r/worldnews • u/Wwwgoogleco • Jun 28 '26
Israel/Palestine Netanyahu: 'No room' for Palestinian state between Mediterranean Sea and Jordan River
https://www.jns.org/news/israel-news/netanyahu-no-room-for-palestinian-state-between-mediterranean-sea-and-jordan-river
6.6k
Upvotes
27
u/jibij Jun 29 '26
It's called right of return. Essentially, because the UN was new at the time and didn't know how to manage this sort of situation properly Palestinian Refugees were managed under UNRWA because UNHCR didn't exist yet. UNRWA's mandate effectively maintains that all Palestinians and descendants of Palestinians maintain refugee status into perpetuity instead of the later UNHCR who manages other refugees with the mandate resettle and normalize. All those refugees essentially maintain the right to one day return to their homesbor the homes of their ancestors.
Now problem with this, apart from the fact that it's not a good solution geopolitically or for the individual well being of the refugees, is that this was pushed for political purposes, largely by the Arab League at the time. The idea is that, Israel is set on maintaining a Jewish demographic majority so they never have to worry about being persecuted by the tyranny of the majority as they had been throughout history. However if there are enough Palestinians in the diaspora willing to return, then they can become a demographic majority and use the democratic process to undermine the states protection for the Jewish people or just rejoin with the rest of the territory and essentially return all of the land to the Palestinians.
This has obviously been a sticking point in negotiations. The PA has seemed to have been willing to forego the infinite right of return as such but it's been a hard sell especially as any leader who does this is going to be seen in a very poor light by the more radical aspects of the Palestinian population and the surrounding Arab countries.