A clandestine undertaking on behalf of Israel, the Jets and the Jews.

 
Responsibility for the Refugees

In today's Beirut Daily Star, the paper's executive editor, Rami Khouri, writes that for there to be a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, Israel must accept responsibility for the refugee problem. Khouri implies that Palestinians would concede on the refugee issue if Israel accepted moral responsibility, writing that "Palestinians for their part increasingly accept that Israel will remain predominantly (about 80 percent) a Jewish state" but argues that "signs of mutual realism and flexibility are offset, however, by the central blockage that continues to defy a resolution: The vast majority of Israelis still refuse to acknowledge their country’s role in the expulsion and disenfranchisement of the Palestinians in 1947-48. Israelis are terrified that admitting historical and moral responsibility for some or much of the Palestinian refugee problem will automatically open the floodgates to millions of Palestinians exercising their 'right to return' to their original lands and homes in pre-1948 Palestine, now the state of Israel."

There is, in fact, no moral basis for Israel to accept responsibility for the refugees and Israel must not apologize for its victory in the 1948-49 War of Independence, i.e., its very existence. As this excellent piece by Mitchell Bard explains, the refugee problem resulted from the Arabs' rejection of the UN partition plan of 1947 and the invasion of Israel upon Israel's formation. Some Arab residents left on their own accord after being assured by the invading Arab armies that they would soon return to their homes, while others were expelled when Israel successfully defended itself from attack. When Israel failed to successfully defend against attack, such as in the Old City of Jerusalem and in Gush Etzion, the Jewish residents of those areas were all either killed or forced to leave.
posted on 7/02/2003