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The Associated Press -OCCUPIED JERUSALEM - Furious over his break with the legitimate
demand hat all Palestinian refugees
must be allowed to return to their homeland, refugee activist groups are mounting a campaign
to oust the top Palestinian official in Jerusalem.
Sari Nusseibeh, chosen several weeks ago to replace the late Faisal
Husseini as the
Palestine Liberation
Organization’s official in charge of Jerusalem, became the first
Palestinian leader to
publicly question the wisdom of demanding that refugees who fled or
were evicted from their
homes in Palestine in 1948-49 be allowed to return
to their homeland. In an interview with AP on Oct. 23, Nusseibeh
said refugees should be
resettled in a future
Palestinian state, "not in a way that would
undermine the existence
of the state of Israel as a predominantly Jewish state."
The right of return has been a cornerstone of Palestinian policy for
decades. An impasse
over the issue was a
main reason that Israel-Palestinian peace talks broke down in
January. Initially
numbering about 700,000, there are now some 4 million Palestinian
refugees and their
descendants, many still living in squalid camps in
the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan.
Groups working on behalf of Palestinian refugees are circulating
petitions and letters urging
Palestinian leader
Yasser Arafat to fire Nusseibeh. One group, Al Awda, has mounted an
Internet campaign on its
website.
"Had he delivered that speech in Arabic and in any of the camps, the
response of the
refugees toward him
would have been quick and decisive," expert Salman Abu Sitta wrote
ominously in his letter
to Arafat.
Israel has consistently rejected the right of the refugees to return
home, claiming their
absorption would
dramatically alter the Jewish nature of the state and refusing to
take
responsibility for the
problem. Israel maintains the refugee issue was created because five
Arab armies invaded the
newborn Jewish state on the day it was
created on Palestinian land in 1948.
Nusseibeh was not available for comment Wednesday, but in his
written reply to Al Awda, a
group representing the
Palestinian refugee issue, Nusseibeh asked that his name be
added to the list
calling for his resignation, "since, amongst other reasons, this
assignment
seems to undermine my
ability to express myself freely."
Despite public denunciations, the Palestinian negotiating team is
quietly watching to see
the effects of
Nusseibeh's outspoken and unprecedented stance on public opinion, an
official said on
condition of anonymity.
Nusseibeh may be ruffling Palestinian feathers, but his opinions are
finding a welcome
reception in Israeli
"peace camps".
He met with six "dovish" Israeli politicians on Monday at an east
Jerusalem hotel. The
Israelis came away from
the meeting singing his praises.
"I think he is a very brave leader of the Palestinian people, who
truly represents the real
historic compromise
between Israel and the Palestinian people," Meretz legislator Ran
Cohen said. Meretz
favours an Israeli withdrawal from most or all of the West Bank and
Gaza in exchange for
peace, but opposes allowing millions of Palestinian refugees
resettle
in Israel.
The Jordan Times,
8 November 2001
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