Olmert: To further peace, US will give citizenship to 100,000 Palestinian refugees

[kpete]

Source: Raw Story/Agence France-Presse

Olmert: To further peace, US will give citizenship to 100,000 Palestinian refugees

By Agence France-Presse
Sunday, September 19th, 2010 -- 8:14 pm


Olmert: To further peace, US will give citizenship to 100,000 Palestinian refugeesFormer Israeli premier Ehud Olmert said on Sunday the United States had agreed to accept 100 000 Palestinian refugees within the framework of an eventual Middle East peace deal, media reported.

Washington had agreed to absorb and give citizenship to 100 000 refugees, while Israel would accept less than 20 000, Israeli media quoted Olmert as telling a conference.

"The numbers discussed were below 20 000, but this would require an end to the conflict and a Palestinian announcement that they would not make any more demands," the Ynet website quoted him as saying.

Olmert was speaking at a conference in Tel Aviv organised by the Geneva Initiative, an Israeli-Palestinian group that aims to show a peace accord is possible.

Read more: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/09/olmert-peace-accept-100000-palestinian-refugees/

[Pab Sungenis]

1. Relax, anti-immigration folks.

It's not going to happen.

[Ozymanithrax]

2. That wold be fine with me...

not that it is likely to happen. But who will be the first Conservative/Republican/Teabagger who says that Obama is giving the U.S. away to his Muslim brethren?

[molly77]

20. Israel wants Palestinians ocean front property

Why should WE help them steal real estate? Millions of Iraqis left their country / over a million killed..fewer to share oil revenues with. Now it is happening in Louisiana ..people down there have blood pouring out their bodies. The law of Karma tells me, WE will be foreign owned before long.

[Name removed]

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[babylonsister]

4. Why do you think this is ethnic cleansing? nt

[Name removed]

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[Name removed]

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[Odin2005]

9. Those small minority of Pals don't have a superpower backing them.

[JDPriestly]

10. They have a lot of nearby friends in the Middle East including Iran.

[aquart]

8. THEIR land.

You are now going home and calling a lawyer. Your plan, which you will carry out, is to deed all your property and ill-gotten gains to the nearest amerindian tribe. After which you will finally sleep the sleep of the just.

Please. I love the way the Zionist presence since the 1880s, slaving in sweatshops to buy the extortionate infertile desert from the absentee landlords who lived it up in Beirut is simply ignored. Somebody sold out the Arab peasantry.....but it's so convenient to blame the Jews as usual.

[proteus_lives]

13. Oh, you're a mind-reader now.

That's a helpful skill to have.

:eyes:

[azurnoir]

15. well not exactly but israel's FM wants to "reaccess" Israeli Arabs rights

Lieberman: Peace talks must reassess Israeli-Arabs' right to citizenship

With the Palestinians refusing to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, negotiations must tackle issue of Israeli-Arab 'loyalty', foreign minister says - prompting accusations of 'apartheid and ethnic cleansing' from Arab MK.

Israeli Arab politicians responded furiously Sunday to Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman's suggestion suggesting that "disloyal" members of that sector should take Palestinian citizenship.

The question of Israel's citizens needs to be one of the central issues on the negotiating table, in light of the Palestinian refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state," Lieberman said ahead of Sunday's weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem.

Recognizing Israel as uniquely Jewish is one of the key demands by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the latest peace talks with the Palestinians, which began earlier this month.

"We can't continue to ignore issues like that of Hanin Zuabi, who identifies completely with the other side," Lieberman said, , referring to an Israeli Arab member of Knesset was stripped of her parliamentary privileges after sailing aboard a pro-Palestinian aid convoy attacked by Israel en route to the Gaza Strip.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/lieberman...

[pampango]

21. If voluntary immigration is ethnic cleansing, there's a whole lot of the latter in the world.

The far-right in Europe will be happy to hear that they can portray their anti-immigration stance as being against ethnic cleansing of Muslims from their home countries. ;)

[pampango]

5. CNN story says this was a proposal under Bush.

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/meast/09/19/israel.olmert/?hpt=T2

The United States under President George W. Bush was prepared to take in 100,000 Palestinian refugees as part of a Middle East peace deal, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Sunday.

"The United States was ready to take in 100,000 refugees as citizens of the United States," Olmert said, in what may be his most revealing comments to date about negotiations with the U.S. and the Palestinians when he was prime minister."

[dkf]

11. Is this an admission of Israel's guilt in it's treatment of Palestinians?

Why else would we call them refugees?

[Techn0Girl]

12. No disrespect to the Palistineans but...

We have 30 million unemployed (50+ million if you use the official U6 report) - we are in a severe Recession - we are heavily in debt.

How does taking on ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND dependent refugees help the security of our country?

This is NOT an opinion directed against Palestinians or against immigration in general - it's just the opinion of a working class , unemployed American who can't even get health insurance .

Who is this really helping? Because I don't see it helping the middle class. Not in times like this.

[bc3000]

16. Well said. I concur.

[PaulaFarrell]

18. I think that's 15 million unemployed

seems you are taking a 10% unemployment figure and applying to the whole population, not just those seeking employment. Although the figure of 15 million is low, due to not including those who would like to work but are not actively seeking work, still it's way off 30 million.

in answer to who it's really helping, if indeed it were to happen, well, i guess that would be the palestinians who could have some chance at a normal life.

[EFerrari]

19. You might notice that no Palestinian made this comment

but rather a spokesperson from the other side of the conflict who doubtlessly knows that America is being swept by anti-immigrant feeling even though immigration has been FLAT for several years.

[western mass]

14. how to remove an ethnic population

without killing them.

More humane, true, but still, there's a term for this...

[Name removed]

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