Israel starts Egypt border fence

yosi wrote:

Israel is not currently (and isn't seeking to be) a Jewish only state. It is a Jewish majority state, and since it sees itself as a Jewish state it acts to preserve that majority. One way it does so is through the law of return, which is functionally no different than the same sort of laws in other countries. For example, Germany has a law that allows ethnic Germans to move to Germany and get citizenship regardless of whether they or their direct family have ever lived in Germany. The fact that Israel controls the immigration of non-Jews into the country more strictly than does Germany is a function of size. Germany is large enough to absorb many non-Germans without risk of becoming a majority non-German country. Israel, because of its tiny size simply can't act the same way (though in truth immigration controls are not so strict in practice because there are not all that many non-Jews seeking to move to Israel - I am treating the Palestinians separately).

With regard to the Palestinian refugees there are two points to be made. The first is that if one accepts in principle the right of the Jewish people to self-determination in their own state then one cannot call for the implementation of a Palestinian right of return because it is tantamount to calling for the end of Israel's Jewish majority, and therefore the functional nullification of the Jewish right to self-determination. I understand that you are viewing the issue of the refugees through the lens of human rights, but what you are talking about is the casual disregard of one people's rights so as to give preference to another's. I understand the tragedy of the Palestinian experience, which is why I support the establishment of a Palestinian state that would grant the refugees a right of return.

The other point to be made is that the vast majority of the refugees are not in fact refugees, but the descendants of refugees, and therefore don't actually have any rightful claim to return. The only reason these people are considered refugees is because the UN, instead of treating them as they do all other refugee groups, created a separate organization to deal with the Palestinians that has perpetuated their refugee status for generations. Go look at how the UN high commissioner for refugees defines the term, and what the priorities are for helping refugees. You will see that refugees are those that are fleeing conflict/disaster/etc. and that the priority is to get them settled and reintegrated into society (whether it is in their home countries or in other countries). Once this is done these people are no longer considered refugees. Certainly their children are not considered refugees. With the Palestinians however, who do not fall under the auspices of the UNHCR, the UN, rather than seeking to get the refugees integrated into society so that they can lead productive lives has perpetuated their refugee status for decades, keeping the refugees and their children and grandchildren in refugee camps, entirely dependent on UN aid rather than making any effort to help them integrate into the societies in which they live. There is really no good reason that the grandchild of a Palestinian refugee, born in Lebanon, should himself be considered a refugee, live his life in a refugee camp with, at best, very limited rights within the country of his birth, unable to be a productive member of society.

I'm all for Israel paying reparations to the actual refugees. But the perpetuation of the "refugees" for generation after generation, and the idea that these people have a right to return (which is in practical terms a claim to a right to erase the fundamental nature of another people's state) is one of the fundamental reasons for the perpetuation of this conflict.

yosi wrote:

Jewish in terms of the country's dominant national group. Not Jewish in terms of religion. And Israel grants equal rights to all its citizens, regardless of whether they are Jewish or not.