After a little hedging, Soysauce made this claim:
I have a position. I demand respect for international law which means full right of return. If the refugees want to settle for less than what is entitled to them as a basic human right, I will not stand in their way. That is their right. Is that clear?
Leaving aside the question of whether or not international law requires full right of return, to demand such a thing is nothing less than demanding that the Knesset dissolve Israel as a Jewish state.
It should be obvious that there are certain political realities that anyone must face if they wish to advocate for a people. Anyone who wishes to advocate for the Palestinian people must recognize the full right of return is entirely a non-starter. The Knesset will never allow any such thing for obvious reasons. It would mean that Jews, yet again, would find themselves a minority whose well-being would be entirely dependent upon the good will of the majority. It would mean that after 2,000 years of exiles and pogroms and persecutions, all leading to the Holocaust, the Jews would give up on self-determination and self-defense and throw themselves on the mercy of other people.
This clearly is not going to happen.
Posted by Karmafish
lets not forget that the Palestinian Arabs are not innocent of the Holocaust! Al-Husseini, whom Arafat called a hero, wanted a death camp in Nablus, sent boats going to Eretz Israel back to Europe where they died in death (not mere concentration) camps, and recruited for Hitler.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I suggest to all to post Benvenisti's essay on "right of return," and why what the Palestinians ask is not at all demanded in international law. Plus Matt Kalman gives a great essay. Google their essays.
Also, I urge all to mention how Greeks never demanded a return right to Turkey, Turks not to Greece, and with Hindus and Muslims in regard to India or Pakistan, and especially the Germans of Eastern Europe.
Here is the thing I have noticed about people like Soysauce.
ReplyDeleteThey say things like "respect for international law" but they cite to no source defending their interpretation of "international law."
They do the same for history. It is amazing to me how many people ignore or rewrite historical events. I don't know if it was soysauce or not, but someone was actually pushing the meme that Israel was created because of Holocaust guilt, ignoring the almost 100 years of Jewish settlement in Israel.
Another point that I have been thinking about a lot. These people love to talk about "being removed from the land." But if that is the argument they are going to make, isn't it true that long before something called Palestinians existed, Jews were forcibly removed from the land. Aren't Palestinians living in the region because it was stolen from Jews? If it is a question of who stole what land from whom, wouldn't that actually argue in favor of the settlers who claim to retake Judea and Samaria which were both originally Jewish lands?
This is why that argument does not go anywhere. They want to try to claim the land based on moral grounds by ignoring the fact that they stole it first. By ignoring that, they seek the moral high road. I have always thought it more productive to recognize that both sides have legitimate claims to the land. Something our opponents never seem to recognize. Only one side is ever asked to be reasonable. Only one side is ever asked to give anything up.
Regards,
DKW
Soy is claiming that I misrepresented her statement.
ReplyDeleteI do not understand that, as I quoted her directly.
Does not "full right of return" mean that Palestinian refugees would all be allowed to move to Israel and would that not mean the dissolution of Israel as a Jewish state?
Krissy,
ReplyDeleteYou are touching on an exceedingly touchy subject. The Arabs of the Mandate did side with the Nazis during WWII. Al-Husseini was directly responsible for the deaths of thousands of Jewish children.
But this is just precisely the kind of thing that if it were mentioned on dKos would likely cause the furies to go wild. What we need is better sourcing for this kind of thing.
Do any of you guys know of some good studies or good websites that discuss this? Books?
Oh, and btw, I call them "Arabs of the Mandate" because my understanding is that the word "Palestinian" referred to anyone living there at the time, Christian, Muslim, or Jew.
Just when did the Palestinians start referring to themselves, or start being referred to, as Palestinians? The question of identity is also very touchy. Just as I hate it when people try to undermine Jewish identity so they, and rightly so, hate it when anyone seeks to undermine Palestinian identity.
My question, nonetheless, is just how old is Palestinian identity? Did the Palestinians of '48 think of themselves as "Palestinians"? Did Palestinian self-identity emerge later or earlier? My understanding is that, for the most part, the Palestinians only started thinking of themselves as Palestinians after '67, but I am uncertain of this. I may very well be wrong.
Source material for this is also important.
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ReplyDeleteKarma, all you gotta do is post the pictures of the Mufti with Hitler and with Himmler, the Mufti recruiting Bosniaks to the SS, saluting them, etc. There are many good books, and even the sources confirm this in them. The Mufti even had an autobiography or memoirs I think. Plus, Dersh points out some good Edward Said quotes on him in youTube videos. Ed Said's books even reaffirm the Mufti's position.
ReplyDeleteAlso, you can point out, about Palestinian identity, that all thruout time until the 1960s, at the Peel Commission, the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry, the partition, leading Arabs from Palestine did say "we are part of greater syria."
Here's an interesting article:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3248081,00.html
What exactly are the descendants of the actual refugees going to return to? I'm talking about the children and grandchildren and great grandchildren who never stepped foot in what is now Israel. They know it only through stories, and if you plunked one of them down 100 yards from where grandpa's house was, I doubt they could find it. That is, if it's even still there. If the home, or even the entire village is no longer there, does international law (a dubious concept at that) require it to be rebuilt? And if all that is necessary is that they be relocated somewhere in what is now Israel, why is that any different from them being relocated a few miles away in what will be Palestine?
ReplyDeletenever in history, Paul, has "international law demanded it. It didn't demand it in East Prussia and the Sudetenland, didn't demand it in India and Pakistan, and will not demand it in Israel/"Greater Syria/Jordan". Tho if you look at the Cyprus case, conpensation is a method which can be used. Some say that is a good model for the I/P. Israel is a sovereign state with self-determination. Read Benvenisti's essay on RoR or Matthew Kalman's essays on it. This RoR does not exist.
ReplyDeleteThere is no 'international law' in the world which supports this supposed 'right of return.'
ReplyDeleteIt's not Palestinian land, it's Israeli land. The Palestinians never had a state, and never will have a state (as both Fatah and Hamas desire Jewish annihilation, and not a state).
Question to ask those who believe in the mythical 'Palestinian state' malarcky: what was the currency of this state? Who was the president/sultan/kaiser/tsar/prime minister? Can such a thing be pointed to? The answer is no, as there never was a Palestinian state in the history of the world. (with the exception of a Christian Crusader state, but that hardly counts)
Not only was there never a 'Palestinian state,' but Palestinians themselves were complicit in the Holocaust (as already mentioned), and turned down the state they were offered in 1947. They turned down this state and lost a war they waged upon Israel.
Never before has the loser of a war been guaranteed a state and a 'right of return.'
This is a made up right for a made up nationality.