Denigrating the rights of half the Jewish population of Israel - Part 2

"The overwhelming majority of Jews arriving in Israel and the West from Arab countries were refugees forced from their homes. The 1948 war, started by their own side, caused a Palestinian exodus. What these two groups of refugees have in common is that roughly equivalent numbers exchanged places in the Middle East."

Lyn Julius..
thedailybeast.com..
14 Augst '12..




Lyn Julius Responds to Lara Friedman

In her rebuttal to my response, Lara Friedman makes various accusations against me. I do not want to bore Open Zion readers with a sterile debate about semantics—rather, allow me to re-state certain incontrovertible truths.

The overwhelming majority of Jews arriving in Israel and the West from Arab countries were refugees forced from their homes. The 1948 war, started by their own side, caused a Palestinian exodus. What these two groups of refugees have in common is that roughly equivalent numbers exchanged places in the Middle East. This irreversible exchange, a not unusual feature of 20th century conflicts, opens a political window of opportunity for settling the Arab-Israeli dispute.

The Jewish refugees differ from the Palestinians in two ways: The Jews were non-combatants hundreds of miles from the theatre of battle, scapegoated only for being Jews. They were victims of mass ethnic cleansing: only 4,000 Jews remain in the Arab world out of a million.

Once displaced persons are granted full civil rights in their new countries, they cease to be refugees. No one should ever remain a refugee—except Palestinians, whose refugee status, with the UN’s blessing and connivance, is preserved in perpetuity. (Where are the protests condemning the non-resettlement of Palestinian refugees as an abuse of their human rights? The silence is deafening.)

Becoming a citizen of a new country, however, does not detract from a refugee’s right to obtain redress for past wrongs. Outstanding claims must be dealt as a matter of justice: this is what the US congress bill and other initiatives are all about. Human rights law, developed in the 1980s, emphasises the right to recognition, memory and redress, no matter how much time has elapsed since the injustice was committed.

Refugee protesters wave keys at Abbas and Clinton

Bataween
Point of No Return
16 September '10

Jewish refugees waved giant replicas of the keys to their homes in Iraq, Morocco, Algeria and Egypt during an official demonstration held yesterday to coincide with the visit to the Prime Minister's office in Jerusalem of Hilary Clinton and Mahmoud Abbas.

Some 20 demonstrators held placards in Hebrew and English with slogans such as the following: "we too have keys"; "The road to peace is compensation for Jewish refugees from Arab countries, as well as Palestinians."

The demonstration was organised by the Association for the Advancement of Compensation to Jewish Refugees, chaired by Azi Nagar. The Association was set up a year ago to persuade the Israeli government to press Iraq and Egypt, and other states at peace with Israel like Morocco, to give Jewish refugees compensation.

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The 'nakba' of Morocco's Jews

Bataween
Point of No Return
29 April '10

Timed to coincide with the Palestinians' imminent 'Nakba' day, Lela Gilbert's piece for the Jerusalem Post is a sobering reminder of the sufferings which Jews of Morocco endured. Since February, however, Moroccan-born Dina Gabay's's rights to compensation, like those of all Jewish refugees from Arab lands and Iran, have been enshrined in Israeli law:

Imagine a frightened six-year-old girl trying to catch her balance in the stifling and cramped hold of a violently tossing ship. She is not alone on the turbulent sea – her parents and sibling are nearby. But fear is in the air, along with the sight and smell of terrible sickness. The child understands little about her circumstances. She is aware that she is going to a place called Israel, where three of her brothers now live. She realizes that she is saying good-bye forever to her Morocco home. But that’s all she knows about her journey.

Meanwhile her present misery, and that of her beloved family, eclipses all else. The girl’s name is Dina Gabay. The year is 1955. Dina, her parents – Avraham and Rachel – and the family are fleeing ever-increasing dangers in their town of Sefrou, near Fez.

Only in later years did Dina come to appreciate the constant pressure her parents had endured before their departure. There were small things—insults and ceaseless intimidation. For example, her father, who owned a large and successful butcher shop, was at the mercy of local thieves, who sometimes simply walked into his business and demanded that he give them whatever they wanted – at no cost. “Not once and not twice,” Dina explains, “but whenever they wanted something. These were our good Muslim neighbors, you know?”

