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Forum Post: Palestinian refugees can and should have the right of return.

Posted 11 years ago on April 3, 2012, 7:53 p.m. EST by ShubeLMorgan2 (1088) from New York, NY
This content is user submitted and not an official statement

FACTSHEET Updated November 1, 2010

THE RIGHT TO RETURN, A BASIC RIGHT STILL DENIED*

• Palestinian refugees represent the longest suffering and largest refugee population in the world today.

• In 2005, there were approximately 7.2 million Palestinian refugees, equivalent to about 70% of the entire Palestinian population which is estimated at 10.7 million worldwide.

• The breakdown of the refugee population is as follows:

During the creation of the Zionist state in 1948, approximately three quarters of a million Palestinians were forced to become refugees. Together with their descendants, more than 4.3 million of these refugees are today registered with the United Nations while over 1.7 million are not. According to The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), one-third of the registered refugees live in 59 U.N.-run camps in Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria, and in the West Bank and Gaza Strip sections of Palestine. The majority of the rest live in and around cities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and of neighboring countries. Approximately 32,000 Palestinians also became internally displaced in the areas occupied in 1948. Today, these refugees number approximately 355,000 persons. Despite the fact that they were issued Israeli citizenship, the Zionist state has also denied these refugees their right to return to their homes or villages. When the West Bank and Gaza Strip were occupied in 1967, the U.N. reported that approximately 200,000 Palestinians fled their homes. These 1967 refugees and their descendants today number about 834,000 persons. As a result of home demolitions, revocation of residency rights and construction of illegal settlements on stolen Palestinian owned-land, at least 57,000 Palestinians have become displaced in the occupied West Bank. This number includes 15,000 persons so far displaced by the construction of Israel's Annexation/Apartheid Wall. • The Right to Return has a solid legal basis:

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights article 13 affirms: "Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and return to his country." The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination [Article 5 (d)(ii)], states: "State parties undertake to prohibit and to eliminate racial discrimination on all its forms and to guarantee the right of everyone, without distinction as to race, color, or national or ethnic origin, to equality before the law, notably in the enjoyment of ... the right to leave any country, including one's own, and to return to one's country." The International Convention on Civil and Political Rights [Article 12(4)], states: "No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of the right to enter his own 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 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.

• In 1948, the international community felt a deep sense of responsibility for the mass dispossession, ethnic cleansing and the Zionist transfer policy that began then. United Nations Mediator Count Folke Bernadotte, who was later assassinated by a Zionist terrorist hit squad, stated: "It would be an offence against the principles of elemental justice if these innocent victims of the conflict were denied the right to return to their homes, while Jewish immigrants flow into Palestine" (UN Doc Al 648, 1948). This remains true today as any Jew, regardless of national origin, can gain automatic citizenship while Palestinian Arabs are denied their right to return to their own homeland.

• Consistent with International Law, The United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 194 on December 11, 1948. Paragraph 11 states: "the [Palestinian] 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, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible."

• UN General Assembly Resolution 194 has been affirmed by the UN over 110 times since its introduction in 1948 with universal consensus except for Israel and the U.S. This resolution was further clarified by UN General Assembly Resolution 3236 which reaffirms in Subsection 2: "the inalienable right of Palestinians to return to their homes and property from which they have been displaced and uprooted, and calls for their return."

• Israel's admission to the UN was conditional on its acceptance of UN resolutions including 194. Denying the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and lands is a war crime and an act of aggression which deserves action by the international community. The international community can apply sanctions on Israel until it complies with international law.

• The right of refugees to return is not only sacred and legal but also possible. Demographic studies show that 80% of Israelis live in 15 percent of the land and that the remaining 20% live on 85% of the land that belongs to the refugees. Further, of the 20%, 18% live in Palestinian cities while the remaining 2% live in kibbutzim and moshavs. By contrast, more than 6,000 refugees live per square kilometer in the Gaza Strip, while over the barbed wire their lands are practically empty. Ninety seven percent of the entire refugee population currently lives within 100 km of their homes. Fifty percent live within 40 km. While many live within sight of their homes.

