As detailed here many times, there are just as many Jewish refugees from Arab countries as there are Arab refugees from Israel. The Jewish refugess are the refugees whose name the United Nations dare not speak.
Israel finally is starting to put on the table the concept that if, as part of a final peace agreement, Arab refugees are compensated, so too should Jewish refugees
Via Ynet News:
The Arab media was up in arms this week over a plan spearheaded by Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon to hold a summit on the issue of Jewish refugees from Arab countries at the UN in September.
The summit’s main purpose is to push forward the matter of property rights of Jewish refugees who were forced to flee Arab countries after the establishment of the state of Israel and to turn the Jewish refugee issue into a bargaining chip which would make it clear that if the Palestinians voice demands for refugee compensation – demands would also be made from the Israeli side.
A bill in Congress is supporting this effort:
In a rare show of pre-election bipartisanship, lawmakers from both parties are sponsoring a bill that would link the plight of Palestinian refugees with that of Jews from Arab countries.
The legislation would require the administration to include mention of the need to resolve the issue of Jews who were expelled from their homes in Arab countries in diplomatic discussions about Palestinian refugees. The bill specifically cites talks that take place within the framework of the so-called Middle East Quartet, made up of the United States, Russia, the European Union and the U.N.
My guess is that Israeli position and the bill in Congress will have little impact on Obama administration policy, or the U.N.
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‘Bout bloomin’ time.
If those stupid fools insist on compensation for past wartime damage, then there must be a full accounting, by both sides, not just the Israelis.
It would be so much cleaner to have both sides just clean up the mess, put it behind them, and carry on. That is the American way, and it worked very well in Europe and Japan. It hasn’t worked in the Middle East because the Muslim regimes are even more barbaric than the French after WWI.
Let there be an accounting. Expose the actions of those awful tyrannies surrounding Israel.
I would love a discussion of Jewish refugees not just from Arab countries but all countries in Europe. The number of Jews who lost (literally) everything in a dozen European countries is incalculable. While in the Arab states, Jews who’d been resident multiple centuries were almost always a full magnitude more prosperous than the average so-called Palestinian. They, unlike the Palestinians who often vacated in the expectation of returning to claim the spoils of war (oops), were summarily expelled and forced to forfeit their life’s work.
Oh, and then there’s the number of Jews forced to flee Iran after the ’79 revolution, when the ayatollah’s men were summarily executing prosperous Jews. Yes, this is a wonderful discussion to have. Ergo, fat chance it’s going to take place.
Frankly, the the only serious discussion to have is why all those people live in decrepit U.N.-sponsored refugee camps both in the West Bank and in Lebanon nearly seven decades later. Why won’t other Arab countries absorb the populations? Why are there in fact laws against this in each country? We all know the answer. The camps were designed to create sympathy and are encouraged to breed despair. Bingo. It’s the single Arab success of the last century.
Every other discussion is irrelevant.
The dirty little secret of the Islamist and Arab nationalist world: That their “brethren” in Gaza are treated immeasurably better by the very unbelievers/non-Arabs they perpetually seek to kill, than they are by those who so loudly proclaim that blood must be spilled and the Levant cleansed for “justice”.
http://www.tomgrossmedia.com/mideastdispatches/archives/001127.html
“The Arab media was up in arms this week …”
This week?
This is the right tactic from a “world negotiation” standpoint and exposes the hypocrisy of the nations surrounding Israel that expelled their Jewish populations. It is far beyond time that Israel should have been making this point in order to counteract the Arab Squatter’s demands (they’re not a separate people, so I refuse to refer to them as such).
That being said, it has proof problems just like the Squatter’s demands have proof problems. My guess is that most of the land records of ownership (if any) were likely destroyed as soon as the Jewish population was expelled in order to remove any possibility of what we are now discussing.
Also, from a purely negotiation operational standpoint, there is another problem. What Israel is doing here is basically trying to force a 3rd party not part of the negotiation to do something. The Arab Squatters are going to claim “Hey, we can’t force Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Egypt or Saudi Arabia to do anything and we won’t agree that our getting land is contingent on they’re giving up rights” (and they shouldn’t from a negotiation standpoint).
What it does do is put the surrounding Arab countries on notice that IF they’re going to support “reparations” that they’re going to be called out on their hypocrisy if expelled Jews come calling and they say “get lost.”
Also, from a purely negotiation operational standpoint, there is another problem. What Israel is doing here is basically trying to force a 3rd party not part of the negotiation to do something.
The whole point is that they must be part of the negotiation. As I understand it this is not a new position on Israel’s part; it’s been taking the position since the end of the 1948 war, that the issue of compensation for refugees should be settled at a conference between all the parties to that war, at which all claims would be on the table.
That being said, it has proof problems just like the Squatter’s demands have proof problems. My guess is that most of the land records of ownership (if any) were likely destroyed as soon as the Jewish population was expelled in order to remove any possibility of what we are now discussing.
I think the idea is that they can just agree to call it a wash, even though everyone knows that the Arabs get the better end of that deal. It would then be up to each side to compensate their own people.
The ‘bill’ link is to a search screen that has timed out, no longer works.
Does anyone know off the top of their heads how ‘bipartisan’ this bill is? Truly bipartisan or 99% GOP with one Dem bipartisan?
My Google needs on oil change, don’t want to use it.
Henry, here´s an article at
http://forward.com/articles/160851/bill-mandates-discussion-of-sephardi-refugees/?p=all
“…The legislation is co-sponsored by three Democrats and three Republicans, including Florida Republican Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who chairs the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, and Howard Berman of California, the ranking Democrat on the committee. Other sponsors include Democrats Jerrold Nadler and Joseph Crowley from New York, and Republicans Ted Poe of Texas and Bob Turner of New York…”
Read more: http://forward.com/articles/160851/bill-mandates-discussion-of-sephardi-refugees/?p=all#ixzz242I8Tjtq
What about all the Christians that were and are still being forced to leave Arab countries?
And the Zoroastrians, Hindus, Budhists, and hundreds of other religions Islam has exterminated. They are actually worse than the Romans and Christians combined at “removing” religions and adherents.