Do Palestinians who fled Israel in 1948, and their descendants, have a legal or moral right to return to their former homes in Israel?
Is it true that most other refugees around the world have already exercised such rights of repatriation? Palestinian spokesmen, and groups including Amnesty International, have repeatedly asserted that Palestinians do have a legal and moral right to return to Israel. Most legal authorities, however, contend that the relevant legal instruments, including UN General Assembly Resolution 194, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, offer no support for these claims. Moreover, many analysts have pointed out that because an Arab and Palestinian-initiated war against Israel created a similar number of Jewish and Palestinian refugees, and because Israel settled the Jewish refugees, the Arab side should settle the Palestinian refugees.
unitedjerusalem.com |
