The Palestinian Fright of Return
August 25, 2010 11:43 by BackSpin EditorThe BBC opened up a can of worms for Palestinian refugees. Turns out third-generation refugees living in Syria aren't interested in the so-called "right of return," and they said as much to reporter Lina Sinjab:
With generations of Palestinians now having lived in Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East, they have established deep roots outside their ancestral homeland.
But it is rare for them to publicly admit these views.
"On the record, because it is politically incorrect to say otherwise, all of them would say 'Yes, we would return to Palestine'. But once you sit with them in private, you hear a very different point of view," says political analyst Sami Mubayyed.
"Why would a businessman leave their comfort zone? Home is where the heart and the money is."
It'll create headaches because Lebanon grudgingly gave Palestinian refugees new work rights only recently. And PA leaders don't want their people getting too comfortable in host countries either.
The irony's unbelievable: The longer Palestinian leaders gum up peace efforts by playing the right demand of return card, the less relevant it becomes for the refugees themselves.
If this keeps up, there won't be any Palestinian refugees left who ever actually lived somewhere between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
Related reading: Experts: No Legal Basis for Palestinian Refugee Demands
diane
3:52 pm
Aug 25, 2010
this is a great development. we should comtinue to pursue it and write about the TRUTH. THEY DON”T WANT TO RETURN. All other world refugees eventually get settled in their new counrty
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Paul M
4:07 pm
Aug 26, 2010
Palestinians have no civil rights and no political power in any Arab state. Whether or not individual Palestinians want to leave and “return” to land they have never seen is probably not the deciding factor: If Israel concedes such a Palestinian right, the Arab regimes will decide for them that return is their true heart’s desire. They will be leaving other Arab countries and heading for newly-created Palestine and, if possible, Israel regardless of what they thought they wanted.
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Susan
4:54 am
Sep 03, 2010
It is pretty sick and twisted that Palestinians not wanting to return to their home land is something you are celebrating. Weren’t there too many years of others feeling similarly for the Jewish people? Hating others that much because of their race is called racism, no matter how you slice it.
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Fright of Return*: 3 Gründe, warum die Palästinenser wohl keinen erfolgreichen Übergang zur Eigenstaatlichkeit schaffen werden « Medien BackSpin
9:36 pm
Sep 18, 2011
[...] Gazastreifen gesehen, die von der Hamas leer gemacht wurden – ein Phänomen, das ich als die „Angst vor der Rückkehr“ [...]
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Frank Adam
11:19 am
Jun 13, 2012
The Israeli government and media should treat the Palestine claims of return SARCASTICALLY: that we fully recognise the right of all Arabs named Masri / Misri to return to Egypt; Mughrabi / Maghrebi to North Africa; Taraboulsi and Halaby to Syria and Sirhan Sirhan to Saudi Arabia.
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