“Right” – Rejected
In this fascinating piece, here reprinted in full from YNetnews.com, witness at last someone who is willing to speak up to a world that has a rewritten, perverted narrative about the Arabs of “Balestine” so far up its nether-regions its lips are starting to have trouble differentiating its P’s and B’s.
I want someone like that in public office. But as I look at the difference between a Benjamin Nitay that wipes the floor clean with his Arab interlocutor with cogent arguments, author Benjamin Netanyahu that writes books that clearly delineate threats to Western society and PM Bibi Netanyahu who seems to have had the ability to connect that part of his brain to any possible expression by his lips severed – I’m not so sure.
Experts: No legal basis for Palestinian refugee demands
Law professors Ruth Gavison, Yaffa Zilbershatz present PM with position paper claiming must not recognize right of return ‘even as symbolic gesture’. Had this been a legal right, it would have already been discussed at international court, documents says
Ariela Ringel Hoffman
// “International law does not recognize the right of the Palestinian refugees and their descendents to return to their homes,” according to a first-of-its-kind position paper recently submitted to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other senior officials.
“Any recognition of this right may tie Israel’s hands and lead to mass lawsuits that will effectively mean the end of the Jewish state,” prominent jurists Prof. Ruth Gavison and Prof. Yaffa Zilbershatz wrote in the document.
“Israel must continue to vehemently oppose the broad implementation of the Palestinian refugees’ return to its territory and must not be tempted to recognize the right of return even as a symbolic gesture,” they claim.
According to the jurists, the return of Palestinian refugees will “undermine the Jews’ ability to realize their right to self-determination in a Jewish and democratic country, and therefore Israel’s legal opposition regarding this issue is justified. (Recognizing the right of return) may perpetuate the (Israeli-Arab) conflict.”
Asked whether the recognition of the right of return may advance a peace agreement that would be acceptable to the Palestinians, Zilbershatz says, “The fact that the Palestinians are talking about the right of return places the idea above any negotiation – because you can’t argue with rights.
“We also do not believe in the statement, ‘You recognize the right and we’ll make sure it is not implemented’. Even the most western, modern philosophy adheres to the notion that economic interests are not the only ones that drive people. You can offer someone a huge financial reward and he or she will still want to return home,” she says.
Do you believe such a position paper or any other legal document can overcome the Palestinian narrative?
‘I’m not naïve. But I think decision-makers and the general public should be made aware of this issue. This is what we are trying to do with this paper. It is also important to mention that there is no connection between this Palestinian demand, which relates to the 1948 refugees, and the conquest in 1967,” says the professor.
“Had this been a legal right and not a question of morals or politics, it would have already been discussed at the international court.”
Zilbershatz, who has been mentioned as a possible candidate to succeed Gabriela Shalev as Israel’s ambassador to the UN, is considered an expert in international law.
Gavison is the president of the Metzilah Center, which was founded in 2005 to address the “growing tendency among Israelis and Jews worldwide to question the legitimacy of Jewish nationalism and its compatibility with universal values.”
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