PLO Ambassador Abdullah Abdullah: NO Palestine citizenship for residents of refugee camps

[Saddle Bronc 124]

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2011/09/21/palestine-citizenship-palestinians/

“Palestine” to Deny Citizenship to 45 Percent of its Palestinian Residents

Evelyn Gordon | @evelyng1234

2011/09/21

It’s eminently fitting the woman the Palestinian Authority chose to formally launch its statehood bid is a proud mother of five murderers, of whom one is now dead while the other four are serving life sentences in Israel. After all, a woman who teaches her sons to kill Israelis even at the expense of their own welfare is the perfect emblem of a Palestinian state dedicated to destroying Israel even at the expense of its people’s welfare. And if that accusation seems far-fetched, just consider the shocking interview the PLO’s ambassador to Lebanon, Abdullah Abdullah, gave the Lebanese Daily Star last week:

• The ambassador unequivocally says that Palestinian refugees would not become citizens of the sought for U.N.-recognized Palestinian state…
• This would not only apply to refugees in countries such as Lebanon, Egypt, Syria and Jordan or the other 132 countries where Abdullah says Palestinians reside. Abdullah said that “even Palestinian refugees who are living in [refugee camps] inside the [Palestinian] state, they are still refugees. They will not be considered citizens.”
• Abdullah said that the new Palestinian state would “absolutely not” be issuing Palestinian passports to refugees…
• “When we have a state accepted as a member of the United Nations, this is not the end of the conflict. This is not a solution to the conflict. This is only a new framework that will change the rules of the game.”
• The Palestinian Liberation Organization would remain responsible for refugees, and Abdullah says that UNRWA would continue its work as usual.

This is simply unbelievable. For years, the world has backed a Palestinian state on the grounds Palestinians are stateless people who deserve a country of their own. And now, a senior Palestinian official has announced once they have received a state, most Palestinians will still be stateless – even those who actually live in “Palestine.”

Moreover, the new state won’t provide these residents with any services: It expects UNRWA – or, more accurately, the American and European taxpayers who provide the bulk of that organization’s funding – to continue providing their schooling, healthcare, welfare allowances, etc.

According to UNRWA, some 689,000 of the West Bank’s 2.4 million Palestinians and 1.1 million of Gaza’s 1.5 million Palestinians are refugees. Thus, aside from the 2.9 million Diaspora refugees, a whopping 45 percent of the new state’s residents will also remain stateless, deprived of both citizenship and services by the country the world fondly imagines is being created to serve their needs.

But of course, the PA doesn’t want a state to serve its people’s needs; it wants a state to further its goal of destroying Israel. Hence the refugees can’t be given citizenship; that would undermine its demand to resettle them in Israel, thereby destroying the Jewish state demographically.

And if the price is leaving half its people in stateless squalor for the next several decades or centuries, it’s a perfectly acceptable one to pay for the goal of killing the Jewish state. Just like Latifa Abu Hmeid thinks one son dead and four in jail is an acceptable price to pay for the goal of killing Jews.

Edited September 23, 2011 by Saddle Bronc

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

Evelyn Gordon

Evelyn Gordon immigrated to Israel in 1987, immediately after obtaining her degree in electrical engineering from Princeton University, and has worked as a journalist and commentator in Israel since 1990. She was a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, primarily covering the Supreme Court and the Knesset, and later a regular columnist for that paper as well. She currently works for the English edition of Haaretz and is a contributing editor of the Israeli quarterly Azure.

Recent Blog Posts

• Stop Blaming Israeli-Palestinian Conflict for Region’s Turbulence, Sep 23 2011
  
• “Palestine” to Deny Citizenship to 45 Percent of its Palestinian Residents, Sep 21 2011
  
• What Incentive Does Netanyahu Have to Make More Concessions?, Sep 20 2011
  
• If the World Won’t Enforce Previous Deals, Why Should Israel Sign Another?, Sep 19 2011
  
• A Palestinian Train Wreck Made in Europe, Sep 15 2011
  
• The Hypocrisy of “Humanitarian Activists”, Sep 14 2011
  
• Israel Needs a New Kurdish Policy, Sep 12 2011
  
• What Kind of State Would “Palestine” Be?, Sep 09 2011
  
• Abbas’ Revealing Statement, Sep 07 2011
  
• The End of Land for Peace?, Sep 06 2011
  

She has been busy lately.

