Palestinians Now Refusing Right of Return To Fellow Palestinians In Proposed State

First, Palestinians demanded the right of return for all Palestinians to lands occupied by Israel (pre and post 1967 borders - areas within and outside the Green Line that established the borders of Israel as recognized in 1948 following the cease fire).

Now, the Palestinian representatives are saying that they're going to refuse to grant the right of return of Palestinians living all over the world to return to the expectant Palestinian state.

From behind a desk topped by a miniature model of Palestine’s hoped-for blue United Nations chair, Ambassador Abdullah Abdullah spoke to The Daily Star Wednesday about Palestine’s upcoming bid for U.N. statehood.

The ambassador unequivocally says that Palestinian refugees would not become citizens of the sought for U.N.-recognized Palestinian state, an issue that has been much discussed. “They are Palestinians, that’s their identity,” he says. “But … they are not automatically citizens.”

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.

Neither this definitional status nor U.N. statehood, Abdullah says, would affect the eventual return of refugees to Palestine. “How the issue of the right of return will be solved I don’t know, it’s too early [to say], but it is a sacred right that has to be dealt with and solved [with] the acceptance of all.” He says statehood “will never affect the right of return for Palestinian refugees.”

Let that sink in.

Palestinians, who have been agitating for decades to have a state to call their own, are going to refuse to grant Palestinians living in refugee camps for decades the right to return to a Palestinian state.

The reasons are clear, but unstated. The PLO and Palestinian Authority war against Israel continues unabated and these groups find it useful to continue a refugee crisis without end. It's all to undermine Israel's inalienable right to exist and it again shows that Israel lacks a peace partner accepting of a 2-state solution.

The Palestinians are looking to supplant Israel and are going to use a declaration of statehood to further alienate and undermine Israel's sovereignty.

The thing is that Palestinians the world over should have a right to return to a state of Palestine if it is established - but that their representative government is looking to disenfranchise them is quite telling. Their leaders see the refugees as pawns for exploitation; they are disposable pawns whose misery is self-inflicted and exploited by not only Palestinian leaders but Arab leaders throughout the region who use the situation to blame Israel and the US for the ongoing problems. It ignores the culpability and failures of Arab regimes and the Palestinians themselves to negotiate in good faith towards a 2-state solution that doesn't seek to eliminate Israel through demographics (forcing a Palestinian right of return on Israel) or which foists indefensible borders on Israel.