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OpinioNet Contributed Commentary - Steven Plaut
February 11, 2002
It is Time to Accept the ’Right of Return’!!
After listening very carefully to your many years of lecturing us on
inevitability and the importance of the "Right of Return", we have been
convinced!
You are correct!
There really SHOULD be a "Right of Return".
Those displaced should be returned to their original habitations. All
arguments against immediate reinstatement are false. No civilized person
could oppose the need to restore the vanquished to their original homes.
You are correct - it does not matter how much time has gone by. Justice
is justice. There is no validity to the refusal to acknowledge the Right
of Return.
And that is why we demand that the Right of Return be immediately
applied to the Elgin Marbles stolen by the British from the Parthenon, to
the Egyptian obelisk in the Place Concord, and to all antiquities that
have been removed from Greece, Turkey, Egypt and elsewhere by Europeans.
These objects must enjoy the Right of Return. You have yourselves
explained to the world why!!
Surely, you do not wish to be perceived as hypocritical Philistines,
demanding some sort of "Right of Return" for Palestinians to a
non-existent Palestinian state that never existed in all of history, all
this - while refusing to acknowledge a Right of Return for art and
archeological objects to their homelands! Surely you do not think that
such artifacts, which do not threaten anyone else’s existence, have less
of a Right to live in their homelands than do Palestinians. And these
marbles and obelisks do not already control 22 OTHER countries, in
contrast with the Arabs.
Now we long ago gave up the idea that someday you might
acknowledge that JEWS have some sort of right of return to THEIR homeland,
a right that encompasses, among other things, the right to defend
themselves against Arab nazism and fascism, including when such fascism is
Sudetenized and dressed up in the red herring of Palestinian
"self-determination" and "Right of Return".
But today we have far less dramatic expectations of you.
All we ask is that grant to the stolen art treasures of Europe
precisely the same Right of Return that you suddenly think that
Palestinians should enjoy. Enlighten us through your good example!
Recognize the Right of Return!! Recognize the Right of Return!!
You can e-mail Steven at splaut@econ.haifa.ac.il.
About Steven Plaut
Copyright © 2002 by Steven Plaut -Published with permission
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