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Participants
perform nationalist songs on the right of return.
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By
Ahmed Al-Matboli, IOL Correspondent
VIENNA,
May 8, 2005 (IslamOnline.net) – The third Palestinians in Europe
Convention has strongly defended the inalienable right of millions of
Palestinian refugees to return to their homeland.
The
final statement, a copy of which was obtained by IslamOnline.net,
urged all Palestinian organizations championing the right of return to
act in unison to make the dream of millions of Palestinians come true.
“The
right of return is sacrosanct. It is the core of the just Palestinian
cause and a bedrock of the Palestinian sovereignty,” Palestinian
Chief Justice Taysir Al-Tamimi told the conference, which wrapped up
on Saturday, May 7.
“This
right derives its legitimacy from UN Security Council resolution 194,
which becomes irrelevant if this right is downtrodden,” he added,
warning of US and Jewish schemes to settle Palestinian refugees in
Arab and European countries.
The
participants signed up to symbolic documents, pledging not to give up
their right to return home.
Millions
of Palestinians were driven out of their homes in the 1948 and 1967
wars and constitute today up to eight million people, according to the
Palestinian Statistics Agency.
Most
of whom are living in destitution in refugee camps inside the occupied
territories, and in bordering Arab states, particularly Lebanon,
Jordan and Syria.
The
rest are scattered across the Arab world, the US and Europe.
In
what has been termed as the Bushfour declaration, US President George
W. Bush in April last year said the refugees should be settled in a
future Palestinian state rather than what is now Israel.
The
first Palestinian
atlas was launched in March to document for the
generations to come territories usurped and occupied by Israeli
troops.
Up
to 50,000 maps charting Palestinian sites that date back to 1799 are
found in the English-language geographical encyclopedia.
Al-Quds
The
final communiqué further expressed deep concern at the increasing
threats to Al-Quds [occupied East Jerusalem] “the capital of
Palestine and attempts to Judaize the holy city to obliterate its Arab
identity whether through annexation or suspicious deals.”
The
statement was referring to the sale of Palestinian land to
ideologically-motivated Jewish investors by Archbishop of the Greek
Orthodox Church Irineos I.
The
patriarch was officially fired Friday, May 6, over his involvement in
the deal, which was confirmed by his financial aide Nikos Papadimas.
Archimandrite
Attallah Hanna, the spokesman for the Greek Orthodox Church, said the
conference helps keep the issue of Al-Quds vivid.
“The
serious threats to Al-Aqsa Mosque and Christian waqfs in the holy city
have sounded the alarm and made us cautious about peace blueprints
imposed by the other,” he told the conference over the phone from
Al-Quds.
Palestinian
experts warned last month that threats by Jewish extremists to storm
Al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam’s third holiest site, had a more serious
religious undertone as they believed that 2005 was the year for the
construction of the so-called third temple.
Archeologists
further warned that ongoing Israeli excavations weakened the
foundations of the mosque, cautioning it would not stand a powerful
earthquake.
The
controversial West Bank separation
wall was also high on the agenda of the conference with
calls for an immediate stop to the continued construction of “this
distasteful Zionist project.”
The
conference also featured Palestinian nationalist songs by the gifted
Al-Itesam group, which allocates its yields to the Palestinian cause.
The
first Palestinians in Europe conference was held on March 19, 2003 in
the British capital London. The German capital Berlin hosted the
second conference in May 2004.
