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September 22, 2011

Palestinian Official: No End of Conflict After Palestinian State

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Palestinian ambassador to Lebanon Abdullah Abdullah

There was a time when Palestinian leaders sought to conceal their goal of overrunning the Jewish state in misleading commentary for Western audiences that implied a willingness to accept coexistence with a sovereign Israel. Now, evidently, times have changed and blunt statements are deemed safe to make. A remarkable interview in Lebanon's Daily Star (September 15, 2011) illustrates the shift. According to Abdullah Abdullah, Palestinian ambassador to Lebanon, Palestinians would not all become automatic citizens of any future Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza. The story reports:

This would not only apply to refugees in countries such as Lebanon, Egypt, Syria and Jordan or the other 132 countries where Abdullah says Palestinians reside. Abdullah said that “even Palestinian refugees who are living in [refugee camps] inside the [Palestinian] state, they are still refugees. They will not be considered citizens. Abdullah said that the new Palestinian state would "absolutely not" be issuing Palestinian passports to refugees.

Abdullah's willingness to leave Palestinians stateless in camps even in territory under Palestinian authority is spelled out further for anyone who's missed the point:

The right of return that Abdullah says is to be negotiated would not only apply to those Palestinians whose origins are within the 1967 borders of the state, he adds. “The state is the 1967 borders, but the refugees are not only from the 1967 borders. The refugees are from all over Palestine. When we have a state accepted as a member of the United Nations, this is not the end of the conflict. This is not a solution to the conflict. This is only a new framework that will change the rules of the game.�?

Is that clear? "When we have a state accepted as a member of the United Nations, this is not the end of the conflict" just a change in the rules of the game. Sound like the PLO's 1974 "phased plan" for the destruction of Israel?

Something, indeed, is changing when an "ambassador" can give an interview such as this and there's not a ripple in the Western media.

hat tip Evelyn Gordon at Contentions

Posted by AL at September 22, 2011 01:06 PM

Comments

"..an "ambassador" can give an interview such as this and there's not a ripple in the Western media."

There is not a ripple because the destruction of Israel and the ascendance of Islam is the desiderata of most of the Third World, the Western media and a host of 'useful idiot' activists.

Posted by: Anonymous at September 22, 2011 07:48 PM

So if not all Palestinians would become citizens, and the conflict with Israel would not end, what exactly is the point of a Palestinian state? In my view, none at all... it is just one more tool directed against Israel and for that reason, should be denied.

Posted by: RMKosht at September 23, 2011 01:30 AM

I could never understand why the Arabs living in Gaza and the West Bank BEFORE 1948 are also considered "refugees", since they did not lose their homes or land, whether voluntarily or not.

Additionally, how can it be that "Palestinians" who hold another country's citizenship and passport are still considered "refugees"?

The illogic of the "Palestinian Refugee Issue" passes all boundaries at times-- these are scenarios that even Kafka couldn't have invented.

Posted by: Michael Davison at September 23, 2011 02:00 AM

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