On Friday 14 September 2001 09:21, you wrote:
> On 13 Sep 2001, at 22:19, Trent Shipley wrote:
> > > It was a farce..if they have a state, they don't NEED that right.
> > > After all, the whole point is they want a place of their own, right?
> > > Why stick on the right of return if you REALLY want peace?
> >
> > No. Its not a farce.
> > Israel and Jews have asserted (and won) claims analogous to a
> > right of
> > return in Germany and in contries like Poland and the Czeck Republic
>
> AHA! The money side...Yes...fair compensation WAS offered in
> exchange for the right to return - in line with international law!
I was not aware of this. Have you any more details?
> > The Jewish majority in Israel proper was partly secured by a
> > policy of
> > ethnic cleansing. It resulted in the acquisition of real property
> > (land) and improvents to that property. This is entirely leaves out
> > the issue of expropriating and enclosing commons that belonged to Arab
> > communities for settlement.
>
> No, it was called a war. A war designed to commit Genocide. The West
> Bank PROPERLY should return to Jordan! Under internation law, as we
> have not officially anexed most of the west bank, it is not ours to give
> away! Israel took that land in a war, and Israel - as every country - has a
> recognised legitimate security interest.
Jordan has renounced its claim to the West Bank.
However, I believe that most of the issue is really about territory (or
rather, property) acquired between 1948 and 1967. That is, land that is part
of Israel proper that was abandonded and possessed without compensation by
the Israeli government and Jewish citizens.
The estates of 1948 Palestinian refuges have the legal right to the return of
their property in Israel. (Israeli Arabs do not have this right because they
never became absentee owners and Israeli policy was not to dispossess
indigenous people who stayed more-or-less put.)
Compared to claims of return dating from 1948, claims from 1967 are
relatively minor.
> The proposal was to deal with the de-facto situation - each side
> would own the land where there was the majority of their
> population, and minorities in those areas would be moved. More
> Isralies than Palestians, I might add - and it was AMAZINGLY
> unpopular is Israel, and I doubt it will be repeated in a decade.
This was just before the Barak-Arafat talks broke down?
> > result of actions taken by Israel do indeed have a *legal right* to
> > return of their rightful property and to take up residence in such
> > properties.
>
> No, they can be offered fair compensation instead, which WAS
> offered!
No, they have a legal right to return an repossess real property of their
respective estates. If they or their soverign collective freely accepts
compensation then the compensation is defined as "fair" and the matter is put
to rest (in theory). Were I a Palestinian negotiator, accepting compensation
and fixing the amount of compensation would all be barganing points that I
would try to recycle into more meaningful concessions from the opposite
delegation.
> > It is hypocritical for Israel to refuse to recognize the legal
> > rights of
> > the indigenous people of Palestine displaced by the Israeli state.
>
> "indigenous". Right. The Israelie clame predates those of any
> surviving people.
C.1880 Jews would have constituted a relatively small fraction of the total
population of Palestine (I've seen guesses on the order of 5 or 10 percent).
Of these, only some Sephardic families could claim to be indigenous. Jews
in general do have an historic claim to Palestine but it is an archeological
and documentary-mythic claim and not a claim to be the majority indigenous
people in the land at the end of the Ottoman age.
> > from actually honoring it in practice. It is evident to everyone that
> > Israel cannot tolerate the return of any meaningful fraction of the
> > displaced who have a right to return. In light of that irreducible
> > political reality, Palestinians need to accept reparations in lieu of
> > return and Israel need to pay reasonable compensation.
>
> And it WAS offered! That's the thing.
If you say so. Everything I heard was that the Israeli delegation refused to
even discuss the matter. Compensation would tacitly recognize a
right-to-return in principle. My impression was that the Israeli delegation
(and Barak) explicitly refused to even admit to a right of return in
principle.
