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Lure of the Homeland Fades for Palestinian Refugees

(BBC News) Lina Sinjab - The right of return for Palestinian refugees is a major sticking point in the upcoming U.S.-sponsored Middle East peace talks, but some younger Palestinians - having never laid eyes on their ancestral homeland - say they do not actually want to go back. With generations of Palestinians now having lived in Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East, they have established deep roots outside their ancestral homeland. "On the record, because it is politically incorrect to say otherwise, all of them would say, 'Yes, we would return to Palestine.' But once you sit with them in private, you hear a very different point of view," says political analyst Sami Mubayyed. Yasser Jamous, 23, lives in a Syrian neighborhood identified as a refugee camp, but there are no tents or slums in sight. It is a residential area with beauty salons and Internet cafes.
2010-08-25 07:59:35
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