The right of return for Palestinian refugees to their homes in Israel or the territories the Jewish state occupied in 1967 was guaranteed under the US-sponsored âroad mapâ for peace, the Palestine National Authority (PNA) Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath said Friday.
| Damn. You find something new in there every day, don't you? |
"No condition has been set for a return (only) to an independent Palestinian state. The right of return is no longer an illusion. It is an integral part of the Arab peace initiative, which is one of the reference points in the road map,â Shaath said, speaking at a hotel in the Lebanese capital Beirut. "I want to be clear: this right includes returning to an independent state and to Palestinian cities in the Jewish state. Whether a person returns to Haifa (Israel) or to Nablus (West Bank), their return is guaranteed,â he confirmed, quoted by AFP. The minister was referring to the Saudi initiative adopted by Arab League summit meeting in Beirut summit in March 2002. It calls on Israel to withdraw completely from the lands it occupied in the 1967 war in return for normal ties with the Arab world, and says there should be a âjust solutionâ to the Palestinian refugee problem.
| "And that, of course, is for the 'right of return,' Q.E.D..." |
Shaath hailed the âroadmap,â which drafted and adopted by the EU, the US, the UN and Russia, as the "best peace plan for the Palestinians ever struck with Israel since the 1967 war.â
| Which is why the Bad Guys are trying so desperately to torpedo it... |
The âroadmap,â which foresees the creation of a Palestinian state by 2005, calls in its last phase for "an agreed, just, fair, and realistic solutionâ to the refugee issue in final status negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians. "We see no other solution for our people, especially those in Lebanon, than to return to their homeland and this return is guaranteed,â said Shaath. |