These are some of the moral principles that apply to aspects of Americans' responsibility toward Palestinian refugees:
   1. OWNERSHIP is the right freely to possess, use and dispose of a thing as one's own unless otherwise hindered. Civil laws and others' rights, such as eminent domain, squatters' rights, and easements, limit owners' rights.
   2. Nature is the primary source of owners' rights. Experience teaches that human nature being what it is, common ownership of property for production or individual use is impractical and more harmful than helpful.
   3. Sustaining human life is the first priority of earth's resources. Thus one in extreme need may take barely enough of another's goods to relieve it. But there must be no other way of getting what is needed. One may not take from one in an equally extreme need.
   4. Civil law is a secondary source of owners' rights because the natural law does not specify these rights in detail. If the civil law is moral, it helps specify not only the legal right to property but also the moral right to it. If a particular civil law is immoral it is not a true law regarding its immoral aspects. In those aspects, that civil law is invalid because contradicted by a higher law of nature.
   5. Property such as roads and village grazing lands, held in common, that is, by a moral (legal) person, ordinarily belong morally and ultimately to those for whose use they were primarily meant, even if held legally by the state.
   6. The true owner of a property has a moral right to it regardless of who possesses it. The owner has a right to its fruits; no one else has a right to gain from that property.
   7. For property to be considered abandoned and thus unowned, it must be abandoned freely. Goods lost in disasters are not considered abandoned unless the owner, including heirs, can no longer be determined.
   8. a. If one in good faith takes possession of another's property without buying it, then so improves it that the work is more valu-able than the original object, the final product belongs to the one doing the work. But the original owner, if found, must be paid for what the object was worth before the work began. If the work is less valuable than the original object it still belongs to the original owner, who must reimburse the finder for his work and costs.
      b. If the object was stolen, civil law often states that it be returned to its original owner and denies the worker compensation. Moral law judges each case on its merits to be fair to both parties.
      c. If one in good faith builds on another's land, the structure belongs to the landowner, who must reimburse the builder. If the builder builds in bad faith, civil law often denies compensation. Moral law judges each case on its own merits.
   9. INJUSTICE violates one's strict, personal right. The gravity of injustice depends on both the personal and societal harm.
   10. Robbery (theft or stealing) is taking a thing against its owner's will with the intent of keeping it for oneself or of passing it on to another.
   11. Unjust harm results either from damaging someone's property or from hindering someone from gaining something that he/she has a right to, in an unjust way, even if one gains nothing from doing so. Unjust ways include force, fear, fraud, bribery, dishonest competition and criminal negligence.
   If one in good faith does an act which could harm another, he would be unjust not to stop the harm when he learns of it, if he himself would not incur a proportionately serious harm by stop-ping it.
   12. Restitution is returning goods which another lost by a violation of personal justice. It is due for both wrongful possession and unjust harm.
   13. Restitution for wrongful possession: A possessor in bad faith must a) return stolen goods and their natural fruits, and b) repair all of the harm which he foresaw at least indistinctly would result from his acts. A possessor in bad faith may keep the fruits of his labor and deduct his necessary and truly useful expenses.
      a. The object itself must be returned even if its value has greatly increased since the owner lost possession of it. Mere finan-cial compensation is not enough unless the owner freely agrees.
      b. Both stolen property and other losses incurred from robbery must be reimbursed fully.
      c. Bad-faith possessors include whoever later gets the property, knowing it to be stolen.
   14. A possessor in doubtful faith - whoever seriously doubts his true ownership of an object - must make reasonable efforts to solve the doubt. These must be proportionate to the object's value, the doubt's seriousness, and the hope of solving it.
   15. Restitution for unjust harm: Reparation is required either because of the act directly causing the harm or because of unjust cooperation.
   16. Reparation for direct causation: Reparation is required if the act causing the harm was itself unjust in the strict sense. This includes using unjust means to prevent someone from gaining something that one may lawfully acquire. The act must be the harm's real and effective cause. Thus no duty of reparation flows from an act which is only a) the occasion of some harm, or b) even a necessary condition, or c) the accidental cause of the harm. Thus one is not obliged to reparation if money that he loaned in good faith is used to cheat others.
      a. If one is in doubt whether his act has caused harm he need not make reparation.
      b. The act must be consciously and willfully unjust. The unjust intent may consist either in the resolve to do harm or in willful neglect. Harm caused by one's work must be repaired if ordered by a court, even if the injustice was not willful.
      c. If the injustice is not deliberate but there is a legal fault, one is morally obliged to compensate if ordered to by a court, for example, for breaking safety codes. One is liable for the harm he voluntarily caused, even if he regrets this after he activated the cause and then could not stop its harmful effects. If one involuntarily causes harm while committing a morally wrong act, he is not morally liable for this harm.
      d. The gravity of the duty to make reparation: One has a morally serious duty to make reparation for doing grave harm if he realized that the act was seriously wrong morally and yet willfully did it. If he did not realize this, he still has a moral duty to make reparation but it is not as morally serious.
      e. The amount of reparation: One must repair all of the harm he foresaw at least indistinctly.
