It seems quite interesting to me that posters of this thread have a tough, well-knit opinion on this contentious issue while being blatantly misinformed. The last pages of this thread clearly show a number of misconceptions, and a considerable degree of confusion and deception.
To start with, it is important to define the word 'Judaism' and 'Jew' which apparently many of you here don't understand. Judaism is the world's oldest religion, and is the name of the religion practised by Jews worldwide. However, a Jew is not necessiraly an adherent to Judaism. A Jew is a member of an ethnicity or people, dispersed from the land of Israel close to 2,000 years ago and descended from the native people of the land at that time. The observance of ritual practices is not an element that defines whether a person is a Jew (in terms of ethnicity or not). However, the term Jew can also mean a person who is not descended from the ancient people living in the land but has willingly chosen to adopt Judaism as a religion. This means he (or she) is a Jew by the religious definition of the term, and not the ethnic one. However, since Judaism is not a religion with a missionary spirit, there are far less converts than in other major religions such as Christianity and Islam, and therefore an adherent to the Jewish religion is in the vast majority of cases also an ethnic Jew as opposed to a convert.
Now that this definition, which is admittedly confusing at first sight has been clarified, I would like to (quickly) adress some other points.
Art, the Palestinian refugee problem is much more intricate than you purport it to be. There are a number of factors that served as a catalyst to the fleeing of the Arabs to surrounding countries. Many Arabs (let's call them Arabs because at the time [1947-48] the term 'Palestinian' was not yet clearly defined) fled in advance of the 1948 war, seeking to evade the forthcoming conflict and return once it was over. Many left at the behest of Arab leaders in other countries. They were also lured into false promises that the war would be quickly over and that they would be able to return to the land triumphantly and to capture the possessions of the defeated. A study (carried out by an Arab organisation) said that over 70% of Arab refugees at the time fled without ever having seen an Israeli soldier. Thus, the fairy-tale of widespread forced expulsion falls to water. This all occurred whilst Jewish leaders were asking Arabs not to flee, and promised equal rights and job opportunity employments. Other Arabs, no doubt, were expelled, as a natural consequence of any war, and also due to the fear of violence, but this by no means changes the reality of the issue: that many fled at will due to calls by Arab leaders outside of the territories.
Secondly, we must remember that at the same time approximately the same number of Jews fled Arab countries all over North Africa and the Middle East due to mounting hostility and open strife. These Jews mainly fled to Israel where they were quickly absorbed into the population. This clearly was not the case with the Arab refugees, which, after more than 55 years after the war still have not been granted rights by their neighbouring Arab (brother?) countries. Any person with an open mind and a critical spirit could start to envision that it is maybe just a well-calculated political stratagem for other Arab governments to keep these refugees in camps and not grant them their liberties.
Anyways, I will comment on more issues later, but I thought I had to clarify some of these issues.
