the learned professors seem to have forgotten that pursuant to article 25 of the mandate for palestine (1922), THE AREA EAST OF THE JORDAN RIVER WAS SET ASIDE FOR ARAB POPULATIONS. thus it was and is available under international law for any and all Arabs that may have lived at any time in west palestine (the area west of the Jordan River as delineated in the mandate for palestine). If there is any right of return under international law it is to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

The right of return is symbolic. The paper is bezentine and gives a job for somebody. Consider the right of return of all jews of the world? 2000 years did not abolish that right???? If you believe in your right then it is only time that will decide. History is full of examples: The spanish returned and abolished Islam in Andalucia is one. The Muslems returned and abolished the Crusaders is another. The most recent return is of the Jews to Israel. When you have the power then you apply your percieved rights. History is not merciful.

you created the situation you can't prove your people where about 400 years ago because they r not from the Israel area. , Yoffa was chritians as well as haifa who was established from remote chritian order names the Carmelites Akko also chritian up until the ottoman conquered it 400 years ago, befor it was hospitalitars chrusaders order it used to be phonecian city, not arabic city. and all archyology can verify it.

Ruth Gavison is Haim H. Cohn Professor of Human Rights at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Expelling the Palestinians from their homes and denying them their right of return by whatever legal mumbo jumbo is contradictory to the basic humanitarian law. I do not understand how can the honorable judge/professor reconcile the two issues. They are contradictory!

yes history is not mircifull but but the most power you have is to believe in your right ... i think jews did not return becouse of this beliefe but to seek better opurtunity in the life ..so i think it is not an example of -return to the home - as iam from here i like to live here and have other opurtunity to be palastinian work in canada or america or saudiarabia ... i think palastinians have no rights in other countries but it will not deviate their intimity to their land even in palastine they have shortage of rights ... this is alribate --

...nothing short of saying: Israel's legitimacy as the nation-state of the Jewish people is non-existent and therefore, either through a full scale war or by stages, we, the Muslim-Arabs, will bring the demise of the national home of the Jewish people. We have said and continue to say: Never Again!!!

Obviously some sort of Realpolitik solution has to be found to accommodate the two people on the small piece of land Israel/Palestine. However, this cause is not being advanced by legal hack jobs that distort arguments to breaking point to achieve an intended result. There is no way you can credibly claim that people from anywhere between Poland and Iran had the right to create the State of Israel in 1948, even though their ancestors left this land as refugees almost two millennia ago, yet at the same time to argue that the period from 1948 until today is so long that the Palestinians have lost that very same right the Jews claimed in 1948. Trying to conflate the right of a people to self determination on their ancestral homeland with Israel's national immigration law, the "law of return", doesn't help matters. Israel demands from the Palestinians to accept Israel's legitimacy; it might help if Israel recognized the legitimacy of the Palestinians' claim in return.

except to compromise and make peace with Israel. Any future wars and their situation will only become more exacerbated.

This subject should not even be brought for discussion until Gilad Shalit is FIRST given the "RIght of Return", safely and healthy to his family and his home in ISRAEL.

Dar el Islam. So forget about your dreams of flooding the Jews and starting a new planetary caliphate through demograohic aggression.

So my family's construction company Baghdad never existed, my grandparents who came to IL with nothing, my uncle who was in a prison for 10 years, and my great-grandfather who was beheaded in Iraq, all of those things never happened????? They were kicked out and the Iraqi gov't confiscated all of their possessions. Sorry, but your hatred is blinding.

is that your fathers rejected a plan which the Jews had already greed to which would have you -- that you right now living in half of modern-day Israel. I'd say that's even worse that sill, that's just plain stupid. You could be living in modern Day "Palestine" in the valleys and the hills right NOW if it wasn't for the stupidity of your fathers. But now 60 years later, the Jews are much stronger than they were when you were offered that deal. You gambled and you lost. Now be a man and get on with your life and for G-d's sake, QUIT CRYING.

how can you say people who lived here have no legal rights because the 'right of return' is not defined, when at the same time YOU who return after 2000 years of absence have the rights because it was promised by god to abraham? or because your predecessors lived here 2000 years ago? get serious! look at the whole picture! we have to live together either in one or 2 neighbor states.