[Sofiyya 1,687]

The article says that if Israel had to admit displaced Palestinians, its demographics would be destroyed. What demographics need protection there?

[Pooky 3,827]

She has been busy lately.

Argue the message, don't shoot the messenger.

[Sofiyya 1,687]

Argue the message, don't shoot the messenger.

I give him credit for understanding that the message is a reflection of the POV of the messenger. Her list speaks volumes.

[Pooky 3,827]

I give him credit for understanding that the message is a reflection of the POV of the messenger. Her list speaks volumes.

All it means is that someone is unable to argue the content of an article. Regardless of which POV the author possesses, an unbiased critique will always be based on the content they put forward. Anything else merely exhibits innate bias and is worthless.

It happens a lot with Democrats.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

Argue the message, don't shoot the messenger.

In this case, it would be a justified homicide.

First, unless a secular State of Israel recognizes a right of return for all refugees, then there is no place for those refugees to return to. Many current residents of Gaza fall under that definition as well.

Second, many of the residents of Palestine are illegal settlers. Those squatters need to be returned to Israel, by force of arms if they don't go willingly.

[Sofiyya 1,687]

I'm no **, but I know that recognizing the innate bias in their pov in no way precludes arguing the content. We already argued this premise on another thread, though, earlier in the week.

However, you want a comment, so the opening passage made me laugh for its incredible hypocrisy . . .

It’s eminently fitting the woman the Palestinian Authority chose to formally launch its statehood bid is a proud mother of five murderers

. . . considering that the founding heroes of Israel were murderers.

Menachim Begin, as head of the Irgun, a Zionist militia, took part in terrorist acts in the 1940s, including the attack on the King David Hotel which killed 91 people. The Brits issued wanted posters labeling him a terrorist and calling for his arrest. He later won a Nobel Peace Prize.

Yitzhak Shamir was the operations commander, and later leader, of the Stern Gang, a terrorist group which was responsible for a string of political assassinations.

Ariel Sharon initiated the Sabra-Shatila massacre in which between 1000 and 3000 people (mostly Palestinians) were murdered. He also lead a terrorist campaign against all Palestinians living in the occupied territories of the West Bank.

That's enough to show my own point of view.

All it means is that someone is unable to argue the content of an article. Regardless of which POV the author possesses, an unbiased critique will always be based on the content they put forward. Anything else merely exhibits innate bias and is worthless.

It happens a lot with Democrats.

Edited September 24, 2011 by Sofiyya

[Usui Takumi 1,562]

If you think the opinion piece is biased you can click through to the interview:

BEIRUT: Palestinian refugees will not become citizens of a new Palestinian state, according to Palestine’s ambassador to Lebanon.

From behind a desk topped by a miniature model of Palestine’s hoped-for blue United Nations chair, Ambassador Abdullah Abdullah spoke to The Daily Star Wednesday about Palestine’s upcoming bid for U.N. statehood.

The ambassador unequivocally says that Palestinian refugees would not become citizens of the sought for U.N.-recognized Palestinian state, an issue that has been much discussed. “They are Palestinians, that’s their identity,” he says. “But … they are not automatically citizens.”

This would not only apply to refugees in countries such as Lebanon, Egypt, Syria and Jordan or the other 132 countries where Abdullah says Palestinians reside. Abdullah said that “even Palestinian refugees who are living in [refugee camps] inside the [Palestinian] state, they are still refugees. They will not be considered citizens.”

Abdullah said that the new Palestinian state would “absolutely not” be issuing Palestinian passports to refugees.

Neither this definitional status nor U.N. statehood, Abdullah says, would affect the eventual return of refugees to Palestine. “How the issue of the right of return will be solved I don’t know, it’s too early [to say], but it is a sacred right that has to be dealt with and solved [with] the acceptance of all.” He says statehood “will never affect the right of return for Palestinian refugees.”

The right of return that Abdullah says is to be negotiated would not only apply to those Palestinians whose origins are within the 1967 borders of the state, he adds. “The state is the 1967 borders, but the refugees are not only from the 1967 borders. The refugees are from all over Palestine. When we have a state accepted as a member of the United Nations, this is not the end of the conflict. This is not a solution to the conflict. This is only a new framework that will change the rules of the game.”

The Palestinian Liberation Organization would remain responsible for refugees, and Abdullah says that UNRWA would continue its work as usual.