• The inalienable rights of refugees are not negotiable. International law considers agreements between an occupier and the occupied to be null and void if they deprive civilians of recognized human rights including the rights to repatriation and restitution.

• The US is bound by its laws not to fund regimes that violate human rights and basic freedoms. There is no more elemental right than one's right to his/her home and to live in his/her land. The US could use the leverage of the massive financial support it gives to the State of Israel to press for this right.

*Sources:

Dr. Salman Abu Sitta Palestine Land Society Badil Resource Center for Refugee Rights United Nations Relief and Works Agency

Download fact sheet (need acrobat? Download from Adobe.com) See also: FAQs on Refugees and Al Awda's Points of Unity

Further reading: Encyclopedia of the Palestine Problem From Refugees To Citizens At Home The Question of Palestine and the United Nations History of the Palestine Problem

36 Comments

36 Comments


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[-] 1 points by foreeverLeft (-264) 11 years ago

The reason there are 7.5 million 'refugees' from 32 thousand is because they get free shit from world governments, it's a hell of a scam really.

Palestinians serve pretty much the same function as OWS, they are used as a constant foil against Israel, if there were no Palestinians what would be the excuse to have bombed Israel for the last 60 years.

Ows is used by Democrats to keep Obama's failures out of the media, like Travon, Fluke, Catholic forced contraception and all the other stuff they will create for the news cycle between now and the election. Anything but Obama!

Your masters in the elite are very proud of you, keep up the good work! :)

[-] 2 points by ShubeLMorgan2 (1088) from New York, NY 11 years ago

The original displacement of Palestinians resulted in three quarters of a million refugees outside of Palestine, not 32,000. Things happen in the world, the media sometimes report them and sometimes they don't, and other times they misreport. As long as the Palestine refugees are not settled in a just manner there will not be peace.

[-] -1 points by foreeverLeft (-264) 11 years ago

Exactly my point, the 'just manner' is the eradication of Israel. Palestinians are not refugees, they are political tools, like OWS. After the election OWS will be just a footnote to history, a gathering of fools. :)

[-] 2 points by ShubeLMorgan2 (1088) from New York, NY 11 years ago

Justice would call for the right of return for the refugees with fair compensation for those who choose not to return and full rights in the countries where they reside if they want to stay where they are.

Israel is in a demographic bind. Modern western oriented Jewish people, like other Europeans, just aren't into having lots of kids. The Jews who are are having lots of kids not into working or going into the army.

http://occupywallst.org/forum/should-us-taxpayers-support-a-bizarre-welfare-cult/

[-] 0 points by foreeverLeft (-264) 11 years ago

Justice would be for these people to stop allowing themselves to be used as political pawns and getting on with their lives. Don't you really get it? Land has nothing to do with it, eternal hatred of Jews has everything to do with it.

It's laughable, 'refugees' for 65 years. :)

[-] 1 points by ShubeLMorgan2 (1088) from New York, NY 11 years ago

I'm sure when they get their stolen homes back they'll laugh just like you do.

[-] 0 points by foreeverLeft (-264) 11 years ago

All land owners were compensated, again, it's never been about the land.

[Removed]

[-] 1 points by bensdad (8977) 11 years ago

and where was the country called "Palestine" ?

[-] 1 points by ShubeLMorgan2 (1088) from New York, NY 11 years ago

Situated at a strategic location between Egypt, Syria and Arabia, and the birthplace of the Abrahamic religions, the region has a long and tumultuous history as a crossroads for religion, culture, commerce, and politics. The region has been controlled by numerous different peoples, including the Ancient Egyptians, Canaanites, Ancient Israelites, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Ancient Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, the Sunni Arab Caliphate, the Shia Fatimid Caliphate, the Crusaders, Ayyubids, Mameluks, Ottomans, the British and modern Israelis and Palestinians. Other terms for the same area include Canaan, Zion, the Land of Israel, Syria Palaestina, Southern Syria, Jund Filastin, Outremer, the Holy Land and the Southern Levant.

