[nrhrjrjrjtntbt]

Are they afforded the same rights as jewish israelis? What about Gazans and West Bank palestenians whose families came from elsewhere in the earlier Palestine and were driven out to these areas, now living in terrible conditions. For simplicity lets pretend it is Sep 2023 for this argument, as the conditions were terrible then, due to Israels policies.

[JumpCrisscross]

> What about Gazans and West Bank palestenians whose families came from elsewhere

I’m sympathetic to the argument that there should be reparations—from Israel but also France, Britain and Turkey—for victims of the Nakbah.

But let’s be clear on a right of return: this logic applies to almost every human in Europe or Asia when it comes to the Middle East if we go back far enough. We’re talking about the closest coast to the cradle of civilisation.

[mcpar-land]

You don't have to go 'back' to find Palestinians alive, today, who can point at their settler-occupied homes on a map, and tell you the day they were kicked out. I think that's a reasonable cutoff point for right of return.

[JumpCrisscross]

> I think that's a reasonable cutoff point for right of return

I do too. The contours of how that works with their descendants, and when we draw the line for the living, has been debated in good faith (and bad, increasingly recently) for decades [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_right_of_return

[anthonybsd]

>Are they afforded the same rights as jewish israelis?

Yes [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_citizens_of_Israel

[nrhrjrjrjtntbt]

Thanks for the link. There are counterpoints in the linked article, including:

> Yousef Munayyer, an Israeli citizen and the executive director of The Jerusalem Fund, wrote that Palestinians only have varying degrees of limited rights in Israel. He states that although Palestinians make up about 20% of Israel's population, less than 7% of the budget is allocated to Palestinian citizens. He describes the 1.5 million Arab citizens of Israel as second-class citizens while four million more are not citizens at all. He states that a Jew from any country can move to Israel but a Palestinian refugee, with a valid claim to property in Israel, cannot. Munayyer also described the difficulties he and his wife faced when visiting the country.[301]

Hope over time this changes for the better. If they can start letting people expelled years ago to return too. Maybe not to their old address but work something out.

[oytis]

If all the money poured into conserving status quo was spent on creating better conditions for Palestinian refugees in any of the independent Arab states, Middle East would be a much quieter place

[JumpCrisscross]

> If all the money poured into conserving status quo was spent on creating better conditions for Palestinian refugees in any of the independent Arab states

Easier said than done. The chaos the PLO caused in Jordan and Lebanon [1] raises legitimate security concerns for any country asked to accept large numbers of Palestinian refugees.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine_Liberation_Organizat...

[nrhrjrjrjtntbt]

Why not US take a few million refugees, and build homes for them. Just borrow $100B from the Federal Reserve and do it.