[Jerusalem Post] Editorial - President Bush said on Jan. 10 that the agreement between Israel and the Palestinians "must establish Palestine as a homeland for the Palestinian people, just as Israel is a homeland for the Jewish people." The last ten words are the key to resolving the conflict, a missing element whose absence has caused the peace process to oscillate between stalemate and war rather than move steadily toward lasting peace. According to the Arab demand for a "right of return," Palestinians have a right to move to Israel, while Jews not only have no right to move to a future Palestinian state, but those who live now within the future borders of that state must leave. This cannot be solved by drawing different lines on a map. It has nothing to do with borders, but whether the Jewish people have the national right to sovereignty anywhere in the Land of Israel. If Palestinians have a right to move to Israel, and Jews or Israelis can't move to Palestine, then the Palestinians are saying: What's mine is mine and what's yours is mine.
2008-01-16 01:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive