SocraticGadfly: Israel wants to expel Palestinians

January 24, 2011

Israel wants to expel Palestinians

That's yet another tidbit coming out of the Al Jazeera leaks about Israel-Palestinian peace negotiations.

Palestinian President Abbas' negotiating team, in private, officially accepted that Israel could define itself as a Jewish state.

That, in turn connects closely to the right of return. It gives Israeli leaders justification for saying the PA has officially waived the right of return. It also theoretically gives Israel justification for Palestinian expulsion. Indeed, it already popped up in "negotiations":
In several areas, (then-Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni) pressed for Israeli Arab citizens to be moved into a Palestinian state in a land-swap deal, raising the spectre of "transfer" - in other words, moving Palestinians from one state to another without consent. The issue is controversial in Israel and backed in its wholesale form by rightwing nationalists such as the Yisrael Beiteinu party of the foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman.

"Transfer" is such a polite euphemism.

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