OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, 17 August 2003 — Israel yesterday categorically rejected a Palestinian contention that the US-backed road map to peace in the region guaranteed the right of Palestinian refugees to return to Israel.
Israeli government spokesman Avi Pazner said the contention by Palestinian Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath was false and unhelpful. He reiterated that Israel would never let the refugees back in under any condition.
The right of return for millions of Palestinian refugees is one of the most emotional and sensitive issues for both sides and has been a major impediment to decades of efforts to achieve a final Middle East peace.
Shaath said Friday in Beirut that the right was an integral part of an Arab peace initiative used as a reference point in the peace road map promoted by Washington.
Pazner responded firmly. “It’s a statement that can only hurt things because it’s false,” he said. “The road map says absolutely nothing about the (refugees’) right of return and this statement is detrimental” to implementation of the road map.
“Israel has no intention, under any circumstance and within any framework, of accepting the return of refugees to Israeli cities which Nabil Shaath terms Palestinian cities,” Pazner said.
“The (refugee) Palestinians, if they want, can return to their future state,” he said, referring to the ultimate goal of the road map drafted by the United States, Russia, United Nations and European Union.
Shaath expressed a different view on Friday of the possibilities open to refugees under the road map. “I want to be clear: this right includes returning to an independent state and to Palestinian cities in the Jewish state. Whether a person returns to Haifa (Israel) or to Nablus (West Bank), their return is guaranteed.”
“No condition has been set for a return (only) to an independent Palestinian state. The right of return is no longer an illusion,” Shaath said.
He said the right was included in the peace initiative adopted unanimously by an Arab summit in Beirut last year and used as a basis for the road map, which he called the Palestinians’ best hope since the 1967 war.
Meanwhile, hard-line Palestinian groups, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, slammed an Israeli agreement to hand over control of four West Bank towns to Palestinian security forces as a “farce”.
“The Israeli Army will redeploy around these towns, pretending to withdraw. It’s a farce because Israel just wants to hide its aggression and continue building the wall,” Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said, referring to the security fence being built by Israel across the West Bank.
“Israel is tricking the world into believing that its army is pulling out of Palestinian towns, as it has already tricked the world over the release of Palestinian prisoners,” said Mohammad Al-Hindi, leader of Islamic Jihad. So far Israel has freed only a few hundred of the estimated 6,000 Palestinian prisoners in its jails, despite a Palestinian demand for all to be released.
A spokesman for Palestinian security chief, Mohammad Dahlan, said Israel would hand over control of Jericho, Ramallah, Qalqilya and Tulkarm to the Palestinian Authority in the next two weeks.
