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From: hijab@cad
Newsgroups: net.followup
Subject: Re: Re: Air raid on Libya
Message-ID: <235@cad>
Date: Wed, 30-Apr-86 01:59:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: cad.235
Posted: Wed Apr 30 01:59:00 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 11-May-86 17:17:45 EDT
References: <720@ark>
Lines: 28

In article <383@hadron.UUCP>, jsdy@hadron.UUCP (Joseph S. D. Yao) writes:
> Negotiation has failed.  How could it succeed, when one of the stated
> goals of one group is to wipe out a nation which, however it started,
> exists now?  That is what has to happen for Palestinians to re-occupy
> that land which is now Palestine.  [I understand that the Palestinians
> were asked to stay in Israel, but were told by the predecessors of
> today's terrorists to leave their land, since the terrorists would have
> it back soon.  I may be wrong on this point.]  There does not seem
> to be an easy solution to this.  (For an optimistic -- and perhaps
> possible -- solution to this, read James Gunn's new book, _Crisis!_.)
> 

Mr. Yao. You are definitely wrong on this point. As far as history is
concerned, the very least one can say is that there are clashing views
of what actually happened in 1948. What you are repeating here is
strictly the Israeli writing of that history. Do you find it easy to
believe that close to 800,000 people would pick up and leave their
homes unless they faced a direct threat to their survival?

But that is a moot point. For the Palestinians to regain a homeland 
does not require the wiping out of their antagonists. Even the most
radical Palestinian groups on the left call for a secular democratic
state for Jews and Arabs in Palestine/Israel. Even discounting that,
the Palestinians are still a decisive majority in the occupied West
Bank and Gaza, which are under Israeli occupation. If Israel were to
relinquish those territories, they would form the basis for building
a homeland for the Palestinians in a state which could coexist with
the Jewish state.