The absurd Haaretz attempts to defend the indefensible UNRWA definition of “Palestine refugee” to be different from every other refugee worldwide continues.
Carolina Landsmann at least admits this:
More than anything, this recognition of their right (to “return”) is for the purpose of negotiations, for use as a bargaining chip. But Kushner seeks to humiliate the Palestinians – or as the right likes to say, to destroy their hope – in order to seal a deal cheaply.
She cannot find any actual justification for a Palestinian “right to retun” – only that they need to pretend that such a right exists in order to have a negotiating chip.
Apparently, to negotiate, you can choose to take a position that has no basis in law, reality or morality.
I didn’t realize it was that easy. Because according to this logic, Israel should claim all the land from the Atlantic to the Gulf, and use that as a starting point in negotiations, and then they can settle for only the Nile to the Euphrates.
That’s what Landsmann claims the Palestinians are doing, so why not?
Of course, she says, the Palestinians really don’t claim a right to return:
Still, something here doesn’t add up. After all, the Palestinian Authority effectively conceded the right of return – even if it hasn’t said so publicly – and sufficed with Israel’s acceptance of a symbolic number (10,000, according to the “Palestine Papers” published by Al Jazeera). So what are they cooking up here?
UNRWA doesn’t say that there should only be a symbolic right to return. Not a single Palestinian student is being taught that. Not a single Palestinian says this in any op-eds or speech. Three generations have been brought up on the fiction of “return.” But a failed negotiation leak is fr more important to those who want to be blind than thousands of pieces of counter-evidence.
Here’s where she goes off into absurd fiction:
This maneuver by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, via Kushner, can’t be understood except as an attempt to prevent millions of Palestinians from moving to the future Palestinian political entity. Or in other words, to prevent them from realizing their right of return even to the Palestinian state.
This makes absolutely no sense. If there is an independent Palestinian independent entity, as she phrases is, how can Israel stop immigration?
But also – If this was true, then why are there “refugee” camps in the West Bank and Gaza, if that is where Palestinian refugees want to live?
Once again, wishful thinking trumps actual facts at Haaretz, in order to fit pseudo-facts into a preconceived and completely false narrative.
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