Palestine Solidarity protest at Dublin 'Israel at 60' Celebration - Report & Pics
dublin |
rights, freedoms and repression |
news report 
Thursday May 08, 2008 11:10
by Kev - IPSC (pers cap)
info at ipsc dot ie
01 6770253
Pro-Palestinian activists gathered at the Ballsbridge Court Hotel yesterday evening, Wednesday 7th May, to protest the Israeli Embassy-hosted celebrations for the 60th anniversary of foundation of the State of Israel via the ethnic cleansing of over 700,000 Palestinians in 1948. The protest was called by the IPSC and the Nakba Coalition.
Around 100 activists, mostly dressed in black to mourn the fate of the Palestinian people (then and now), assembled outside the hotel and chanted at those attending the celebration of ethnic cleansing, dispossession and continued oppression carried out by the Israeli state.
Due to the bizarre acoustics, chants of "Shame! Shame!", "Free Palestine!" and "Ethnic Cleansing is nothing to celebrate" could be heard from streets away. More than a few of those attending looked rather disconcerted by the whole affair.
I didn't see any Irish politicians going in - though I'm told this probably has more to do with last night's Dail session rather than a snubbing of the Israeli state.
Big thanks to all who came along and voice their support for the Palestinian cause.
Comments (57 of 57)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57Five more
Protest in Dublin at Israeli 60th Celebrations: 'The ethnic cleansing of Palestine: nothing to celebrate!'
On Wednesday night, a crowd of around 100 peaceful picketers gathered outside the Ballsbridge Court Hotel to protest an Israeli embassy event inside the hotel that celebrated 60 years of the Israeli state. The protestors dressed in black for mourning and carried placards highlighting the Nakba, the ethnic cleansing of Palestine 60 years ago. The rally was called by the Ireland Palestinian Solidarity Campaign (IPSC) and the Nakba Coalition.
A spokesperson for the IPSC, David Landy said 'For millions of Palestinians this has been sixty years of dispossession and exile, of military occupation, of house demolitions and death squads.'
'Sixty years ago, 750,000 Palestinians were ethnically cleansed by Israel, in what is now know as the Nakba. They and their descendents still live in exile. Israel still defies international law and refuses to let them return home. There is nothing to celebrate.'
As Israeli dignitaries and their guests went into the Ballsbridge Court Hotel they were greeted with cries of 'Shame! Shame!' and 'Sixty years of occupation. No cause for celebration!'
The demonstration ended with a member of the Palestinian community in Ireland thanking the crowd for coming to the demonstration. He said, 'thank you for being here, for showing solidarity with myself and my family, and with all the Palestinians suffering under the Israeli state. The suffering has gone on too long, but it cannot last for ever. We will return!'
ENDS
Some pictures
Contrary to what one of the posters at the demo asserts the right to return is not inalienable. Refugees can be dealt with by a number of alternative means like legitimizing say third generation refugees in another Arab country or by compensation of some kind.
United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3236 :
" Reaffirms also the inalienable right of the Palestinians to return to their homes and property from which they have been displaced and uprooted, and calls for their return;
Emphasizes that full respect for and the realization of these inalienable rights of the Palestinian people are indispensable for the solution of the question of Palestine; "
Sure thing, You are right , the UN is wrong. We are all in awe of your profound wisdom.
A GA resolution does not change things – it cannot make something inalienable when it is inherently not.
So a General Assembly Resolution doesn't actually mean anything? In that case GA Res 181, the 1947 "partition resolution" that founded the state of Israel has no validity. Great - now we know!
Oh but Sceptic,
Supposing the UNGA didnt change anything. Supposing they are just right, and you are wrong.
Imagine that.
That the right to go home is inalienable. I certainly grew up feeling this was my inalienable right - going home.
I wonder if the UNSC made a resolution saying that it was the inalienable right of the Palestinians to return home, would you then concede " Oh well now that must be right because its the Security Council. "
You see the Security Council is so much more wise than the General Assembly. You and the Security Council are so wise , Sceptic, we are in awe of your great wisdom.
Thank you for lernin us proper.
There is no inalienable and unqualified right to settle in a particular country that includes territory where ones ancestors were born. That is not to say that there should not be or is not a “right of return” of some kind in this instance or that other arrangements including compensation and settlement elsewhere should be offered instead. It’s just not an inalienable right in the commonly understood sense of the term and the term should not be thrown around loosely. What you people are doing is making uninformed assertions about things which have not been properly tested or analyzed.
Recognition of the state of Israel by the international community rests on more than just a GA vote. It is part of the UN legal order of which the GA vote was an executive action. The various motions condemning Israel are just that – they are not executive nor do they create statutes. They usually are in the form of “condemnation” of this or “calling for” that.
