re: "White House: Jewish “refugees” right of return should be “on the table” "

Josh Rogin at The Cable ("Reporting Inside The Foreign Policy Machine") noted the raising of a non-issue.

Money quote(s):

"The right of Jews to return to the Arab and predominantly Muslim countries they fled from or were kicked out of over several decades could be "on the table" as part of the Middle East peace negotiations, according to a senior White House official."

This could, theoretically, be useful in terms of neutralizing the demand for a right-of-return for Palestinian Arabs.

"In response to a question asking why there is a great deal of focus on the Palestinian refugee issue but almost no focus on the Jews who departed Arab lands, Rhodes declared that the Israelis and Palestinians should negotiate on the Jewish right of return to Arab and Muslim countries and that the United States could play in role in mediating that issue."

Unlike the Arabs who, after being variously expelled or fleeing what is now the state of Israel, became refugees in various neighboring countries, Jews who were forced to leave majority Muslim countries were accepted and integrated in their countries of refuge (primarily Israel). The hows and whys of that fill volumes.

"Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected the argument that Palestinian refugees have the right of return to Israel in his Tuesday speech before a joint meeting of the U.S. Congress.

"[T]he Palestinian refugee problem will be resolved outside the borders of Israel," he said. "You know, everybody knows this. It's time to say it. It's important."

But neither Obama nor Netanyahu mentioned the Jewish right of return in any of their speeches or remarks over the past few days.

Noah Pollak, the executive director of the Emergency Committee for Israel, said that the Jewish right of return is actually not an issue that's part of the peace negotiations, largely due to the fact that a) there are no Jewish refugees, and b) they don't have any desire to claim lands in Arab states.

"I would like to congratulate the administration for even-handedness, but in fact there are no Jewish refugees today. That's because the Jews who were expelled from Arab countries have been citizens of Israel for decades, where they live in freedom and prosperity," he said."