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The ‘Right of Return’ Isn’t a Right — It’s a Means to Attack Israel
Palestinians pass by the gate of an UNRWA-run school in Nablus in the West Bank. Photo: Reuters/Abed Omar Qusini.
In the wake of the October 7th massacre and the war Hamas launched from Gaza, one might expect that Western democracies would take a moment to reassess their assumptions about the Israeli-Palestinian Arab conflict. Instead, countries like Ireland, Spain, Norway, and Canada are rushing to unilaterally “recognize” a Palestinian Arab state — a move they claim is a step toward peace.
But there is a fatal contradiction at the core of this effort, one that goes almost entirely unexamined: the Palestinian demand for a “right of return.” It is this demand — not settlements, not borders, not Jerusalem — that has repeatedly scuttled any possibility of a negotiated peace.
That’s because this so-called “right” is not a call for compromise. It is a weaponized fantasy, one designed to eliminate the world’s only Jewish state through a back-door diplomatic conquest. It is not about coexistence — it is about replacement. And in backing a Palestinian “state” whose leadership still strenuously clings to this demand, Western governments are not promoting peace. They are underwriting the continuation of war by other means.
In the obsessive international discourse around the Israeli-Palestinian Arab conflict, “right of return” has become a sort of incantation. Palestinian officials brand it a moral imperative. NGOs declare it a human right. And diplomats in Brussels and Ottawa parrot it as a required ingredient for peace.
But this “right of return” is not about justice or reconciliation. It is not even about return. It is a carefully constructed euphemism for demographic warfare — a strategy to undo what conventional warfare failed to accomplish between 1947 and 1973.
It’s the idea that the Jewish State — the only one among the 195 nations on Earth — should agree to import millions of hostile foreign nationals, the descendants of refugees from a war started by five Arab armies and multiple Arab militias trying to destroy it. All while the actual Arab nations that initiated the war continue to hold most of these “refugees” in permanent limbo, denied citizenship and rights in their countries for more than 75 years.
This is not a peace plan. It’s the slow-motion implementation of the PLO’s 1964 charter, which never contemplated statehood beside Israel — but rather statehood instead of Israel.
The phrase “right of return” originates in UN General Assembly Resolution 194, passed in 1948 at the tail end of the first Arab war to annihilate Israel. That resolution was non-binding, conditional, and explicitly stated that refugees must “wish to live at peace with their neighbors” to be considered for return.
It was intended for individual refugees, not for their descendants, and certainly not as a vehicle to reverse Israel’s existence.
But for decades, Palestinian leaders have mutated this non-binding suggestion into an inherited, irrevocable, and universal “right” — not just for those displaced by a war the Arab League started in 1948, but for their grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and even great-great-grandchildren, most of whom have never seen Israel, never lived in Israel, and whose ancestors often fled at the behest of Arab leaders who promised Israel would soon be destroyed.
Their goal isn’t to return to homes that no longer exist. It is to settle in sovereign Israel, in places like Haifa, Jaffa, and Ashkelon — not Ramallah or Gaza — to end Israel’s Jewish majority and destroy the Jewish state from within.
Those who advocate for this demographic conquest often argue: “But Israel has a Law of Return. Why shouldn’t Palestinians?”
The comparison is not only false — it’s intentionally deceptive.
Israel’s Law of Return enables Jews, members of an indigenous people who were exiled, persecuted, and nearly annihilated over the course of two millennia, to return to their ancestral homeland.
Critically, Israel’s Law of Return does not seek to displace anyone. It does not call for Jews to “return” to Baghdad, Sana’a, or Warsaw. It does not challenge another state’s sovereignty. It merely provides a refuge and a home within Israel’s own borders.
The Palestinian “right of return” is the opposite: a demand that millions of non-citizens — people who are not from the State of Israel — be granted entry, not into a future Palestinian state, but into Israel itself.
The Palestinian “right of return” is often framed as if it conforms to international norms. But no such norm exists. Many countries, including Greece, Italy, Ireland, Germany, and Poland, have “right of return” laws — granting citizenship or immigration priority to descendants of former citizens or ethnic diasporas.
But all these programs apply to descendants returning to the current sovereign state. No Greek descendant has the “right to return” to Smyrna, now called Izmir in Turkey. No Italian has the right to “return” to Istria or Dalmatia, now part of Croatia and Slovenia. And no German refugee from Konigsberg (now Kaliningrad, Russia) has the right to “return” and alter Russian demographics.
Only in the case of Israel is a concocted “right” weaponized to try and erase a sovereign country altogether.
Modern history is replete with population transfers: Hindus and Muslims displaced during the Partition of India; Greeks and Turks exchanged en masse after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, etc.
