Joel Singer

About the author: Joel Singer is a former legal adviser to the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He was also one of the chief architects of the 1993 Oslo Accords, which attempted to negotiate peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

The Palestinian claim that Palestinian refugees have the right to return to their native land, which now constitutes Israel, is commonly regarded in the Middle East as a stepping-stone to solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. However, in reality, it is a ploy by the Arab states to destroy Israel by flooding it with hostile Palestinians. The notion of the "right of return" thwarts efforts to construct an independent state of Palestine, acknowledged worldwide to be the key in achieving peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

Following the Palestinian rejection of [former U.S...