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25/12/2008
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Elon said he plans to continue the work he has been doing all along, but now from outside the confines of the Knesset. This includes promoting his diplomatic initiative - the "Elon Plan"- according to which Israel would recognize Jordan, instead of the Palestinian Authority, as the official representative of the Palestinians and as the vehicle for the resettlement of Palestinian refugees in lieu of UNRWA.
"The Right cannot simply say 'no;' it must offer an alternative," he said. "It cannot be that only [recently retired Meretz MK] Yossi Beilin travels around the world with his Geneva Initiative," he added, referring to the unofficial peace plan which advocates dividing Jerusalem and ceding the West Bank to the Palestinians.
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10/11/2008
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A gathering of hundreds of European parliamentarians who support Israel concluded over the weekend in Paris with a politically loaded discussion on the rehabilitation of Palestinian refugees - one of the most sensitive issues facing Israeli and Palestinian negotiators. The debate, part of a conference sponsored by the Brussels-based European Friends of Israe; came amid a groundswell of parliamentary activity around the world, including in the US and Canada, to reroute funding from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the mammoth UN body that deals with Palestinian refugees and their descendants, towards the resettlement of some of the refugees and their descendants in third countries.
The session, which was hosted by the Israel Allies Caucus Foundation, the international arm of the Knesset's Christian Allies Caucus, included addresses by European parliamentarians as well as by MK Benny Elon of the National Union-National Religious Party and MK Amira Dotan of Kadima. The two co-chair a new Knesset caucus on the rehabilitation of Palestinian refugees.
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30/07/2008
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For the first time in Israel's 60-year history, a cross-party parliamentary caucus dealing with the rehabilitation of Palestinian refugees was launched in the Knesset on Tuesday.
The move came amid a groundswell of parliamentary activity around the world, including in the US and Canada, to reroute funding from UNRWA - the UN body that deals with Palestinian refugees and their descendants - toward the resettlement of some of the refugees and their descendants in other countries.
The new lobby, which is chaired by MKs Amira Dotan (Kadima) and Benny Elon (NU/NRP), is made up of parliamentarians from across the political spectrum, including lawmakers from Labor, the Likud and Shas. No Arab MKs have joined the caucus so far, although all non-ministerial members of the Knesset were invited to do so.
"I am not trying to change the Palestinian narrative, but to alter the state of mind of the refugees and their descendants," Dotan said at the inaugural meeting of the Caucus for the Rehabilitation of Palestinian Refugees. "We have to see how we can work with UNRWA - not against UNRWA - on this issue," she said.
"This is the first time that the Knesset is formally and openly dealing with the issue of Palestinian refugees not in a reactionary manner or as apologists, but out of Israeli interests," said Elon, who advocates dealing with the issue head-on for humanitarian reasons. "Without the rehabilitation of Palestinian refugees, no peace will come," he said.
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21/07/2008
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Marking another milestone in a long legal battle for Jewish rights in the Shimon HaTzaddik neighborhood of Jerusalem, the Supreme Court has ordered yet another eviction of Arab squatters and the return of a home to its Jewish owners. The home in question is located in the renewed ancient Jewish neighborhood built around the 2,000-year-old gravesite and tomb of the Tannaitic Sage Shimon HaTzaddik.
The neighborhood comprises the Nachalat Shimon area, populated through the 1940's by individual Jewish families, and the Shimon HaTzaddik neighborhood, owned by the Vaad HaEdah HaSfaradit (Sephardic Congregation Council). Both were abandoned in light of Arab attacks during the War of Independence, and later became populated by Jordanian Arabs. The latest court ruling recognizes the Jewish ownership of houses there, and orders the Arab squatters removed.
This past Thursday, far-left MK Yossi Beilin of Meretz indicated that the tricky problem of "Arab refugees" would have to be solved, at least partially, by European countries. Speaking in a closed session of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Beilin took the unprecedented step of telling a group of European ambassadors that their countries must announce how many refugees, and their descendants, they would be willing to absorb as part of a future Israeli-Arab peace agreement
Elon is the author of the "Right Road to Peace" plan, also known as the Israel Initiative, which he has long promoted as an alternative to the accepted Roadmap two-state solution. "The establishment of a Palestinian state in Judea, Samaria and Gaza will only prolong the Arab-Israeli conflict and exact a heavy toll in human life," Elon has often explained. "The establishment of such a state will not solve the real problems that perpetuate the conflict: The Palestinian demand for the right of return of refugees to areas within the State of Israel, the rehabilitation of the refugees, the status of Jerusalem, and the nature of the Palestinian state and its borders. Within a short time, these unresolved problems will resurface and draw the region into yet another war."
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20/07/2008
Nofia Vered blog
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I found an interesting new website (new to me anyway) regarding a solution to the Arab refugee problem in Israel. The website is informative and valuable and I suggest placing it in your Favorites/bookmarks file and sharing it with friends.
Our whole country is being held captive by this problem and it is the source of the Arab claims on Israel and the "Palestinian" Authority
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