Israel's UN envoy slams Arabs over refugees

[King_David]

Speaking on Partition Plan's 64th anniversary, Ambassador Prosor says Israel absorbed its own refugees into society, 'our neighbors did not'

WASHINGTON - Speaking at the United Nations on the occasion of the Partition Plan's 64th anniversary, Israel's UN Ambassador Ron Prosor said: "The difference between the two distinct populations was – and still is – that Israel absorbed the refugees into our society. Our neighbors did not."

"Refugee camps in Israel gave birth to thriving towns and cities. Refugee camps in Arab Countries gave birth to more Palestinian refugees," he said.

"We unlocked our new immigrants’ vast potential. The Arab world knowingly and intentionally kept their Palestinian populations in the second class status of permanent refugees," Israel's envoy added.

Prosor stressed that in the overwhelming majority of Arab state, Palestinians have no citizenship rights.

'Has Arab world accepted Israel?'
Addressing the 1947 Partition Plan, which called for the establishment of a Jewish state alongside an Arab state in the area known as Palestinian, Prosor said that "Arab inhabitants rejected the plan and launched a war of annihilation against the new Jewish state, joined by the armies of five Arab members of the United Nations."

"One percent of Israel’s population died in combat during this assault by five armies. Think about that price," the ambassador said. "It would be the equivalent of 850,000 soldiers dying in France today, or 3 million soldiers dying in the United States, or 13 million soldiers dying in China."

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4155021,00.html

[shira]

1. Good for Prosor. Someone has to speak up about this crime that is all but ignored by those...

...who are purportedly most in love with the Palestinians.

With friends like these...

:eyes:

[Little Tich]

2. Present absentee - Wikipedia

source: Wikipedia
(edit for clarity)

A present absentee is a Palestinian who fled or was expelled from his home in Palestine by Jewish or Israeli forces, before and during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, but who remained within the area that became the state of Israel. Present absentees are also referred to as internally displaced Palestinians (IDPs). The term applies to the present absentee's descendants too. In 1950 these were 46,000 of the 156,000 Palestinians in Israel.

Present absentees are not permitted to live in the homes they were expelled from, even if they live in the same area, the property still exists, and they can show that they own it. They are regarded as absent by the Israeli government because they left their homes, even if they did not intend to leave them for more than a few days, and even if they did so involuntarily.

Read more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internally_Displaced_Palestinians
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The pot is calling the kettle black...

[shira]

3. You don't have much to say about refugees denied rights in the lands they were born in, do you?

For example, apartheid vs. refugees in Lebanon...

According to Human Rights Watch, Palestinian refugees in Lebanon live in "appalling social and economic conditions." They labor under legal restrictions that bar them from employment in at least 25 professions, "including law, medicine, and engineering," a system that relegates them to the black market for labor. And they are "still subject to a discriminatory law introduced in 2001 preventing them from registering property."<2> The discrimination Palestinians "suffer" when they apply for jobs in Lebanon has been compared to the "apartheid mentality" used by the ruling Sunni family of Bahrain towards its' majority Shi'ite population.<4>

Israeli Arab Journalist Khaled Abu Toameh and other commentators accuse Lebanon of practicing apartheid against Palestinian Arabs who have lived in Lebanon as stateless refugees since 1948.<5><6><7><4><8> According to Human Rights Watch, "In 2001, Parliament passed a law prohibiting Palestinians from owning property, a right they had for decades. Lebanese law also restricts their ability to work in many areas. In 2005, Lebanon eliminated a ban on Palestinians holding most clerical and technical positions, provided they obtain a temporary work permit from the Labor Ministry, but more than 20 high-level professions remain off-limits to Palestinians. Few Palestinians have benefited from the 2005 reform, though. In 2009, only 261 of more than 145,679 permits issued to non-Lebanese were for Palestinians. Civil society groups say many Palestinians choose not to apply because they cannot afford the fees and see no reason to pay a portion of their salary toward the National Social Security Fund, since Lebanese law bars Palestinians from receiving social security benefits."<9>

In one of his series of articles accusing the government of Lebanon of practicing "apartheid" against the resident Palestinian community, journalist Khaled Abu Toameh describes the "special legal status" as "foreigners" assigned uniquely to Palestinians, "a fact which has deprived them of health care, social services, property ownership and education. Even worse, Lebanese law bans Palestinians from working in many jobs. This means that Palestinians cannot work in the public services and institutions run by the government such as schools and hospitals. Unlike Israel, Lebanese public hospitals do not admit Palestinians for medical treatment or surgery."<10> Journalist Ben-Dror Yemini describes Palestinians in Lebanon as living "under various restrictions that could fill a chapter on Arab apartheid against the Palestinians. One of the most severe restrictions is a ban on construction. This ban is enforced even in the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp, bombed by the Lebanese army in 2007.<11> Calling on Lebanon to change the systematic discrimination against his people, Palestinian journalist Rami George Khouri compared Lebanese treatment of Palestinians to the "Apartheid system" of South Africa.<12>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinians_in_Lebanon

That's just Lebanon.

