PA-Israeli document liquidating Right of Return
unveiledPalestinian Information Center, November 26, 2007
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)-- The Hebrew Haaretz newspaper has
unveiled in its late edition on Monday a "serious" PA-Israeli
document that aims at liquidating the right of return of millions of
Palestinian refugees to their homeland in the 1948-occupied
Palestinian lands.
According to the paper, an Israeli group close to Israeli premier
Ehud Olmert along with a Palestinian team associated with PA chief
Mahmoud Abbas had negotiated the possibility of replacing the RoR
with some economic projects that could cost 90 billion dollars.
The document, the paper added, was an initial semi-official
attempt to dismantle the barrier of the RoR and to transform it into
economic benefits that could help reaching practical solutions to the
issue.
The paper also quoted Israeli deputy premier Haim Ramon as saying
that the document was a work paper that both Israeli and Palestinian
parties should study, and once PA-Israeli talks on the final status
started, the document could help the negotiating teams of what is
possible to do.
Data on the numbers of the Palestinian refugees were based on the
UNRWA records, revealing that there were 4.4 million Palestinian
refugees, including 1.3 million living in neighboring Arab countries,
and 1.7 million dwelling in refugee camps in the West Bank and Gaza
Strip.
Furthermore, the paper disclosed that a number of international
parties, including the World Bank and the EU among other parties had
financed activities of the Israeli group in coordination with the
Peres center for peace and the Data Institution in Bethlehem
city.
A number of alternatives were suggested by the document to solve
the refugees' issue, including naturalizing them in their host
countries and improving their housing, transferring and naturalizing
them in different countries, and sending them to the PA-controlled
land that could be arranged with the Israelis through the "exchange
of lands" process.
Regarding the issue of occupied Jerusalem, the paper unveiled that
the document presented thee scenarios for settling that issue, the
first scenario talks about dividing the holy city politically between
the Israelis and the Palestinians, the second suggests that city be
an open city for people and goods, and the third scenario was to make
it a semi-open city.
However, the three scenarios would confirm the permanent Israeli
presence in the city, and would scatter Palestinian hopes of ending
the Israeli occupation.
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees were forced out of
their homes at gunpoint at the hands of Jewish gangs in 1948 and
after the 1967 war, however, those refugees along with their children
and grandchildren who were born in the diaspora remain holding to
their right of return to their homes, and vowing to reject all
financial compensations offered to them.
"Palestine isn’t for sale", the refugees affirmed after being
offered to be financially compensated in exchange to drop their
RoR.
