Recognition of Jewish state erases right of return: PLO official

A Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) official said Wednesday that the recognition of Israel as a Jewish state means erasing the Palestinian refugees' right of return.



In an interview with Xinhua in the Gaza Strip, Zakareya el-Agha, a senior member of the PLO's Executive Committee, said the recognition of Jewish state represents "a dangerous threat for the Palestinian refugees' right of return."



El-Agha, a commissioner of refugees' affairs department in the PLO, said the recognition "would be also an ethnic cleansing to the Palestinians who reside in Israel, as the recognition means a raciest discrimination and the state of Israel will be only a state for Jews and other ethnic groups and communities will be expelled."



Israel has been demanding the Palestinians to recognize the state of Israel as a Jewish state, a key condition for resuming the stalled direct peace negotiations with the Palestinians. The talks have been suspended since October 2010 over the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank.



The issue of Palestinian refugees is one of the main outstanding issues between the Palestinians and Israel. "We believe that there will be no permanent and everlasting peace to be made with Israel which excludes this substantial issue," said el-Agha.



"There is no alternative to the Palestinian people's right of return in line with the UN resolutions," he added.



Palestinian people on Wednesday marked the 65th anniversary of the Nakba (catastrophe) in memory of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians' fleeing their homes during the war of 1948.



"There is no bargaining on our people's right of return. This right is holy and has to be resolved in line with the UN relevant resolutions, beside that we want to establish our independent Palestinian state on the territories occupied by Israel in 1967 with east Jerusalem as its capital," el-Agha stressed.



In 1948, the UN General Assembly issued a resolution granting the right of return to the Palestinians. The resolution stipulates that the Palestinian refugees have to return home and live in mutual peace with their neighbors and those who do not want to return would be compensated.



The PLO official called on the international community "to move as quickly as possible to give the Palestinian people their legitimate rights and end the historic injustice that has been going on for 65 years."



He said that the US efforts on resuming the stalled peace talks "can never succeed without resolving the issue of Palestinian refugees, which is a basic part of the Arab Peace Initiative and all other international resolutions and conventions. "



He meanwhile slammed the poor living conditions in all Palestinian refugee camps in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, especially after the UN Relief and Work Agency (UNRWA) reduced the services it had offered to the refugees.



"The PLO is in ongoing contacts with UNRWA to improve these services," he said.