   17. Reparation for unjust cooperation: The duty requires that the act a) be unjust, b) actually cause the harm, and c) be willfully wrong morally.
      a. Whoever commands another to do an injustice is morally obliged to repair all the harm.
      b. Whoever counsels an injustice is morally obliged to repair the harm in as far as by one's counsel one effectively persuaded another to do the unjust act, or showed him how to do it. Thus there would be no effective influence and no duty to make reparation if the one counselled had already decided to act unjustly and acted on his own initiative. A counsellor is not responsible for damage caused beyond what he counselled.
      c. Whoever by consent with another culpably does unjust harm is an effective abettor of injustice and morally bound to make reparation. It must be proportionate to the effect of his con-sent. Thus one consenting to vote unjustly owes reparation. But whoever consents to an unlawful act in order to avoid a greater evil which cannot otherwise be avoided is not bound to reparation.
      d. Whoever by praise or blame moves someone to do an injustice or who deters someone from making obligatory reparation, has the same duty of reparation as an unjust counsellor.
      e. Whoever shelters a culprit or receives or hides stolen goods is morally bound to reparation to the extent that he effectively aids the injustice. This is not the case if one shields a thief because of friendship or to avoid great harm otherwise.
      f. Whoever positively cooperates in an unjust harmful act must repair its harm 1) if his effective cooperation is willful, or 2) if it is unwillful, that is, done despite the foreseen harm, but without sufficient reason. Immediate cooperation in harming prop-erty because of grave fear is justified 1) if one intends to make reparation and is able to do so, or 2) if the harm will be done without his help, or 3) if he himself would otherwise suffer very grave harm, such as death. Mediate cooperation in injustice is jus-tified if a proportionately grave reason for the cooperation (proximate or remote) is present. Thus, remote necessary cooperation or proximate free cooperation is justifiable to avoid an equivalent harm; remote cooperation is lawful even to avoid small harm.
      g. Negative cooperation: One is morally bound to make reparation who by his job is in justice obliged to prevent injustice, but instead is silent or offers no resistance to the evildoer, or does not denounce him although he could without great inconvenience. Thus a delegate who wrongfully abstains from voting and so does not avert an avoidable injustice is bound to make reparation.
   18. Reparation for harm to life and health: Reparation must be made for temporal harm related to unjust loss of life and health. Thus, reparation must be made to a murder victim's family members for the harm done to them.
   19. The order of precedence among those who must make repa-ration: First, whoever possesses another's property or its equivalent. The next one obliged is whoever commanded the injustice; then whoever executed the orders; then all positive cooperators (by counsel, consent, etc.), and finally the negative cooperators.
   If whoever is primarily bound to make reparation does so, those secondarily obliged are free. If the primary agent is excused the secondaries are thereby also excused, but not vice versa. If the secondaries make reparation, the primary agent must compensate them. If several people owe reparation in the same degree and one pays it all, the others must pay him. If the one to whom reparation is due excuses one debtor from his pro rata duty, the rest are not thereby freed from their duty.
   20. The amount to be restored if there are several cooperators:
      a. The whole injustice must be repaired by whoever was the effective agent of the entire harm. He is absolutely obliged to repair the entire harm; that is, whoever alone is the principal cause of the entire harm, must, independently of others, repair all of it. This duty falls on whoever commanded or counselled for his own advantage. If he (or they) default, the other cooperators are bound in the order in #19. But they may require payment from whoever was primarily obliged.
      b. Each cooperator has a conditional duty to repair all of the harm if the others who are coequal agents fail to make reparation for their share. (Agents are coequal if each one's part is sufficient to cause the entire harm.) If one makes reparation alone, he may demand payment from the others. One is judged a cause of all of the harm equally with others if it flows from a strict conspiracy or could have been done only with his help. This is not the case if his help was neither necessary nor of itself enough to cause the harm.
      c. Whoever was the agent of only part of the harm is morally obliged to repair only that part. In case of doubt the agent can be held morally responsible only for the harm he certainly caused. Thus he cannot be morally obliged to make total restitution if it is uncertain that he was the sole agent of all of the injustice, or if there is reason to think that the other agents will pay their share.
   21. Reparation must be so made that justice is restored fully and as soon as possible. "Justice delayed is justice denied."
   22. Causes which excuse from reparation:
      a. Voluntary renunciation by the victim or voluntary settlement between him and the debtor.
      b. Physical or moral impossibility postpones the duty and remits it if the impossibility is perpetual. Reparation is morally impossible if it would put the debtor in very grave need.