This article examines the Palestinian discourse of property and ownership in its Israeli-Palestinian context. It deconstructs and reconstructs this discourse in the cultural sense by analysing Palestinian autobiographical narratives of return visits to urban homes. Set in two historical moments (post-1967 and the 1990s) in which Palestinian return visits to former homes, neighbourhoods and cities became widespread, this article is centred on three thematic sections. The first deals with rhetorical and symbolic practices articulating Palestinian ownership vis-à-vis the present Israeli-Jewish owners, emphasising the role of the Palestinian returning visitor in the act of reclamation. The second section examines the encounter between "diachronic neighbours" and the chain of dispossession that has been in operation in the broader Jewish-Palestinian context, centring on the relationship between past and present occupants. Finally, the third section elaborates on the idea of the Palestinian-turned-Israeli home as palimpsest, exposing various layers of past and present occupation and ownership and placing the house itself in the focus. This section is followed by a discussion of the overall effect of this ownership and property discourse on Palestinian identity-making in its individual, communal and national senses, highlighting its significance in any future resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Israel return Dispossession Palestine Property 20th century

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