Op-ed in PA daily: “Everyone who was born to a Palestinian father is a refugee”

Excerpt of an op-ed by Omar Hilmi Al-Ghoul, regular columnist for the official PA dailyHeadline: "The refugees and Congress' war"
     "I wish to emphasize as a Palestinian and as a refugee – there is no Palestinian, Arab, or foreigner who will agree to be called a 'refugee,' and this includes a 'political refugee.' This is because every person wishes to live in the place where his forefathers were born, and where he grew up and spent his childhood in its spaces…
And whoever thinks that anybody wishes to bear the name 'refugee' – unless the person himself wished to emigrate and move away from his homeland for the purpose of studies, livelihood, or even love – is naive…
Everyone who was born to a Palestinian father is a refugee; he is necessarily a refugee, whether [US Representative] Doug Lamborn or [US President] Donald Trump wishes it or not (referring to a bill proposed by Lamborn; see note below –Ed.), whether the [US] Congress and Senate wish it or not, and whether the Israeli colonialism state wishes it or not. These are the numbers and all of these people have the sacred right to return to their houses from which they and their fathers were expelled. There is a moral, legal, and political responsibility towards every Palestinian refugee on the part of the international community – like every refugee in the world – that they return to their original homes."

In July 2018 US Representative Doug Lamborn proposed a bill to limit US money allocated to UNRWA until it works to resettle only the original Palestinian refugees.