Just solution for Palestinian refugee problem

By Vel Nirtist

The much-lauded, just-re-approved "Saudi peace initiative" demands "just solution" to "Palestinian refugee problem."

First of all, one wonders why there should still be such problem, and why there are still any "Palestinian refugees" at all. When, in 1948, Palestinian Arabs ran out of Palestine to give room for the invading Arab armies to operate, Europe was awash with refugees from the just-ended World War II, European "displaced persons" moving in every direction - from East to West, from North to South. Millions were either on the move, or stayed in the refugee camps - sometimes the very concentration camps erected by the Nazis.

And yet, do we hear today of the refugees from the World War II? Do we go visit their camps, where they live in squalor, sadly looking at the visitors and tearfully ask when they can go back to their homeland? We don't - because there are no such camps, because the millions of formerly "displaced persons" found new homelands, re-settled and re-established themselves in other countries, living happily ever after. It speaks volumes about the Arab mentality that they can keep millions of fellow-Arabs unhappily locked down for six decades and denied the ability to re-establish themselves and live normal lives in the name of abstract, supra-human "justice."

But do Arabs mean justice when they talk about "justice?" If they did, the rightful place of return for the Palestinian Arabs would be found in no time at all. Because, being just, the Arabs would say to themselves, "well, Arab history is the history of conquest. Arabs came out of what is today Western Saudi Arabia, to conquer lands from the border of India to the border of France. Just as the natural center of the British Empire was Britain, the natural center of the Arabs is Saudi Arabia. Just as, when the British Empire came to an end, it was natural for the Indian British to go back to England, it is as natural for the Arabs from Palestine to go to Saudi Arabia. This is just. Dear Palestinians, please come back to Saudi Arabia, and make yourself at home - for after all, this is your natural home."

Is that what we hear from the Saudis when they talk about "justice?" No, they demand the right of Palestinian Arabs to return not to Saudi Arabia, but to Israel. They tell us that Palestine is not the occupied Israeli land, but Israel is an occupied Arab land.

To be consistent, they should also insist that India is an occupied English land, and England is an occupied Italian land. But are the Saudis that "just"?