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UN Should Tell Palestinians to Give Up Claims to Israeli Territory

(Wall Street Journal) Einat Wilf and Adi Schwartz - The UN Security Council last month passed Resolution 2334, which contradicts UN Resolution 242 from 1967 and essentially gives all of the West Bank to the Palestinians. If Israelis cannot lay claim to the West Bank, then Palestinians cannot lay claim to Israeli territory. Secretary of State John Kerry and participants of the coming peace conference in Paris must affirm such a resolution as strongly as they did the UN one. Those who have witnessed the chants of "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" at anti-Israel demonstrations know that the Palestinians have not abandoned their claims to Israel west of the Green Line. The most flagrant manifestation of these Palestinian claims is the insistence that the Arabs who were displaced during the 1947-49 war, and their millions of descendants, possess a "right of return" to the State of Israel. Yet to insist on this "right" means to deprive the Jewish people of their state and subject them again to the status of an oppressed minority - their historical position in Arab lands. Particularly, the resolution should affirm, using the same language as Resolution 2334, that any claims of Palestine and of Palestinians to the territory of Israel within the 1967 lines have "no legal validity" and "constitute a flagrant violation under international law." Any institutions perpetuating such claims, such as UNRWA, should "immediately and completely cease" their illegal activities and be dismantled. If backers of the original resolution decline to use the same language toward the Palestinians that they used against Israelis, then those who doubt their commitment to peace and justice would, unfortunately, be vindicated. Ms. Wilf is a former member of the Knesset. Mr. Schwartz is a researcher and writer in Tel Aviv.
2017-01-13 00:00:00
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