A Palestinian right of return would destroy the 'Jewish State' in Israel

If all or a large majority of Palestinian refugees and their descendants were to implement a 'right of return', it would make Arabs the majority within Israel and Jews an ethnic minority. This amounts to abolishing the Jewish people's right to self-determination, which they hold under the 1993 Vienna Declaration.[1] It would also mean eradicating Israel as a Jewish state, which was the intention behind its foundation. The majority of Israelis find a literal right of return for Palestinian refugees to be unacceptable, pointing to this worry that as they become a minority Israel as a Jewish state would be undermined.[2] Re-enforcing the need for the existence of a Jewish state (as a safe haven for persecuted Jews) is the presence in Israel of 758,000-866,000 Jews who were expelled, fled or emigrated from the Arab Middle East and North Africa between 1945 and 1956, to whom the Arab states which expelled them are not willing to offer any 'right of return' of their own.[3] An open letter to the Palestinian leadership published in 2001 by Amos Oz, A.B. Yehoshua and other Israeli intellectuals and peace activists dramatically demonstrated the agreement even among the 'peace camp' in Israel that a total right of return for Palestinians can never be acceptable to the Israeli people: “We shall never be able to agree”, they wrote, “to the return of the refugees to within the borders of Israel. The meaning of such a return would be the elimination of the state of Israel.” Yossi Sarid, chairman of the Meretz Party, stated baldly that “Israel can survive without sovereignty over Temple Mount, but it cannot survive with the right of return. If the Palestinians insist on it, there will be no (peace) agreement.”[4] Thus asking Israel to recognise the Palestinian right of return is tantamount to asking Israel to accept its own destruction as a state, and is thus totally unacceptable. There are further reasons that recognising the Palestinian right of return would be fundamentally harmful to Israel's welfare, and thus an invalid action. Article 29 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights provides that rights can be limited by law solely for securing 'due recognition and respect for the rights of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order, and general welfare in a democratic society.' Article 30 states that nothing in the declaration may be interpreted as permitting any state, group, or person to engage in activity aimed at the destruction of any rights or freedoms guaranteed. The 'rights' and 'general welfare' of Israel's Jewish citizens would be endangered if millions of Palestinians who were openly hostile to Israel's existence became a majority. Article 3 of the declaration further states that "these rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purpose and principles of the United Nations".[5] The Palestinian right of return would result in the loss of Israeli sovereignty and its replacement with an Arab-majority state, and the dismantling of Israeli society in favour of an Arab-Muslim dominated society, resulting in the destruction of a UN member state: a violation of the United Nations Charter. For this reason, a Palestinian right of return is invalidated. A right of return would also result in a flood of Palestinians stating their 'right of return' as justification for entering Israel at any time and in unlimited numbers and laying claim to old homes. This creates an unworkable legal nightmare, clouded by historical ambiguities. Such an extended legal nightmare would last for decades, and hurt the reconciliation process. [i-[1] There are many things that Israel can and has offered to Palestinian refugees: compensation, assistance in resettlement, and return for an extremely limited number of refugees based solely on family reunification or humanitarian considerations. But an unlimited right of return for all refugees and their descendants simply goes too far. This is largely because it is purely unworkable to allow millions of Palestinians to return back to a territory that is already overcrowded.[i-[2] [6] For all these reasons, recognising the Palestinian right of return would destroy Israel as a 'Jewish state' and fundamentally harm the welfare of its current legal inhabitants by infringing on their rights, and so Israel should not pursue this recognition. [1] United Nations World Conference on Human Rights. “VIENNA DECLARATION AND PROGRAMME OF ACTION”. United Nations. 14-25 June 1993. http://www.unhchr.ch/huridocda/huridoca.nsf/%28symbol%29/a.conf.157.23.en [2] The Economist. "The Palestinian right of return". The Economist. 4 January 2001. http://www.economist.com/node/464892 [3] Schwartz, Adi. "All I wanted was justice". Haaretz/adi-schwartz.com. 4 January 2008. http://www.adi-schwartz.com/israeli-arab-conflict/all-i-wanted-was-justice/ [4] The Economist. "The Palestinian right of return". The Economist. 4 January 2001. http://www.economist.com/node/464892 [5] United Nations. "Universal Declaration of Human Rights". Wikisource. 10 December 1948. http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Universal_Declaration_of_Human_Rights#Arti... [6] The Economist. "The Palestinian right of return". The Economist. 4 January 2001. http://www.economist.com/node/464892