The Arab-Israeli conflict is one of those that is extremely knotty and confused. There are a number of issues contained in it, and practically no one on either side will make an argument and acknowledge every facet of the subject: there’s always something that is inconvenient for their argument, so they must ignore it.
Above, the facet that’s ignored is that the Right of Return exists for Jews who’ve lived in Europe for around twenty centuries, but not for Arabs who’ve been absent from Israel for half of one century. Israel’s defenders know that it doesn’t make them look good to discuss this facet of the argument, so they ignore it. The author above makes the point that you can’t be a third-generation refugee. Most of the Zionists who founded Israel and populated it originally *were* refugees, but not from Israel or Palestine. A similar silliness has been uttered repeatedly by the Jewish-American comedian Larry Miller, who repeatedly has said that the term Palestinian was invented about 50 years ago. Fair enough, until someone points out that the term Israeli is about the same vintage, something he leaves out.
Arabs of course are no better (often considerably worse), and in the above discussion I’ve left out the obvious point that a Right of Return for *both* sides would probably result in an Arab majority, which would then either vote the state out of existence or expel the Jewish population. Neither solution, of course, is acceptable, and someone needs to explain to the Arabs, and especially the Palestinians, that just because you have a good argument doesn’t mean you’re going to get what you want or demand.
