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Palestinian Right of Return? Not in My Backyard

(Jerusalem Post) Marcus Sheff - The Israel Project has been conducting polling and focus groups in Gaza and the West Bank for two years as part of the Arabic People to People Program. A recent Palestinian focus group session in Nablus in the West Bank demonstrated that, just as in America and elsewhere, the top issue for Palestinians is the economy and jobs. While their leadership continues to insist on a Palestinian "right of return," Palestinians in the West Bank are less than enthusiastic about their return to a future state of Palestine. Today, after having waged a bloody intifada, Palestinians enjoy the fruits of economic peace generated by several years of quiet cooperation between the Israeli government and the PA and by large sums of U.S. and European aid. Life is beginning to look good, and residents don't want their new-found prosperity threatened by the sudden influx of refugees, many of them intentionally kept impoverished, from camps in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. We need to listen to the Palestinians more closely. The writer is executive director of The Israel Project's Israel office.
2011-11-18 00:00:00
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