The UN role in the region is peculiar because as the successor body to the defunct League of Nations it inherited responsibility for the British Mandate in Palestine. Hence there was a particular contemporary significance to the UN’s acceptance of its statehood that is not applicable generally. No such significance attaches to most other GA votes particularity relating to Israel in the past forty years.
Jeez Sceptic,
It has to be said that your comment above is one major pile of meaningless gibberish punctuated with an awful lot of KAH KAH . It doesnt merit response.
I'll just clarify the simple viewpoint here for you, in English. Your opinion, that the Right of Return for the ethnically cleansed Palestinians, to their families homes is not inalienable, is just that : your opinion.
The United nations has made it clear that it believes that it is an inalienable right.
Its my opinion that the UN are right as it is my experience in my life that I have always felt my right to go home to be inalienable to me.
Ergo, it is my opinion that you are wrong. It is also my opinion that you are not wrong through stupidity or miscomprehension,. No. You are wrong by merit of the fact that you are deliberately trying to mislead people in relation to the rights of the Palestinians under International Law and the rights of the Palestinians in the eyes of God, Nature and all moral fellow Human Beings.
Shame on you.
You say you have always felt your right to go home to be inalienable to you.
Is your right to go to your Grandparents' home inalienable too? And your Grand-grandparents'?
Cause this is what we talk about. The refugees' descendants.
Do they have a right to compensation ? Yes they do. Do they have a right to return to the exact house they had? No they don't.
By the way, in the same years Israel took in 750,000 refugees kicked out of Arabian countries, most of whom weren't alowed to take more than one suitcase of clothes. They used to own land equals to 4 times Israel in KMs, and property in the value of 1 Billion $.
Shouldn't they have compensation just like the Palestinians? Or should they have the inalienable right to get back to the exact houses and lands?
If they have a "Right to be Compensated" in your opinion then please tell us what they are being compensated for. Could it be compensation for the fact that it is not physically possible for them to excercise their right of return?
Hmm, a complicated issue. I suppose it depends on what you consider a right of return to be. Does it pertain to solely occupied territory or to homes within 'agreed' upon borders in Israel? Does it pertain to people who actually lived there or to their children/grandchildren too? If grandchildren have the right of return, then could an Israeli counter claim the land based on 'our ancestors were here before you'? Do Irish who historically have homes in the north have right of return to their granparents homes? Or does the right of return mean that they can return to the country? I would be interested as to how exactly right of return is defined by the UN/EU etc.
In any case, compensation to Palestinians is in the pipelines, so I have heard, but Israel is considering requesting compensation for the Jews expelled from other countries in the middle east. I have a strange feeling that there will be another fracas down the line where Israel refuses to compensate until it has recieved compensation etc.
Jews expelled from Middle Eastern countries? Where? Mossad made more Jewish people leave their countries than any other force since the creation of the state of Israel. They burned Jews out of their homes in Bagdad during the 60's to force them to move to Israel. Maybe Mosad should pay out compensation first.
Didn't know that. Link to source please? (Reliable as well please)
I was under the impression that Jews were forced to flee Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia and Yemen to name a few. Did this not happen?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_exodus_from_Arab_lands has the details. Doesn't even have the Wikipedia "neutrality disputed" qualification so I'd say its reliable enough.
Surprising though, that this seems to come as a surprise to so many people. I've often raised the Arab nations expulsions of Jews in pub talk only to be told "no, that couldn't be true - sure everybody would be talking about it if it was!" Others find it hard to believe there were that many Jews in Arab countries to begin with. Yet the myth persists that the forced population transfer in 1948 was one-way traffic only.
I did not query the right to return – if people want to press that demand fair enough. Nor that the refugees suffered an injustice. But the right to return is not an inalienable right for the reasons I outlined. Declaring it so is factually incorrect and this weakens the overall case being presented.
As regards the UNGA its motions are not legislation and it is not a law making body as such. Thus various motions are mere political statements based in a head count. It cannot create or discern rights. In any case the definition of an inalienable right would preclude its being conferred or removed by the GA or even the SC. If they were to attempt this they could not in logic confine this “inalienable” right to Palestinians refugees - it would have to apply to all including the post war expelled Germans of which there would also be millions. Throughout the globe such a move would risk resuming wars that were previously settled as well as new counter expulsions. It would be a formula for endless war.
PS rights are not based on feelings – your theoretical feelings about “going home” are irrelevant to this issue in international law.
Yes, you ignorant, Jews were expelled from Mid-East countries. They were threatened and persecuted
and were expelled - in many places all their property was confiscated.
It is not a myth - half of Israeli Jews are descendants to these people.
