My letter to the Washington Post RE There’s no reason to redefine ‘pro-Israel’

Letter to the Editor Published: December 23 There’s no reason to redefine ‘pro-Israel’
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/theres-no-reason-to-redefine-pro-israel/2011/12/20/gIQAQxMMEP_story.html
& What ‘pro-Israel’ should mean By Jeremy Ben-Ami, Published: December 16
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/what-pro-israel-should-mean/2011/12/15/gIQAlbaCzO_story.html

Dear Editor,

So far, from what I can see, you have had 'pro-Israel' argue with 'pro-Israel' in your opinion pages- with both one-staters and two staters doing what they can to dismiss the Palestinian refugees inalienable right to return to original homes and lands. All empower Israel each in their own way.

Be good to see someone who is honestly and intelligently pro-Palestine and pro-peace be given a chance to help empower Palestine... and peace.

Might I suggest you contact the American Task Force on Palestine (no I don't work for them, I just very much admire their pro-Palestine/pro-America efforts) in order to help shape a more relevant and helpful round up of perspectives focused in on actually ending the Israel/Palestine conflict.

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab

NOTES

Press Release about ATFP's Mission
ATFP President, Ziad Asali September 30, 2011 The raison d'être of the American Task Force on Palestine
E-mail: info@atfp.net

Sign up for ATFP's daily World Press Roundup

American Task Force on Palestine President Ziad J. Asali: "The pursuit of peace, independence and reform is not a project for cowards..."

Hussein Ibish: How national identities are really formed: "There's nothing transhistorical or metaphysical about Palestinian nationalism, any more than there is about Zionism, or any other nationalism. This is so blindingly obvious even small children should have no difficulty grasping that whatever aspects of history, traditions, myths or legends a contemporary political movement wishes to privilege, foreground, highlight or deploy in order to legitimate it's agenda, what it is responding to is not anything ancient, transhistorical, metaphysical or inevitable, but rather the contemporary, immediate needs of constituencies that are themselves modern, and indeed "imagined," and the products of recent developments, not ancient history."

Palestine
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.

10 December is International Human Rights Day... Many Palestinians have no freedom of movement

"Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home - so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person; the neighborhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm, or office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world."Eleanor Roosevelt

The Question of Palestine

KEY ISSUES IN A PERMANENT SETTLEMENT

Inalienable rights of the Palestinian people

Jerusalem

Refugees

In 1947, the United Nations proposed the partitioning of Palestine into two independent States, one Palestinian Arab and the other Jewish, with Jerusalem internationalized (General Assembly Resolution 181 (II) of 29 November 1947). One of the two States envisaged in the partition plan proclaimed its independence as Israel and in the 1948 war it expanded to occupy 77 per cent of the territory of Palestine. 750,000 Palestinians, over half the indigenous population, fled or were expelled. In the 1967 war, Israel occupied the remaining territory of Palestine, until then under Jordanian and Egyptian control. The war brought a second exodus of Palestinians, estimated at more than half a million. (DPR study: The Origins and Evolution of the Palestine Problem: 1917-1988) General Assembly resolution 194 of 11 December 1948 states that: "...The refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible." Decades later, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) continues to provide education, health care, relief and development assistance and social services to some 5 million registered Palestine refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Living standards in refugee communities remain poor, and are characterised in some fields by high unemployment, falling household income, overburdened infrastructure, and restrictions on employment and mobility. See also: Reports of the Commissioner-General of UNRWA, The Right of Return of the Palestinian People - a DPR study.

Israeli settlements

Water

Help Build A Golden Rule Peace for the Holy Land

Growing Gardens for Palestine

Christmas Angel made by hand with natural sheep's wool from Bethlehem