The descendants of these refugees do not claim a right to “return.” No international body insists that they should. And no one pretends that peace or even justice requires it.
So why is the world still entertaining the delusion that five generations of Palestinians — most born in Syria, Lebanon, or Jordan or North America or Brazil– must be able to “return” to Tel Aviv?
Palestinian leaders, from the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin el-Husseini, to Mahmoud Abbas, have always viewed Israel as a temporary aberration, not a neighbor. Abbas has declared repeatedly: “I will never recognize the Jewishness of the State of Israel.”
This fantasy of return is how war that Haj Amin el-Husseini’s violent rejectionism lost in 1948 is kept alive in diplomatic lobbies and UN chambers.
That’s why Palestinian leaders rejected Ehud Barak’s peace offer in 2000 and Ehud Olmert’s in 2008. Both offered a contiguous Palestinian state in nearly all the so-called “West Bank” and Gaza. Both offered shared control of Jerusalem. And both were answered with “no”–because they required Palestinian leaders to give up the “right” to flood Israel with millions of non-citizens.
There is no “right” to undo another nation’s existence. There is no international principle that compels one people to surrender sovereignty so that their state can be destroyed (a state created because of a defensive war that they won).
Until the Palestinian leadership abandons this claimed “right of return” there will be no two-state solution — because the refusal to abandon this made-up “right” means they don’t want two states. It means they want one. And they want the Jewish state to vanish.
Pretending otherwise is not peacemaking. It’s dangerous enabling, designed to ensure the conflict never ends.
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Sen. Rick Scott Donates Salary to US Holocaust Memorial Museum
US Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) on Capitol Hill in Washington, US, Dec. 7, 2022. Photo: REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
US Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) announced on Wednesday that he will donate a portion of his Senate salary to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, underscoring what he called the urgent need to combat antisemitism at home and abroad as threats to Jewish communities escalate.
Scott, who has given part of his congressional salary since joining the Senate in 2019, said his gift was motivated by the growing dangers facing Jewish people and the importance of ensuring younger generations understand the Holocaust.
“Ann and I are proud to support the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Years ago, Ann and I brought our daughters to the Auschwitz memorial and museum in Poland because it was so important to us that they learned about the Holocaust and understood the horrors that occurred,” he said in a statement.
“It’s so important that every generation understands the atrocities of the Holocaust, and the museum does an incredible job teaching those lessons to millions of people every year. By sharing the stories of those who survived and those who were murdered, providing critical resources to educators, and reminding each of us what it means when we say ‘Never Again,’ it is a vital institution,” he added.
Scott also recounted taking his daughters years ago to Auschwitz in Poland, describing the visit as an effort to show them the catastrophic consequences of unchecked hatred against Jews.
The senator tied his donation to the approaching second anniversary of the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of southern Israel, the deadliest single-day massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. Palestinian terrorists killed 1,200 people and kidnapped 251 hostages during the onslaught.
“As we approach the second anniversary of Oct. 7, Ann and I are proud to support the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s meaningful work defending the truth of the Holocaust and their important efforts to teach its relevance for today,” Scott said.
Scott’s office did not disclose the specific amount of the donation.
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Texas State University Silent on Status of Professor Who Incited Violent Attack on Jews at Public Library
West Asheville Library in North Carolina. Photo: Screenshot/buncombecounty.org.
Texas State University is refusing to disclose whether it still currently employs a far-left professor who was filmed inciting a riotous assault on three pro-Israel individuals who peacefully spectated an anti-Israel presentation that was held in June 2024 at the West Asheville Library in North Carolina.
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, two of the victims, David Moritz and Monica Buckley, are Jewish, and one is cancer patient Bob Campbell, an 80-year-old military veteran. Their assailants kicked, punched, and dragged them out of the event, titled “Strategic Lessons From the Palestinian Resistance,” after Texas State University assistant professor of philosophy Idris Atsu Robinson spotted them in the audience and invited the 60-80 anti-Israel partisans in attendance to decide their fates.
At one point during harrowing footage taken of the incident, Robinson suggested that the encounter could lead to “murder.” At no point did he deescalate the situation and even seemed to find humor in igniting the passions of a mob.
Responding to an Algemeiner inquiry on Thursday, a Texas State media relations official declined to comment on Robinson’s employment status, saying the university “does not discuss personnel matters.”
The university has been asked before to account for its handling of Robinson.
In June, the StandWithUs Saidoff Legal Department, a pro-Israel nonprofit that seeks to combat antisemitism, notified the school of Robinson’s conduct and rhetoric. According to StandWithUs, “university sources” confirmed that he will not be teaching during the fall semester of the 2025-2026 academic year. However, the university would not comment on the matter “due to the confidential nature of personnel matters,” making it unclear whether Robinson is still employed by Texas State and will teach there in the future.
