It's time for those who hold the keys to their homes to rise up

"It's time for those who hold the keys to their homes to rise up"

Like all other sweeping proclamations from Al Awda, this doesn't include the 850,000 Jews who were expelled from Arab lands, leaving behind assets valued in todays standards of $300 billion. Real-estate left behind in Arab lands is estimated as worth $6 billion today. But I digress...I do that...

The following are excerpts from an article by Dr. Salman Abu Sitta who will be speaking at the Ninth Annual International Al-Awda Convention .The author is the founding president of the Palestine Land Society and an honorary adviser to the Middle East Monitor. The Arabic article appeared in Al Quds Al Arabi, 9 February 2011

"The issue is not that documents giving details of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority were leaked by Al Jazeera and the Guardian. We all had a general picture of the positions taken by Palestinian negotiators in front of Israel. Such positions were already subjected to strong criticism for being excessive, especially the concessions made over the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people. Rejection of these concessions has been emphasised in conferences, statements and demonstrations over a number of years.

However, the leaks revealed the true picture of the submissiveness of the negotiators, how low they could get, and the shameless way in which they begged the Israelis for little more than a mini-state with citizens gathered in isolated cages and Palestinian refugees abandoned along the "road map to peace". For this, the negotiators were rewarded with great jobs and villas in Abu Dis or Jericho; in the meantime, the question of Palestine, including Jerusalem and the right of return, could go to hell.

That is the real issue and scandal; it's the straw that broke the camel's back. After displaying great patience for 18 fruitless years since the disaster of Oslo, it is time for the Palestinian refugees to have their own people's revolution."

He continues

" The primary issue for Palestinians, the right of return of the refugees, has been dropped from the agenda, to be held in reserve as a potential "bogey" in discussions... " That negotiator's option is a gimmick. The right of return is an inalienable individual right that cannot be negotiated away; any refugee is entitled to use it at any time possible as it does not have an expiry date. Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights provides for the right of anyone to leave their country and return to it; this is not subject to international agreements or negotiations and no one can cancel it."

Here's article 13 for you:
(1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state.
(2) Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.

There is absolutely nothing in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that extends this privilege to the 3rd and 4th generation.


"The suggestion that Jerusalem and the Old City could be given up is unforgiveable, even if decorated with pseudo-respectability by an international committee to manage the Noble Sanctuary. If international law has rejected such a concept, how can those who say they represent the people of this Holy Land accept it? "

Yet Jerusalem, the holiest city in the world for the Jewish people has been the center of our religious lives for thousands of years. And to the Muslims? Its not mentioned even once in the Koron. In the immortal words of Dr. Mordechai Kedar“We were here when your forefathers were drinking wine, burying their daughters alive, and worshipping idols”

Think Abu Sitta was unreasonable and unwilling to compromise up to this point? He was just getting started:

"The occupation of Palestine did not begin in 1967; it started in 1948, with the Nakba (Catastrophe) of the creation of the state of Israel"

And this is the real key. The extremists of Al Awda will never accept the existence of a Jewish state in Israel. They reject Jewish self determination. This conflict is not about settlements. Its not about Occupation. Its not even about the eventual borders of a Jewish state and a Palestinian state. This is about the very existence of Israel. And don't forget that

Read the rest of his spewing missive, er, article here: www.middleeastmonitor.org.uk/articles/arab-media/2051-its-time-for-those-who-hold-the-keys-to-their-homes-to-rise-up