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Friday, September 16, 2011

"Jews welcome" in Palestinian state? Who believes this? (updated)

From Politico:
Palestinian officials are rolling out the welcome mat for Jews to come to a new Palestinian state.

Trying to tamp down a controversy over whether a Palestinian state would be Jew-free, Mahmoud Habbash, the Palestinian minister of religious affairs, said a future state would be open to people of all religions, including Jews.

“The future Palestinian state will be open to all its citizens, regardless of their religion,” Habbash said, according to USA Today. “We want a civil state, which in it live all the faiths, Muslim, Christian and Jews also if they agree, (and) accept to be Palestinian citizens.”

Maen Areikat, the Palestine Liberation Organization’s ambassador to the United States, told POLITICO that his comments earlier this week which some interpreted as meaning Jews would not be welcome were misconstrued.

“In no way was there a suggestion that Jews cannot enter Palestine or be in Palestinian state in the future,” Areikat said.

Proof that Jews could never have equal rights in "Palestine":

1) Areikat's own words last year.

2) The Palestinian Constitution, Chapter 1, article 1:
Palestine is part of the large Arab World, and the Palestinian people are part of the Arab Nation. Arab Unity is an objective which the Palestinian People shall work to achieve.
Meaning that non-Arabs are not treated as equals with Arabs. it may also mean that non-Arabs cannot become citizens.

3) Article 4 of that same constitution:
Islam is the official religion in Palestine. Respect and sanctity of all other heavenly religions shall be maintained.

The principles of Islamic Shari’a shall be the main source of legislation.
Jews do make it to dhimmi status, as their religion is one of the "heavenly" ones. But if you are Hindu or Buddhist, watch out.

4) The Palestinian Declaration of Independence refers to the "Palestinian Arab people" no less than 15 times, implying that if you are not Arab, you cannot be a Palestinian. (Almost certainly this was done to imply that there were no such thing as Palestinian Jews.)

5) Hamas is nominally part of the government, and it certainly rules over parts of "Palestine," and it has never changed its anti-semitic charter ("For our struggle against the Jews is extremely wide-ranging and grave...The Nazism of the Jews does not skip women and children...")

6) Do you think that Jews would have equal rights to visit the Temple Mount that Muslims do?

UPDATE: David G notes that this attempt at damage control looks like it was done by the Palestinian Arabs' new PR firm in the US - one that was hired by none other that Maen Areikat himself!