What IS a myth, is what you wrote, about the Mossad burning Jews out of their homes. THAT is a total bullshit, and I'll tell you why:
1. Israel had enough troubles with housing and finding employment to all these immigrants who came at once - from Europe and from Arabian and Muslim countries at the same time. Since theoretically the Jews from Europe were in a more severe situation, after the Holocaust (I mean - most Jews in Europe were in refugees camps, while Jews in Arabian/Muslim countries barely suffered during WW2 - comparing to Europeand standards, that is) - Israel would certainly prefer the Jews from anywhere else to came later, in the following years. Only - well, as I said - Jews were expelled from Arabian and Muslim countries - in some cases, these were communities more ancient than Islam (the community in Iran and Iraq, for example).
2. EVEN if it were true. The Mossad was behind all this (which is not, as I mentioned before).
Did these goverments had any right to confiscate the Jews' property - forbidding them to sell their houses, confiscatting their bank accounts, forbidding them to take money and jewlery out of the country?
"Did these goverments had any right to confiscate the Jews' property...?" - No
"Did the Israeli regime have the right to do the same to the Palestinians? - No
So? For 60 years states in the Middle East have been prevented citizenship from Palestinian refugees that were BORN in these states, claimed they should return to Palestine and in the meantime kept them in refugee camps, prevented them from various professions and perpetuating their status. Out of Millions of refugees all over the world after WW2, only the Palestinians were left as refugees, bequeathing their status from generation to generation - you wouldn't find 2nd and 3rd - not to mention 4th generation of refugees - anywhere else in the world.
While these states kept claiming that - they thrived of the property confisicated from the Jews.
Israel, by the way, claimed all these years that the situation should be regarded as population exchanges. And Israel, unlike Arabian states, received all these refugees - none of whom is a refugee today. Infact, within several years they weren't refugees anymore.
If the Palestinian refugees shall have compensation - and they shall - for there is no way they can get back: It will be the end of the state of Israel, and Israel would never agree to that - so shall these Jews.
Sceptic,
My feelings are not theoretical, they are real. This is what we humans call "inalienable". Something that we know is part of the order of Nature and human morality. Personal rights which seperate the Humans from the other animals. Most of us , anyhow.
Your continual crapping on about legislation and motions and bodies is utterly irrelevant to the higher natural human understanding of the order of morality in this world. The UN accepts the natural inalienable right of a person to go home after an upheaval or crisis has dislodged them from their homeland.
You dont.
What dont you understand about your position in relation to this ?
Louise
You brought your feelings into it and since you are not a refugee you were theorising about what you would feel if you were one.
The case that the right of return is inalienable is putatively legitimized here by others by reference to UNGA motions. Hence that point requires to be addressed lest anyone get confused. You seem to be confusing these motions with the view of the UN as a whole or with international law. But they are different. The GA saying in a motion that there is an inalienable right to return (in the case of Palestinians only) does not make it so. It was expressing a GA view only and besides it is a legally suspect proposition. Rather it was expressing a political view dressed up in legal language and moreover untested in a legal forum.
Inalienable rights neither are not just personal rights nor are they rights which emanate from the heart as you suggest. They are amongst other things rights which are inherent, don’t need to be granted, cannot be taken away or be made ameliorative such as the right to life. One can argue that the Palestinians have or should have a right of return, even a strong right of return. But clearly it is not an inalienable right even if advocates of their cause feel it ought to be. The concept is a legalism that cannot be bent for various political and propaganda purposes. It is not a question of higher understanding nor is it “accepted by the UN” as such.
Sceptic
Not for one moment did I theorise about what it would be like to be a refugee. I expressed my opinion plain and simple - the right to return home is an inalienable right. You see the thing about inalienable rights is that they are conferred upon humanity by nature / God ( whatever you believe brought us here) and natural moral humans can feel these rights within the context of their life. At some stage in the past the concept of these rights entered into society and legality as a recognition that somethings are beyond the human capacity to give or take away. You seem to be able to grasp this to a large extent.
So whilst you can take away a life , you cannot take away the right to life. I dont need anybody to tell me that I have a right to live I know it , I feel it, its part of the natural order of things. Same for being allowed to go home. Its my inalienable right to go home. I know it and feel it , I always have.
The UN, the big collection of arses and self serving halfwits and bottom feeders that it is, can even recognise these simple principles and they dont have to mull over it like you. Being allowed to return home is an inalienable right for any human. Most people get it, some dont.
It appears You cant.
Of course you are entirely wrong.
Your home is not a property, not unless you are miserable. The Bedouins dont build gafs in the desert. Thay build temporary settlements in their homeland. Thay have a right to return to their home land and build a village there. Its not a property, its a home.
