense and necessary for national survival.
With people who are moved by the pledge of the refugees it must be possible to find solutions that provide a decent life and future for the refugees without preventing a two-state solution. To the people who use the refugee issue with the political agenda of destroying Israel as a Jewish state, it should be made clear that they are not only hurting Israel, but also the Palestinians and their future.