Opinion Editorials, November 2013

 PIC, Al-Jazeerah, CCUN, November 18, 2013

The gung-ho scandal-ridden Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has accused the Palestinian people of brazenly continuing to invoke the mantra of Palestinian refugees in order to keep the Palestinian cause alive.

Lieberman, who was reinstated recently as Foreign Minister following a long legal battle, was quoted as saying that the Palestinians were using the refugees as a tool by refusing to allow them to assimilate in their host countries.

"Jews from Arab countries came to Israel as refugees, but unlike the Palestinians, they integrated and became citizens," Lieberman reportedly told lawmakers Monday.

. "Palestinians entrenched their refugee status in order to build an ethos. They do everything to prevent refugees from integrating in the countries they live in."

Well, Lieberman is trying to re-write history with his lies, lies that really go beyond Chutzpah.

There are a thousand ways to refute Lieberman's lies. The right of millions of Palestinian refugees, brutally uprooted from their homes and villages at the hands of Jewish-Zionist invaders from Eastern Europe, is deep-rooted and well-established in international law. It is not a whim or a mantra or an unsubstantiated claim or an invention. It is a sacred, legitimate right that is totally compatible with the laws of man and the laws of God.

According to article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each State. Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and return to his country.

Israel has been claiming ad nauseam that the Palestinians left their homes voluntarily, a claim that is void of any iota of truth.

However, even, for the sake of argument, if this were true, these people would still have an inalienable right to return home.

But Israel itself is an outlaw in every respect and it is really hard to invoke international law when talking about Israel. Israel and international law are an eternal oxymoron.

Indeed, Israel is a war crime or a crime against humanity par excel lance. And in truth, were it not for its brute force, Nazi-like savagery and unlimited western backing, Israel shouldn't exist as a nation-state. Hence, Israel owes its continued existence not to the power of logic or any legitimacy but rather to the logic of power. Otherwise, Israel has no moral legitimacy. It never will.

Lieberman may continue to babble about the absolutely and totally-just cause of Palestinian refugees. But the robe of lie is short, however long it may look.

Sixty-five years have passed since these peaceable but oppressed Palestinians were expelled from their homes. They have suffered so immeasurably and uninterruptedly for so long on no account other than that they didn't belong to the "correct tribe."

Hence trying to belittle or underestimate their right to return to their homes is tantamount to denying the obvious.

In any case, the refugees themselves and all honest-minded people of the world, and irrespective of their ethnicity and belief systems, will never allow this paramount right to go into oblivion or be diluted in futile political bargaining.

True, some Palestinian leaders, including Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas have made remarks undermining the paramountcy and sacredness of the right of return.

However, it must be understood that no political leader under the sun, elected or otherwise, has any right to compromise on this central issue of the Palestinian plight. The right of return is the heart and soul of the Palestinian problem.

Abbas is free to give up his personal right but he can't speak on behalf of ten million Palestinians each of whom has a long-standing score to settle with Israel. Nor does he have the right to speak on behalf of 1500,000,000 million Muslims for whom Palestine and the Aqsa Mosque is an integral part of their religious belief.

In the final analysis, we don't seek the liquidation or eradication of any people. We only want to go back home.

A final point. Lieberman and other Zionist officials keep making corrupt analogies between Palestinian refugees and so-called Jewish refugees.

But in truth there is no such a thing as Jewish refugees. The so-called Jewish refugees are fictional, not real refugees. These people were invited to Israel in order to fulfill Zionism. In numerous cases, they were coerced and terrorized into leaving their homes and native lands, as testified by Naeim Gilaadi, an Iraqi Jew, in his famous book "The Iraqi Jews."

Even in the Hebrew language, these "new comers" are still referred to as "aliya makers" or ascenders, hardly an epithet for wretched refugees.

Hence, all honest and free-minded people ought to strongly reject cheap efforts by Lieberman and other Zionist officials to turn the black into white and the big lie into a "truth."

Opinions expressed in various sections are the sole responsibility of their authors and they may not represent Al-Jazeerah & ccun.org.

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