U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration recently pledged to veto statehood in the Security Council, which would leave the Palestinians the option of seeking a General Assembly resolution. If this happens, Abdullah says, 129 countries have committed to positive votes.

The United States has of late been taking steps to dissuade the Palestinians from taking their bid to the U.N., sending negotiators to meet with Palestinian officials. The ambassador says these talks have not been fruitful.

“They won’t offer us anything … that saves the peace process,” he says. “They would offer us nothing except to say that they will cut financial aid, and other such threats. Dignity is much more important than a loaf of bread.”

The last minute threats Abdullah refers to include a bill proposed by the chair of the U.S. House Foreign Relations Committee, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, which would cut U.S. funding to any U.N. body that recognizes the Palestinian statehood.

Abdullah says now is the time to seek statehood because the peace process has been stalled for around a year, and rattles off the dates of locations of failed meetings with the Israelis last September.

“These meetings did not bring us one iota closer to achieving the goal the negotiations were resumed to achieve.” He says that there are now new obstacles, including settlement building “with some haste” and Israel’s insistence that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state or a national home for the Jewish people.

Abdullah says the Palestinians effectively have no choice but to go to the U.N. With talks at an impasse, he says, “nothing was left for us to protect the international consensus of the two-state solution.”

A U.S. veto in the Security Council, Abdullah says, would only harm the great power. “The United States is propagating that it is the champion of freedom and democracy around the world, and if it denies the Palestinians the right to be free, to be democratic, and to live in dignity, it is not a good sign for the U.S. It leaves a dark stain … It’s not good for America,” he says. “America deserves better.”

He says the U.S. should be mindful of “signals in the region … that are ringing a bell.” He mentions the tension between Turkey and Israel and the recent eruption of protests at the Israeli embassy in Cairo.

“If wrong policies are adopted in the U.S., it will only give a freer hand to extremism. It only empowers negative forces. And this will make it more difficult and complicated for rational forces to prevail.”

Despite clear signs of opposition from the U.S., Abdullah says anything could happen next week, when the U.N.’s General Assembly session opens and the issue of Palestinian statehood will be debated.

“When we go [to the United Nations],” he says, “we [will not] bet on anything.”

Read more: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Politics/2011/Sep-15/148791-interview-refugees-will-not-be-citizens-of-new-state.ashx#ixzz1YtivOEIb'>http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Politics/2011/Sep-15/148791-interview-refugees-will-not-be-citizens-of-new-state.ashx#ixzz1YtivOEIb

(The Daily Star :: Lebanon News :: http://www.dailystar.com.lb)

[Sofiyya 1,687]

I believe that article was posted on another thread around September 17. I have pm's discussing it.

The reason why there are Palestinian refugees in the first place is because of displacement from lands now claimed by Israel, not because they voluntarily evacuated their properties for the benefit of Jewish settlers. The responsibility for their repatriation or reparations is Israel's. Making them automatic citizens of Palestine would lessen the responsibility Israel has to deal with them. It would also offer incentives for Israel to continue to eject Arabs, expecting Palestine to absorb them as refugees.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

The real issue is not what to do with the Palestinian refugees: They should be allowed to return to their former homes and made whole.

What has yet to be determined, by either side, is what to do with all the Jewish squatters that are illegally and extralegally living on that land.

Edited September 24, 2011 by Crusty Old Perv

[Usui Takumi 1,562]

The real issue is not what to do with the Palestinian refugees: They should be allowed to return to their former homes and made whole.

What has yet to be determined, by either side, is what to do with all the Jewish squatters that are illegally and extralegally living on that land.

Soon it won't matter, the generations who started the issue will be dead.

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

Soon it won't matter, the generations who started the issue will be dead.

Kind of like Ben-Gurion thought. Turned out he was wrong.

[Usui Takumi 1,562]

Kind of like Ben-Gurion thought. Turned out he was wrong.

Well its like this. If I'm 18 and was born in say town X, thats where I'm from. Someone might say, hey your grandparents forced there way in town X so you do not belong....but at the end of the day thats where I am from, its my existence.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

Well its like this. If I'm 18 and was born in say town X, thats where I'm from. Someone might say, hey your grandparents forced there way in town X so you do not belong....but at the end of the day thats where I am from, its my existence.

So, time heals all wounds, and the victims of past atrocities just need to get over themselves?