Pal. "Refugees" (and Compensation)

For almost 60 years, Israel and its supporters have been asserting that there is no "right of retuin" for Pal. refugees. They started the war, they rejected the UN Partition resolution, they dtried to eradicate Israel and never stopped since then.

Neutral, alright, mostly neutral, observers say there's a right of return or a right of compensation.

Well, read on:-

The militant group Hamas demanded Saturday that Jordan clarify its stance on the Palestinian right of return after an Israeli daily reported that the Jordanian king spoke in favor of paying compensation to Palestinian refugees instead.

The report Friday in the Haaretz newspaper claimed King Abdullah II had told a visiting Israeli parliamentary delegation this week that he favored the payments over granting Palestinian refugees and their millions of descendants the right to return to Israel, as Palestinians have long demanded. Israel objects to the right of return, saying such an influx would mean the end of Israel's existence as a Jewish state.

Hamas, whose leader Khaled Mashaal is based in Syria, demanded an explanation from Amman because of the ''seriousness'' of the comments the paper had attributed to Abdullah.

In a statement, faxed to the AP in Damascus, Hamas said the right of return is ''sacred'' and no one has the authority to give it up.

...Jordan, which hosts the largest number of Palestinian refugees in the Mideast -- many of whom have Jordanian citizenship -- ''has the right to defend the rights of its citizens who are refugees,'' Adayleh said in a statement. ''The compensation choice comes within the framework of solving the Palestinian refugee problem but won't be the only solution.''

However, Mousa Abu Marzouk, deputy chief of the Hamas political bureau, said the Jordanian reaction was not a ''clear stand acknowledging the Palestinians' right of return to their homeland along with compensation.''

(Here, too)

Well, that settles it for me. They want both.