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Get some perspective on Jewish losses, Obama!

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Bataween
Point of No Return
14 April '10

How can President Obama object to the building of 1600 homes in Jerusalem when Jews have already given up 100,000 square kilometres in Arab countries? The newest advertisement from FLAME in the US press pleads for perspective, and puts the losses sustained by Jews from Arab countries at the heart of the argument:

The lesson we can all learn from this is that we must provide some perspective to those people (including President Obama and his administration) who simply don't get why Israel cannot simply continue to "take risks for peace." Outside of the United States, Israel is the only country where Jews can expect to feel at home---but even this tiny sliver of land is surrounded by an ocean of venomous, violent hatred.

To get some perspective, let's start with what Jews have already lost. Ruth Wisse does just that in this week's featured Hotline article. She points out that property deeds of the over 800,000 Jewish refugees from Arab lands amounted to 100,000 square miles (sic: it is actually 100,000 sq. km - ed), or five times the current size of Israel. These Jewish refugees have of course never been compensated for the theft of this land, nor for billions of dollars of other assets. So when President Obama expects us to believe that building an additional 1600 housing units in a Jewish neighborhood of the capital of Israel is a major catastrophe, how can he expect us to take him seriously, let alone believe him?

(Read full article)
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Obama’s Pie in the Sky

Ted Belman
Israpundit
13 April '10
(first published by American Thinker)

There is no solution to the final status issues of Jerusalem, borders and refugees that both sides will agree to. Nevertheless President Obama is committed to forcing an agreement.

Recently two top administration officials advised David Ignatius, Washington Post, to the effect that Pres Obama is “seriously considering” proposing an American peace plan which would be based on “agreements nearly reached” in the past. This is outrageous, as I will explain and it has no chance of succeeding.

Of course they repeated the mantra that “[e]veryone knows the basic outlines of a peace deal” but they omitted to say, that neither of the parties agrees to it.

This is the first time an administration official acknowledged the linkage between solving this problem with solving the problem of Iran. “It’s not either Iran or the Middle East peace process. You have to do both.” He went so far as to say,”[w]e want to get the debate away from settlements and East Jerusalem and take it to a 30,000-feet level that can involve Jordan, Syria and other countries in the region,”

Apparently, after spending a year on making settlement construction and Jerusalem the key issues, the Obama administration is finally admitting defeat and are moving on. Undaunted with their failure so far even with Syria and Iran, they are going to focus on a regional solution. “Incrementalism hasn’t worked” Effectively, the administration is opting for a grand design.

The administration believes that the formula for success requires them to “take on the absolute requirements of Israeli security and the requirements of Palestinian sovereignty in a way that makes sense.” Sorry, but Israel isn’t buying. Obama has been trying to frame the solution that way for a year but he ignores that Israel wants, and is entitled to, more than having its security needs met. She has very strong legal and historical claims to Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria. Obama has done his best to ignore them.

Israel will not accept a deal which forces her to give up on the settlement blocks including Ariel and Maaleh Adumin. Even if these blocks were offered to her, Israel would still have to uproot about 70,000 Jews at a cost of over $100 billion. Most, if not all of Jerusalem as annexed by Israel 40 years ago, would have to remain under Israel sovereignty. Israel would not agree to anything less. While Israel might accept a return of a token amount of refugees, Israel will be looking for redress for the Jewish refugees from Arab countries.

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False settler linkage denies Jewish refugee rights

Bataween
Point of No Return
30 March '10

The fixation with Israel's 'settlements' as the leading obstacle to peace in the Middle East has spawned a worrying trend: a false linkage between Israeli settlers and Palestinian Arab refugees.

In December, Ray Hanania, in his manifesto as Palestinian presidential candidate, put forward a proposal linking Jewish settlers and Arab refugees.

Now it's the turn of the director of the Middle East Centre at St Antony's College Oxford, Eugene Rogan. Rogan brightly unveils a plan, in an article for the Financial Times (28 March) Refugees for settlers is the way forward for Israel, proposing an exchange between Israeli settlers in Judea and Samaria and Palestinian refugees living in Syria and Lebanon.

While Jewish settlers would be allowed to stay in territory that will become a Palestinian state, descendants of Palestinians from refugee camps in Syria and Lebanon, Rogan argues, should be permitted a 'right of return' to their 'ancestral homes' in Israel proper.

