Posted on 01/25/2011 5:24:26 PM PST by lbryce
Children at a Gaza refugee camp: Condoleezza Rice, US secretary of state under George Bush, suggested in 2008 that Palestinian refugees could be resettled in Chile and Argentina. Photograph: Ali Ali/EPA
Palestinians have expressed shock and dismay at the US suggestion to settle Palestinian refugees in Argentina and Chile rather than let them return to ancestral land in Israel.
Representatives of the Palestinian diaspora said the plan to ship displaced Palestinians from the Middle East to a new homeland across the Atlantic clashed with their fundamental right to go home.
"It's completely unacceptable. It contradicts our inalienable right to return to our own homeland," said Daniel Jadue, vice-president of Chile's Palestine Federation. "That right cannot be renounced. To make this suggestion shows the mediation was not honest. It was clearly tilted in favour of Israel. This is extremely grave."
Condoleezza Rice, who was secretary of state in the Bush administration, floated the idea at a meeting on 28 June 2008 with US, Israeli and Palestinian negotiators in Berlin, according to minutes of the encounter obtained by al-Jazeera and shared with the Guardian.
The suggestion dumbfounded South America's Palestinians – a largely Christian community which emigrated in waves over the past century and settled across the region, especially in Chile which is said to be home to more than 200,000.
Chile's Palestinians would welcome compatriots who chose to settle in the Andes, said Jadue. "If a Palestinian accepted to come here that would be their right and we would show solidarity." But that did not justify a US proposal to funnel refugees from the Middle East to reduce pressure on Israel to give up land, he said. "That's wrong."
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
It is unclear whether the Bush administration lobbied Argentina and Chile to take Palestinians. The foreign ministries in Buenos Aires and Santiago did not respond to email and phone queries.
The suggestion to relocate Palestians to South America demonstrates a woefully inept grasp of the 'Palestinian problem' of monumental proportions. The Arabs could have solved the plight of Palestinian refugees in an instant, the 20 or so Arab, Muslim countries taking in their share of Palestinian refugees, which in 1948 numbered approximately 700,000, the last thing they want, would ever do. The Arabs don't give a flying carpet about the Palestinians' misery, cynically perpetuating their plight as tool in the thorn of Israel's side. I can't believe anyone in the Bush Administration would have agreed to such a hare-brained proposal seems almost certain to have spontaneously arisen from he utterly naive mind of Madame Secretary herself.
I suppose relocating them to Antarctica is out of the question?
On behalf of South Americans, Detroiters, Hell itself, I’d like to protest any Palestinian resentment.
Is there anything they won’t protest?
“Representatives of the Palestinian diaspora said the plan to ship displaced Palestinians from the Middle East to a new homeland across the Atlantic clashed with their fundamental right to go home.”
No need to ship them anywhere. Get them a taxi and they can be home in Jordan in less than 2 hours.
"...and there are no Jews there to kill! Do they want us to start playing soccer as a sport instead? I don't think so!"
***Condoleezza Rice, who was secretary of state in the Bush administration, floated the idea at a meeting***
I believe it was Geroge Schultz who floated the idea to Reagan, to settle TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND Palestinians in the US.
Lets do what the British suggested for the Jews before WWII! Settle the Palestinians in UGANDA!
“...George Bush, suggested in 2008 that Palestinian refugees could be resettled in Chile and Argentina.”
.
Why not settle them in another Muslim country — they have no intention to integrate in a Western environment, anyway.
Yes, it was Bush’ fault. Why couldn’t he have asked his good buddy, Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, to house these Palestinians?
Is there any limit to this woman’s stupidity? She embarrassed the President she served with this nonsense, and she defied common sense by not merely suggesting that other Arab nations take in these pathetic losers.
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