Witness Ben Gurion's "fantastic plan" during the Anglo-French-Israeli conference at Sevres to plan the Suez Imbroglio one week later. Ben Gurion suggested that Israel get the West Bank and Iraq take the rest of Jordan to resettle the Palestinian refugees there, Israel get southern Lebanon up to the Litani River, and also the Straits of Tiran. Obviously Ben Gurion didn't see even the larger borders which Israel had gained over the putative UN partition borders as final.
The fact that the apologists keep repeating these myths show that they have really run out of arguments.
ok, you're probably right
Refugees from Zionist actions or from the scaremongeing and panic sown by the Arab Higher Committee and the disintegration within Palestine society??
Actually, the disintegration was evident long before even the Partition. Also, you are wrong about the "right of return."
The "Right of Return" argument claims that UN General Assembly Resolution 194 passed in 1948 gives the Palestinians a “Right of Return” to Israel. In fact 194 was passed with the future security of Israel firmly in mind.
Let us quickly revise some of the Israeli security concerns. They started the day the state of Israel was formed. The first occurred after Israel, Egypt, and Transjordan signed a cease-fire in March 1949 and the admission of the state of Israel to the United Nations two months later on 11 May 1949. While Israeli soldiers had succeeded in occupying twenty percent more of British Mandated Palestine than the United Nations 1947 partition, Israel insisted on a comprehensive peace treaty with the Arab states.
The Arab states refused and so Israel refused to withdraw its position, and would not permit Arab refugees to return to their homes in Israel. For their part the Arab states refused diplomatic recognition of Israel
To understand why, in the coming decades, Israel, or indeed any member of the United Nations, might not give a fig what UNGA Resolutions say, we need to go back to the 1940s. Of course, notions of international law and particularly UN Resolutions pepper Antony Loewenstein’s ‘Israel Question.’ Ah yes, the UN General Assembly. In this phase of U.S. involvement in the Palestinian refugee issue the central institutional authority was the United Nations. In fact, in the early years the U.S. tried to be as even-handed, and even not involved, in the refugee issue.
The armistice agreement following the 1948 War based on UN Resolutions 194 set the parameters for the next 18 years. However 194 did not resolve issues of water-sharing among the parties nor the return of the refugees. The U.S., Britain and France, worried about their future influence and strategic interests in the region, sought to limit further conflict through a Tripartate Agreement that limited the sales of arms to either side.
In this phase there was no official recognition of the unique identity of the Palestinians, even by the Arab world itself. There was not even a Security Council Resolution. General Assembly Resolution 194 of December 11, 1948 called upon the Arab states and Israel to resolve all outstanding issues through negotiations either directly, or with the help of the Palestine Conciliation Commission established by this resolution.
The emphasized words demonstrate that the UN was not satisfied that the cease-fire "borders" were sufficient, and that some of the refugees would have to be resettled around the world like refugees in any conflict. Thus claims that Resolution 194 provides a universal "right of return" are wrong. The refugee issue was but one of many to be negotiated.
The Arabs, however, started a pattern that continued to thwart them for decades. They simply refused to compromise or negotiate.
As Hanan Ashrawi so tragically admitted:
the rejection of the 1947 UN partition plan as “with the benefit of immaculate hindsight the worst plunder we made was not accepting the 1947 UN petition.
Thus the Arabs once more unanimously rejected the UN Resolution. The General Assembly voted, in November, 1948 to establish the United Nations Relief For Palestinian Refugees (UNRPR) to dispense aid to the refugees. The UNRPR was replaced by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNWRA) in December 1949.
However all this is moot as the Resolution was never a legal resolution bestowing “rights” on anybody.
Even putting aside the fact that 194 does not mention the word “right,” or “Palestinians,” unlike Chapter 6 and 7 Resolutions of the Security Council, Chapter 4 Resolutions of the UN General Assembly were never designed to have the force of law.
The UNGA is empowered to refer to the Security Council, matters it thinks require a judicial decision; no such referral was ever made regarding 194. And even if it were, among other criticisms, the Israelis have always maintained that the refugees do not want “to live in peace with their neighbours.” And just quietly, I defy anybody to provide evidence to the contrary!
However, neither the Arab states nor Arab lobby/political groups thought that the refugees were a distinct entity to bargain on behalf of either. On the other hand, the Palestinian’s belief in their “right” of return has over time evolved to transcend strict legalistic interpretations of “rights.”
One of the top handful of misdirections taken by the Palestinians are those western advocates who have expended so much puff and wind telling the refugees they have a “right of return.”
http://culturewarriorwatch.blogs...utions-
and.html
Suggesting that people can be ethnically cleansed if they can't prove that they're willing to live peacefully is absurd. It's a recipe for a war of all and against all. How can anyone prove the absence of an intention?
And, without checking, I think you'll find that the resolution accepting Israel into the UN described Israel as a "peace loving nation".
This is why I find your over long comment irrelevant to what's been said here. I very rarely invoke the UN as a justification for anything though it does have its supporters. You seem to have argued against a lot of points that simply weren't made.
Commenting by HaloScan
