What binding law establishes a palestinian "right of return". Even if there was a law. who the hell is going to enforce it?

* The Right to Return has a solid legal basis. The United Nations adopted Resolution 194 on December 11, 1948. Paragraph 11 states: "...the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date... compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return. Resolution 194 was affirmed practically every year since with a universal consensus, except for Israel and the U.S. The resolution was further clarified by UN General Assembly Resolution 3236 which reaffirms in Subsection 2, "the inalienable right of the Palestinians to return to their homes and property from which they have been displaced and uprooted, and calls for their return". Hindering return is an act of aggression, which deserves action by the Security Council. Israel's admission to the UN were conditional on its acceptance of relevant UN resolutions including 194.

* The Right to Return does not derive its validity merely from UN Resolutions. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights article 13 reaffirms the right of every individual to leave and return to his country. Moreover, the Principle of Self Determination guarantees, inter alia, the right of ownership and domicile in one's own country. The UN adopted this principle in 1947. In 1969 and thereafter, it was explicitly applied to the Palestinian People, including "the legality of the Peoples' struggle for Self-Determination and Liberation", (GAOR 2535 (xxiv), 2628 (xxv), 2672 (xxv), 2792 (xxvi)). International law demands that neither occupation nor sovereignty diminish the rights of private ownership. When the Ottomans surrendered in 1920, Palestinian ownership of the land was maintained. The land and property of "the refugees" remains their own and they are entitled to return to it.

* Research not only shows that the right of refugees to return is sacred and legal but also possible. Demographic studies show that 78% of Israelis live in 14 percent of Israel and that the remaining 22% live on 86% of the land that belongs to the refugees. Further, of the 22%, 20% live in cities while the remaining 2% live in kibbutzim and moshavs. Approximately 5,000 refugees live per square kilometer in the Gaza Strip, while over the barbed wire their lands are practically empty.

You are talking about a right enshrined in international law that is binding and specific to all peoples over the planet.

Therefore it couldn't possibily be refering to israelis as well, as everybody knows that they are above all laws not specifically beneficial to them.

Actually [their] god told them it was alright and [their] holy books tell them it is their duty to get one over on the goyim - so give it up.

The only way to get something from israel that it doesn't want to give is by *******!

Better not say what everybody knows to be true - that kind of truth upsets the delicate, sensitive, special and chosen people.

the state of israel was not only based on the idea of a right of return, but on the idea that the jews needed a state to escape from attempts at genocide against them. hardly the case of the palestinians. making comparisons is stupid. and if the descendants of palestinians refugees can return in mass, why not the discendants of ten milion indian and pakistanis who fled after 1948? why not the descendants of one milion germans who were kicked out of czechoslovakia and poland after the second world war? no one thinks they can. but with israel, it's different

At a time of increasing Pro-Palestinian sentiment in Europe people very often forget the other refugees. Hundreds of thousands of Jews from Arab countries either left or were forced out and their property was stolen from them. The combined value of their stolen houses have been estimated at 50 times more than Palestinian losses in the first Arab war against Israel in 1948. Although its rarely mentioned in the British media, compensation for these people will be a major factor in future Israeli-Arab peace deals. A first step did come with the warming of relations with Libya recently, when Gaddafi's son went on record to say that Jews forced out of Libya should be compensated.

'cause it was necessary for the political and economic future[sic] of shitty little israel

mossad did

good to see the comparisons with other refugee problems

caused by facists and genocidal imperial dreams

recognising the simularities no doubt

I'd laugh, but now its time to polish the **** [censored for the sake of the lilly livered]

Voice of common sense seems to have no common sense. The Nazi holocaust was a terrible crime and Jews have a right to return or compensation from those stes involved. Thats the point. The right is universal and held to be true and equal for all. However the Nazi holocaust was not committed by the Palestinians or the Arabs in general. In fact many Palestinians died under the British mandate fighting the Nazis to save the lives of Jews.

The Israel state is not therefore and never has been empowered to do whatever it likes and the more it flouts international agreements and treaties, the less a surpise it is when illegal acts are committed against it in response.


One historian writes...

'An overwhelming body of data now clearly demonstrate how and why the catastrophic situation of Palestinian refugees was created and perpetuated by Zionist colonization and expansion. This history is now even accepted by most leading Zionist intellectuals. The refusal to remedy the situation remains anchored in racist and suprematict insistance on the desire for a homogenous "Jewish state." Afterall, research showed that the right of refugees to return back to their homes and lands is not only legal and right but also feasible. People have lived together and will continue to live together with or without refugees returning. An evolution of Israeli society into a pluralistic and democratic state is bound to occur with or without refugees returning. However, a lasting peace cannot be achieved without at least giving the refugees the choice as sanctioned by basic human rights and international laws and treaties. Real choice is afterall consistent with basic human rights, real freedom, and self determination.'