StandWithUs says Texas State should state Robinson’s employment status, share findings amassed during an internal investigation of him, and produce any previous complaints which accused him of wrongdoing.
“It is critical that universities protect Jewish and Zionist students by refusing to provide a classroom platform to faculty members unlawfully promoting antisemitic hate and violence,” Michael Scheinman, Saidoff Legal Department assistant director of campus and community affairs, told The Algemeiner on Wednesday. “Schools that do not act and fail to implement strong safeguards risk exposing their students to the same hatred and violence suffered by the victims of this attack.”
He added, “StandWithUS Saidoff Legal continues to support the victims of this horrendous hate incident by coordinating with law enforcement, helping to identify masked perpetrators, and urging Texas State University to condemn the antisemitic conduct that contributed to this violence.”
By his own words, Robinson took immense pride in what transpired in Asheville, North Carolina last year. Commenting on the matter the next day while being interviewed on a podcast produced by the organizers of the event, he argued for “popular riots” and “divine violence,” saying explicitly that “terrorists” reserve the right to “take the life of the oppressor.”
“My arms are chewed up,” Campbell, a Navy veteran, told The Algemeiner during an interview which followed the assault. He added that medical staff at a local US Veterans Affairs facility identified “severe contusions” on his body.
“What really upset me — I was [lying] on the floor, and this big guy was on top of me,” Campbell recalled. “The librarian came to the door, looked me right in the eye, turned around and walked back and didn’t do a damn thing. Didn’t call the police.”
The activists proved equally merciless to the other victims, putting Moritz in a headlock and heaving Buckley outside and ordering her not to free herself from their grip.
Expressions of anti-Zionism are escalating to violence more frequently, as previously reported by The Algemeiner.
Earlier this month, Eden Deckerhoff — a female student at Florida State University (FSU) — allegedly assaulted a Jewish male classmate at the Leach Student Recreation Center after noticing his wearing apparel issued by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
“F—k Israel, Free Palestine. Put it [the video] on Barstool FSU. I really don’t give a f—k,” the woman said before shoving the man, according to video taken by the victim. “You’re an ignorant son of a b—h.” Deckerhoff has since been charged with misdemeanor battery.
According to the Tallahassee Democrat, Deckerhoff has denied assaulting the student when questioned by investigators, telling them, “No I did not shove him at all; I never put my hands on him.” However, law enforcement charged her with misdemeanor battery and described the incident in court documents as seen in viral footage of the incident, acknowledging that Deckerhoff “appears to touch [the man’s] left shoulder.” Despite her denial, the Democrat noted, she has offered to apologize.
In June, a gunman murdered two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington, DC, while they exited an event at the Capital Jewish Museum hosted by a major Jewish organization. The suspect charged for the double murder, 31-year-old Elias Rodriguez from Chicago, yelled “Free Palestine” while being arrested by police after the shooting, according to video of the incident. The FBI affidavit supporting the criminal charges against Rodriguez stated that he told law enforcement he “did it for Gaza.”
Less than two weeks later, a man firebombed a crowd of people who were participating in a demonstration to raise awareness of the Israeli hostages who remain imprisoned by Hamas in Gaza. A victim of the attack, Karen Diamond, 82, later died, having sustained severe, fatal injuries.
Another antisemitic incident motivated by anti-Zionism occurred in San Francisco, where an assailant identified by law enforcement as Juan Diaz-Rivas and others allegedly beat up a Jewish victim in the middle of the night. Diaz-Rivas and his friends approached the victim while shouting “F—k the Jews, Free Palestine,” according to local prosecutors.
“[O]ne of them punched the victim, who fell to the ground, hit his head and lost consciousness,” the San Francisco district attorney’s office said in a statement. “Allegedly, Mr. Diaz-Rivas and others in the group continued to punch and kick the victim while he was down. A worker at a nearby business heard the altercation and antisemitic language and attempted to intervene. While trying to help the victim, he was kicked and punched.”
According to the latest data released by the FBI, antisemitic hate crimes in the US have been tallying to break all previous statistical records. In 2024, even as hate crimes decreased overall, those perpetrated against Jews increased by 5.8 percent in 2024 to 1,938, the largest total recorded in over 30 years of the FBI’s counting them. Jewish American groups have noted that this surge, which included 178 assaults, is being experienced by a demographic group which constitutes just 2 percent of the US population.
