Perverted Words

Submitted by Jay1 (United States), Feb 21, 2012 at 21:57

What also needs to be said is the following. A resident of Ramallah who in pre-1948 use to live in Lod, is a refugee for all of 9 miles. From the Galilee to Nablus , less than 20 miles.. From Jaffa to Gaza, about 15 miles. I dont wish to minimize the effects of war, hurt feelings or lost property, but as adults, range and degree matters somewhere in the conversation. Its the territorial cousin to what Dr Pipes is referring to when he asks, does a sentence about a Palestinian refugee have a period anywhere.?

Forgive me, but America is a country where near "everyone's" relatives resettled from 5,000 miles away. We all dropped the word refugee. In America people cant wait to grow up,and move 100 miles away. Its called my new home, close to where I was born. Almost all the Palestinian refugees and descendants live (even in other countries) miles or just tens of miles away from those 1948 original house. Not continents. Miles.

Then there's the issue of defining refugee camps. Is a cluster of small high rises in the west bank a definition of a refugee camp? What does it mean in 2012 -there's a refugee camp in the PA's contolled Bethlehem area? Or in Hamas's Gaza? The words refugees, refugee camps and homeland have gone from a perversion of words to seemingly a new odd religious cult. We have enough religions.Thanks.

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