[-] 2 points by bensdad (8977) 11 years ago

this is a geographic area - not a country
is there a country or a people called Mt. Everest ?
is there a country or a people called Long Island ?
is there a country or a people called Palestine ?
provocative headline?
It’s more than that. It is the truth.
Truth does not change.
Truth is not relative.
Truth is truth.
If something was true 50 years ago, 40 years ago, 30 years ago, it is still true today.
And the truth is that only 30 years ago, there was very little confusion on this issue of "Palestine".
You might remember the late Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir making the bold political statement:
“There is no such thing as a Palestinian people.”
The statement has been a source of ridicule and derision by Arab propagandists ever since. They love to talk about Golda Meir’s “racism.” They love to suggest she was in historical denial. They love to say her statement is patently false – an intentional lie, a strategic deception – so they say.
What they don’t like to talk about, however, are the very similar statements made by Yasser Arafat and his inner circle of political leadership years after Golda Meir had told the truth –
that there is no distinct Palestinian cultural or national identity.
So, despite the fact that “conventional wisdom” has now proclaimed that there is such a thing as the “Palestinian” people, I’m going to raise those uncomfortable quotations made by Arafat and his henchmen -
when their public-relations guard was down – and made the mistake of telling the truth.
On March 31, 1977, the Dutch newspaper Trouw published an interview with
Palestine Liberation Organization executive committee member Zahir Muhsein. :


”The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians and Palestinians and Syrians and Lebanese.
Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people,
since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a
distinct “Palestinian people” to oppose Zionism. For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan.”


That’s pretty clear, isn’t it? It’s even more specific than Golda Meir’s statement. It reaffirms what I have written on this subject. And it is hardly the only such statement of its kind. Arafat himself made a very definitive and unequivocal statement along these lines as late as 1993. It demonstrates conclusively that the Palestinian nationhood argument is the real strategic deception – one geared to set up the destruction of Israel.


On the same day Arafat signed the Declaration of Principles on the White House lawn in 1993, Arafat said: “Since we cannot defeat Israel in war, we do this in stages. We take any and every territory that we can of Palestine, and establish a soverignty there, and we use it as a springboard to take more. When the time comes, we can get the Arab nations to join us for the final blow against Israel.”


No matter how many people delude themselves that the aspirations for “Palestinian” statehood are genuine and the key to peace in the Middle East, they are still deceiving themselves. In the history of the world, Palestine has never existed as a nation.
The region known as Palestine was ruled alternately by Rome,
by Islamic and Christian crusaders,
by the Ottoman Empire and, briefly,
by the British after World War I.
The British agreed to restore at least part of the land to the Jewish people as their ancestral homeland.
It was never ruled by Arabs as a separate nation.
Why now has it become such a critical priority?
The answer is because of a massive deception campaign and relentless, barbaric terrorism over 40 years.
Golda Meir was telling the truth.
Her statement is validated by the truth of history and by the candid, but not widely circulated,
pronouncements of Arafat and his lieutenants.
Israel and the West must not surrender to terrorism by granting the killers
just what they want – a public relations triumph and a strategic victory.
It’s not too late to say no to terrorism.
It’s not too late to tell the truth about "Palestine". by Joseph Farah

[-] 1 points by Mowat (164) 11 years ago

Thieves are unfair. They take your belongings knowingly. They may feel guilty at doing that, however.

Israelis on the other hand, steal the land and claim it was the "land of our forefathers thousands of years ago." No guilt expressed.

Israel: Compound Unfairness!

How does it feel, O Israelis, knowing you are thieves? I bet you feel good. You are used to being unfair.

God will take Palestine back from you and give it to its rightful owners, the Palestinians. You will see.

[-] 1 points by bensdad (8977) 11 years ago

And how many Arab countries are there ? 22
what percent have have Jews in their parliament?
sorry - I could not hear your answer


And how many Jewish countries are there ? 1
what percent have Arabs in their parliament ? 100%


Zahir Muhsein ? Is he the god you speak of ?
P L O executive committee member Zahir Muhsein said : ”The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians and Palestinians and Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct “Palestinian people” to oppose Zionism. For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan.”