A striking 69 percent of all religion-based hate crimes that were reported to the FBI in 2024 targeted Jews, with 2,041 out of 2,942 total such incidents being antisemitic in nature. Muslims were targeted the next highest amount as the victims of 256 offenses, or about 9 percent of the total.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Europeans Launch UN Sanctions Process Against Iran, Drawing Tehran’s Ire
Satellite image shows buildings at Isfahan Nuclear Technology Center, before Israel launched an attack on Iran targeting nuclear facilities, in Isfahan, Iran, May 17, 2025. Photo: Planet Labs PBC via REUTERS
Britain, France, and Germany on Thursday launched a 30-day process to reimpose UN sanctions on Iran over its disputed nuclear program, a step likely to stoke tensions two months after Israel and the United States bombed Iran.
A senior Iranian official quickly accused the three European powers of harming diplomacy and vowed that Tehran would not bow to pressure over the move by the E3 to launch the so-called “snapback mechanism.”
The three powers feared they would otherwise lose the prerogative in mid-October to restore sanctions on Tehran that were lifted under a 2015 nuclear accord with world powers.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said the decision did not signal the end of diplomacy. His German counterpart Johann Wadephul urged Iran to now fully cooperate with the UN nuclear watchdog agency and commit to direct talks with the United States over the next month.
A senior Iranian official told Reuters the decision was “illegal and regrettable” but left the door open for engagement.
“The move is an action against diplomacy, not a chance for it. Diplomacy with Europe will continue,” the official said, adding: “Iran will not concede under pressure.”
The UN Security Council is due to meet behind closed doors on Friday at the request of the E3 to discuss the snapback move against the Islamic Republic, diplomats said.
Iran and the E3 have held several rounds of talks since Israel and the US bombed its nuclear installations in mid-June, aiming to agree to defer the snapback mechanism. But the E3 deemed that talks in Geneva on Tuesday did not yield sufficient signals of readiness for a new deal from Iran.
The E3 acted on Thursday over accusations that Iran has violated the 2015 deal that aimed to prevent it developing a nuclear weapons capability in return for a lifting of international sanctions. The E3, along with Russia, China, and the United States, were party to that accord.
US President Donald Trump pulled Washington out of that accord in 2018 during his first term, calling the deal one-sided in Iran‘s favor, and it unraveled in ensuing years as Iran abandoned limits set on its enrichment of uranium.
Trump’s second administration held fruitless indirect negotiations earlier this year with Tehran.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio welcomed the E3 move and said Washington remained available for direct engagement with Iran “in furtherance of a peaceful, enduring resolution to the Iran nuclear issue.”
An Iranian source said Tehran would do so only “if Washington guarantees there will be no [military] strikes during the talks.”
The E3 said they hoped Iran would engage by the end of September to allay concerns about its nuclear agenda sufficiently for them to defer concrete action.
“The E3 are committed to using every diplomatic tool available to ensure Iran never develops a nuclear weapon,” including the snapback mechanism, they said in a letter sent to the UN Security Council and seen by Reuters.
“The E3’s commitment to a diplomatic solution nonetheless remains steadfast.”
Iran has previously warned of a “harsh response” if sanctions are reinstated, and the Iranian official said it was reviewing its options, including withdrawing from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
The E3 had offered to extend the snapback for as much as six months to enable serious negotiations if Iran restored access for UN nuclear inspectors – who would also seek to account for Iran‘s large stock of enriched uranium whose status has been unknown since the June war – and engages in talks with the U.S.
Calling the E3 decision inevitable, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said it was an “important step in the diplomatic campaign to counter the Iranian regime’s nuclear ambitions.”
GROWING FRUSTRATION IN IRAN
The UN process takes 30 days before sanctions that would hit Iran‘s financial, banking, hydrocarbons, and defense sectors are restored.
Russia and China, strategic partners of Iran, finalized a draft Security Council resolution on Thursday that would extend the 2015 nuclear deal for six months and urge all parties to immediately resume negotiations.
But they have not yet asked for a vote.
“The world is at crossroads,” Russia’s deputy UN Ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy told reporters. “One option is peace, diplomacy, goodwill … Another option is a kind of diplomacy at the barrel of the gun.”
The specter of renewed sanctions is stirring frustration in Iran, where economic anxiety is rising and political divisions are deepening, three insiders close to the government said.
Iranian leaders are split over how to respond — with anti-Western hardliners urging defiance and confrontation, while moderates advocate diplomacy.
Iran has been enriching uranium to up to 60 percent fissile purity, a short step from the roughly 90 percent of bomb-grade, and had enough material enriched to that level, if refined further, for six nuclear weapons, before the airstrikes by Israel started on June 13, according to the IAEA, the UN nuclear watchdog.
Actually manufacturing a weapon would take more time, however, and the IAEA has said that while it cannot guarantee Tehran‘s nuclear program is entirely peaceful, it has no credible indication of a coordinated weapons project.
The West says the advancement of Iran‘s nuclear program goes beyond civilian needs, while Tehran says it wants nuclear energy only for peaceful purposes.