Posted on 08/18/2003 5:45:17 AM PDT by SJackson
Palestinian Refugees Insist: ‘No Alternative to Right of Return’
Israel: Palestinians Can Only Return to Their Future State
Palestine Media Center- (PMC) [Offical arm of the PA] http://www.palestine-pmc.com/details.asp?cat=1&id=996
A Palestinian “No Alternative to Right of Return Conference” in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Saturday stressed that “it is impossible to achieve a just and comprehensive peace” without guaranteeing the right of return for “all” Palestinian refugees, amid an Israeli official and non-official rejection of a statement by the PNA Foreign Minister to the same conclusion.
Hundreds of Palestinian representatives meeting in Ramallah condemned “suspicious and marginal campaigns, which do not represent refugees,” and compromise their Right of Return, the official news agency WAFA reported.
“The Right of Return is a legitimate right, guaranteed by international (UN) resolutions. It is an individual as well a collective right. Nobody may compromise it or waive it away,” the conference affirmed.
The conference was attended by representatives of various national, popular and official institutions, and was organized by the Palestinian “National Committee to Defend the Right of Return” and the “Grouping of the Natives of Palestinian Villages and Towns Displaced in 1948,” which is based in Ramallah.
Saji Salamah represented the Department of Refugees at the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). He highlighted the importance of the conference to stress the Palestinian people’s Right of Return, and reviewed the United Nations resolutions guaranteeing this right, singling out the UN General Assembly’s resolution number 194 in particular.
Salamah urged Israel to recognize its responsibility for the displacement of Palestinian refugees and stressed that “peace cannot be achieved without resolving the issue of refugees on a basis accepted by our people.”
Other representatives included Qais Abdul Kareem, a leader of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), which is a PLO member, Jamal al-Shati, chairman of the Refugees Committee at the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), and Waleed Rajab who represented the natives of Palestinian villages and towns whom the Zionist paramilitary gangs displaced by force in 1948.
Return of Refugees to Their Homeland is a must: Sha’ath
On Friday the Palestine National Authority (PNA) Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath stated in Beirut that the right of return for Palestinian refugees to their homes in Israel or the territories the Jewish state occupied in 1967 was guaranteed under the US-sponsored “roadmap” for peace.
"No condition has been set for a return (only) to an independent Palestinian state. The right of return is no longer an illusion. It is an integral part of the Arab peace initiative, which is one of the reference points in the roadmap,” Shaath said, speaking at a hotel in the Lebanese capital Beirut.
"I want to be clear: this right includes returning to an independent state and to Palestinian cities in the Jewish state. Whether a person returns to Haifa (Israel) or to Nablus (West Bank), their return is guaranteed,” he confirmed, quoted by AFP.
The minister was referring to the Saudi initiative adopted by Arab League summit meeting in Beirut in March 2002.
The initiative calls on Israel to withdraw completely from the lands it occupied in the 1967 war in return for normal ties with the Arab world, and says there should be a “just solution” to the Palestinian refugee problem.
Sha'ath described the Palestinian refugee right of a return as "an integral part of the Arab peace initiative, which is one of the reference points in the roadmap.”
"We do not see a solution for our brothers [Palestinian refugees] in Lebanon except their return to their homeland,” declared Sha'ath. "There is no other political solution. The return to their homeland is a must.”
Israel Categorically Rejects Refugees’ Right to Return
Sha’ath’s statements drew furious Israeli reactions, both official and non-official.
Israeli government spokesman Avi Pazner said the contention by Sha’ath was false and unhelpful. He reiterated that Israel would never let the refugees back in under any conditions, AFP reported.
"It's a statement that can only hurt things because it's false," he said. "The roadmap says absolutely nothing about the (refugees') right of return and this statement is detrimental” to implementation of the roadmap.
"Israel has no intention, under any circumstance and within any framework, of accepting the return of refugees in Israeli cities which Nabil Shaath terms Palestinian cities,” Pazner told AFP.
"The (refugee) Palestinians, if they want, can return to their future state,” he said, referring to the ultimate goal of the US-sponsored “roadmap,” drafted and adopted by the United States, Russia, United Nations and European Union.
Israeli Health Minister Dan Naveh said any advances in the “roadmap” should be dependent on Palestinians giving up the right of return to and within Israel.
Similarly the opposition Labor party leader and MP Shimon Peres said that Sha’ath’s statement was “unnecessary” and would not help the prospects of reaching a settlement to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
“Israel would never risk its demographic situation and it seems the Palestinians are preoccupied with issues that will never be realized,” Peres said.
Meretz MP Ran Cohen called on the Palestine National Authority (PNA) Prime Minister Mahmud Abbas to reject Sha’ath’s statement, and to clarify that Israel and the PNA have a joint interest in finding solutions for the refugee problem within the borders of a Palestinian state, and not in Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who signed onto the “roadmap” at a June 4 summit in Aqaba, Jordan, convened by US President George W. Bush, was adamant that it included no right of return for Palestinian refugees.
"I will not allow any Palestinian refugee to come back to Israel, never,” the prime minister told a convention of his right-wing Likud Party four days later.
"I was clear in the past and I repeated it in Aqaba: the question of the Palestinian refugees cannot be resolved on Israeli territory,” he said.
“The American administration fully understands the threat that the return of Palestinian refugees would represent for the existence of the Hebrew state.”
I'm holding an alternative "Palestinians are a Bunch of Wild Eyed Bomb Girdled Crazies Conference."
A seminar will be held regarding "Yasser Arafat's Face and Pornography; Can You Tell the Difference?"
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