Posted on 12/06/2006 1:00:35 PM PST by West Coast Conservative
A reference to Palestinians' "right of return" in the report issued by the high-level Iraq Study Group broke a diplomatic taboo which sparked immediate concern in Israel and surprise among Middle East policy experts.
The reference was buried deep inside a 160-page report that urged US President George W. Bush to renew efforts to revive Israel-Palestinian peace talks as part of a region-wide bid to end the chaos in Iraq.
"This report is worrisome for Israel particularly because, for the first time, it mentions the question of the 'right of return' for the Palestinian refugees of 1948," said a senior Israeli official, who was reacting to the US policy report on condition he not be identified.
A Middle East analyst who was involved in the Iraq Study Group discussions but did not participate in drafting the report expressed surprise when the reference was pointed out to him by a reporter.
"It's hard to know whether that language got in there because of carelessness -- I know there were many revisions up to the very last minute -- or whether it was a deliberate attempt to fuse something to the Bush rhetoric which wasn't there before," the analyst said.
The 1993 Oslo peace accords between Israel and the Palestinians calls for a resolution of the issue of Israeli and Palestinian "refugees" as part of a final status agreement that would include the creation of a Palestinian state.
But they do not use the term "right of return", which is a long-standing Palestinian demand -- rejected by Israel -- that Palestinians who fled or were driven out of what was to become the Jewish state in 1948, as well as their descendants, be allowed to return home.
Bush, in a 2002 speech in the White House Rose Garden, became the first US president to formally back the creation of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel, but he also did not mention a right of Palestinian 'return'.
The bipartisan Iraq Study Group's co-chairman is former secretary of state James Baker, who as the top diplomat for Bush's father in the early 1990s clashed with Israel over its handling of the Palestinian issue.
Among his group's 79 recommendations for a policy shift on Iraq, number 17 concerned five points it said should be included in a negotiated peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
The final point in the list was: "Sustainable negotiations leading to a final peace settlement along the lines of President Bush's two-state solution, which would address the key final status issues of borders, settlements, Jerusalem, the right of return and the end of conflict."
"'Right of return' is not in Oslo I or Oslo II, it's not in the Bush Rose Garden speech, it's not even in UN 181, the original partition resolution -- it's part of the Palestinian discourse," said the US analyst.
Baker is a vile person and this report of his is as well.
I pray that President Bush tell Baker to stuff it, throws it away and stays strong and determined!
I haven't claimed to like the Baker report
GHWB crying the other day was very telling. I doubt many folks will truly understand why for months.
You say the concept should be rejected, because it is clear that it would be the destruction of Israel.
But is it permissible to use the possibility of the destruction of Israel as a bargaining chip? In other words, you Israel give up Jerusalem and the Arabs give up the claim that would destroy you. Fair exchange?
I find it immoral. Therefore it should not be a concept, it should not be entertained, it should not be mentioned in the West.
The other side of the coin is that the Arabs will never ever under any circumstance give up that "right of return" claim. Real peace between Israel and the Islamics is impossible. Israeli concessions are pocketed with both glee and cravings for more.
What a report such as this does, what the West does constantly, is buttress the Islamic view that victory is inevitable. Tomorrow, next year, in one hundred years or a thousand.
They have both the time and the will to continue fighting. Their rewards are everywhere you look. No one will get a better Christmas present then what the Baker report gave the Arabs/Islamics.
The 1993 Oslo peace accords between Israel and the Palestinians calls for a resolution of the issue of Israeli and Palestinian "refugees" as part of a final status agreement that would include the creation of a Palestinian state.
But they do not use the term "right of return", which is a long-standing Palestinian demand -- rejected by Israel -- that Palestinians who fled or were driven out of what was to become the Jewish state in 1948, as well as their descendants, be allowed to return home.
Precisely. Baker is essentially a socialist, and the man who famously said " F... the Jews!" a few decades ago. This is the man who had the brilliant idea to persuade Ronald Reagan to raise taxes. He's a cynical leftist politico interested, as are all leftists, in the consolidation and use of power by the elite, defined as him and his associates.
The media, of course, and the Democrats, love him, but GW's legacy will be permanently ruined if he goes anywhere near this guy.
I’m sure baker would be fine with jewish descendants of the people who left/fled Arab countries to return there for extermination
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