Full article
 http://al-awda.org/therefugeeprimer/

hey look, the jews having a right to return after the holocaust wouldn't have meant the people of europe having to flee, but the palestinians returning will mean the jews having to flee. and the palestinians didn't fight against the nazis. in fact the mufti of jerusalem, who at the time was the leader of the palestinians in the same way arafat is their leader now, met hitler in berlin in 1942 and asked him to invade the middle east to kick out the english and the jews. this is documented and true. and hitler had real popular support throughout the arab world
and the israelis do not refuse to solve the situation because of a racist view of the world, but becasue they're frightend of what will happen if the palestinians "return": violence and bloodshed

Granted Hussieni was a nazi supporter. But he was obviously not a good representative of the Palestinian people. He was placed there as the leader by the British occupiers, not elected or brought to power by democratic means. He would kill Palestinians who sought to find peace with the Jewish communities in Palestine and was eventually thrown out in 1937.

Yes-before you mention it- I know his nephew is Yasser Arafat but George W Bushs tycoon grandfather was prosecuted for collaborating with the nazis and gW is the greatest supporter of Israel going (what does that tell you?). The UK royal family also has close connection with the Nazis at this time but this doesnt stop the war with germany taking place.

Please dont judge people by their 'leaders' or their leaders relatives. This is called collective punishment and is rightly a war crime under the Geneva convention.

Some of the attitudes here are so ignorant its scary. People keep mentioning the jews having a right to return after the holocaust. Well that a very decent offer, but it wont be taken up because most of them were murdered in concentration camps.

More on the abolition of the Palestinian right of return
and who is responsible..


Financial Times.

Backroom bureaucrat played key role in US deal with Israel

By James Harding in Washington

Published: April 16 2004 20:29

When George W. Bush was in Britain last November, one of the president's aides was quietly dispatched to Rome for a discreet meeting.

Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister, was in Italy and took the opportunity to relay to Mr Bush his plan for unilateral disengagement from the Palestinians. The official the White House sent was Elliott Abrams.

In shaping the Bush administration's historic and highly controversial decision this week to endorse Mr Sharon's Middle East vision, Mr Abrams, the National Security Council official chiefly responsible for Arab-Israeli relations, has played a central, if largely unseen, role.

This does not overstate his influence. Mr Abrams has worked in a trio on Middle East policy that has included his superior, Stephen Hadley, the deputy national security adviser, and William Burns, the State Department official in charge of Middle East policy.

Israeli and US officials also say that the individuals who forged this week's policy were the protagonists: Mr Sharon and Mr Bush.

Mr Abrams' role, according to a senior administration official, was to "carry out what the president wants". In 10 weeks of consultations before this week's announcement, US officials made three trips to see Mr Sharon and his staff and there were two visits from Israeli delegations to the White House.

Mr Abrams and his colleagues, the official said, were "kept on a short leash. [They] were not dreaming up policy."

The Israeli prime minister was one of the few international figures with whom Mr Bush had a relationship before he became president: Mr Sharon was his guide to Israel in 1998 when he was Texas governor.

"I had the honour of traveling the West Bank with Ariel Sharon by helicopter," Mr Bush told an audience at the Republican Jewish Coalition in 1999. "You can imagine what it was like to be given a history lesson by this great warrior and hero of freedom and democracy."

Mr Sharon also had praise this week for Mr Bush.

"I myself have been fighting terror for many years, and understand the threats and cost from terrorism," he said. "In all these years, I have never met a leader as committed as you are, Mr President, to the struggle for freedom and the need to confront terrorism wherever it exists."

These words, say some Middle East experts, may resonate favourably for Mr Bush among Jewish and conservative Christian voters in an election year. Martin Indyk, the former US ambassador to Israel, says: "The president is in a tight spot and Jewish votes matter, particularly in some key states such as Florida, Pennsylvania and Ohio."

The White House insists election year politics did not play a part. "The poll data suggest that there is hardly anything that a Republican president can do to move his support among the Jewish community," the senior administration official says.

But to appreciate the internal intellectual argument within the White House for supporting the Sharon plan, diplomats and officials generally agree with a former US official who says: "Elliott was instrumental."

It was Mr Abrams, a senior White House official says, who reasoned that Mr Bush should not be bound by "myths and taboos". It was not helpful for Arab and Palestinian leaders to continue to perpetuate the "myth" that Palestinian refugees would one day return to their homes in Israel.

It was important to create the precedent of withdrawal from the settlements, the official says, rather than making settlements untouchable. And, the official says, it was important to get things moving when there had been no progress since last August.

Mr Abrams, a Reagan official implicated in the Iran-Contra affair, in 1991 admitted withholding information from Congress. He was sentenced to two years' probation and community service.

In the years after he was pardoned by President George H. W. Bush, Mr Abrams wrote a book calling for Jews to return to their faith to stem assimilation. He also helped found the Project for the New American Century, a neo-conservative think-tank that included Dick Cheney, now vice-president, Donald Rumsfeld, defence secretary, and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz.

Mr Abrams supported Mr Sharon, a leader, he once wrote, who knows "the road to peace lies through strength instead of weakness". He is seen as one of the most effective operators in modern American government.

"Elliott Abrams is one of the best bureaucratic artists in Washington. He has traditionally taken bureaucratic positions and turned them into strong positions, because he reads the president and knows what he wants," says Jon Alterman, who was on the State Department's policy and planning staff.

"Elliott Abrams is the person who got the Middle East to talk about reform. [The US] cannot micromanage the universe, but you can force items on to the agenda. He has done a masterful job of that."

ok about before I wasn't tryng to say that the palestinians were all nazis just that they didn't fight against the nazis to save the jews as someone bizarely said before