Right of Return?

Question

Israel allows in Russians and other peoples with most tenuous links to Judaism, even neo-nazi thugs!, to maintain its artificial non-Arab majority ( I don't think anyone can call it "Jewish" anymore). These non-Jews ( under the halakah) have a "right of return" after 1900 years.

Yet, Palestinians who either fled or were forced out of their homes ( read the memoirs of Yitzhack Rabin if you contest this) during the Jewish reign of terror, otherwise known as the Jewish war against the British ( blowing up of the King David Hotel, the Deir Yassin massacre etc) and the subsequent Arab-Israeli war, have no right to return to their communities and properties after only 60 years.

Israel has the space to let these people in and fulfill the most humanitarian aspect of peace between Israelis and Arabs, yet refuses to do so becuase of its inherent racist policy that goes along with a "state for Jews". NEVER in ancient Israel's history, were Jews a majority but shared the land with others.

Most Jews of Arab origin left of their own accord: they were not forced to leave: Syria actually, did its best to PREVENT Jews from leaving the country: The Zionists encouraged Arab Jews to come to Israel..the result has been to destroy centuries-old jewish communities.

I would galdly pay to have yourself repatriated to Libya or Iraq or wherever you come from: How much do you want. 1 million..is that enough?

TABATHA: The Arab countries did not expel the Jews: Why are there still communities in Tunisia, Morocco, Iraq and Syria to this day? Yes, there were anti-jewish riots and some of them did leave for fear of their security...but nothing like the way the Haganah and IDF treated the Palestinians and forced them out.

FYI: IRAN IS A PERSIAN, NOT ARAB COUNTRY!!!!

SLITHER of LAND: This is one of most ridiculous points that people come up with: Why don't the Arabs give some of their own land to the Palestinians?

Answer: Because the Palestinians belong to their land. They may speak the same language as a Moroccan or Yemenite, but they have their own culture and heritage AND their own land to which they are entitled to live on.

Arabs are not one big homogenous nation.

TABATHA: You are an idiot, plain and simple..if you really believe that the first palestinians came from neighbouring countries you are either mad or just super-stupid. I suppose the Jews built Haifa and the Dome on the Rock? Check the Ottoman records: are you saying all the people of Ottoman Palestine were Jews not Arabs?

Answer 1

i will not answer this question politically as I've grown weary of the politics surrounding it. But I can tell you a little bit from a human side. I worked for 3 years in Nahr El Bared(Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon). After 2 years of working there I got married. My husbands Mother was born in Safad and his father born in Nazareth.Because of the *dream* of right of return they are not given citizenship rights, the right to work, own land , vote yadayadayada, for the main fact that Lebanon does not have the means to support the Palestinians as they are in economic and political problems as well. They have been refugees for almost 60 years now. The west also lives by this *dream* of right of return. And in many cases does not see the Palestinian refugee problem as (trying to find the best word for it) dire? they feel because they have water once a day, for the most part , no war (although now in Nahr El Bared they are refugees from a refugee camp, who for 4 months the majority have slept in schools in Bedawi Camp)as well as in the past Sabra and Shatila , they don't see the overall problem as an emergency situation, therefore accepting very few even in Canada. Also I do feel they use "the right of return" as an excuse.
In the end, all the children are taught, "one day we will return" and this gives them the "hope" to wake up everyday. And live another. So I guess I cannot really answer your question, or maybe humanly I have. When will the world wake up, have a little bit of feeling? I wish that just for one day all people could live in a camp, then I think they would have a different opinion instead of being on the outside looking in. So for now, they wait on this *dream* Right of Return. Peace to you.

