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ARAFAT: Israel Must Return to 1967 Lines, Return for Refugees

Thursday, May 15, 2003
By Amos Harel
Ha’aretz Correspondent & Agencies

Recently Arafat received an urgent request for $20,000 to buy 6,000 meters of cloth to make uniforms for the Palestinian police. Arafat approved and signed it and instructed Finance Minister Salam Fayyad to transfer the money. Why is the chairman allocating funds, and why is he still involved with the security organizations, which should have been transferred to the supervision of the new prime minister, Abu Mazen? The IDF would also like to know.

Israel must withdraw from all the lands it occupied in the 1967 Six-Day War and Palestinian refugees must be allowed to return to their homes, Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat said Thursday.

"For the past 55 years, martyrs... have fallen for the sake of the homeland, freedom and the return of the refugees," he said in a speech from his offices in the West Bank city of Ramallah to mark "Naqba" day.

“Every Palestinian refugee knows that his identity will be restored to him only upon the return of his homeland, and he will not be submissive to a patron," the PA Chairman added.

Arafat condemned what he termed, “the subjugation of the land and the holy places by the Israeli occupation,” and added that, “today, no one wonders where the Palestinian nation is.”

Arafat welcomed peace as the "strategic choice of the Palestinian nation, but accused the Israeli "rule of strength" of delaying peace initiatives in the region.

Naqba -- Arabic for "catastrophe" -- is the term used in by the Palestinians to describe the establishment of the State of Israel. The day was also marked by a three-minute siren.
(More: HaaretzDaily.com)
2003 © Ha’aretz.

Dan