Gideon Levy On The Palestinian Right Of Return

Gideon Levy is an Israeli journalist and editor for Haaretz. He's been called everything from a hero to a stooge for Hamas. When he spoke in Ottawa recently, Dennis Gruending was there taking notes:

We have to compensate the Palestinians and help them where they are and we have to help others to come back. Years of brainwashing in Israel have made the Palestinian refugee issue a taboo. I do not fear the repatriation of refugees. We have absorbed a million Russians in the past 10 years and half of them were not even Jewish. Yet Palestinians who grew up here cannot have the same right. And not all of the five million refugees would want to come back. If we had courageous leadership or pressure from the bottom up, we could change but we don’t have that.

There's plenty more through the linked text. As you read it, you can imagine B'nai Brith's Frank Dimant spontaneously crapping himself. You can imagine the CJC's always elegant Bernie Farber gently palming his face, and sighing.