edit@ elad: I'm very happy that you had the opportunity to be safe and have a homeland. I don't think people that have been refugees for 60 years and maybe for all eternity, could understand this happiness. i'm sure that any human could understand why they "whine" .I wish that the world would also just give them a chance to see blue sky, fresh air, freedom, human rights, just this. Im sorry that you lost your homeland, and I'm happy that you were given another one. Until we all stop arguing politics, and see the human side, (not only Israel , the whole world,) this problem will never end. And the world will continue to be not human.And yes Israel focuses on the future, but sadly Israel and THE WORLD keeps the refugees stuck in the past. They have no chance to see a future. Only a silly *dream* that was given to them.
edit: Londerner in Israel: Syria has taken many refugees also, i understand what you are saying, but should the refugees just country hop as refugees ?(pardon the pun) Also with Syria's human rights record, is it nice to just send them there? The Palestinian refugees also live in camps there. As far as "if" a 2 state solution is reached. There are so many refugee camps in gaza and the west bank as well. Does anyone believe that in a two state solution , the refugees would be accepted back to Palestine? There are refugees in Lebanon that had a chance a few months ago to go to the border and touch the hands of their family members through a fence. They are not allowed to visit them. It is every humans wish to have security, a home, to see their children get educated, we are all connected in this fact. As personally I see no solution (maybe im negative) or a realist! Yes EU citizen I agree that the world should chip in and look at immigration. We only need enough humans on all sides to take a realistic look at this.

Answer 2

Prior to the return of Jews to what was then referred to as Palestine, the land was largely uninhabbited. While there was some population there, it numbered nowhere near the numbers claiming to be ancient Palestinians at the dawn of the State of Israel. A careful study of the census from over the years leads to a conclusion that there was a large influx of Arabs during the 50 years leading up to the creation of Israel. This, coupled with the statistic that the overwhelming majority of Arabs who fled did so of their own volition and not through force (at least not Israeli) leads many to believe that there is no right of return for them. The nail in the coffin is the equally numerous Jewish refugees who were exiled from all the countries that claim to support the Palestinian refugees. If there was ever a right of return, it is certainly annuled by this and instead becomes a population transfer. Before anyone tries to invoke human rights at this information, know that refugee swapping already has a precedent in Indian-Pakistani relations. Also, those who claim this right are each and every one an enemy of Israel. Perhaps when they left they were not, but after decades being contained in terrible conditions and fed hate by their Arab patrons, there is no room left to think otherwise. No country in the history of the world has ever accepted such a large group of adversaries willingly into its country. For further refrences, why not read up on the loyalists during the American revolution, or the loyalists during the French revolution etc. In a fight for independence, those who throw their lot with the losers are not welcome.
The Russians were allowed in because Israel cannot allow people to be persecuted or oppressed for being Jewish. Hitler extended this also to people not Jewish by any Jewish standard, and thus Israel must do the same.
Lastly, you are quite incorrect. Until the Assyrian exile, Jews were very much the majority though there were minorities. After that, until the Babylonian exile Jews were the majority of Judea. During the second temple period, Jews were once again a majority in the region, and were once again exiled by the Romans. Today, Jews have reclaimed the majority status in Israel, and there will not be another exile.

Answer 3

At Israel's conception in 1948 about 30 percent of the area incompassing modern Israel and Palestine was jewish.

Today its about half and half of both groups today in that area.

But the question is how did Israel's population group by such leap's and bounds over 60 years?

It is by immigration and not completely by jewish immigration either.

Rather anyone that can prove a jewish heritage can get in and that does not necceraily mean they practice the jewish faith just at one time or onother they had a relative who was jewish.

The laws that Israel has that would consider you jewish are just as vague as the ones the Nazi's had.

I beleive since the collapase of the soviet union Israel took many people from that area.

I heard a quote that they took as many as 300 000
non jews to Israel, mostly people married to jews or having some sort of jewish leniage but specifically of the jewish faith.

Like onother said in this question Israel wants to make the region jewish, not mostly palestinian in that lies there defeat if it happens.

So the answer is immigration ofcourse and that is where i will end my answer to your question, i hope that helped.

"To Tabatha" C'ertainly at the time Arabs came in and out of Palestine/Israel from neighbouring countries although to say that the prime reason was the jews developing the land would be an overstatement if you asked me.

Certainly jews have done well with managing land just look at today and you will Israel is the leader in desert agricultrue and Irrigation but i think it would be an overstatement to say that the prime motiviation for coming to palestine/israel area (by arabs from other parts of MId east/Transjordan) was for the trickle down effect of the jewish people's success with agriculture/irrigation. That said i don't know much about the region at the time.

But i do not deny there was movement from the various areas by arabs into Palestine/Israel in that time the borders where not quite so defined ie more freedom of movement.

