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TITLE: Mixed Reviews Greet Refugee Plan - Palestinians Reject Canadian Offer, Israel Praises It |
AUTHOR: Sandro Contenta |
PUB: Toronto Star |
DATE: January 11, 2001 |
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JERUSALEM - Canada's offer to take in Palestinian refugees as part of a Middle East peace deal has been embraced by Israel but flatly rejected by Palestinians. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak's office applauded the Canadian government's bid to help solve one of the thorniest issues blocking a peace deal - the fate of an estimated 3.7 million Palestinian refugees. "I think Canada has opened the door to resolving one of the toughest issues that relates to the Israeli and Palestinian conflict,'' Gilad Sher, Barak's chief of staff and pointman in peace talks, said in an interview. A Canadian immigration department official confirmed yesterday that "contingency plans are under way here'' to resettle a significant number of Palestinian refugees. "This is well in keeping with Canada's position as a compassionate citizen of the world,'' the official told The Star's Allan Thompson. But top Palestinian peace negotiators interviewed by The Star were clearly upset by Canada's offer to resettle refugees. They suggest it undermines the Palestinian bid to win the right of refugees to return to homes in what is now Israel. "Canada's policy is Canada's policy - it is not our policy. Our policy is the right of return,'' said Ahmed Qureia, the Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council, who is also known as Abu Ala. Palestinian negotiators said they would refuse to even consider Canada's offer unless Israel first accepted the right of Palestinian refugees to return to homes in what is now the state of Israel. "Have you heard of anywhere in the world where leaders of a people ask other countries to please accept their people? It will never happen,'' said Qureia, who headed talks that led to the landmark 1993 Oslo interim accord between Israelis and Palestinians. Foreign Affairs Minister John Manley first revealed the government's offer in an interview with The Star on Tuesday. Manley said other countries would also be involved in the proposed resettlement of Palestinian refugees, most of them members of families who fled their homes in the 1948 war that established the state of Israel. Others fled homes in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, when Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza Strip. About one-third of the refugees live in squalid, crowded camps in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. Manley said he made the offer to resettle an undetermined number of Palestinian refugees during recent telephone conversations with Palestinian and Israeli officials. He said Prime Minister Jean Chrtien also brought up the matter during a Christmas Day telephone call to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Manley's offer was made public on the day that Palestinian refugees in the West Bank town of Nablus signed an oath vowing to settle for nothing less than the right of return. "We strongly reject any kind of resettlement . . . as a substitute to our right of return,'' said the declaration by Arafat's Fatah movement, which refugees signed with blood-stained thumb prints. Arafat's chief negotiator, Saeb Erekat, left the door open for the resettlement of Palestinians who chose the option - but only after Israel accepts the principle of the right of return. "Once this principle is established, then we can speak of mechanisms, and then we can speak of options,'' Erekat said in an interview. "It's not Canada's problem. Israel created the refugee problem and it must accept the moral and legal responsibility for it,'' Erekat added. But Israeli officials were ecstatic over the initiative. "We see this as something extremely positive,'' said Emmanuel Nahshon, a spokesperson for Israel's foreign minister, Shlomo Ben-Ami, who recently discussed Canada's resettlement offer with Manley. "We encourage the international community to help in efforts to resettle refugees, whether in places where they live now, or in the Palestinians Authority areas, or in third countries,'' Nahshon added. Israeli officials have pushed Canada to announce such a move for months. Barak personally asked Chrtien to accept thousands of Palestinian refugees when the two met in Jerusalem last April. But Chrtien denied reports in the Israeli media that Canada agreed to accept 15,000 refugees. Canadian officials at the time suggested Canada might be willing to resettle refugees - but only if the request was part of a negotiated peace deal between Israelis and Palestinians. Ziad Abu Ziad, the Palestinian cabinet minister responsible for Jerusalem affairs, added: "We thank Canada for its good intentions, but we believe that it is the right of our people to settle in their own homeland.'' Palestinian refugees also said thanks, but no thanks, to Canada's offer. "My homeland is like my mother. I can't change my mother for another one,'' said Raed Budair, 39, an unemployed construction worker who now lives in the Aideh refugee camp near Bethlehem. News of Canada's offer to accept Palestinian refugees also sparked a torrent of feedback at home. END |