Lately Ralph Seliger responded here to Saif Ammous on the issue of refugees from '48, saying that the compensation envisioned by the Geneva initiative of '03 is sufficient to extinguish the right of return. Below Saif Ammous responds. I'd offer one comment ahead of time. It is interesting to me how the failures of the "peace process" to give anything to the Palestinians for lo these many years has caused many to look back not to '67 but to '48, as the late Tanya Reinhart noted. Also, the other night in Brooklyn, I heard Hannah Mermelstein citing Zochrot's position on the right of return; and so the right of return is gaining support in the left community. And with Israel turning the West Bank into a biblical colony extraordinaire for "revenants," a fancy name for returners, who's to say this should go one way? Ammous:
Ralph Seliger shows that he views American non-Christian civil and human rights as more important than those of Palestinian non-Jews, whose rights are secondary in his clinging chauvinistically to the Jewish state. Stating that he supports only "compensation" for the refugees in no way changes the fact that the Palestinians were ethnically-cleansed from Palestine and that he supports the continuation of this ethnic cleansing. Compensation does not abrogate the crime nor his support for it.
As for Seliger's revisionist history on the establishment of Israel;
for his own sake and reputation, I urge him to stop repeating this
stuff because it sounds about as intelligent as a flat-earther
insisting that the sun goes around the earth. Few in Israel
even believe this nonsense, yet it continues to live in America and is
repeated by people who would otherwise be considered reasonable sober
adults. I cannot dignify this rendering of history with any comment,
except to suggest that Seliger read histories that are not distributed
by AIPAC, J-Street, the ADL or other residents of Cloud-Cuckoo-land.
What does "right of return" mean tangibly anyway?
Saif is unnecessarily and unjustly contemptuous.
I assume that he would agitate (not just advocate) for the right of return of descendants of Palestinian, North African, European, middle eastern, Iranian Jews to their homes and property, whenever or however they came to move, including if they came to comprise a majority of population.
Also, I assume that Saif would establish the same "what if" logic, to the prospect of unhindered Jewish immigration to then Palestine, including all of Jerusalem, during the period of English rule, holocaust, post-WW2 emigrations.
Again, even if it comprised a Jewish majority throughout ALL of the land.
I would oppose that. I would prefer a partition comprising confident Jewish sovereignty, and confident Palestinian sovereignty, to civil strife, that would result in partition anyway following the civil strife.
"Cuckoo-land".
Why speak like that Saif?
It makes you into a ranting fanatic, rather than civilized intelligent human being worthy of serious attention.
I believe the implementation of "the right of return" as regards to the Palestinian case as opposed to the others which you have cited is to finally conclude a piece of history that is very much challenged, fought for, aspired for and written about. It could be used universally but that is another matter altogether.
What Ammous has typified is the fact that Seliger is opposed to any return because it impedes on his beliefs that he has upheld for so long but would advocate when he is the victim of such a movement, not for any inkling for the Palestinians right to restitution. He may sympathise, hence his position on compensation. But I doubt that would suffice to the Diaspora. The question of return would resurface again and again.
You are correct though: Ammous is contemptuous.
Richard, maybe after we create the new Palestine, we can all come together and agitate for you and yours to repatriate to Khazaria?
MM,
Do you presume that ALL European Jews are descendants of Khazars?
What an odd, innaccurate and racist presumption that is far far from any relevant associated with either the relations in Israel/Palestine, or US relationships to all parties in the Middle East.
Joshua,
If I remember correctly, Saif Ammous' family was ethnically cleansed, their land stolen. I've got to admit that I'd be just a bit contemptuous too. Oh, that's right, I forgot that we should all just hold hands and sing "We are the World" and try to forgive and forget, right. Meanwhile, facts on the ground are being constructed, built up, communities encircled, cut off from their society.
Witty,
It IS cloud-cuckoo land!! Actually, that's a pretty tame description of the results of the control that the fanatic commissars have exerted over the debate and discussion of the Levant in the USA.
