The *FREE ARAB VOICE*
Sept 30'th, 2000

Refugees in the Context of the Arab-Zionist Conflict
====================================================

As part of the Palestine Cultural Week activities, a forum was held at
the Baqaa Refugee Camp in Jordan on the evening of September 26, under
the title of 'the Refugee Question in the Context of the Arab-Zionist
Conflict'.

There were two guest speakers at the forum:

1) Faraj Shalhoub, of the Islamic weekly Assabeel, the largest
distributing weekly in Jordan, and

2) Ibrahim Alloush, of the Association against Zionism and Racism and
the Free Arab Voice.

The event which was organized by the Baqaa Club, the largest
Palestinian community association in Jordan, was well-attended, and
tackled the refugee question from two complementary angles.   Shalhoub
provided a summary and an evaluation of different scenarios that are
posed nowadays in negotiations and through the media to liquidate the
refugee question.  Alloush examined the refugee issue from the
perspective of geopolitics and the clashing strategic interests of the
parties concerned.  Special emphasis was given to the program designed
to diminish the Arab-Zionist conflict into an incoherent collection of
regional conflicts and to deconstruct each regional conflict into a
selection of isolated sub-categories, like the refugee question or
Jerusalem, then to dissolve each sub-category into shreds of
technicalities, that would then be resolved on the basis of the balance
of power.

A discussion with the audience following the lectures centered on the
need to recognize the following:

1) that the refugee problem was created by the OCCUPATION of Palestine,
and continues today as a result of the continuation of that occupation,

2) that the refugee problem cannot be separated from the larger
Palestine question, just like the latter cannot be separated from the
larger Arab-Zionist conflict,

3) that mere recognition of "Israel's" right to exist will leave the
refugee question unresolved since Zionists will never agree as long as
they can help it to more than a very limited return of refugees,

4) that the right of return emanates from the Arab historical right in
the land of Palestine, the collective Palestinian right to
self-determination on their land, as well as the individual right of
return; and the latter should not be posed in lieu of the former rights,

5) that the road to return is the road to liberation, and that the road
to liberation is the road of the armed struggle.  Until that possible
strategic objective is achieved, refugees, the majority of Palestinians,
should never ever give up their right to Palestine.

In fact, not a single member of the audience who spoke disagreed with
the statements above (no wonder Azmi Bshara was kicked out of that
camp)!

The Free Arab Voice

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