From Guardian UK another Wikileaks revelation:
This suggestion, to settle Palestinian refugees in South America, which was just revealed in the Palestine Papers, is probably the most biased, outlandish move on the part of the US to help Israel completely disenfranchise the Palestinian people of their ancestral homelands, in what became Israel in 1948, and what is now the remaining Palestinian territories. The Palestinian refugee problem was created when Israel, starting two months before it declared independence, began ethnically cleansing by force and fear (of massacre) over 800,000 Palestinians from over 470 villages, towns, and cities, from what had been their home for over a thousand years.
Israel’s present goal to colonize the Palestinian territories including East Jerusalem, the remaining 22% of original Palestine, finds that there is now no room for the five million or so Palestinians living in UNWRA refugee camps in various Arab countries like Jordan and Lebanon, not even in a negotiated state of Palestine.
Why? Because the state of Palestine will never exist as more than a group of overpopulated bantustans. With the help of US subterfuge, Palestine has been completely obliterated. Only fools will now talk about a two state solution or a Palestinian state. With the Palestine Papers now making it evident that the peace process is dead, it can only assumed that Condi Rice, who suggested that Palestinian refugees be moved to South America, knew all along that Israel had no intention of allowing Palestine, as part of a two state solution, to emerge. Since this clashes with Palestinian refugees’ fundamental right to go home ala UN Resolution 194, it is also clear that the US had no intention of respecting international law. As such, we have taken to the `dark side’ when it comes to Middle East.
Condoleezza Rice, who was secretary of state in the Bush administration, floated the idea at a meeting on 28 June 2008 with US, Israeli and Palestinian negotiators in Berlin, according to minutes of the encounter obtained by al-Jazeera and shared with the Guardian.
The suggestion dumbfounded South America’s Palestinians – a largely Christian community which emigrated in waves over the past century and settled across the region, especially in Chile which is said to be home to more than 200,000.
Chile’s Palestinians would welcome compatriots who chose to settle in the Andes, said Jadue. “If a Palestinian accepted to come here that would be their right and we would show solidarity.” But that did not justify a US proposal to funnel refugees from the Middle East to reduce pressure on Israel to give up land, he said. “That’s wrong.”
Palestinians have expressed shock and dismay at the US suggestion to settle Palestinian refugees in Argentina and Chile rather than let them return to ancestral land in Israel.
Representatives of the Palestinian diaspora said the plan to ship displaced Palestinians from the Middle East to a new homeland across the Atlantic clashed with their fundamental right to go home.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/25/palestine-papers-refugees-south-america
UN Resolution 194, the Right of Return of all Palestinians ethnically cleansed by Israel in 1948, and one would presuppose, all of those refugees created as part of the slower ethnic cleansing that occurred after the 1967 Israeli-Egyptian war, is what is at stake here.
“It’s completely unacceptable. It contradicts our inalienable right to return to our own homeland,” said Daniel Jadue, vice-president of Chile’s Palestine Federation. “That right cannot be renounced. To make this suggestion shows the mediation was not honest. It was clearly tilted in favour of Israel. This is extremely grave.”
Interestingly, there are also Palestinian refugees living in the US, now as Palestinian-Americans. Should they too pack their bags and head south?
