Ruth King

On Independence Day Arabs and Israeli leftists plan a parallel parade demanding the Right of Return. I am not a betting person but I would wager that Israel’s inept government, anxious to rescue the illusory “peace process” will not even stop at the right to return. For those who say Israel would never compromise on this issue, I offer the examples of indivisible Jerusalem and a “two state” solution, the first of which was held sacred and the second was once anathema. Now the first is negotiable and the second accepted as a matter of course.

Of whose right of return do they speak? Is it the right of imprisoned terrorists to return to killing and carnage in the cafes, markets, and bus stops and streets of Israel?

Is it the right of Arabs whose grandparents once lived in Jaffa and who have spent three generations in “refugee” camps nursing hatred for the Jews rather than for their Arab coreligionists who have trapped them in squalor and statelessness? Are the “Palestinian” Arabs of Dearborn, Michigan, Jordan, Yemen and Kuwait, whose mosques preach jihad against Jews and Christians alike on the return list?

Will Hizbollah adherents be invited to dwell among the pigs and apes and bacteria (which is how they describe Jews in sermons and schools)?

It is suicide for Israel to contemplate the return of a single Arab to Israel, let alone the hugely inflated number of 4.3 million “refugees” the UN and Arab League have conjured up. There is only one right of return to discuss with Israel’s adversaries as well as those international meddlers whose maps and plans and processes would force Israel to accept its own demise.

The Jews of Israel have a right to return to Hodesh Yaron, from which they were forcibly evacuated in 2005; to Homesh from which they were routed during the Gaza “disengagement;” to Amona from which they were evicted in 2006; to Nahalei Tal, forcibly evacuated in 2002; to Mitzpe Karamim, forcibly evacuated by Barak.

Israel should claim the right of return to Jericho, one of the oldest Jewish cities in the world, best known for the victory of Joshua over the Canaanites.

Jews have a right to return to Shehem (Nablus) where within hours of the Jewish evacuation in 2002 a Palestinian Arab mob entered the Tomb of Joseph and systematically turned furniture, books, the Yeshiva into a heap of burning rubble, while the Arab police stood by idly in violation of all agreements. Joseph's Tomb has been the site of pilgrimage and prayer since time immemorial.

Joshua (24:32) states: "The bones of Joseph which the Children of Israel brought up from Egypt were buried in Shechem in the portion of the field that had been purchased by Jacob."

Jews have a right to return to all of Hebron, the cradle of Jewish religion, whose division Netanyahu weakly acceded to at Wye. Jews have a right to return to Gush Katif in Gaza. They have a right to rebuild their greenhouses, plundered and destroyed by the Arabs to whom they were handed over as a result of misguided generosity on the part of wealthy U.S. Jews.

Jews have a right to return to Bethlehem to pray at Rachel’s tomb, the third holiest site for Jews, to guard it and keep it safe from desecration.

If you want to get serious about the right of return, how about the right of Jordan’s Kinglet to return to Saudi Arabia from whence the Hashemites came. His pretty bride should have a right to return to Kuwait where she was born and from which her family was evicted after the first Gulf War.

But wait. What about the right of Jews to return to Iraq or Poland or Hungary or to Arab countries to claim the properties and estates they left behind in those cozy corners of the Diaspora?

Each time Israel concedes part of its patrimony, the Arabs respond with war. It is more important then ever for Jews to exercise their own right of return to all the areas that have been given over to Arab jihadist jurisdiction.

But, again, I wager that Israel’s government will seek some “accommodations” for returning Arabs. Remember, Prime Minister Barak’s rejected peace offers actually included the “right to return” for a “limited” number of “refugees.”

I have a better idea. Why do the citizens of Israel not insist on Prime Minister Olmert’s right to return forthwith to his civil life of petty fraud and chicanery?