New York Times Wrong on Israel’s Origin and “Right of Return” by Alex Safian, PhD

"Did fighting lead to Israel’s creation? And do Palestinians who fled Israel in 1948, and their descendants, have a legal or moral right to return to former homes in Israel? One might think so from the New York Times’ March 26th article on the subject, “For Many Palestinians, ‘Return’ Is Not a Goal,” by reporter Hassan Fattah.
Fattah, for example, in relating the views of Nimr Abu Ghneim, a Palestinian in Jordan, writes:
... there can be no peace with Israel until he and 700,000 other Palestinians are permitted back to the homes they left in the 1948 fighting that led to Israel’s creation.

The “1948 fighting that led to Israel’s creation”? Perhaps Times reporters and editors have forgotten that Israel was created by United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181, which also called for the creation of a Palestinian state. When, at the end of the Palestine Mandate, Israel declared its independence, five Arab armies along with Palestinian militias went to war against the new state. It might be a good idea for Times editors to review articles in their own paper from those days, for example the one at left about the day the Arabs started the war."

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