Below are talking points on long-standing controversies and recent developments. These talking points are intended to help people communicate with the media and Congress as well as with religious and human rights groups, among others. For more detailed information see Resources and Links, Fact Sheets.

• The rights of Palestinian refugees is an issue which involves close to two thirds of the Palestinian people. Israel has denied the refugees their rights and their exile is, arguably, the root cause of the entire 52-year old Arab-Israeli conflict.



• Israeli policy of first forcing out Palestinians and then refusing to allow them to return is clearly a case of  “ethnic cleansing.”



• Under Israel's “Law of Return” any Jew anywhere is able to move to Israel. Hence one ethnic group was moved out and another has moved in.



• It is practical and feasible to allow back large numbers of refugees. According to one Arab researcher, the return of refugees would be facilitated by the fact that 78 percent of Israelis live on only 14 percent of Israel’s land. Only 22 percent of Israelis live on the remaining 86 percent of Israeli land, most of which belonged to the refugees.



• The Right of Return is supported by Amnesty International, the Episcopal Church (USA), and over 1,100 US religious leaders.



• More than 50 years after the holocaust, Jews are fighting for and receiving compensation for personal suffering and material losses. Palestinians deserve similar compensation.

• The future of Jerusalem is considered by the media and the US, rightly or wrongly, to have been the issue which caused the collapse of the Camp David talks.



• Israel’s denial of self-determination to 200,000 Palestinians in Arab East Jerusalem is a violation of international law and the human rights of the Palestinians.



• President Clinton's claim (echoed by much of the media) that Ehud Barak was more willing to compromise over Jerusalem than was Yassir Arafat, ignores the fact that Israel is violating UN resolutions condemning Israeli policy in East Jerusalem. While Barak offers Palestinians control over Arab villages just outside Jerusalem, he asks Palestinians to accept the illegal annexation of Palestinian lands inside Jerusalem and Israeli control of non-Jewish holy places.



• Israel’s treatment of Palestinians since 1967 demonstrates Israel's inability to treat non-Jews fairly. Since 1967, Jerusalem's history has been, according to B’Tselem, Israel’s leading human rights group, “a history of dispossession, systematic discrimination, and a consistent assault on the dignity and basic rights of the Palestinian residents of the city.”



• Religious leaders in the US have consistently supported settlement of the Jerusalem issue in ways which protect the rights of both peoples and all three faiths, solutions which must be based on justice and not a settlement resulting from the superior force - and hence, superior negotiating position - of an Israel backed by the economic, military, and diplomatic power of the US.



• Barak’s “compromises” are akin to Party A taking the home of Party B and then offering to return a bedroom or two, provided party B recognizes the right of Party A to keep the rest of the house.



• Arafat had already made the biggest concessions by not insisting on Palestinian control of West Jerusalem (illegally occupied by Israel in 1948) and by, if press accounts are correct, showing a willingness to allow Israel to incorporate large settlement blocs, illegally built in East Jerusalem on Palestinian land, into Israel.

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