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How George Will muddled the Mideast picture
Regarding George F. Will's Aug. 19 op-ed column, "Skip the lecture on Israel's 'risks for peace ":Why does George Will hate Israelis so much?
http://www.ibishblog.com/blog/hibish/2010/08/22/why_does_george_will_hate_israelis_so_muchAmal Jadou's EXCELLENT letter
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/23/AR2010082304998.html
How George Will muddled the Mideast picture
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Regarding George F. Will's Aug. 19 op-ed column, "Skip the lecture on Israel's 'risks for peace' ":
Mr. Will began by enumerating the number of Israelis killed during the second intifada, while ignoring the far greater number of Palestinians killed during the same period. Rewriting history, including the talks at Camp David in 2000, Mr. Will claimed that Israel captured the occupied territories "in the process of repelling the 1967 aggression." In fact, it was Israel that initiated the 1967 war, not the Arab states.
But the most egregious of Mr. Will's many misleading statements was that the "creation of Israel did not involve the destruction of a Palestinian state." While technically correct -- there was no Palestinian state prior to the creation of Israel in 1948 -- it is breathtaking in its intellectual dishonesty. A Palestinian "state" may not have been destroyed, but more than 700,000 Palestinian Arabs were systematically expelled and more than 400 Palestinian towns and villages wiped off the face of the earth. Today we call this "ethnic cleansing."
Mr. Will concluded that "patronizing American lectures" about peace are "obscene." The real obscenity is Mr. Will's astonishing ignorance of history and his callous disregard for the suffering of millions of human beings.
Amal Jadou, Washington
The writer is deputy chief of the Palestine Liberation Organization's general delegation to the United States.
http://www.plomission.us/index.php?page=core-issues-3
Refugees and the Right of Return
Palestinian refugees must be given the option to exercise their right of return (as well as receive compensation for their losses arising from their dispossession and displacement) though refugees may prefer other options such as: (i) resettlement in third countries, (ii) resettlement in a newly independent Palestine (even though they originate from that part of Palestine which became Israel) or (iii) normalization of their legal status in the host country where they currently reside. What is important is that individual refugees decide for themselves which option they prefer – a decision must not be imposed upon them.
annieannab wrote: