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Monday, November 26, 2007

Jerusalem Mufti on destroying Israel by "right of return"

Palestine Today has an interview with the former Mufti of Jerusalem, Sheikh Irema Sabri, where he says (autotranslated, somewhat cleaned up):
"[There are] key items, the first item that the right of return is a legitimate sacred right, that children inherit from our fathers and grandchildren inherit from their children, if a person died and the heirs claimed this inheritance, it is their legitimate claim, and therefore the refugee abandonment of the town then the children died of their legitimate claim to be a number of refugees who have fled from their country and their land more than six million Palestinians, whether inside Palestine or outside .. this first item right of return [is a] legitimate right.

"The second item is that the main compensation for the taking of land is a sale, [and selling the land is] religiously forbidden, ... but they may take compensation for the suffering and damage, those who do not wish to return have no right to take compensation, but his family of his or granting her run of the Palestinian state."
Here is an aspect of the conflict that most would rather ignore: the Islamic religious aspect. If a cartoon or teddy bear is enough to elicit deadly riots and threats, imagine how inflammatory it is for Muslims - no matter how "pragmatic" - to publicly give up on the "sacred" land of Palestine (whose Islamic sanctity has historically been directly proportional to the number of Jews there.)

If past history is any guide, the very idea that a Muslim leader would ignore his more, um, extreme brethren is exceedingly remote. People who do that often lose their heads. And a Muslim leader would not only have to appease the local yahoos like the former Mufti, but also the entire universe of Muslim extremists.

A look at Sabri's words show that the usual Western assumption that in the end, most Palestinian Arabs would have to be compensated in order to give up their "right of return" (a "right" that no refugee group in history has ever been given) is shortsighted. Oh, they'll be happy to take infidel money, of course - nothing unIslamic about that - but it would be compensation for their suffering, you see, not for the land they (for the most part) abandoned because they thought their Arab brethren would act like brethren. Nope, once land is declared Islamic, it is always Islamic, including (according to OBL) parts of Spain.

And notice also in the end what Sabri says - that the state they would be "returning" to is a "Palestinian" state. The very idea that they would go to a Jewish-run state, or even a state called Israel, is not contemplated. Sabri is pretty clear that the point of the "right of return" is to create a PalArab state between the Mediterranean and the Jordan.

Now, as is well known, even the "moderates" of Fatah call for a Palestine that covers exactly the same territory, as their peaceful logo shows.

So - the "moderates" and religious fanatics share their belief in the "right of return," and they share a vision of what their state should look like.

I'm sorry...what is the difference between them again?