[-] 1 points by MattLHolck (16833) from San Diego, CA 11 years ago

people have still been displaced

[-] 1 points by ShubeLMorgan2 (1088) from New York, NY 11 years ago

Lots of places that were not "always" countries are nations today, and likewise some that were nations are not nations any more. The era around WWI was one of national awakening in many places.

In common usage from 1840 onwards, "Palestine" was used either to describe the Consular jurisdictions of the Western Powers[157] or for a region that extended in the north-south direction typically from Rafah (south-east of Gaza) to the Litani River (now in Lebanon). The western boundary was the sea, and the eastern boundary was the poorly-defined place where the Syrian desert began. In various European sources, the eastern boundary was placed anywhere from the Jordan River to slightly east of Amman. The Negev Desert was not included.[158] The Consuls were originally magistrates who tried cases involving their own citizens in foreign territories. While the jurisdictions in the secular states of Europe had become territorial, the Ottomans perpetuated the legal system they inherited from the Byzantine Empire. The law in many matters was personal, not territorial, and the individual citizen carried his nation's law with him wherever he went.[159]

Capitulatory law applied to foreigners in Palestine. Only Consular Courts of the State of the foreigners concerned were competent to try them. That was true, not only in cases involving personal status, but also in criminal and commercial matters.[160] According to American Ambassador Morgenthau, Turkey had never been an independent sovereignty.[161] The Western Powers had their own courts, marshals, colonies, schools, postal systems, religious institutions, and prisons. The Consuls also extended protections to large communities of Jewish protégés who had settled in Palestine.[162] The Moslem, Christian, and Jewish communities of Palestine were allowed to exercise jurisdiction over their own members according to charters granted to them.

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[-] 0 points by Reneye (118) 11 years ago

Very Important. Please watch this new video before it disappears.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhg0FDt9jJY

[-] 0 points by GirlFriday (17435) 11 years ago

They aren't refugees.

[-] -1 points by ShubeLMorgan2 (1088) from New York, NY 11 years ago

Really? What planet are you on!?- Wait, don't answer.

[-] 1 points by GirlFriday (17435) 11 years ago

They aren't refugees. Period. You are entitled to your own opinion but not your own facts. They were told to leave by whom?

Israel said stay. Israel said come back. Which two nation states have offered citizenship? Why are they the only two nation-states to have done so., Eh?

Pretty simple stuff: Stop with the terrorism and you don't get spanked.

[-] 0 points by ShubeLMorgan2 (1088) from New York, NY 11 years ago

The Expulsion of the Palestinians, 1947-1948

The "Palestinian refugee problem"--that is, the human tragedy created by the Israeli expulsion of the Palestinians from their homeland, Palestine--remains a seemingly insoluble aspect of the Middle East puzzle.

Yet the expulsion of the Palestinians was an inescapable outcome of the United Nations' 1947 decision to partition Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states the following year. (The Arab state never came into existence.)

Before the partition, Jews comprised only one-third of the population of Palestine, which held some 608,000 Jews and 1,237,000 Arabs. Even within the area designated for Israel under the U.N. partition plan, the population consisted of some 500,000 Jews and 330,000 Arabs. How could a country with such a large Arab minority become a Jewish homeland?[1]

The answer is that it could not. A massive population transfer would be required. And this was understood by Jewish military leaders during the war of 1947-1948. David Ben-Gurion, father of Israel and leader of its military, confidently predicted on February 7, 1948, that "there surely will be a great change in the population of the country" over the next several months. He was right.[2]

