The right to return

The Palestinian diaspora is among the major tragedies of the 20th century. Over four million Palestinians live outside their country, and no final settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict is possible without their return home.

Mr Mahmood Abbas, thus, has done well to make it clear that he will follow Yasser Arafat's unambiguous stand on this issue. At present, Mr Abbas is head of the Fatah group. But the Palestine Liberation Organization has nominated him as its candidate for the presidential election on January 9. This way his views carry weight because they reflect the PLO's stand on the question.

Palestine's Arabic-speaking people - Muslims, Christians and Jews - had been living in the holy land harmoniously for 1,500 years. The Jews were massacred and expelled from Palestine when the Crusaders took Jerusalem in 1099. But Saladin brought them back to the holy land after he re-took Al Quds in 1189. Since then, Arab Jews have had no problem with fellow Muslims and Christians. Britain's occupation of Palestine and the Balfour Declaration altered the situation radically for all Palestinians whatever their religion.

The arrival of European land-grabbers not only altered Palestine's demographic character; Zionism also undermined the position of Jews who had been living in other parts of the Arab world since before Islam. (Iraq's Jewish community has been there in Mesopotamia for 2,500 years, and some of its leaders played a major role in countering Zionist propaganda among Iraqi Jews during the "mandate").

In 1948, the massacre at Deir Yassin led to the flight of an estimated 750,000 Palestinians from their ancestral land. At that time, European settlers owned seven per cent of Palestine's land. Today, Israel comprises 82 per cent of Palestine, and it has no intention of ending its occupation of the remaining 18 per cent - the West Bank and Gaza.

When the peace accord was signed in Washington on Sept 13, 1993, two major issues were left to be discussed as part of the final settlement. These were Al Quds and the Palestinian refugees.

If the withdrawal of Israeli troops had taken place according to schedule, the refugee question could have been taken up in a congenial atmosphere. However, Israel had no intention of implementing them.

Following Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's murder, the two succeeding premiers - Benjamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak - sabotaged the Oslo process and had the peace accords rewritten.

Whatever chances peace had disappeared when Mr Ariel Sharon, then in opposition, visited Islamic holy sites and the second intifada began. Since then, the peace process has been in limbo. It is obvious that if and when the peace process is revived, the question of Palestinian refugees' return will have to be part of the final settlement.

Immediately after Israel came into existence, its parliament passed the infamous law of return, which gave Jews living anywhere in the world "the right to return" to the holy land.

Factually, this is absurd. The ancestors of the vast majority of the Jews now living in Israel were never in Palestine. This is especially true of Jews living in what is known as The Pale - Jews of Lithuania, Poland and Russia. One cannot "return" to where one has never been.

As for Arab Palestinians, they have been in the holy land for a millennium and a half. It is Palestinian refugees, thus, who have the right to return. Arafat did not compromise on this issue. For that reason, it is appropriate that the new head of Fatah should follow the policy laid down by Fatah's legendary founder.

Strange talk

Sindh Chief Minister Arbab Ghulam Rahim's remarks on Tuesday regarding the release of Asif Zardari on bail are quite extraordinary. Talking to newsmen during a break in the Sindh Assembly's proceedings, he said that Mr Zardari was out of jail but there were charges of murder still pending against him, and he would be well advised to keep bodyguards.

Then, in the same breath, he offered to provide police security to Mr Zardari if the latter so requested. The chief minister also made another somewhat strange statement - that since Mr Zardari had said that he would not be averse to holding talks with the government, it meant that some kind of understanding had been reached between Mr Zardari and those who mattered in Islamabad.

Otherwise, the chief minister said in a somewhat cynical vein, despite the PPP leader being out on bail, he could have easily been sent back to prison by implicating him in a case as trivial as theft of goats.

Other than perhaps embarrassing his own government and the ruling PML, both of whom have used Mr Zardari's release to emphasize the independence of the judiciary and denied that any deal was involved, such remarks present the chief minister in a quaint light.

If Mr Rahim believes that a political figure's safety is threatened, it should be his duty as head of the provincial government to ensure his safely - rather than talking about it in a tone that sounds disparaging.

This is like giving ideas to people. Perhaps the release of Mr Zardari and the possibility of a PPP resurgence (or reconciliation with government) posing a challenge to the provincial government, has upset the chief minister.

Whatever the motivation, it does not behove a chief minister to suggest that a politician is safer inside rather than outside gaol. If the Sindh government is really concerned about Mr Zardari's personal safety, it should discuss the matter with him and do whatever needs to be done in this connection.

Doctors or impersonators?

A report from Peshawar published in this paper throws light on an unethical medical practice that is prevalent in many parts of the country. While this particular report mentions how surgeons in the city delegate the task of performing operations to junior doctors, without the knowledge of the patient or his relatives, this practice is not confined to surgeons and their medical subordinates.

There are many instances where junior doctors pass themselves off as senior consultants - who have actually requested them to do so - and examine and write out prescriptions for unsuspecting patients.

What is sad is that this is not an uncommon feature in even the better known hospitals and clinics. The reasons for a doctor acting in this manner may be many: he is too busy to see his patient or is more interested in carrying out a medical procedure involving a larger fee. Or he simply feels that the patient's ailment is not serious enough to require his attention and can be adequately attended to by trainee medical staff.

Whatever the case, the fact remains that if a patient has made an appointment with a certain doctor or is attending his clinic, the physician in question must make it a point to examine him or answer his queries.

If the doctor, for some reason, is unavailable, the patient must be told so in order that he can decide whether or not he wants to consult someone else in his place. It is entirely possible that the patient would not want to place himself in the hands of a junior doctor as the latter could - and this is a valid fear - complicate matters.

Breaching a patient's trust by deliberately keeping him in the dark about the identity of his doctor is a serious flaw in the country's medical system and calls for immediate rectification.