Israel isn't forcing the Arab world to treat Palestinians like that. So what do you have to say about it? Anything? :shrug:

[Little Tich]

7. Lebanon? Ron Prosor's speech is mostly revisionist dung about what happened in what was the Mandate

for Palestine 1947 -1948, as well as blaming palestinians and arabs for various things. Lebanon is not his main point at all. His speech was a response to the presentation of the Report of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People (Link: http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/66/35 )

The speech didn't make any headlines in any other news outlet than Arutz Sheva, which is not reliable, so I had to check out the speech at http://www.unmultimedia.org/tv/webcast/c/general-assembly.html# . Ron Prosor is on at ca 1hr 40 mins.

The shitty treatment of palestinian refugees in the Arab world doesn't change the fact that they have a right to return to the areas of Palestine they came from, but are prevented to do so by Israel.

[shira]

8. Prosor brought up refugee treatment in Lebanon. "Pro" Palestinians who bring up human rights..

...don't get to lecture others about Palestinian human rights when they never advocate or demand better refugee treatment throughout the Arab world.

[Little Tich]

9. ???

[shira]

10. You're pro-Palestinian right? You care somewhat about the refugees?

So what do you have to say about Palestinian refugees in Lebanon?

Don't hold back now, okay?

[Little Tich]

11. I don't like the way the palestinian refugees are treated in Lebanon.

I consider it to be a high level of discrimination. But then, name one country in the region that treats palestinians (not only refugees) as equals...

I've gotta go, so I leave the last word for you.

[shira]

12. Wow, such scathing criticism! You sure didn't hold back!

For some reason your criticism of Israel is more harsh. You're more passionate about Israel WRT refugees.

With Lebanon, a little lip service.

Barely a whimper.

Why?

[Donald Ian Rankin]

4. It's Israel's responsibility to absorb those refugees, not the Arab states.

Yes, the Arab states can and should treat them far better.

But throwing someone out of his home, living there yourself and then blaming the neighbour who's taken him in for not treating him better is rank hypocrisy.

[daniel.cls]

5. 'Israel's responsibility' does not justify forcing Palestinians to live as refugees for generations

It is not rank hypocrisy. Arab leaders rejected partition and invited five neighboring armies to destroy the Jewish state. In the ensuing conflict over 1% of the Israeli population died. While it is true that Jewish forces expelled between 100,000 and 200,000 Arabs from their land it is also true that the lion share of refugees left by their own choice.

Over the next several years nearly 800,000 Jews were expelled or fled horrible oppression in Arab states. They were stripped of their property upon exit and have never received compensation. Israel absorbed these refugees into their population and thrived because of it. They continue to endure decades of Arab belligerency and acts of war.

Arab citizens living in Israel enjoy more civil and property rights than in any other state in the region. They serve in every state organ ranging from the Supreme Court to the IDF. Recent polls in East Jerusalem show that a plurality of Palestinian residents would prefer to live under Israeli sovereignty than any future Palestinian state. They enjoy these rights even though many of them actively support forces dedicated to the destruction of the Israeli state. What other country in history has treated their enemies anything like this?

On the other hand Arab states allow Palestinians to rot in camps that they force the UNHRC to pay for. Kuwait expelled over 400,000 Palestinians in the 90s... and the Arab world sent them to refugee camps. Instead of providing education and opportunity to Palestinian children they arm them with religious fundamentalism, hatred, guns, suicide vests and the siren call of return.

Everyone here agrees that Israel has and continues to make mistakes. These mistakes have had tragic consequences that we should not forget and that we should work hard to rectify. But I don't think this in anyway excuses Arab states for their gross mistreatment of Palestinians. Nor do I think it justifies closing our eyes to the anti-Semitic and belligerent posture of the Middle Eastern street and governments.

Commitment to democracy, freedom and equality demands no less.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

13. "Their own choice" with what alternative?

Once you've murdered or forcible expelled huge numbers of people, you don't get to claim that the ones who left before you had a chance to do the same to them left "of their own choice" and therefore don't have a right to return.

[shira]

15. Who is keeping refugees from leaving the camps or living in Gaza or the WB? Not Israel.

If refugees chose to live close to their original homes, they certainly could.

Who is stopping them from living within a few miles from their original homes pre-1948?

Not Israel.

[King_David]

6. Why should they be exceptions to the Refugee laws?

Israel`s responsibility ended a generation ago.

[vminfla]

14. Because Arabs are special

Kurds do not enjoy the same "refugee" benefits as arabs. In fact, in the history of "refugees", only the arabs have entire UN committees dedicated to them with multi-generational support.

[Dick Dastardly]

16. Its not Israels responsibility to absorb the refugees.

The refugee crisis was instigated by Arab leaders and the invading Arab armies without which there would be no crisis in the first place. With a few exceptions most were not thrown out of their home but left volutarily or fled due to the war to destroy Israel initiated by the Arabs with Palestinian participation and supported by most of the Palestinian population.
A 1952 memorandum submitted to the League of Arab States by the Higher Arab Committee shows that in 1948 Arab states officially agreed to responsibility for the refugees and welcomed immigration at least until Israel could be destroyed.

Your factual distortions and hyperbole dont hide the fact that the only rank hypocrisy lies with the Arab states

[King_David]

17. +1

[bemildred]

18. This is why a political settlement is needed

Host countries won't absorb the displaced until their status is resolved and compensation is provided. These are "final status negotiations" issues.

The post above about the internal displaced persons, not allowed to return to homes they are admitted to own, tells you all you need to know about the governments intentions with regard to them, the govenment has no intention of ever allowing those people to go home. They will have to be compensated too, and that debt will go down generation to generation until it is paid, a lovely gift to the future.