Dear God , what is wrong with you people that you cant accept a plain truth. We grow up knowing were our homes are and we inherently know that we have a right to go back their, no matter what happens and no matter what is left of it after a catastrophe strikes. Its home and our right to go back is inalienable.
The UN is a load of crap in relation to Palestine , but even thay got that right.
My entire point is that it is not inalienable for the reasons given by me and Mr. Man. Again you are bringing in sentiment and semantics – home is where you live by most definitions not where your grandparents might have lived in 1948 which would be an ancient ancestral home. Also the problem of confining inalienability to the Palestinians exclusively arises and is ignored by you. Why is the right inalienable in the case of the Palestinians only and not in the case of the millions of refuges created with Indian and Pakistan? Or the former Yugoslavia? Or Silesia? Or East Prussia? I could go on but this entire notion might reverse the very thing that caused these wars to end which was a population movement however unjust it was on the victims. Not for the first time Israel is singled out for special treatment.
Louise- Still with the repetion of inalienable eh? Have you looked at the definition of inalienable rights?
So now you are expanding your scope from home to homeland. Personally, my home is property. It can be bought and sold. No right to return if I sell it. My paternal homeland is the Ukraine, but I dont have automatic right to live there. My maternal homeland is Rhodesia, that doesn't even exist anymore, let alone having the right to return. It strikes me that your misconception of 'right of return' is what started this, with Jews wanting to return to their homeland.
For anybody reading this thread it is plain to see how you pair have wriggled and squirmed and both done your level best to complicate a simple matter. For me, that is good enough to pove who is right and who is wrong.
The right of return is universal and inalienable. It applies to all peoples who have been forced to leave their homes temporarirly for whatever reason. If there is an earthquake and my house falls into a fissure in the ground and all that is left of my home is a hole in the ground then I have a right to return to this place and rebuild what I can of my life in my homeland. The state has a burden of responsibility to assist me in whatever way it can in doing so. It cannot permanerntly bar me from the place, imprison me if I refuse to forget my home or torture me in order to try to get me to capitulate.
The reason for this is because I have a right to return to my home.
If there had been an earthquake, and you would leave for another country. And would not return - no metter why. Let's say you weren't permitted to. Fine? Your grandchildern would not be able to go there. Which is our case here, and you insist on ignore it. You don't have an inalienable right to go to the place your grandparents lived. My great-grandparents had a small factory in Belarus. It was burned by a mob and my great-grandparents was beaten to death. My great-grandmother took her family and came to Israel - which was still Palestine then. It was 1917/1918.
Do we have a right to get there? No we don't.
Would we find it had we had the right? No we wouldn't. it was rebuilt by other people.
Eye,
No, its not fine. if I had to leave my country for an emergency or whatever and someone refused to permit me returning to my home then that is NOT FINE ! thats the whole point. Its my inalienable right to return to my home. Dont you get it. If the Palestinians had been allowed to return to the homes from which they were forced then their descendants would be either living on the land, would have citizenship and be living abroad with the right to come and go etc. But they have been denied this right for sixty years now you are dealing with the legacy of that denial. Nobody is stopping you going to Belarus and applying for citizenship under whatever case you can make.
If the Zionists had dealt fairly with the people who lived on the land prior to their arrival then their might have been a natural assimilaiton to the region of these Jewish immigrants of which you speak at some gradual stages along the course of history. Then everybody's decendants would have access to their family legacy. But they didnt, They killed and ran off the indigenous and from this act stems that peoples right to return to Palestine. When the immigrants who live there now, in the places from which the indigenous were banished, accept this then the mechanics of implementation will be the next step.
Louise you can argue with the two above posters twisted logic.
After the unification of Germany in 89 many Jewish people reclaimed property belonging to them or their family. They enjoyed their right to live in these houses or rent them or sell them or whatever.
My ex was a squatting a house in the city of Weimar when the landlord arrived from the US. His parents owned the house before the war but they fled to become refugees in the US. The squatters settled a fair rent with this gentleman and carried on living there. Some time later the house was sold to the city.
I assume he didnt want to return to live in this house because he and his parents had the opportunity to build lives in the US. They were not subject to the terrible living condition that refugees in Palestine are subjected to by the Israelis.
Louise- It is you who do not get it. Please look up the definition of inalienable right. As per your very PC declaration to eastern eye "Go back to Belarus - nobody is stopping you". Umm... Immigration officials might? "Nobody is stopping you going to Belarus and applying for citizenship under whatever case you can make" But surely if it is an inalienable right, then there should be no need for an application? To go there, you have to apply, they consider and can within their rights deny you. They won't just go "hey, your granny was born here! Great, come right in!" Its not like you need to fill out an application for an ACTUAL inalienable right, the right to live.
