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10th January 2005
The Editor,
Co-operative News,
Holyoake House,
Hanover Street,
Manchester M60 0AS
United Kingdom
Re A right of return?
In criticizing the headline (“Palestinian State would end
Israel”) which accompanied an earlier letter of mine, Faith Minnion of
Oxford makes the kind of wrong assumption which people living far away
from the conflict between Arabs and Israelis make all the time. This is
a pity, because the conflict is complex enough as it is.
Contrary to the headline and to Faith Minnion's opinion,
I didn't say a Palestinian State would end Israel, and certainly don't
believe it will. Israel is a thriving, robust, democratic state. All but
a relative handful of Israelis know there is going to be a Palestinian
state, and accept it. Israel as a government, and Israelis as a people,
are lined up behind that notion. It's a fundamental piece of the
Roadmap.
My letter was directed at the fuzzy thinking I saw in
your paper about this slogan of "the Palestinian right of return". Think
about it, Ms Minnion. The Palestinians say they want their state. And
they want their right of return. Their next prime minister (a man who
built his academic career on Holocaust denial) has re-affirmed this in
public at every opportunity. He says he wants both: the state and the
right of return.
For us Israelis - and not only families like mine who
have experienced the brutal, willful murder of a child at the hands of
Palestinian Arab "activists" and "militants" - we know double-talk when
we hear it. We understand the existential danger it poses. A Palestinian
state will not end Israel; it will almost certainly benefit it. But a
"right of return" if it means anything at all can only mean injecting
Palestinian Arabs into Israel, and not into that emerging Palestinian
state.
Can you see how unhelpful to peace such a slogan is?
Sincerely,
Arnold Roth
Jerusalem
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