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There Can be No Right of Return

(Financial Times-UK) Martin Wolf - The world has known many huge waves of refugees. The normal response has been to absorb them as soon as it is clear they cannot reasonably be expected to return. Arab states could have absorbed the refugees without difficulty, as Israel absorbed the roughly similar number of Jewish refugees from Arab countries. Israel's land area is, after all, less than 0.2% of that of the members of the Arab League. Arab states have preserved these hapless people as refugees not out of concern for their welfare, of which one sees little, but as a weapon against Israel. The pre-1967 borders were themselves armistice lines reached at the end of the 1948 war. If the land conquered after the 1967 war is "occupied," so must be much of pre-1967 Israel.
2003-06-19 00:00:00
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