the palestinian families who had to leave their houses in 1948, 1967 and at various other dates before, between and after those years, have taken with them the keys of their dwellings and the documents proving that they own those places. these keys and documents have been passed down thru generations. this is not only a symbolic act, it is meant to serve as a basis to return and claim that property whenever that becomes possible.
ownership of land or a house is taken very serious in that part of the world. not for nothing do the places described and named in the bible thousands of year ago remain - more or less - as they are, but the ownership of specific properties can be traced back thru millenia. for example, the abraham cave (a.k.a the ibrahimi mosque or the cave of the patriarchs) in hebron is called that way because the patriarch abraham was buried on that patch of land. that was about 5000 years ago if i'm correct.
i conjecture that to ask from americans and europeans to believe that there exist people who - materially - exist as an organized society for so long a time is asking too much.
the right of repatriation or reparation in land is a vexed one worldwide; and if the precedent of Israel were taken seriously then, of course, Anglo/Euros should be packing up and moving out of all the lands they took by force from aboriginal people far more recently than the original exile of Jewry from Eretz Yisroel. it seems to me that negotiated settlements and partial justice are all we can hope for -- both "forget the Alamo" [aka we won, nyah nyah. get over it you pathetic losers] and "next year in Jerusalem" [aka it was ours 3000 years ago and we want it back, you damn pack of thieves], as extreme viewpoints, are so problematic.
my ancestry is Pictish, Celtic, probably some Anglo Saxon; but I don't see that I have any special right to return to the UK and boot out some Pakistani grocer from his shop -- even if it stands on the same high street where my distant ancestor once scrubbed mosaic floors for some arrogant Roman occupier or a less distant ancestor managed to hide in the cellar and live through the civil wars.
the Question of Israel raises many vexing ethical issues, not the least of which is "is there any statute of limitations on the right of return to ancestral lands?" if the answer is No for one ethnic group then how do we justify making it Yes, And A Bloody Short One Too for other displaced ethnic groups? The difference between theory and practise in practise ...
You're confusing two different issues. The first is whether it makes sense to see a Jewish right of return pre-Israel as justified, while seeing a Palestinian right of return now as not. Clearly it doesn't make sense. The second question is whether a right of return for the Palestinians today is just. I'd say equally clearly no.
I'd say you'd need to draw a false analogy with the Polish/German, Polish/Belorussian etc. situations for that. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