"edit to Jo p" You say oil was a bargaining chip the arabs had goign back 400 years or more? That is quite wrong my friend, oil began being drilled for in the 1930's late 1920's and even then not in the whole arab world, back in the days you speak of Oil was not discovered but i have ready stories from hundred years ago of oil coming from the ground in plenty in the caspian sea area.

And the Ottomans didn't control the whole of the middle east or Arabia, as i understand in they controled a coastal strip land in north africa, and abit more land in the middle east but it did not stretch as far as Iraq.

To compare the way Israel was created to the way other
Arab states where created is a bit going over board....

But i do agree with you on the fact that several arab states have themselves propped up as "officially Arab" and you say why can't Israel be officially a jewish state which is a good point.

Infact the country im moving to (Libya) has some skeletons in the closet regarding this subject. They supressed berber culture and languages through a progrom of arabazation in the past something that is wrong in my opinion, but i can say that in mooroco and Algeria Berber cultural is floroshing qutie well.

Answer 4

For what historical reason should Israel agree to the right of return. They can all go back to Jordan. Israel was was given back to the Jews in 1948 because the world including the Arabs an the Islamic world because of the their historical and biblical facts. Even with the Arab wealth and oil they could not influence the free world's desission. History shows and proves the fact that the word Palistinians at no time ever did it refere or belong to the Arab people. For 400 years almost the entire Middle East was occupied by the Ottoman Empire ( Turkey) There was no Syria,Iraq,Lebanon Jordan, It was the European powers again because of the influence oil had created these existing countries. In 1948 when the Jews were given back the land of their fore fathers without oil concessions the Arabs protested having a very short memory and purposely forgetting that they themselves were given land in the exact same way. It is a well known fact to all intelegent people around the world that the word Palistine is derived from the word Philistines. After conquering the land of Israel the Romans renamed it after the biblical enemies of the Jews. So the Philistines who were never ever Arabs but Greek. (I hope you are following me. you read too much propaganda) Again a historical fact the British unlawfully violated the Mandate and instead of giving back the biblical land Israel back to the Jews who had been living there for thousands of years oil once again influenced the British in 1922 the British gave 80% of the Jewish land of Israel to the Hashemite Arabs now known as Jordan including the West Bank. The people living in Gaza say it's a cursed piece of land belonging to the devil. In fact the so called Palistinians of to day actually belong to Jordan.

Answer 5

tabatha is right and you are wrong.
in the years following 1948, almost a million jews were expelled from the arab countries.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_exodus_from_Arab_lands
yes some remained behind, but they are still persecuted and have no civil rights. meanwhile many more arabs chose to stay in israel, and are now full citizens of israel, with full civil rights.

yes, it's terrible, but like the india/pakistan partition, when israel and jordan were created, there was a mass migration.
what happened to those people?
well, the jewish refugees were welcomed in by israel. they lost all their homes and properties in the countries they left, but israel welcomed them in.
and the arab refugees? were they welcomed by any arab country? no, the arabs forced their brothers and sisters into camps. even when jordan lost the west bank, arabs that were jordanian citizens the year before were abandoned by jordan and forced into camps.
so you can't talk about a one-sided right of return. and until the arab countries invite all the jews back and give them full civil rights, you don't have a leg to stand on.
you've been terribly misinformed, but i'm glad you're starting to hear the truth.

tabatha, just for the record, while jews do have a long and somewhat more positive history in iran, many jews were expelled from iran following the religious revolution of 1979. the jewish population went from about 150,000 to about 40,000. anyway keep up the good work, girl!

Answer 6

If you are going to argue that Israel is 'racist' because it is a predominantly Jewish country, then you must of course apply the same logic to other countries that are, for instance, predominantly Muslim. So do you call them racist, also?

And will you be granting right of return to any Jews who may wish to return to Arab states from which they were expelled? Iran is, perhaps rather ironically, the only Arab country that did not expell its' Jewish community.

EDIT - Listen, you really are not getting all of your facts right. The Haganah etc were DEFENCE oriented; that was why they were created in the first place. And sadly, Jews were treated badly in Muslim countries; there were far more than just riots!

The first 'Palestinians' were from neighbouring Arab countries and were attracted by the way the Jews were turning desert into a viable and beautiful homeland.