(The inevitable conflict between Jewish colonization of Palestine and the rights of the indigenous Palestinians was foreseen from the beginning. Theodor Herzl, the father of political Zionism, articulated the Zionist colonial plan in his 1896 book Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State). Recognizing that a people would not surrender its homeland voluntarily, he wrote: "An infiltration is bound to end badly. It continues until the inevitable moment when the native population feels itself threatened, and forces the government to stop a further influx of Jews. Immigration is consequently futile unless based on an assured supremacy.")[2.5] At the beginning of the strife in late 1947, it is likely that the Jewish political leadership in Palestine would have rejected any formal plan to expel the Palestinians. (Although that would change by the following June, as discussed below, when the new Israeli government prohibited the return of all Palestinian refugees.) There was, however, a shared belief by many of the Jewish (later Israeli) military leaders during the war that the entire Palestinian population was the enemy. Acting on that belief, the Jewish militias (the official Haganah and the unofficial Stern Gang and Irgun) engaged in a consistent course of conduct that was intended to--and did--cause the Arab population to flee. (The Israeli myth that the Palestinians left on instructions from Arab leaders has long since been shown to be a fabrication.)[3]

There is ample evidence of forcible expulsions. The most notorious was the Lydda/Ramle death march. On July 12 and 13, 1948, on the direct order of Ben-Gurion, Israeli forces expelled the 50,000 residents of the towns of Lydda and neighboring Ramle. Yitzak Rabin, later to become Israeli Prime Minister, wrote in his memoirs that "there was no way of avoiding the use of force and warning shots in order to make the inhabitants march the ten or fifteen miles" required to reach Arab positions. Before they left, the townspeople were "systematically stripped of all their belongings," according to the Economist newspaper in London. Many of the expelled died in the 100-degree heat during the trek.[4]

Eventually the refugees from Lydda and Ramle made their way to refugee camps near Ramallah. Count Folke Bernadotte, Swedish nobleman and United Nations mediator, attempted to offer aid. He later wrote that "I have made the acquaintance of a great many refugee camps, but never have I seen a more ghastly sight than that which met my eyes here at Ramallah." (Later that year, Bernadotte was murdered by the Stern Gang. One of its leaders, Yitzhak Shamir, became Israeli Prime Minister in 1983.)[5]

Forcible expulsions were commonly practiced by the Jewish/Israeli military during 1948: Qisariya on February 15; Arab Zahrat al-Dumayri, al-Rama and Khirbat al-Sarkas in April; al-Ghabisiya, Danna, Najd and Zarnuqa the next month; Jaba, Ein Ghazal and Ijzim on July 24; and al-Bi'na and Deir al-Assad on October 31, among many others. Israeli historian Benny Morris has identified 34 Arab communities whose inhabitants were ousted. We may never know the full extent of the ejections, though, because, as Morris notes, the Israeli Defense Forces Archive "has a standing policy guideline not to open material explicitly describing expulsions and atrocities."[6]

More often, though, the instruments of expulsion were the terrorizing and demoralization of the Arab population. Jewish military forces used several tactics in pursuit of these goals.

One was psychological warfare. Radio broadcasts in Arabic warned of traitors in the Arabs' midst, spread fears of disease, reported confusion and terror among the Arabs, described the Palestinians as having been deserted by their leaders, and accused Arab militias of committing crimes against Arab civilians.[7]

Another effective psywar tactic involved the use of loudspeaker trucks. At various times they urged the Palestinians to flee before they were all killed, warned that the Jews were using poison gas and atomic weapons, or played recorded "horror sounds"--shrieks, moans, the wail of sirens and the clang of fire-alarm bells.[8]

A second tactic, economic warfare, was a favorite of Ben-Gurion, who described "the strategic objective" of the Jewish forces to be "to destroy the [Arab] urban communities." "Deprived of transportation, food, and raw materials," he later noted with satisfaction, "the urban communities underwent a process of disintegration, chaos, and hunger."[9]

A third technique to induce Arab flight was military attack on a town's Arab population. These assaults often used Davidka mortars--horribly inaccurate, but useful for creating terror--and barrel bombs. The latter consisted of barrels, casks, and metal drums filled with a mixture of explosives and fuel oil. Rolled into the Arab section of a town, they created "an inferno of raging flames and endless explosions." Another destructive maneuver described by writer Arthur Koestler was the "ruthless dynamiting of block after block" of the Arab community.[10]

