The Israeli organization Zochrot sent out the following announcement this morning:
International Conference – From Truth to Redress: Realizing the Return of the Palestinian Refugees. Six days to the conference!
Sunday-Monday, September 29-30, 2013The conference, organized by Zochrot association, will discuss the practical aspects of the Return of Palestinian refugees grounded in the transitional justice principles of acknowledgement, accountability and a process of redress.
For your information! The conference will be live-broadcast online through the USTREAM website .
A link to the broadcast will be available during the conference – on Zochrot’s Facebook page, on the FB event of the conference and on the website of Zochrot.
We’ll be live tweeting at #ReturnConference
Location: The conference will take place in the area of the village al-Shaykh Muwannis, which was located there till the Nakba.
Address: Eretz Israel Museum, Tel Aviv – Rothschild Auditorium, 2 Haim Levanon street, Tel Aviv.
Public transportation:
Dan bus lines.: 7, 13, 24, 25, 45, 127; Egged bus lines: 126, 171, 270, 271; Afikim bus line: 121; Nateev Express bus line: 604; Train: University Station
Private cars can use the museum parking (day-long parking: 20 NIS)Please register in advance due to limited number of seats – Registration form.
To Facebook event For more details, Umar al-Ghubari umar@zochrot.org
Please see below the full program for the conference
Here is the program:
5 million Palestinians would not be returning and neither would 1 million. Other than for the 2 millions already living in squalid refugee camps spread out over 3 or 4 countries that would welcome a move to anywhere just to get out of their current hellish situation, the rest are already living an almost normal life as immigrants in other countries and would probably not be interested in any move and since Israel is breaking its back trying to establish that it’s a Jewish state for the Jewish people, it would never accept large numbers that would upset the current demographic situation. This has to be looked realistically; could refugee camp Palestinians that have their own culture and that don’t speak the local language adapt to living among the Israeli majority? The most reasonable place they could return to is the West Bank in its original configuration of pre-67 with 100% of the water under it. About 15 years ago, there had been talk of allowing a good number of the refugees to return to the West Bank or to Gaza but Israel was objecting to any of them returning there. Israel’s crime of having emptied the land of its original inhabitants is complete and irreversible until of course Israel self-destructs which appears well on its way of happening.
Given that the adjoining Arab states have refused to naturalize the Palestinians, yes, there would millions returning
Were I an Israeli Jew, I would be terrified.
A solution will have to be found other than the right-of-return.
This may or may not be a denial of justice, but it is reality.
I don’t see how there can be any real peace until the state of Israel and the Zionist community acknowledge publicly their complicity in the Nakba. I’m not even talking about apologies, just admit what you did. It’s history, it happened and you can’t run away from it. You need to accept responsibility for your actions.
It’s one thing to lie to others but when you can’t admit the truth to yourself that indicates your principles are built on shifting sands. Perhaps as we get further away from the generation of the perpetrators it will get easier.
It’s going to be an interesting conference and I’m certainly going to watch the whole thing. It’s all there in color: rebuilding demolished villages, RoR, material claims of internally-displaced Israeli citizens, total revision of citizenship laws, claims conferences, with the usual cast of critics and analysts and all held under the aegis of space, resources and work-hours of a major institution of the state the conference seeks to remodel. So I’m drawing blank as to why or how Palestinians strong enough to compel return to the State of Israel would also be forced by any regional or international actor to honor legitimate Israeli-Jewish rights, given the power shift that the conference presupposes. Or, should they conflict, the rights of non-Jewish Israelis. Also, the decentralized diffusion of power in Israeli and Palestinian societies implies that the marsiens of various groups and militias could easily disrupt any organized attempt at return.
I’m also bitterly amused because I’m one of the few Jewish Israelis in Jerusalem who rents/rented from the non-displaced Palestinian owner a house built in 1961, and I would routinely meet 1948 exiles bent on making a claim to the property. So either the present owner is the beneficiary of some intra-Palestinian conflict or swindle (possible) or the essential point is that it is an existential *national* conflict and there is no Jewish title, rental, or presence possible.
Once Israel starts exporting liquified natural gas, the Palestinians will unfortunately become less and less important to the worldwide powers.
And Israel will not disappear. That’s all in your minds.
http://worldpress.org/Mideast/3969.cfm