Annan hints refugees should not be given right of return to Israel

United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan hinted Tuesday that Palestinians refugees should not be granted the right to return to the State of Israel.

In his final address to the Security Council, Annan said, "The two-state solution - Israel and Palestine - must respect the rights of the Palestinian refugees, but only within the context of preserving the character of states in the region."

Annan ends 10 years on the job on December 31, and will be succeeded by South Korean Ban Ki-moon.

Annan warned that tensions in the Middle East were "near the breaking point," saying the Israeli-Palestinian conflict must be resolved in order to bring lasting peace to the region.


more...

"Right of return."

I think the Palestinians SHOULD have the right of return. They are ARABS. Their native land is ARABIA. Their language is ARABIC. Their sacred shrines are Mecca and Medina in ARABIA. There is no question in my mind that these people should be freely allowed to return to their ancient homeland: ARABIA.

What I don't understand is why they don't want to go.

They don't speak Arabic?

Dear me. I must have made a mistake.

The title of yr post made the sweeping generalisation about Palestinians that they want to destroy Israel...

Yr statement about the native land of Arabs being Arabia is a bigoted one coz it's exactly the same as someone claiming that the native land of black Americans is Africa. Oh, and coz I speak English does that mean I should 'return' to England even though I wasn't even born there and my real home is where I was born? Coz it's exactly the same for the Palestinians...

not some generic Arab flavored people. Your post is at best callous, and at worst, well, figure it out for yourself. Palestinians deserve their own secure, contiguous country. The right of return is something that needs to be negotiated.

How do you propose that happen? Do you believe that to be a necessity?

by some sort of dedicated road/bridge/tunnel between Gaza and the WB. I think it happens via negotiations about land.

Zionism is a settler colonial ideology creating a structure much like the pre-1994 "Republic of South Africa."

and counter-productive. Whatever its ills, Israel exists. Not forgetting the past, doesn't preclude, or shouldn't preclude, moving forward. And zionism in its purest sense, is the belief in a Jewish homeland.

Ah, beliefs. Fine. Does that give Israel the right to take land from everyone else?

Making shit up, and putting words in the mouths of others, is a terribly poor form of argument. I simply corrected a poster as to the definition of zionism. You may not like it, but that's the definition.