Not uncommonly, the Jewish forces resorted to simple terrorism. Sometimes this took the form of bombs planted in vehicles or buildings: 30 killed in Jaffa on Jan. 4., 1948, with a truck bomb; 20 killed the next day when the Semiramis Hotel in Jerusalem was bombed; 17 killed by a bomb at the Jaffa Gate in Jerusalem two days later.[11]

More often, a Jewish military force entered an Arab village and massacred civilians, either during a night raid or after the seizure of the village. The massacres started early: Major General R. Dare Wilson, who served with the British troops trying to keep peace in Palestine before the end of the British Mandate, reported that on Dec. 18, 1947, the Haganah murdered 10, mostly women and children, in the Arab village of al-Khisas with grenades and machine gun fire. Wilson also described how on Dec. 31 the Haganah slaughtered another 14, again mostly women and children, again using machine guns and throwing grenades into occupied homes, this time in Balad Esh-Sheikh.[12]

Robin Miller can be contacted at robin@robincmiller.com.
read the rest at this link http://www.robincmiller.com/pales2.htm

[-] 0 points by ShubeLMorgan2 (1088) from New York, NY 11 years ago

Your source is quite biased. The sources for my post include very respected historians and intellectuals including Israeli Jews and a former president of Ireland.

As per the UN the Palestinians are refugees. Even the US State Department acknowledges the Palestinian refugees. There really is nothing more to say. You are in total denial.

[-] 0 points by GirlFriday (17435) 11 years ago

Your source is shit. No, there is nothing more to say. Stop blowing shit up and electing terrorists and you won't get spanked.

[-] 0 points by jrhirsch (4714) from Sun City, CA 11 years ago

Off topic.

[-] 2 points by ShubeLMorgan2 (1088) from New York, NY 11 years ago

As long as the Palestine refugees are not settled in a just manner there will not be peace. This fact impacts on the lives of everyone on earth, let alone on Americans. #OccupyOakland has endorsed the campaign to Boycott, Divest and Sanction Israel to press it to obey international law. I hope other #Occupy movements do the same.

[-] 1 points by jrhirsch (4714) from Sun City, CA 11 years ago

Off topic. As long as Occupy is busy debating every possible topic, nothing will be accomplished. We can' fix every problem in the world simultaneously. Focus on the most critical ones first. How can we effect Israel if we can't even effect our own congress?

[-] 1 points by ShubeLMorgan2 (1088) from New York, NY 11 years ago

Congress, now there's a good topic. It's often called Israeli Occupied territory. That's an example of the power of money that #OWS is born to oppose.

[-] 1 points by Devoghe (40) 11 years ago

Hmmm.....I've never seen any of the loads of Israel threads here been fluffed off as "off topic".

[-] 0 points by Craptastic41 (16) from ANIAK, AK 11 years ago

Just one point: the Ottomans surrendered in 1920? Please get your facts straight. Just this minor point makes your whole OP suspect.

[-] 2 points by ShubeLMorgan2 (1088) from New York, NY 11 years ago

The Ottomans signed the Treaty of Sevres with the British and French in 1920. That is also the year that the British established a civil government in Palestine. By this treaty, the Ottoman sultan recognized that his Arab provinces were cut off from his empire. Control over the Straits went to an international commission. Arabia was recognized as independent and a British protectorate over Egypt was acknowledged. Syria and Iraq became provisionally independent under the newly created mandate system—with Syria to be under the French and to include Alexandretta, Aleppo, Damascus, and Beirut; France could deal with King Faisal as it wished. The state of Iraq was formed under British tutelage, with the province of Mosul attached to those of Baghdad and Basra. Palestine, including both sides of the Jordan river, became a British mandate as well, and the (pro-Zionist) Balfour Declaration of 1917 was written into it. Germany's shares of the Turkish petroleum Company went to France, and Britain got oil-pipeline transit rights across Syria. Britain and France immediately moved into their respective spheres, although the League of Nations mandates did not become effective until 1923.

[-] 0 points by Craptastic41 (16) from ANIAK, AK 11 years ago

Yes I am aware of all that. They surrendered in 1918.

