The 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
