umkahlil

Refugees visit Al-Majdal/Asqalon in 2003

Amid a veritable squall of comments and counter comments to Laila's blog on the Palestinian elections for the Guardian emerged this pearl:

I find it interesting that most people refer to "Palestinian refugee" without contemplating on what it means to be a refugee. As a Palestinian refugee who has been forced to live in another country all my life, I have EVERY right to go back to the place where I belong. It is my God given right, it is my right that is mandated by all international treaties, UN charter and all western laws. I agree that the holocaust was a most terrible tragedy that will shame the history of humanity until eternity. Three questions:

1)Why do I, a Palestinian whose grandfather was mowing the fields in 1948, have to pay for the oppression the jews suffered on the hands of the racist Europeans?

2) Why on earth MUST Israel be a Jewsih state? 12% of Israelis (the Orthodox Jews) do not believe that the current Israel is the Israel of God. The majority of the other Jews in Israel are non-practicing and rather secularist. So why "Jewish" again? How can you call yourself a "Democracy" while by your very nature you are excluding all other religious or ethnic entities? This is almost you saying, "America is for the white man only!"

3)It is irrelevant whether Arab states give the Palestinians a citizenship or not.If they do, they are doing them a favor. The bottom line is a refugee is somebody forced out of their land and has the full right to go back. If Israel prevents us from going back to where we belong, it is denying us our right. This is a very fundamental difference.

I am not going to engage in the "propaganda" of some of the contributors, for there is not much value in that.

I am a Palestinian refugee. All I want is my God-given and basic human right to go back to my home country.

Posted by Yassine on January 21, 2006 03:58 AM.