Reply #10: There is no "Right of Return"

[aranthus]

That's right folks. There is no absolute, unconditional, universal right of return. Not for Palestinians, and not for anyone else. Please don't cite UNGAR 194 or any other UN resolution. They're irrelevant for several reasons (Among others: 1. The UN is not a moral arbiter, so its declarations don't mean anything; 2. You can't legislate rights; they either exist or they don't). Do the Germans or their descendants forced out of what is now western Poland have the right to return to their homes and turn Poland into an extension of Germany? Ask a Pole that. Do they then have the right to reparations from Poland and Russia for their losses in World War Two? Don't even ask that question. Do Muslims forced out of India or Hindus forced out of Pakistan in 1947 have the right to return to their land? Of course not. Refugees have traditionally been absorbed by their host countries. The only reason that the Palestinians have not is so they could be molded into a weapon to use against Israel.

Even when refugees have been allowed back, it has been under strict conditions. That's another reason why the Germans aren't going back to Silesia or East Prussia: aggressors lose their rights. Assuming that Israel has a right to exist (meaning that the Jewish people have a right to a state of their own), then the Palestinians started the Arab/Israeli Wars as surely as the Germans started World War Two. They lost, so they don't get to go back. Even, 194 limits the supposed return to those who are willing to live in peace with their neighbors. That leaves out most of the Palestinians.

The Palestinians are the first people I know of to start a war, lose that war, and then claim the rights of victors.