I agree the Palestinians do need their own state, and there's no doubt they have suffered terribly. But you can't place all the blame on Israel. It's simply not a fair assessment.

EDIT: if I'm such an 'idiot' then why have you added me as a contact??? Kindly cancel that immediately.

And do try picking up a history book one day. It would be so much more interesting debating with somebody who actually was in possession of facts.

Answer 7

To understand why Israel does not offer a right of return to all of the Palestinian refugees, you need to try just for a minute to see things from a Jew's perspective.

Over our thousands of years of history we have been exiled and scattered countless times (we often joke that all of our festivals are essentially on the lines of 'they tried to kill us, we survived somehow, let's eat'), but NEVER until sixty years ago did a group of people seek to completely eradicate us.

As a result of the Holocaust many Jews are no longer willing to entrust their lives to the control of others, and so a decision was made to create a state specifically for the Jews, where we could feel safe and in charge of our own destiny.

In the first 25 years of its existence Israel fought for its survival several times, and the Palestinians have suffered terribly. The troubles of the Palestinian refugees absolutely must be addressed, but intermingling them again with all the Jews in Israel would undermine the Jewish majority and destroy the very point of having created Israel in the first place.

When a Palestinian state is finally created, the Palestinian refugees will be able to return to live in that state alongside the Jewish state of Israel. Please understand that the notion of a Jewish state is not driven by racism, but by ongoing concerns for our survival (we need look no further than the President of Iran to see why Jewish fears remain current).

In the meantime, I agree with HopelessZ00 that Lebanon is not well-placed to ease the plight of the Palestinian refugees, but Syria could certainly do so if it wanted to.

Edit to HopelessZ00: I was not suggesting that the refugees be moved to another refugee camp in Syria (they've been kicked around quite enough already) - I was simply stating that Syria has sufficient space for them to be properly looked after in the meantime, although it seems to sadly lack the inclination to do so. But a true resolution to the Palestinian refugee crisis can only be in the creation of a state of their own, a goal which I believe is ever-so-slowly approaching.

Edit to EUCitizen: the rules of Israeli immigration policy may seem strange to you, but if you look at it from the perspective of state security, it begins to make a lot of sense: a man or woman who marries a Jew or has some linkage to Judaism has a good reason to live in a majority Jewish state and support its ongoing existence; anyone else would naturally prefer a more pluralistic society and so seek to undermine the Jewish majority. Multiculturalism is a lovely idea for some countries, but Israel's reason for creation was to provide a safe haven for Jews specifically, and that means maintaining a Jewish majority.

Answer 8

Israel is a little sliver of land in the Mid East. The arab countries have much much more empty land. I won't respond to your remark against there being a Jewish State (there are quite a few officialy muslim states, so why not a Jewish state)Why don't the arab countries help the pals? Is it that the arab states have deliberately kept the poor palestineans in misery in camps, using the pals as pawns. There are many pals who left and have made lives in western countries, maybe someday they will return to a palestinean country of their own. Hopefully we will all see the day of two states.

Answer 9

If israel gives the "right of return" to the 700,000 arabs, it will have to get into its territories about 5 million palastinians(they multiply fast, good for them)
so basically we would lose our jewish state, making palastinians a majority, in other words you are asking us to commit a suicide
there was a war, a war, in war you have winners and losers, the losers in that case are the ones that decided to go to this war because they wanted everything (its legitimate, if you think you can win) and they lost, they shouldnt have lost since they were outnumbering the jews by 10 to 1, but they managed to do so
now they want to turn the wheel back..
my friend, if you go to a casino ( deciding to go to war is taking a bet) and lose your money, can you come years after and scream to get it back?
on a more personal note, my parents are jewish refugees from lybia and iraq, they were kicked from their estates after the birth of israel (understandable, the arabs were upset of the jews) and built a new home in israel
they didnt whine, they didnt keep on thinking about their old homes in their origin country, they didnt teach us to hate, or nurturing an illusion of real estate and homes that we will one day receive
thats the diffrence between palastinians and jews, one side is building a future, one side is focusing on hate and on the past

Answer 10

The Jews would be totally overwhelmed by the Arabs who are multiplying at a much faster rate. We would lose another 6 million Jews.

If the Arabs weren't bent on the destruction of Israel, they would be welcome.
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