From: nicola taylor <n.taylor@student.murdoch.edu.au>
Subject: [OPE-L:6047] Re: Palestinian staged footage?
Reply-To: ope-l@galaxy.csuchico.edu
Sender: owner-ope-l@galaxy.csuchico.edu
a cynical manipulation of 'truth'
is worse than using old footage
comradely Nicky
-----------------------------------
Nicky,
i just want to add that my palestinian friend could not be more upset about the
horrifying acts of al Qaeda. for example, she recently sent me this post:
despite bin laden's efforts to drive the last nail in the coffin of palestine,
i still foolishly think it worthwhile to be informed so i am sending you a
short fact sheet that can be found also on the al-awda.org website. you may
find yourselves in conversations where some of these details might be handy.
much love,
XXXXXXX(i deleted her name)
The Right of Return, a Basic Right Still Denied
During and after the establishment of the state of Israel,
almost 800,000 Palestinian refugees were created by a
process that today would be called ethnic cleansing.
These refugees and their descendants are the largest
and most persistent refugee problem in the world with
over 3.7 million registered by the United Nations and
about 2 million others not registered but living in
countries and regions sometimes within a very short
distance of their original homes and lands.
The international community, which recommended the
partition of Palestine, felt a deep sense of responsibility
for this tragedy. Count Folke Bernadotte, the UN
Mediator 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 person
with a Jewish religion can gain automatic citizenship
while Palestinians born in Palestine/Israel cannot return
to their homeland.
The Right of Return has a solid legal basis. The United
Nations adopted Resolution 194 on December 11, 1948.
Paragraph 11 states: "...the 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... compensation should be paid for the property
of those choosing not to return." Resolution 194 was
affirmed practically every year since with a universal
consensus, except for Israel and the U.S. This resolution is
further clarified by UN General Assembly Resolution
3236 which reaffirms in Subsection 2, "the inalienable
right of the Palestinians to return to their homes and
property from which they have been displaced and
uprooted, and calls for their return". Hindering return is
an act of aggression which deserves condemnation
and/or action by the Security Council. Liability for
consequences of violation remains with Israel. UN
partition resolution 181 and Israel's later admission to
the UN were conditional on acceptance of relevant UN
resolutions including 194.
The Right of Return does not derive its validity merely
from UN Resolutions. The Universal Declaration of
Human Rights article 13 reaffirms the right of every
individual to leave and return to his country. Moreover,
the Principle of Self Determination guarantees, inter
alia, the right of ownership and domicile in one's own
country. This principle was adopted by the UN 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 private 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.
Research not only shows that the right of the refugees
is sacred and legal but also possible (i.e. it is a myth that
Israelis would have to be displaced to allow for the
return of the refugees). A study on the demography of
Israel shows that 78% of Israelis are living in 14 percent
of Israel and that the remaining 86% of the land in Israel
is mostly land that belongs to the refugees on which
22% of the Israelis live. However, 20% live in city centers,
which are mostly Palestinian such as, Beer Al Saba',
Ashdod, Majdal, Asqalan, Nazareth, Haifa, Acre, Tiberias
and Safad. As for the remaining 20%, they live in
kibbutzes and moshavs. They control the legacy and
heritage of five million Palestinian refugees. Is there any
logic to having 2,400 refugees on one square kilometer
in the Gaza Strip while any one of them could look over
the barbed wire and see his land practically empty? If
Gaza refugees returned to their homes in southern
Palestine, no more than five percent of Jews in the
center would be affected. If the refugees of Lebanon
returned to their homes in the Galilee no more than
one percent of Jews in the center would be affected.
The total number of refugees from Gaza and Lebanon
equals the number of Russian immigrants who came to
Israel in the '90s to live in the homes of these refugees.
What right brings in Russian Jews and what kind of
peace deprives Palestinian refugees the right to return
home?
According to a report by Amnesty International last
December, 2650 Palestinian houses have been
destroyed since 1987 by Israel in the West Bank,
including east Jerusalem, on the pretext of not having
building permission. Further thousands of acres owned
by Palestinians have been confiscated to build
settlements in the occupied territories in contraventions
to the 4th Geneva convention Article 49 stating that
the "Occupying Power shall not transfer parts of its own
civilian population into the territory it occupies." The AI
report is available at:
http://www.web.amnesty.org/ai.nsf/index/MDE150591999
The inalienable rights of refugees cannot be left to
"negotiations" between Israel and the Palestinian
authority. International law considers agreements
between an occupier and any body in occupied
areas to be null and void if they deprive civilians of
recognized human rights including the rights to
repatriation and restitution. No peace will be durable
without solving the refugee situation regardless of
agreements signed between a strong party (Israel) and
a weak and unrepresentative one (Yasser Arafat).
The US is bound by its constitution to support human
rights and freedom. 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 massive financial support we
give to the State of Israel to press for this right.
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