No one claims that Jews have a right under international law to return to Israel, or any other particular country. They have that right under the national laws of Israel. Israel also has the right to say “left-handed red-heads with dentures are welcome”, that wouldn’t mean right-handed redheads with dentures have a right to come in.

Any country in the world is free to pass a law that says “Palestinians welcome”. In a future Palestinian state, they are free to pass a law that says “Palestinians welcome” and “no Jews may enter”.

The law of return is a sovereign nation deciding that it wants to let any Jews in who want to come in. The “right” of return is the idea that people who a sovereign nation don’t want should be allowed in against the will of that nation.

As for how bad Arab nations are, it’s called “context”. If a cop arrests a Jewish jaywalker every day for jaywalking that doesn’t prove he is anti-Semitic. If he arrests the Jewish Jaywalker while ignoring a Muslim committing a murder every day, that proves he is prejudiced.

Likewise, people who spend their time bashing Israel while ignoring the 150 or so countries with worse human rights records than Israel are demonstrating their ignorance or their prejudice.

It’s proof that you don’t actually care about the rights of Arabs, only about bashing Israel using whatever excuse you can find.

So Israelis should commit suicide so that swift boater can fill up. Cheaply!

what you sketched IS what any two-state solution would look like, with some adjustments for large settlement blocs that are too big to dismantle. I don’t know that a majority of Israelis would sign off on it now, but I think a majority would under the right circumstances. Those circumstances include the end of institutional Palestinian rejectionism (Hamas) and an indication that Fatah and others willing to sign off on such a deal have the popular support among Palestinians necessary to make such a concession binding on whoever comes to power in the state.

lgstick, Olmert basically said the same thing that MyJoy18 said. Israel is a Jewish democracy, and there are liberals, moderates and right-wingers in Israel. Quiet a few Israelis are opposed to any deal, and (without being openly honest about it) think that if settlement activity continues eventually a Palestinian state will be off the table and the key West Bank population blocs can be chopped off and given to Jordan. The point is, the influence of these Zionist rejectionists grows in proportion to the rise in influence of Palestinian rejectionists.

Palestinians seem to think if they explicitely rejected “right of return” then Israel would then take a more hardline approach. I don’t think that is the case. At any rate, the Palestinian should at least TRY such an approach. I think that an explicit declaration would greatly weaken Jewish support and tolerance of the settlers and their apologists.

My specialty is Middle East Studies and being anti-Israel is absolutely no barrier whatsoever. Try doing studies on Syria that dont follow the Assad line or research on Turkey whilst being the tiniest uncomplimentary of Ataturk or mentioning Armenians… The Iranian intelligence were KILLING people who were [verbally] attacking the Islamic Republic in the 80s.

PS you mean Jannah in arabic and Gan Iden in hebrew, but for the US to not be involved – such as by giving most of the funds to the UNWRA to perpetuate the refugee problem – one cannot argue with.