The One Key Palestinian Demand

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The Right of Return

It became clear to most negotiators in the Middle East Peace Process in 1993 that large-scale talks with Arab nations could not work. A deal between the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Israel would be the only way. 

So in 1993, Israel recognized the PLO as a single negotiating partner (which they hadn’t before); and likewise the PLO accepted Israel. The American negotiating team was jubilant: “Anything, everything seemed possible!” said the American Secretary of State.
Oh, yes, what a great thing—to negotiate directly with the PLO.  

Well, here it is—2020, and “we” are still trying and begging the Palestinians to negotiate in good faith.
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The one key stumbling block is called “The Right of Return.”
The people who would supposedly benefit are the Palestinian Refugees from the War of 1948. And where do they live now? In many nations around the world. All of them would be invited to immigrate to the Holy Land!

Now in 2020, four generations later, the Palestinians are still declaring that there will be no peace until a “Right of Return” is put into effect…giving all Palestinians, world-wide, their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren the right to return to live where their ancestors lived in 1948.

So what would that do to the Jewish State of Israel? It would quickly be a state no longer. It would cease to exist; because any land the Palestinians control is out-of-bounds to Jews. This happened when Israel moved out of Gaza.

Yet in that War of 1948, the Palestinians were the aggressors against the Jewish People who were by the declarations of both the League of Nations and the United Nations to have Palestine as their homeland.  

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Such a demand has never been made by any other nation or empire which lost a war in which they were the aggressors.
(NOTE: That War of 1948 actually began in 1947 by the Palestinians alone, the Arab states following later.)    

Thus, the Palestinians are living in a fantasyland. And those who continually act on the basis that peace might be attained through offering land to the Palestinians are in a fog.

EXAMPLES OF WAR REFUGEES

Tens of millions of people became refugees in the 20th century because of the major wars and the displacement of peoples.
EXAMPLE #1: Think of the Germans who lived in adjacent countries who, after World War II were forced to leave their homes with nothing but what they could carry to Germany. Germany lost, and the Germans could not choose to live where they wanted…. 12.5 million Germans were forced to leave Czechoslovakia and Poland. They were expelled, and Germany resettled and integrated them.
EXAMPLE #2: After the war and partitioning of India and Pakistan in 1947, eight million Hindus fled from Pakistan and the six million Muslims who left India had to resettle as part of a massive population transfer.
There was no “Right of Return” to their residences.

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Reasons not to allow the Palestinian Right of Return to Israel:

FIRST: Arab Palestinian so-called refugees have no real interest in living in peace beside the Jews. They would return simply to overpopulate the Israeli state, destroying the very Jewish character of the country and eventually prohibiting the Israelis from governing.

SECONDLY: It is the Palestinians who started the war. They were the aggressors. They were hate-filled and determined to kill or oust the Jews.

THIRDLY: many of the Israelis whom they were fighting had been refugees themselves from North Africa and Europe—nearly a half million from North Africa alone. They were usually expelled without their possessions. That's how the Jews were treated under Arab governments. 

But the “Right of Return” is held out as the right of Arab-Palestinians, and they want it guaranteed…today…in 2020.     

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"The Arab States do not want to solve the refugee problem. They want to keep it as an open sore as an affront to the United Nations and as a weapon against Israel. Arab leaders don’t care whether the refugees live or die." —Sir Alexander Galloway, former head of UNRWA in Jordan (April 1952)
 
To bring us up to date….and incredible as it seems, the Palestinians even today are insisting that all descendants of the refugees from the War of 1948 be allow to return to Palestine/Israel. It’s insane!

NOTE: We are now in the 5th generation of all the descendants of all the Palestinian refugees of that war!

​NOTE TOO: Following other major wars, the aggressors who lost were given no rights.  
But, most of the world, including Europe, the U. S. State Department and most American Jews, want to keep efforts alive to make a deal with the Palestinian Liberation Organization.

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NOTE THIS NEW DEVELOPMENT: The recent press release from the White House announcing the Israel-United Arab Emirates peace deal:   
     As a result of this diplomatic breakthrough and at the request of President Trump with the             support of the United Arab Emirates, Israel will suspend declaring sovereignty over areas                 outlined in the President’s Vision for Peace and focus its efforts now on expanding ties with            other countries in the Arab and Muslim world.

Something happened. Someone intervened. Who is it that has undermined the Annexation Plan whereby Israel would designate certain areas of the West Bank to be ruled by Israeli law and thereby be Israeli territory? Part of it would be the all-important-for-security Jordan Valley. From whom did this come?  It is someone important, not only as an advisor for the president on the Middle East, but someone in his family—someone who wants to be the author of the ever-so-elusive Peace Plan between the Palestinians and Israel. 

And that would be Jason Greenblatt, the son-in-law of President Trump.

“Mr. Greenblatt, it isn’t going to work." Why? Because the Palestinians will not give up on their demand to incorporate the “Right of Return” into any peace agreement.

The famed journalist and author, Caroline Glick, said this:
In multiple statements….Kushner has repeatedly said that the deal [with the UAE] was born from the UAE’s desire to prevent Netanyahu from implementing the sovereignty plan.
 
The one key Palestinian demand is unreasonable—the right of everyone worldwide who claims to be a descendant of those who left their homes in Israel….to return. But Mr. Kushner and aides--and most American Jews—believe that pushing another peace plan is to be preferred to the Annexation Plan. 

And it is, they believe, more important than the Chosen People gaining more of the land allocated to them by the Lord God. 

But the Lord is at hand and in due time will, as in 1967, further enrich His Chosen Ones and enlarge the place of their habitation.   

                                              “Teach me, O Lord, the way of your statutes;
                                                             and I will keep it to the end.
                                           Give me understanding, that I may keep your law
                                                    and observe it with my whole heart….
                                              Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things,
                                                             and give me life in your ways.
                                                    Confirm to your servant your promise
                                                               that you may be feared.”
                                                       -- Psalms 119:33-34, 37-38 (ESV)

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