In most circumstances, you have the right to go home. But it is not an inalienable right.
"If the Zionists had dealt fairly with the people who lived on the land prior to their arrival then their might have been a natural assimilaiton"
True. But I'm sure being fair is a lot easier when you are at peace and not having to deal with being surrounded by enemies.
Oh, and CC- "After the unification of Germany in 89 many Jewish people reclaimed property" Ok, well after the reunification of Israel with Palestine, the people who owned property can claim it back or recieve compensation. I'm not certain but I'm pretty sure that in 89 West germany wasn't doing incursions into East Germany and East Germany wasn't firing regular rocket attacks into West Germany.
Mr.
I know what inalienable rights are, so stick to the point if you can. The very fact that they cant be given or taken away and either exist by extension of human existence or dont makes the whole debate subjective to a large extent. You may believe that you do not have an inalienable right to go home after an emergency or war, thats fine dont go home if you dont want to. Perhaps there are even Palestinians who dont really believe they have an inalienable right to return to the Palestinian homeland from which they and their families were expelled and choose to cite international law as justification. Thats fine too.
But the problem arises when you try to project your opinion onto another person or a group of people and in doing so your opinion becomes a form of oppression for the people who you are projecting your beliefs onto. In these instances we need a higher body or institution to convey its opinion. The UN has conveyed its opinion on this . The Right of Return is inalienable in the opinion of that internaitonal institution, so thankfully your attempts to suppress other peoples rights fail.
I agree with the UN in this as I find that judgement backs up my lifelong instinctual feeling that my right to go home, to my home is inalienable and natural. The fact that Israel has thwarted peoples right to do that has subsequently stolen the legacy of following generations and perverted their lives in a way that we will never completely comprehend. The right for those subsequent generation to retireve their legacy to whatever extent possible carries through.
You have made you opinions clear on this but thankfully they are insignificant.
Louise
"I know what inalienable rights are, so stick to the point"
Umm, that is what the point is. We have been debating the validity of the right of return as an inalienable right.
"....makes the whole debate subjective to a large extent."
Subjective to what? The actual definition of the word?
"But the problem arises when you try to project your opinion onto another person or a group of people"
What are you doing? Are you posting on this forum for your own benefit or to project your opinion? Are you actually trying to say free speech is a problem?
"In these instances we need a higher body or institution to convey its opinion."
Yes, ok. But am I not allowed to question the validity of UN opinion? I thought I was posting on Indymedia.
"thankfully your attempts to suppress other peoples rights fail"
Am I? I apologise if I am, but I don't think so. I am merely debating the idea of right of return as inalienable.
"You have made you opinions clear on this but thankfully they are insignificant."
Apparently I haven't made my opinion clear if you still don't understand where I'm coming from. I never thought that my opinion was significant, did you think yours was?
You seem to incorrectly assume my stance on the Israel-Palestinian conflict. I believe they do have a right of return and compensation, but the right of return is not inalienable.
Mr. Man
Subjective, as in a matter of perception to the individual as opposed to an absolute demonstrable fact. So for all you say on this subject it is merely your personal opinion that the right of return is not inalienable. But Certainly nothing posted here in anyway supports your outlook on the rights of others.
We've had every stupid diversion from stating that the grandchildren weren't born in Palestine to a home is a piece of property and along the way everybody's granny has been trotted out. But in general we've simply had a reluctance to deal with the simple essence of the issue. That is that each individuals right to return to their home after a displacement is something that we take for granted in our own lives. If they close down your street because of a gas leak you will bloody well kick like hell if some tool tries to tell you you cant go back after the danger has passed. Not because of the value of the property you live in, after all most houses are owned by banks anyway. No because its a moral imperative that you and your family be allowed to return to the safety of the place that you have made your home.
You have not provided one shred of an argument that backs up your position to deny this right to people as an inalienable right yet you stubbornly insist that you are right and the UN is wrong.
You say they have a right to return in your last sentence but fail to say what you base that belief on either.
I dont think you have thought any of this through.
Louise
-Obviously we aren't going to come to an agreement here as the argument is going round in circles, with you getting progressively more abusive. I am willing to let my statements stand if you are. Others can make up their own minds.
A chara
Mr. Man
I have not been even remotely abusive Mr man,
And it is not the argument that is going around in circles it is you. I am not interested in changing your mind on this issue. You dont have any logic to back up your position and you dont seem to have any explanation for why you believe the Palestinians have a right to return but not an inalienable one. Its just some kind of whim of yours. So I dont expect others logic to impinge much on you. Other people might read this and I am hoping they will not take such a trivial approach to their considerations on this buring issue so I aim to highlight how devoid of logic your position is.
