No Right of Return
Jeremy Harding
Imagine you were a Palestinian teenager, born in Jerusalem, when the Israelis took charge of your city in 1967. Imagine you received an ID card, giving you the right to residence in the place of your birth. That permit was in order when you left in the 1970s to study in the US. When you returned 20 years later, having graduated, married and started a family, you presented your document at the airport, only to be told it had been revoked.
This is the story of Munther Fahmi, who went back to Jerusalem after the signing of the Oslo Accords, and founded the bookshop at the American Colony Hotel. As an ‘Arab’, Fahmi could never be a citizen in his native city; and now he was no longer even a ‘resident’: he had to become a sightseer, entering on a US passport with a tourist visa. Which is how he's been coming and going, renewing the visa, for years. According to his lawyer, Fahmi was badly misled: his resident's permit was valid when he moved back to Jerusalem in the 1990s. Never mind that: now he's been told he'll have to go.
Eland, the travel publisher, describes Munther's shop as 'having the best selection of literature in the Middle East'. A petition to the Ministry of the Interior is gathering signatures.
Comments
Imagine you were a Jewish teenager, born in Iraq, when anti-Jewish violence swept the country forcing you to seek refuge in Israel (1950-52).
Imagine you were a Jewish-Egyptian teenager kicked out from Egypt in 1956.
Imagine you were a Jewish 'Pied-Noir' teenager kicked out from Algeria in 1962
Imagine you were a Jewish teenager kicked out from Iran.
Imagine you were a Jewish teenager, born in Morocco or Libya or Syria or Lebanon or Bahrain or Aden or Djibouti...
Imagine losing everything.. your house, comfort, belongings, friends, community, neighborhood, language, culture, hope, and ultimately the life you once knew.
Imagine being deprived of the right to reside in the place of your birth.
Imagine losing everything and never being able to come back not even as a sightseer, entering the land of your fathers on a foreign passport with a tourist visa.
This is the story of millions of Israelis.
Israel is a sovereign country and has the right to decide who can enter and stay on its territory.
“Peace can only be achieved through understanding” and compromise.
The past is gone.
There is no 'right' of return. Period.
Ciao Ciao
Don't be silly, dear.
I'm a man.
I only think of having sex (with as many men as possible).
ciao caro.
ps:
Israel is a reality. deal with it.