Palestinian Refugees
and "Right of Return"
CAMERA Obtains Correction at the Washington Post
A letter from CAMERA to the Washington Post prompted a correction on an article which vastly overstated the number of Palestinian refugees. Today's correction is similar to a New York Times correction two days ago which CAMERA also elicited.
CAMERA Obtains Correction at New York Times
In response to correspondence from CAMERA, the New York Times printed the following correction concerning the number of Palestinian refugees from the 1948 war:
UPDATED CAMERA ALERT: Inaccurate Terms in Coverage of Bush Statement
Many news reports about Bush's April 14 statements regarding refugees and settlements in the West Bank and Gaza include prejudicial, distorted and/or inaccurate language.
Palestinian Refugees: ‘Forgotten’ People?
"The refugees feel as if they have been forgotten by the world," the Boston Globe's Jill Carroll says of Palestinian exiles fleeing Iraq ("Palestinian refugees struggle in Jordan," July 20). In fact, Palestinian refugees, by the international yardstick of the United Nations, hardly constitute a "forgotten" people.
CAMERA Op-Ed: Arab Rejectionism Fuels Conflict
Contrary to Elaine W. Shiber’s account of Israeli history, Israel has continuously pursued peace and has encountered Arab rejection and war. Like Americans, Israelis seek peace. Israelis, however, face a terrorist regime at their very doorstep. Tiny Israel, no larger than the state of New Jersey, is surrounded by 22 Arab nations that have launched four wars against it, in ‘48, ‘67, ‘73 and 2000.
Washington Post Wrong on Refugees
Washington Post's Howard Schneider makes the surprising claim that: "The fate of an estimated 8.6 million displaced Palestinians and their descendants, including more than 3 million registered for humanitarian aid in Gaza, the West Bank and nearby Arab countries, is among the central issues to be resolved in any Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement." The highest number heard from advocates of the Palestinian "right of return" in the context of Israeli- Palestinian peace agreements is 5 million.
American Bar Association Journal Libels Israel
ABA Journal, published by the American Bar Association, features as the cover story for its December issue an article on the Palestinian refugee problem that is seriously marred by numerous errors, omissions and distortions. Written by Jeffrey Ghannam, a staffer at the magazine, the article misrepresents Middle East history and international law to falsely portray the Palestinians and the Arabs generally as blameless victims of Israeli aggression, where the reverse is much closer to the truth.
BACKGROUNDER: The Palestinian Claim to a “Right of Return”
Do Palestinians who fled Israel in 1948, and their descendants, have a legal or moral right to return to their former homes in Israel? Is it true that most other refugees around the world have already exercised such rights of repatriation?
BACKGROUNDER: Camp David 2000
Many media accounts have misrepresented the "final status" issues that are now the subject of intensive negotiations at Camp David, often distorting Oslo, UN resolutions, the demographics and history of Jerusalem, and Middle East history in general.