Warning: Israel Stands Alone Regarding Right of Return.

By IsraelNationalNews.com

Following Nabil Shaath's remarks (as published in the Aug. 18th issue of Israel Faxx) demanding the "right of return" to Israel for hundreds of thousands of Arabs, Israeli journalist and analyst David Bedein wrote why Israelis should be very concerned.

"Nabil Shaath declared," Bedein wrote, "that the U.S.-sponsored road map mandates the right of Palestinian Arab refugees to return to villages from 1948 which have been replaced by cities, collective farms and woodlands in the present-day State of Israel. Surprisingly, Shaath was correct. All you have to do is to read the Road Map at www.un.org/media/main/roadmap122002.html to know that the Saudi initiative, which supports the right of return, provides the basis for the Road Map.

"Thousands of maps recently issued and distributed by the Palestinian National Authority in Arabic and in English," Bedein wrote, "provide a clear guide for Palestinian Arab refugees and their descendants to forcibly take back the 531 Arab villages lost in 1948 which have been replaced by Israeli cities, collective farms and woodlands.

"Even though Shaath supposedly reversed himself the next day, Bedein and IMRA noted that a widely-circulated PA press release, still found at www.palestine-pmc.com/details.asp?cat=1&id=994, clearly states, 'No condition has been set for a return [only] to an independent Palestinian state.'

"Where does the U.S. stand on this issue? Not with Israel." Bedein wrote: "Shimon Shiffer, senior diplomatic correspondent for Israel's Yediot Acharonot newspaper, reported on May 23, 2003, two days before the Israeli government ratified the Road Map, that the Americans 'rejected one of Israel's central demands, namely, that the Palestinian Arabs would agree to concede the right of return in return for Israel's recognition of a Palestinian Arab state.'

"They also rejected Israel's demand to remove the Saudi proposal - which includes a full withdrawal to the June 4, 1967 lines and Israel's recognition of the right of return, in return for full Arab recognition of Israel - as one of the main sources of the Road Map's authority. Israel has requested that the U.S., Canada, the EU and the Scandinavian countries who are involved in Middle East negotiations issue a clear statement of opposition to the Arab demand for the 'right of return.' However, none of them will do so.

"Checking with ranking diplomats from the U.S., Canada, the EU and Scandinavia, I have discovered that all diplomatic missions in Israel, including the U.S., demand that Israel allow some refugees to return. They universally quote a recent Palestinian poll that 'only 10 percent' of the Palestinian Arab refugees would want to return to their villages that they left in 1948.

"Well, since UNRWA counts 3.9 million people who qualify as 'Palestinian Arab refugees,' that would mean that Israel would have to absorb some 400,000 Arabs who would claim their homes and villages, which are now in the heart of Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and Haifa along with hundreds of kibbutzim and moshavim.

"Israel stands alone in its position that Arab refugees and their descendants have no legal or moral right to take back their villages from 1948. However, the Road Map is based on precisely that presumption. Most Israelis do not know that. [This is because Israeli media over the past 10 years have had] a tendency to downplay any negative prognosis of the 'peace process.'"