This Right of Return issue is central to the claims for justice that the Palestinians have been making for sixty year as they sit in fetid camps watching their lives pass by. The last thing they need is people sauntering around talking through their hat about their human rights and their standing in UN resolutions. These are very serious issues upon which they rely on other people's opinions to help bring pressure to bear. You are undermining that whether inadvertently or purposefully so.
So I certainly stand over my arguments here and challenge you or anyone to prove or clarify in any way how the Right of Return in not inalienable and should not be regarded as so for the Palestinian refugees and diaspora.
Or you can just drop it.
Abusive:
"your comment above is one major pile of meaningless gibberish punctuated with an awful lot of KAH KAH"
"Personal rights which seperate the Humans from the other animals. Most of us , anyhow"
"Dear God , what is wrong with you people "
"Go back to Belarus"
"You have made you opinions clear on this but thankfully they are insignificant."
"I think that your story is a pile of KAA KAA"
Anyway....
I'm going to drop it. This all started from skeptic saying "Contrary to what one of the posters at the demo asserts the right to return is not inalienable."
You disagree. Based on your moral 'feeling' and what you believe in your heart. And 'logic' apparently.
Definition of Inalienable: not able to be taken away or transferred to another:
Collins Essential English Dictionary 2nd Edition 2006 © HarperCollins Publishers 2004, 2006
Definition of right of return: The term right of return refers to the principle in international law that members of an ethnic or national group have a right to immigration and naturalization into the country that they, the destination country, or both consider to be that group's homeland, independent of prior personal citizenship in that country. This belief is sometimes reflected in special consideration in a country's immigration laws (called "repatriation") which facilitate or encourage the reunion of a diaspora or dispersed ethnic population.
Is right of return Inalienable?
In the czech republic, the right of return of ethnic czechs was revoked.( Within certain boundaries.)
The Chagossian ethnic group from Diego Garcia (expelled to Maritius) were denied their right of return by England.
In Finland, If the ancestry dates back several generations, a residence permit cannot be granted on this basis.
In Germany, only people who formerly lived there, your progeny or spouse have right of return.
In Ireland, unless special accomodations are made, the buck stops at your grandparent.
In Norway, the Kola Norwegians (deported to russia) have to have at least 2 gradparents from Norway.
In Spain, only right of return if your father and mother were spanish, or if your grandparents left for economic or political reasons.
Many countries seperate the right of return purely on an ethnic level.
Yes the right of return exists. But it is not inalienable. There are terms and conditions.
You entered into this conversation saying that this is a complicated issue and since that point have done nothing but attempt to complicate it more. This argument is not about whether people around the world have the right to repatriation in their grandparents homeland. Or if Irish emmigrants to America who left voluntarily and did not excercise their right to return to Ireland in order to have their children claim Irish citizenship can magically bestow Irish citizenship at a time that suits them.
This is about the conditions imposed upon the Palestinians in 48 and then in 67 when they were forced to flee their homes to escape massacre, rape, torture. All those people in the period following the cessation of war would most likely have returned home had they been let. They were never let. Their right of return stems from the moment they were violently expelled. Just as the thousand of Iraqis who have fled their homes in order to stay alive will also have the right to return to their home or to what is left of it. Just as the Chinese and Burmese now fleeing terrible conditions in order to survive will also have the right to return to their villages if it is possible. It is about the righ to return to your home. The home from which you were forced to flee. This is what we are discussing this what the UN is referring to in relation to the Palestinians. Not repatriation of emmigrants or citizenship laws.
The right of return to one's home from which one has been forced is inalienable. It is the basis of civilised society. When you leave your home in the morning you do not wonder if the government will bar you from getting back their in the evening. It's unthinkable that they would deny you that inalienable right.
Ah, changing the topic again are we?
"This argument is not about......This is about the conditions imposed upon the Palestinians" Actually, it's not. If you actually look at the original post by skeptic where he states "Contrary to what one of the posters at the demo asserts the right to return is not inalienable."
That is what we are debating, whether or not the right of return is inalienable, as a concept. As skeptic said "A GA resolution does not change things – it cannot make something inalienable when it is inherently not."
We are not debating the Palestinian issue, as I already stated we are in agreement on this. Stop trying to assume my position
You asked for logic and facts and arguments to back me up. My previous post portrayed pretty well that the right of return IS alienable
"This is what we are discussing this what the UN is referring to in relation to the Palestinians. Not repatriation of emmigrants or citizenship laws."
All those exaples I gave you are right of return issues. Are you trying to oppress other people by belittling their right to return to their homeland?
I think anybody interested in this topic should read this article produced by National Committee to Commemorate the Nakba at 60. It is pertinent to much of what is being said here and more importantly comes from Palestinians themselves.
