Last year Saif Ammous and Richard Witty had a dialogue about Zionism in this comment section. Now Ammous and Seliger are having a dialogue about the right of return, in posts, this being the last, from Ammous, yesterday. I’ll keep this up as long as these guys have the stomach for it.
So here’s Ralph Seliger:
I believe that Saif Ammous and his family deserve full compensation for the loss of their property during the 1948 war.
“His far-fetched analogy about Christians driving non-Christians from the U.S. to Canada
is not apt. Jews didn’t simply come to Palestine as invaders — they
were immigrants. In fact, for the most part, they were unarmed until
Arab attacks in 1920, ’21, ’29 and ’36-’39 caused the creation of the
mainstream Hagana defense force and the two right-wing undergrounds,
the Irgun (aka Etzel) and Lehi (Stern Gang). The Arab side violently
rejected the two-state solution promulgated by the United Nations in
1947 and were defeated in a bloody war in which both Jewish and Arab
towns and cities were overrun by the other side, and 3.5% of
Palestine’s Jews –15,000 — were killed and wounded.
I believe in accordance with the Geneva Accord that Palestinian refugees have the right to return to their state in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza Strip — which should become reality as part of a peace agreement for two states.
I believe that these displaced people also have the moral right to return to their former properties in Israel,
but for the most part, these homes no longer exist and Israel has the
sovereign right to determine who should or should not live within its
borders. The Geneva Accord suggests that refugees could choose to live
in countries other than the new Palestinian state, including Israel.
These countries would decide on a case by case basis who to allow entry
to, and I would hope that Israel would be generous and humane in these
decisions. But there’s no question that people should be duly
compensated for the losses they suffered as a result of the war — even
though it was the Arab leadership that tragically chose to go to war in
the first place.
