Is There a Palestinian Right of Return?
For decades, the Palestinian leadership has demanded a right of return for all refugees and their descendants to what is now Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank. The United Nations recognizes that there are 5 million refugees around the world, but a separate organization, the United Nations Relief Works Agency, is designed to assist Palestinian refugees. No other organization like this exists to help specific refugee groups.
The right of return works as a bargaining chip to use against Israel, as part of Palestinian leadership efforts to forgo the peace process. The underlying goal of the so-called right of return is a Palestinian majority state from the river to the sea, and no Jewish state.
THE TRUTH ABOUT
THE RIGHT OF RETURN
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WHAT IS IT?
The so-called Palestinian right of return is the general notion that Palestinians have the right to return to their homes and villages in Israel.
The Palestinians see Israel as theirs, and use language that paints Israelis as colonizers who stole their homes. The most popular imagery associated with the idea is Palestinian Arabs holding the keys to their homes that would sit in present-day Israel.
There are many problems with this notion and the hysteria surrounding it.
Photo Credit: Charles Edward Miller,
CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
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Much of this idea is based on the pretense that Palestinian Arabs living in what is now Israel were expelled after the Jews, now called Israelis, declared independence.
The reality is that only a minority of Palestinian Arabs were expelled, which came after several well-equipped Arab armies attacked the one-day- old country. Many Arabs were encouraged to remain and live in peace with the Jews. But Arab armies continued to spread misinformation and pushed for them to flee to make that annihilation of Israel easier. That annihilation never came.
Photo Credit: Montecruz Foto,
CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
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The reality in 1948 was that most Palestinian Arabs voluntarily left or fled during the violence.
Arab leaders even urged Palestinian Arabs to go, with the promise that once the Israelis were all killed, they would be able to return to their homes.
During this time, an estimated 750,000 Palestinian Arabs fled.
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Arab nations failed to eliminate Israel’s Jews, but the Palestinian Arabs who left are today considered refugees. Unfortunately, most of these countries refused to absorb them as citizens, instead settling them into refugee camps. Jordan was the only nation to settle Palestinians, granting citizenship to 200,000 Palestinian Arabs. At the time, Jordan also occupied the West Bank and Jerusalem.
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Photo Credit: Victorgrigas, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) was created in 1949 to resettle Palestinian refugees. It is the only UN org designed to assist a specific group of refugees. Other refugees fall under United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR).
In the following years, UNRWA expanded the definition of a Palestinian refugee to include children and grandchildren of displaced Palestinians. They estimate that there are five million Palestinian refugees in the world. The US Senate has a problem with this logic-it set the actual number closer to 30,000 in 2021.
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Photo Credit: The Door, CC BY-SA 4.0; VOGUE Taiwan, CC BY 3.0 (Wikimedia Commons)
Based on UNRWA’s definition, the Hadid sisters are considered Palestinian refugees despite being born American citizens. Their father’s family fled Israel when he was a baby.
Typically, refugees who move and gain citizenship in a new country cease to be refugees. But Palestinian refugee status is hereditary, apparently. UNRWA believes that a Palestinian, even a third-generation American citizen, is a refugee until they return to Israel.
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But UNRWA has an agenda for keeping the crisis going: keeping their paychecks. For if they solve the Palestinian refugee issue, there would no need for UNRWA.
There is no incentive to solve the refugee crisis by working with, say, Lebanon, to acknowledge its Palestinian refugees as full citizens.
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For Palestinian leadership, the “right of return” demand is nothing but a continued attempt to destroy Jewish existence in the region.
The large-scale right of return based on UNRWA – which includes citizens of other countries — would be catastrophic, and guarantee that Jews would become second-class citizens on their own land.
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SOURCES
adl.org/resources/glossary-terms/palestinian- refugees
jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-quot-right-of-return-quot-a-plot-to-destroy- the-jewish-state
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THE TRUTH ABOUT
THE RIGHT OF RETURN
#APARTHEIDWEEKEXPOSED
THE TRUTH ABOUT THE RIGHT OF RETURN
The so-called Palestinian right of return is the general notion that Palestinians can and will return to their homes and villages in Israel. The Palestinians use this language to paint Israelis as colonizers who stole their homes and expelled them.
The reality in 1948 was that most Palestinian Arabs voluntarily left or fled during the violence. Arab leaders even urged Palestinian Arabs to go, with the promise that once the Israelis were all killed, they would be able to return to their homes. However, the Arab armies failed to annihilate the Jewish state.
The Palestinians who fled are today considered refugees and remained so because the surrounding Arab nations refused to absorb them as citizens, instead settling them into refugee camps, like in Lebanon, where they are treated like second class citizens. Jordan was the only nation to accept Palestinians, granting citizenship to 200,000. At the time, it also occupied the West Bank and Jerusalem.
The”right of return” demand is a continued attempt to destroy Jewish existence in the region. The large-scale right of return would be catastrophic and guarantees Jews return to second-class citizens on their own land.
LEARN MORE:
Read: Palestinian envoy to US wants Jew-free state
Read: New York Times Wrong on Israel’s Origin and “Right of Return”
