Jordan attacks UNRWA director over right of return comments
Last Friday, Andrew Whitley, the outgoing director of UNRWA, the agency that administers aid to 'Palestinian refugees,' told a conference that the 'Palestinians' need to accept the reality that most of them will never 'return' to what is now the State of Israel (most of them have never been here, but that's a separate story).It would probably help the 'Palestinians' accept that reality if the countries in which they and their forebears have resided for the last 62 years would accept it. This is particularly true in the case of Jordan, a country created by Great Britain by carving out 78% of the Palestine Mandate as a consolation prize for the Hashemite family after they lost control of the Muslim holy places in Mecca and Medina to their cousins in the House of Saud. One of the reasons that Jordan is not democratic is that its ruling family is a minority. The majority of the country is 'Palestinian' - approximately 70%. The Hashemite family would like nothing more than to send an awful lot of those 'Palestinians' back across the Jordan River. And so, it is not surprising that the director of Jordan's 'Palestinian Affairs' department has slammed Whitley for urging that the 'Palestinians' face reality.
Wajih Azaizeh, who directs Jordan's Palestinian Affairs Department, on Thursday called remarks by Andrew Whitley, the N.Y. director of the UN's agency for Palestinian refugees, "irresponsible."What's 'irresponsible' (and worse) is to keep people imprisoned in limbo for four generations out of contempt for them and hatred for those who defeated them. The holding of hundreds of thousands of hostages like the 'Palestinians' have been held for the last 62 years is unprecedented, at least in recent human history. And the silence of the nations of the World to the 'Palestinians' plight - as if it were only Israel that has responsibility - is deafening.
Speaking at a National Council for US-Arab Relations conference last week, Whitley, who heads United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), said that Palestinian refugees needed to start "debating their own role in the societies where they are rather than being left in a state of limbo where they are helpless."
The UN official added that the Palestinian refugees must not be allowed to preserve the cruel illusions that perhaps they will return one day to their homes."
“We recognize, as I think most do, although it’s not a position that we publicly articulate, that the right of return is unlikely to be exercised to the territory of Israel to any significant or meaningful extent,” he said, adding that “It’s not a politically palatable issue, it’s not one that UNRWA publicly advocates, but nevertheless it’s a known contour to the issue.”
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 8:15 PM
3 Comments:
I hope things workout with you people over there.
It's like the Arab League conference after the Six Day War all over again. The only thing that has really changed is that thanks to Oslo, Israel now has terrorists within the territories it controls and right on its borders. The PA announces its intent to seek recognition as a state unilaterally in less than a year and refuses to return to negotiations without unilateral concessions a priori from Israel. They act as if they are negotiating from a position of strength.
Which in a sense, they are. Much of the world, and virtually of the UN, have turned against Israel. Iran is in an unprecedented position to completely change the balance of power in the region, within about a year (coincidence?). And as much as the Arab states fear an Iranian nuclear bomb, the Arabs hate Israel is unabated and they are trying to take advantage of Iran's destabilizing because they know the US is gutless and on their side in the matter of Palestinian statehood.
I think hell is going to break loose, and soon. And I suspect that Obama will use it to get what he wants.
Jordan's chutzpah tells us exactly what the Arabs think of the Palestinians.
And who is keeping them shut up in camps against their will?
Not Israel. The Arabs need to go look in the mirror but they won't.
What could go wrong indeed
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