[-] 1 points by ShubeLMorgan2 (1088) from New York, NY 11 years ago

The Ottoman army surrendered Jerusalem in 1918, that's right. the Sultan however didn't sign the treaty of surrender 'till 1920. So the beef is semantics and is really about nothing.

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[-] -1 points by DarkToLight (18) 11 years ago

Even regular Jews recognize what has been done to the Palestinians

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_O0IdbInMY

[-] 1 points by ShubeLMorgan2 (1088) from New York, NY 11 years ago

Your video points at a supposed wide-ranging global conspiracy. This is not what I am bringing here.

[-] -2 points by bensdad (8977) 11 years ago

youtube=a load of propaganda bs

[-] 1 points by Mowat (164) 11 years ago

Your Zionist-controlled mainstream media is not = a load of propaganda bs. Right?

[-] -3 points by bensdad (8977) 11 years ago

NO


But do you believe Palestine Liberation Organization executive committee member zahir muhsein ? or do you believe yasser arafat ?


The “Palestinian” people from the "Palestinian Country" do not exist
A provocative headline?
It’s more than that.
It is the truth.
Truth does not change.
Truth is not relative.
Truth is truth.
If something was true 50 years ago, 40 years ago,
30 years ago, it is still true today.
And the truth is - that only 30 years ago, there was very little confusion on this issue of "Palestine".
You might remember the late Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir making the bold political statement:
“There is no such thing as a Palestinian people.”
The statement has been a source of ridicule and derision by Arab propagandists ever since. They love to talk about Golda Meir’s “racism.” They love to suggest she was in historical denial. They love to say her statement is patently false – an intentional lie, a strategic deception – so they say.
What they don’t like to talk about, however, are the very similar statements made by Yasser Arafat and his inner circle of political leadership years after Golda Meir had told the truth –
that there is no distinct Palestinian cultural or national identity.
So, despite the fact that “conventional wisdom” has now proclaimed that there is such a thing as the “Palestinian” people, I’m going to raise those uncomfortable quotations made by Arafat and his henchmen -
when their public-relations guard was down – and made the mistake of telling the truth.
On March 31, 1977, the Dutch newspaper Trouw published an interview with
Palestine Liberation Organization executive committee member Zahir Muhsein. :
He said:


”The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians and Palestinians and Syrians and Lebanese.
Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people,
since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a
distinct “Palestinian people” to oppose Zionism. For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan.”


That’s pretty clear, isn’t it?
It’s even more specific than Golda Meir’s statement. It reaffirms it. And it is hardly the only such statement of its kind.
Arafat made a very definitive and unequivocal statement along these lines as late as 1993. It demonstrates conclusively that the "Palestinian nationhood" argument is the real strategic deception – one geared to set up the destruction of Israel.


On the same day Arafat signed the Declaration of Principles on the White House lawn in 1993, Arafat said: “Since we cannot defeat Israel in war, we do this in stages. We take any and every territory that we can of Palestine, and establish a soverignty there, and we use it as a springboard to take more. When the time comes, we can get the Arab nations to join us for the final blow against Israel.”


No matter how many people delude themselves that the aspirations for “Palestinian” statehood are genuine and the key to peace in the Middle East, they are still deceiving themselves. In the history of the world, Palestine has never existed as a nation.
The region known as Palestine was ruled alternately by Rome,
by Islamic and Christian crusaders,
by the Ottoman Empire and, briefly,
by the British after World War I.
The British agreed to restore at least part of the land to the Jewish people as their ancestral homeland.
It was never ruled by Arabs as a separate nation.
Why now has it become such a critical priority?
The answer is because of a massive deception campaign and relentless, barbaric terrorism over 40 years.
Golda Meir was telling the truth.
Her statement is validated by the truth of history and by the candid, but not widely circulated,
pronouncements of Arafat and his lieutenants.
Israel and the West must not surrender to terrorism by granting the killers
just what they want – a public relations triumph and a strategic victory.
It’s not too late to say no to terrorism.
It’s not too late to tell the truth about "Palestine". by Joseph Farah