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9542.shtml
" Yes, our right to return to our homeland is enshrined in international law, not least in UN General Assembly Resolution 194. However, this resolution brought nothing new to the law, it simply restated the most basic principles of law and morality: that any human being has a right to go home, and that any person forced to leave, has the right to reclaim all that was taken from her; and that the only way to extinguish these rights is for the refugee herself to choose not to return..............
Our right is enshrined first by our existence, and second by this universe's moral code, and third by law.
........Also to refer to "Historic Palestine" when referring to the Palestine's borders during the British mandate, as well as stressing that the right of return is to the refugees' "original homes and properties";"
Witness - the point we are debating is not the right of return but whether it is inalienable. Nothing you have posted or linked to demonstrate inalienability. What the Palestinians themselves might think is just their own opinion as an interested party.
Louise - you mentioned that compensation being a live issue proves the inalienability of right of return. It does not. It might demonstrate that a tort occurred when the expulsion took place, but not inalienability of the right of return.
Also your earthquake example is bad. Unless you owned the land upon which your destroyed home stood you might not have an automatic right to return there. Essentially Israel does accept that former Palestinian titleholders should be compensated for their loss of property in the context of a final settlement. Again this is nothing to do with an inalienable right of return.
And that would be nothing more than your opinion Sceptic.
You'll forgive me if I take that with a pinch of salt when I disregard it as biased and mischievous and specifically directed to weaken the Palestinian cause in any way possible as you continually aim to do here.
The opinion of the United Nations and the Palestinian peoples themsleves is that the right of the individual to return to their homes is inalienable, it is also mine. If you walk down O Connell Street and ask every single person you meet if they feel they have a right to return to their home when they are finished work tonight , to a person the answer will be "of course I do".
Then ask them what gives them this right to return to their home they will not cite international law , human rights law, property law or citizenship rights , they will simply look at you funny and say something like " I just do , Sonny, now excuse me I'm late"
Why ? Because their right to go home is inalienable to them whether they know what that word means or not its in their blood and bones of their very existence.
Thats why they came up with the concept of inalienable rights because there are some things that are natrually evident to the moral human being.
Im not saying you are not moral I have no idea what you are You have simply chosen to rationalise against that which others have accepted as naturally inherent to them. Thats fine but the problem is that you are trying to project your opinions onto other peoples lives. Thats not fine.
Oh so now facts and laws don't matter? All that matters is how you 'feel'.
This is what you said in your last post :
" We are not debating the Palestinian issue, as I already stated we are in agreement on this. "
I think I,ve made it pretty clear that I believe the Palestinians have an inalienable right to return to their homes, you say you are in agreement, so what are you douing back here sniping childishly?
Well argued Louise, fair play to you. A clear head and logic has highlighted the two lads' desire to sow confusion and obfuscation over what they claim is just a 'debate' over the meaning of a specific word. If the Palestinians have a 100%, indefatigable right to return, and Sceptic and Mr Man recognise this, then let them put their energies into seeing that fulfilled, or at least, pass unhindered. They claim that they are just debating the suitability of a certain word but the tacit inference is that the right of return is not valid, just a demand of the Palestinians. It is similar to the drip-drip process that the Zionist supporters use to chip away at the credibility of any Palestinian argument in regard to the terrible wrongs done to them. The reclassification of the Occupied Territories as ‘disputed’ is an even more blatant example of this. Such a process must be resisted. Well done.
An inalienable right of return in this case may, in the future, and by the Palestinians only, be traded for compensation or not acted upon in order to reach a settlement. But this action, no matter how much Sceptic and his ilk want it, does not, in any way, lesson the inalienability of that right. For it exists, both in international law and in the minds of moral and fair people. No amount of bull from Sceptic will change that.
"I thougt you conceded that you agree with me."
I never conceded anything, my position has always been that they have right of return. I only brought it up because you were assuming my politics. My argument is completely separate from the palestinian issue, that the concept of right of retun being inalienable is untrue. As demonstrated. With logic. And facts. Which you choose to ignore.
Oh and Grey Man, the only person who has been trying to divert this issue as to whether the palestinians have right of return or not is Louise and yourself. So please don't try to discredit me or skeptic by painting us with the 'Zionist manipulator' brush.
You are contradicting yourself back and forward now, but for the sake of getting some clarity I will ask you for a second time.
If you support the Palestinians right to return, as you say you do, but dont believe that right is an inalienable right, as you say you dont, but agree with me in my assertion that the right to retun of the Palestinians stems from their inalienable right to return to the homes from which they fled, as you say you do and dont, then please clarify for upon what basis you do found your belief that the Palestinians have a right to return.
