As is the case every year on “Nakba Day,” this May 15 the Palestinian “right of return” dominated the discourse of both the Palestinian Authority and Fatah. However, this year the discourse was doubly important, coming against the backdrop of the official announcement, expected in the next few weeks, of the Trump administration’s Mideast peace plan, known as the “deal of the century.”
According to leaks and assessments, the deal is not expected to include the right of return.
Senior P.A. and Fatah officials reiterated that there would be no concessions on this matter, nor on any of the other Palestinian positions, and categorically rejected the deal. Additionally, Fatah posted messages and posters on its social media channels emphasizing its adherence to the right of return.‘’
The P.A. Foreign Ministry said in an official statement that the Palestinian people and its leadership conveys “its determination to torpedo the ‘deal of the century.’ [This day] will serve as a true platform for standing up to the despicable American measure and thwarting it. ... Our people’s commemoration provides solid proof of its insistence on its just and legitimate national rights—its right of return, self-determination, and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state in the June 4, 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital. This is further proof that there is no statute of limitation to Palestinian rights, as long as our people keeps the embers alive and remains steadfast on its homeland’s soil, behind its sagacious leadership, as personified by President Mahmoud Abbas.”
At a Ramadan iftar (breakfast) meal at the Kalandia refugee camp, P.A. Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh stressed: “The camp will continue to be a symbol of steadfastness and of the sacred right of return.” He promised to “provide the [refugee] camp with all form of assistance to bolster the steadfastness of its residents, until they have returned to their land from which they were expelled.”
Fatah, too, released an announcement emphasizing that the Palestinian people is even “more determined to adhere to the legitimate national rights and principles, in conformity with international law and United Nations decisions, and first and foremost the right of return.” It underlined its opposition to the “deal of the century, the attempts to split the [Gaza] Strip from the West Bank, and the deplorable Trump declaration recognizing Jerusalem as the occupation state’s capital.”
Senior Fatah officials made similar statements. During a march in the Gaza Strip, PLO Executive Committee member Ahmad Abu Houli, who heads the PLO’s Palestinian Refugee Affairs Department, said: “The grand American scheme that targets [the Palestinians’] rights and principles via the American ‘deal of the century,’ the implementation of which effectively began with Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and to transfer the [U.S.] Embassy there, and which continued with the attack on UNRWA and the ending of its funding ... shall not pass, and will be thrown on the trash heap of history. ... The Palestinian leadership will not agree to [any] substitute for return, and it rejects all plans for granting citizenship [to the refugees in their current country of residence], expulsion, compensation and an alternative homeland.”
See full article at MEMRI.