PM
Of course the Arab-Jews from Iraq, Egypt and Yemen that lost property should be allowed to return to those countries and get their property back. But, Witty does not really care about that.
Instead he is claiming that a later lesser crime cleanses an earlier greater crime. It is like claiming that the forced expulsion of some 14 million Germans after WWII completely negates any guilt Germany and Germans might have for the Holocaust and other crimes committed during WWII.
Of course like the Arab-Jews the Sudeten Germans and other expelled German groups should be allowed to return home and receive compensation for lost property. Further the death of between 400,000 and 2,000,000 Germans, mostly women and children during the expulsions should be remembered as a horrible crime.
However, two wrongs do not make a right. Both the Holocaust and the expulsions were horrible crimes against humanity. The victims chosen solely because of their ancestry.
Likewise Witty's cynical use of the persecution of some Arab-Jews by Arab regimes wrongly associating them with Israel is unjustifiable. Israel does not cease to have responsibility for the Nakba by pointing to the forced migration of some of the Arab-Jews. They are both crimes and they do not cancel each other out.
All Palestinians and their descendants expelled in 1948 should be allowed to return home and receive compensation for lost and damaged property. So too should all Arab-Jews. Saying that the Arab-Jews settling on the lands of expelled Palestinians is justice is wrong. It is the same logic as claiming that the death of up to two million German civilians during the expulsions completely absolves all Germans of the Holocaust.
In 1948, the fight to establish Israel confidently was a good fight, the right thing to do.
During that good fight, wrongs were committed. Following that good fight, in 1949-1952, laws were passed prohibiting return of displaced persons and subsequently state annexation of abandoned lands.
That condition is no longer necessary to continue. The promise of Arab League recognition of Israel and establishment of full diplomatic relations on the part of ALL Arab states (if confident and true), makes the defensive nature of those laws irrelevant.
As such, it is reasonable for Israel to open its court system in a color-blind resolution of title claims, including Saif's.
I don't expect that there is any compensation to Saif's parents and grandparents, that their pain and anxiety is not healable completely.
Saif is another matter. His refugee status (in New York) is now voluntary. He may desire his family's former home, and if there is not someone that would be subsequently displaced by that claim, then maybe that would be an option following court determination, even two generations hence.
His sentimental attachment to the land is NOT all that different to the diaspora Jews that retained a sentimental attachment to the land for a very long time (with no possibility of actual passing of specific memories).
He, nor his family, are economically dependant on the land, nor is their society now dependant on clan and kinship.
Palestinian society has moved and changed during the 20th century, reluctantly for some, voluntarily for others.
There is no reality to "we were always there". There is reality to "we were there before you in the recent past" (a long long time for many, and a short time for others).
The urge for a single state cannot consistently be advocated for by ANY construction that would dispossess another.
No Witty – that's the biggest horsecrap there is.
The birth of Israel was not a 'just' fight – or a good fight, or the right fight.
It was wrong.
It should have been illegal.
With Europe liberated from the Nazis jews were permitted to return to there countries and homes without persecution. The success of those who didn't immigrate to Israel is testament to this reality.
Israel was founded on fascist principles – the violent dispossession and ethnic cleansing of the host country by a fanatical nationalist, theological movement of racist jews.
History is pretty clear on this – zionist propaganda notwithstanding…
It was tough for everybody in Europe after 5 years of bombing and fighting.
I wouldn't be in N. America if Bristol hadn't been nearly bombed flat during the war and the subsequent hardships of a broke, and broken England.
But we didn't kick anybody from their homes to do it…
MY in-laws attempted to return to their homes, their property, their former communities.
They were prohibited, physically chased out of town.
Bother to find out.
The only place they were accepted was Israel.
Thank God for Israel.
Yeah sure, Twitty.
What town, by whom?
Your so full of shit.
You are a religiously fanatical fascist.
Accept it- look at that limp wristed Gideon character – act like him, 'cause your just like him.
No need to pretend your not – you certainly aren't fooling anybody here meathead….
Sorry "you're" so full of shit.