Posted on 11/10/2004 5:04:09 PM PST by SmithL
BEIRUT
Yasser Arafat promised Palestinians he would return them to the homes they lost when Israel was founded in 1948. He never delivered, and now many refugees wonder whether anyone can.
Arafat, whose name became synonymous with the Palestinian cause in the four decades he led the PLO, "was the only one with the stature to wrest that right," said Ashraf Majzoub, a refugee from Acre.
"We fear that whoever succeeds him will strike a deal with Israel for a Palestinian state to which we won't even be allowed to go," he added. "Then the whole world will forget about us."
From their squalid camps, the refugees have anxiously followed radio and TV bulletins on Arafat's health in the 12 days since he was taken to France for medical treatment.
Fresh pictures of Arafat have gone up on walls.
A few refugees marched in small, spontaneous demonstrations in support of the man they affectionately call Abu Amar, his nom de guerre. His opponents refrained from criticizing him.
"Despite our differences with him, we consider him a great, historic figure," said Ziad Nakhaleh, a Damascus-based member of the Islamic Jihad group, which had been at odds with Arafat.
"Abu Amar was a man who was adored by his people because he was always close to the people and cared about solving their problems," said Awni Shatarat, 41, owner of a boutique in Jordan's Baqaa Camp, 27 km. northwest of Amman.
"He did not take advantage of the Palestinian cause," he added. "He had no farms and no palaces like other Arab leaders."
The return of the refugees has been one of the thorniest issues facing Palestinian and Israeli negotiators since the 1993 peace agreement that created the Palestinian Authority in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank and Arafat's return to Palestinian territories in 1994.
The last offer of statehood, in a peace plan put forward by former US president Bill Clinton in December 2000, would have allowed the refugees to settle in a state in the West Bank and Gaza if they gave up the demand to return to areas within Israel's pre-1967 borders. But negotiations had died in the Palestinian-Israeli fighting that had broken out the previous September.
Still, the refugees have tenaciously clung to the "right of return" to the places where they, their parents, or grandparents were born.
Those born in refugee camps call Palestine home even though their villages may no longer exist or are now populated by Israelis.
There are more than 4 million refugees in the West Bank and Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan. Although they all face an uncertain future, life is especially tough for the 350,000 living in Lebanon's 12 camps.
Unlike Jordan, Lebanon denies them citizenship. Unlike in Syria, most jobs are off-limits to them. The Lebanese government doesn't want them to become citizens since the Palestinians, mostly Muslims, would upset the religious balance.
Hundreds of Palestinians were massacred in the Beirut refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila in 1982 by a Lebanese militia allied with Israel.
Despite squalor and overcrowding in the camps, Palestinians say Arafat is not to blame for his inability to realize their dream. Some fault Arab states for not standing by them while others say Israel is responsible.
"President Arafat went through pains for the Palestinian people and for the Palestinian cause, but he couldn't accomplish much over the years because of Israeli stubbornness," said Sayed Abul-Kheir, 35, a Gaza Strip native.
Mahmoud al-Haj Hussein Tarakhan, from a village in Israel, said the "right of return will remain there because these lands are ours, they belonged to our grandfathers. Arafat is the symbol of the revolution and even with him gone, our rights remain," said the retired civil servant, speaking from Hussein Camp in Amman.
Majzoub, the man from Acre, said Arafat's death has "devastated me more than my brother's death. My brother taught me things related to the family, but Abu Amar taught us to be brave, steadfast, and patient," he said.
Majzoub, a tall, slim man of 36, recalled Arafat visiting his Shatila camp when he was nine years old.
"I will always remember his big smile," said Majzoub. "And I will always remember his words: 'You are the future. It's cubs like you who will liberate Palestine.'"
And how to blow up their kids. Did Suha finally step on the oxygen tube?
Hello Palestinians:
Give it up.
You left during a war which your side started, insisted on fighting, and then lost. You aren't ever getting anything back. And if you think acting like idiots (suicide bombers, etc.) will help your case, you're wrong. It just makes you look like really nasty and totally uncivilized barbarians.
Make a new life. I know some Palestinians who already have; I had lunch today in a restaurant belonging to one of them, and he's doing quite well, thank you very much.
But you are never, ever going back. Time to - pardon the expression - move on.
"Refugees" from a place because their grandfathers lived in that place. A "refugee camp" where a guy owns a boutique. Arafat doesn't take advantage of the Pali cause because he doesn't own a farm or palace (nevermind the Swiss bank account). Arafat touchingly referring to children as "cubs", how nice, are these the same children who he will then turn around and use as walking bombs. All people who are interviewed are referred to as being "from" some other village, in Israel, even though at least some of them are presumably younger than 56 years old thus this cannot be true.
Elevation of a terrorist to worship status, grotesquely beloved more than a brother.
Like I said, I don't know where to begin.
I don't know if they have internet access in the palestinian areas, but if any of you fanatic followers of Yassar Arafat are reading this, you've been duped. Mr Arafat is no saint. He's a bloodthirsty, racist and murderer who has led you all down the primrose path by stealing your national wealth and secreting it away in personal bank accounts for his own lavish lifestyle and the funding criminal enterprises. The sooner you find a moderate amongst you who doesn't buy all the "jooze are the problem" crap and join the family of man, the sooner you can realize your dreams as free people and not be kept ignorant and brainwashed with hatred for a non-existent enemy.
"We fear that whoever succeeds him will strike a deal with Israel for a Palestinian state to which we won't even be allowed to go,"
Idiot! They'd be able to "return" to the Palestinian state.
None of the other Arabs want these people, that's been made quite plain. I'm pretty sure that's not entirely just political posturing either. Any group that will turn it's own children into bombs is not a group I'd like in my neighborhood either.
Was there a deposit?
So, the AP has companion article to this one detailing how Jews were ethnically cleansed from throughout the middle east and should be allowed to return...right?
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