THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume X, Issue # 13, January 14, 2008
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
BUSH PROMOTES A PALESTINIAN "RIGHT OF RETURN"
By Dr. Daniel Pipes
THE ISRAELI-ARAB CONFLICT, THE PALESTINIAN RIGHT OF RETURN, & UNITED STATES FOREIGN POLICY: BUSH
ADMINISTRATION SUPPORT FOR THE
CONCEPT OF THE PALESTINIAN ARABS' "RIGHT OF RETURN" TO THE FORMER BRITISH MANDATE OF PALESTINE, THAT IS,
THE BELIEF THAT PALESTINIAN REFUGEES & THEIR DESCENDANTS HAVE A RIGHT TO RETURN TO THE HOMES THEIR
FAMILIES POSSESSED & LEFT PRIOR TO, DURING, OR DUE TO THE 1948 ARAB-ISRAELI WAR -- THE PALESTINIAN "RIGHT OF
RETURN" PERCEIVED BY THE ISRAELIS AS A CODE PHRASE TO OVERWHELM ISRAEL DEMOGRAPHICALLY, THEREBY UNDOING
ZIONISM & THE JEWISH STATE
FULL STORY:
The Palestinian "right of return" entered the lexicon of American policymakers in December, 2006, when the Iraq Study
Group Report urged the U.S. government to support Israel-Palestinian negotiations that addresses what it termed a "key
final status issue." That recommendation came as a mild shock, given that the "right of return" to Israel is transparently
a code phrase to overwhelm Israel demographically, thereby undoing Zionism and the Jewish state, and so never before
a goal of official Washington.
A year later, White House Deputy Press Secretary Dana Perino adopted the term, though without much notice. Out of
seemingly nowhere, she informed journalists at a press briefing on November 28, 2007, that "The right of return issue is
a part of the road map [to peace] and it's going to be one of the issues that the Israelis and the Palestinians have to talk
about during … negotiations."
Indeed, on schedule, "right of return" emerged as a motif before and during George W. Bush's recent trip to Israel and
the Palestinian Authority, when he mentioned it three times publicly:
January 4: In an interview with Israel's Channel 2, Bush announced
himself "optimistic that we can have the outlines of a state defined.
In other words, negotiations on borders and right of return and
these different issues can be settled."
January 9: At a joint press conference with Israel's Prime Minister
Ehud Olmert, he referred to the core issues of the conflict as
"territory and right of return and Jerusalem."
January 10: In a parallel joint press conference with Palestinian
Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas, he stated that the two-state
idea "really doesn't have much bearing until borders are defined,
right of return issues resolved, Jerusalem is understood, … [and]
the common security measures will be in place."
In a different setting, also on January 10, Bush, somewhat elusively, stated his belief that "we need to look to the
establishment of a Palestinian state and new international mechanisms, including compensation, to resolve the refugee
issue." Is the "right of return" to be one of those new international mechanisms?
COMMENTS
(1) Despite the major shift in policy implied by the U.S. government adopting the "right of return," the media has largely
missed the story, as "The Lurker" documents in Censoring Bush's Call for Palestinian "Right of Return." In particular,
the Jerusalem Post reported on this reference, then posted a second story denying it.
(2) When the Iraq Study Group Report first appeared, analysts puzzled over the "right of return" mention, as one person
close to the process explained: "It's hard to know whether that language got in there because of carelessness – I know
there were many revisions up to the very last minute – or whether it was a deliberate attempt to fuse something to the
Bush rhetoric which wasn't there before." Retrospectively, it appears that the reference was indeed intentional – and
quite successful in its purpose. "The Lurker" concludes, perhaps correctly, that James A. Baker, III, lead author of the
Iraq Study Group Report, "has once again become a major factor in setting U.S. Middle East policy."
(3) This is only one of several problematic statements from the Bush administration, such as the President's morally
equivalent reference to "terrorism and incitement, whether committed by Palestinians or Israelis" or Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice's calling the Arab-Israeli conflict the central issue of the Middle East and seeing Palestinians as
analogous to Southern blacks.
(4) Bush prefaced his January 10 comment by asserting, "I'm the only President that's really articulated a two-state
solution so far," and he is right. Put differently, he is the only U.S. President to promote a "Palestine" and now to call for
a Palestinian "right of return." More broadly, throughout his Presidency, Bush has marched to his own drummer on the
Arab-Israeli issue, offering novel and personal solutions to a century-old problem and throwing out the rulebook on
Arab-Israeli diplomacy.
(5) One can only guess how often Bush raised the "right of return" in his private conversations with Israelis and
Palestinians, and with what intensity and pressure.
(6) Looking ahead, to the last year of the Bush Presidency, quoting myself: "should the Israelis resist a joint
U.S.-Palestinian position, I see a possible crisis in U.S.-Israel relations of unprecedented proportions." I am not
predicting this will happen, but noting that the pieces are all in place for such a development.
(7) Although Bush is "seen by many Israelis as the best friend the Jewish state has had in the White House," I have long
doubted that characterization, and now more so than ever.
© Daniel Pipes 2008
Originally Published in Front Page Magazine, January 14, 2008
Republished with the Permission of Daniel Pipes
Reprinted from the Daniel Pipes Mailing List, January 14, 2008
Article URL: http://www.danielpipes.org/article/5373
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Israel & the Arabs -- The Israeli-Arab Conflict
Middle East -- Arabs, Arab States,
& Their Middle Eastern Neighbors
American Foreign Policy -- The Middle East
Islamism & Jihadism -- Radical Islam & Islamic Terrorism
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
International Politics & World Disorder:
War & Peace in the Real World
Page Two
Page One
Islamist Terrorist Attacks on the U.S.A.
Osama bin Laden & the Islamist Declaration of War
Against the U.S.A. & Western Civilization
Islamist International Terrorism &
U.S. Intelligence Agencies
U.S. National Security Strategy
Dr. Daniel Pipes, a Ph.D. in Islamic History (Harvard University, 1978), is the Founder and Director of the Middle East Forum,
the Founder of Campus Watch, a signatory of the Project for the New American Century, a former board member of the U.S.
Institute of Peace, a former adjunct scholar at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a Golden Circle supporter of the
U.S. Committee for a Free Lebanon, a former member of the U.S. Department of Defense Special Task Force on Terrorism and
Technology, and a former lecturer at the U.S. Naval War College, Harvard University, the University of Chicago, and the
University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Pipes was the Director of the Foreign Policy Research Institute from 1986 to 1993.
Author or co-author of eighteen books, Dr. Pipes is a regular columnist for Front Page Magazine, the New York
Sun, and the Jerusalem Post. His analyses of world trends and of forces and developments in the Middle East
have appeared in numerous North American newspapers, including the Washington Post, the New York Times,
and the Wall Street Journal. He frequently appears on American network television, as well as at universities and
think tanks, to discuss the Middle East, Islam, and the Islamist threat to the U.S.A. and the West. He also has appeared on
BBC and Al Jazeera, and has lectured in approximately twenty-five countries.
Dr. Pipes is a Polish-American Jew whose parents fled Poland in 1939, immigrated to the U.S.A., and assimilated well into
American society and culture. His father is Richard Pipes, an American historian specializing in Russian and Soviet history
and serving as Professor of History at Harvard University from 1950 until his retirement in 1996. During the Cold War, the
worldview of Richard Pipes was strongly anti-Soviet and anti-Communist.
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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