To this point your story has just been one of trying to contradict my position, thats not an argument thats a rebuttal. Let us now have your position in relation to the Palestinian right of return which you claim to support but dont provide any basis upon which that support rests.
Thanks Grey Man, freedom for the Palestinians is something we will all reap the benfit of one day in a better world.
Louise-
Fine. Not the issue I'm trying to address but if you want me to state it...
Why the palestinians have right of return;
1. Displacement due to war/politics
2. Still within 3 generations of original occupants (not that I believe generations is an issue in this case)
3. Exceptional circumstances
May be more reasons, but don't want to go on forever.
Still doesn't make the concept of right of return inalienable.
Yourself and Sceptic discredit yourselves regularly on this site without me having to go anywhere near ya!
If Palestinian rights is not the issue you want to discuss then you are in the wrong thread.
Heres your summary of why the palestinians have right of return;
1. Displacement due to war/politics
2. Exceptional circumstances
You'll see I've removed your "Three Generations" reason because you clearly state that you dont believe generations is an issue in this case. The last thing we need is more confusing statements being bandied around.
But I believe we can simplify this further with a little logic. It's the war and politics that caused the exile so we can safely say that the Exceptional circumstances are a result of the War and politics ergo it appears that you actually only have one reason :
* Exceptional circumstances due to displacement caused by war and politics.
Perhaps you were right when you said that we are in agreement on the Palestinians Right to Return because that basically is what I' ve been saying all along here. I also believe that it is exceptional that the Palestinians have suffered 60 years in Exile when we all know that they have an inalienable right to return to their homes. A right that has long been clearly identified by the United Nations.
That is a truly exceptional failure of international mechanisms.
I believe something miraculous has happened! I agree with you!
Except for the 'In' part in front of 'aliable' but I suppose I am just splitting hairs and doesn't really have much to do with the Palestinian issue. I'm just a stickler for the detail.
Well Mr Man,
If you cannot provide any actual reason as to why it is your belief that the Palestinians have a right to return to their homes to escape what you believe are * Exceptional circumstances due to displacement caused by war and politics * yet you still refuse to accept that the reason may be because this right is inalienable then I respectfully suggest that you are not really a stickler for detail.
Earlier when I said that you could ask all the people on O Connell Street , what gives them this right to return to their home each night and they will not cite international law , human rights law, property law or citizenship rights , they will simply look at you funny and say something like " I just do , Sonny, now excuse me I'm late"
It seems to me that you are of the opinion that the Palestinians just do have the right to return.
They just do !
They do. But they don't just do.
Everybody should look at this map.
It's unofficial but the fact that it even made it into the public domain is quite alarming.
Check it out.. The New Palestinian "state" as seen by Israel.
http://www.imemc.org/article/55061
"In a report that is unsubstantiated by official sources, the Israeli newspaper, the Jerusalem Post, has reported that Israel has presented a map of the West Bank in which Israel will control 8.5 percent of the land (including the most fertile land and the water sources). "
Can somebody clarify something here. The map states that the green is the area to be controlled by Israel and then it states that Israel proposes to retain control of 8.5% of the total Palestinian lands , then why does the green area indicated cover about 40-50% of the lands. Thats how it appears to me anyhow. Am I reading the article wrong or the map wrong ?
Yeah, I found it hard to decipher too.
The reason why you are confused is because you think that the map shown is "the map" about which the artilce speaks. An understandable error. But its not. The map illustrated is an old map, as you will see if you look at the date printed in the bottom left hand corner of it. it based on the old "disengagment" plan whereby Israel planned to obliterate Palestinian National aspirations by obliterating what remained of their homeland , here is a more detailed version of it.
http://www.fmep.org/maps/map_data/redeployment/disengag....html
Needless to say its a complete insult and totally rejected.
If anyone thinks Israel is going to pull out of 91.5% of the occupied Palestine their just plain stupid.
No way Israel will offer to do that. First of all they will automatically keep Jerusalem, Ariel and that whole swathe of land around Jerusalem where they continue to build colonies as though its already agreed and approved. As far they are concerened that is already Israeli territory. They will keep the Jordan valley as though to give it up would be suicide. The logic being that Palestinians cant be allowed to have access to an international border that is not completely controlled by Israel. Its also very fertile land , some of the best Palestinian land remaining, They will also not consider giving up any land that has any potential to affect their ability to steal the water from Palestinian lands.
What ever is left over after all that..... is whats up for discussion. Thats why the discussion is a joke.
Indymedia Ireland is a media collective. We are independent volunteer citizen journalists producing and distributing the authentic voices of the people. Indymedia Ireland is an open news project where anyone can post their own news, comment, videos or photos about Ireland or related matters.