Lure of the homeland fades for Palestinian refugees

[shira]

The right of return for Palestinian refugees is a major sticking point in the upcoming US-sponsored Middle East peace talks, but some younger Palestinians - having never laid eyes on their ancestral homeland - say they do not actually want to go back.

As a third-generation Palestinian growing up in Syria, Bissan al-Sharif says she feels rooted in Damascus.

"I don't know if I would leave everything and go and live because I don't know the place," says Ms Sharif. "It is difficult to go somewhere and start everything from scratch," she says in between drama lessons for her nine-year-old students.

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were forced out of their homes during the Arab-Israeli wars in 1948 and 1967. Some 450,000 of them, and their descendants, now live in Syria. Ms Sharif's family has told her about what life was like in their ancestral home, and she still wants to visit a future Palestinian state, but not necessarily to move there.

"It is an absent part of my identity," she says. "I know that I have a village in Palestine and I feel I have the right to know it. But I live here, my friends and my work are here, this is my world. "The other side is an anonymous place to me. It is unknown."

more...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11072328

[aquart]

1. Nothing like grandchildren to spoil the grand plan.

In China, Iran, here during Viet Nam, it's the grandchildren who question the truth and goals of their elders. Especially when we find out our elders ain't practicing what they preached to us all our lives.

[shira]

2. It's a shame the big Human Rights groups can't be bothered to fight for these people's individual...

....rights to live as equals where they were born.

[azurnoir]

3. Thanks shira interesting article

kind of blows the meme that "they want RoR to destroy Israel doesn't it? and once a Palestinian state is established we may have an issue with countries that will not allow citizenship

[shira]

4. Get the meme right. It's that their leaders want to use them, not that they individually wait...

...for as long as it takes to return.

And it's not that there 'may' be a problem. There will be. Not that their advocates in certain NGO's and HR organizations care.

[azurnoir]

5. Oh it's the leaders that want to destroy Israel

that's the meme but how will it work if the people do not follow? As to the rest time will tell

[shira]

6. Of course. Here's the UNRWA director from 1958 and as you'll see, nothing has changed....

"The Arab states do not want to solve the refugee problem. They want to keep it as an open sore, as a weapon against Israel. Arab leaders do not give a damn whether Arab refugees live or die."

-Ralph Galloway


====================


It doesn't appear you're all that upset about individual refugees being denied equality either.

[azurnoir]

7. Lol I do care whether or not the Palestinians have their own country

BTW where is you r concern for Tibetans that have been refugee's in India for 60 years or Hmong that have been refugee's in Thailand for 35 years, I mean you seem so very concerned about Palestinian refugee's in Arab countries

[shira]

8. But not whether individual refugees attain equality now. n/t