Right of Return?

The "right of return" is something the Palestinians often demand, arguing that they were pushed out of their homes by Israelis. The truth is far different.

"The Arab states which had encouraged the Palestinian Arabs to leave their homes temporarily in order to be out of the way of the Arab invasion armies, have failed to keep their promise to help these refugees."

The Jordanian daily newspaper Falistin
Feb 19, 1949.

"For the flight and fall of the other villages it is our leaders who are responsible because of their dissemination of rumours exaggerating Jewish crimes and describing them as atrocities in order to inflame the Arabs..."

The Jordanian daily newspaper, Al Urdun, April 9, 1953.

"The 15th May, 1948 arrived... on that day the Mufti of Jerusalem appealed to the Arabs of Palestine to leave the country, because the Arab countries were about to enter and fight in the stead."

The Egyptian daily Akhbar El Yom, Oct 12, 1963.

"The fact that there are these refugees is the direct consequence of the act of the Arab states in opposing partition and the Jewish state. The Arab states agree upon this policy unanimously and they must share in the solution of the problem."

Emile Ghoury, secretary of the Palestinian Arab Higher Committee, in an interview with the Beirut Telegraph Sept. 6, 1948.

"Who brought the Palestinians to Lebanon as refugees, suffering now from the malign attitude of newspapers and communal leaders, who have neither honor nor conscience? Who brought them over in dire straits and penniless, after they lost their honor? The Arab states, and Lebanon amongst them, did it."

The Beirut Muslim weekly Kul-Shay, Aug. 19, 1951.

"The Palestinian People does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means of continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct 'Palestinian people' to oppose Zionism."

Zahir Musehin (Palestine Liberation Organisation executive committee member. March 31, 1977 in the Dutch newspaper 'Trouw')