"The only way forward is to put a real price on settlements that might make the Israeli government pause before expanding them," Rogan writes.

There are several things wrong with Rogan's plan. It is nothing more than a proposal to allow a Palestinian 'right of return' to Israel by subterfuge - a red line Israel has always refused to cross. Assuming that principle is enshrined in international law - a dubious proposition - why limit that 'right of return' to Palestinians from Syria and Lebanon? What about Palestinians in Jordan? Egypt? Kuwait? Chile? An influx of hundreds of thousands, largely radicalised, Arabs displacing current occupants from their 'ancestral homes' in Israel (assuming these homes still exist) would be a recipe for chaos and violence.

(Read full article)
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Land exchanges benefit Arabs disproportionately

Bataween
Point of No Return
18 March '10

Ruth R Wisse injects some desperately-needed context into the current spat between the US and Israel over the expansion of housing in a Jewish suburb in North Jerusalem in this brilliant article in The Wall St Journal, What about an Arab settlement freeze? Arab states have benefitted disproportionately in terms of land and property from the exchange of populations and property between Arabs and Jews, she says. She might have added that formerly Jewish districts of Baghdad and Cairo like Bataween and Zamalek are now Judenrein : (with thanks: Lily)

When she is surrounded by a swirl of conversation she cannot understand, my two-year-old granddaughter turns to me expectantly: "What they talking about, Bubbe?" Right now, I would have to confess to her that the hubbub over 1,600 new housing units in Jerusalem defies rational explanation.

Of the children of Abraham, the descendants of Ishmael currently occupy at least 800 times more land than descendants of Isaac. The 21 states of the Arab League routinely announce plans of building expansion. Saudi Arabia estimates that 555,000 housing units were built over the past several years. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki announced during a meeting in Baghdad last year that "Some 10,000 units will be built in each province [of Iraq] with 100 square meters per unit" to accommodate citizens whose housing needs have not been met for a long time. Egypt has established 10 new cities since 1996. They are Tenth of Ramadan, Sixth of October, Al Sadat, Al Shurouq, Al Obour, New Damietta, New Beni Sueif, New Assiut, New Luxor, and New Cairo.

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Jews still owed lion's share of lost property

Bataween
Point of No Return
16 March '10

With thanks: bh

In 1948, Munir Katul, now a retired Oregon urologist, lost his house on what is now Rehov Graetz in the German colony in Jerusalem: his is a sad story of displacement resulting from the Arab-Israeli conflict, repeated many times over in the region. The Jerusalem Post waxes lyrical:

Before he left his one-story, stone house for the last time, he looked down at the Persian rug lining the formal living room where he had played with his brother, George, 18 days earlier, as his father, Jibrail, huddled over the console radio, listened to the UN General Assembly vote on the partition of Palestine.

As he walked from the now empty living room, across the colorful tile porch, and passed the green-shuttered windows to the waiting taxi, he studied the pine trees and green gardens around him in the German Colony.

He remembered how he loved to get lost in all that backyard greenery, with his best friend, Leila Itayyim. After school they played tag and hide-and-seek, built dirt castles, raced their pet turtles and helped hisfather tend the garden. He took one last look at his favorite tree, where he loved to hide high up in the branches to see everything without being seen, and wished he was sitting there instead of leaving.

Two aspects are striking about Munir's story: the first is that his Greek Orthodox parents and grandparents were born in Lebanon and came to Palestine because of the greater economic opportunities, thus giving the lie to the idea that Arabs have always lived in Palestine since 'time immemorial'. Munir's family fled back to Lebanon, yet the component of Munir's identity most important to him today is 'Palestinian'. Even today, aged 72, he chooses to line his hallway with photographs of the house on Rehov Graetz. Is this normal, or has Munir made a fetish of the 'wrong' Israel committed against him? It means that he can never feel at home anywhere else: he is not prepared to abandon his goal of repatriation to his old home in Jerusalem (although, to be fair, he also recognises this might be impractical):

Though it (Lebanon) was the land of his ancestors, everything seemed strange. The Arabic language and dress norms were the same. But below the surface, the customs and behaviors were slightly different. Life in the cosmopolitan city of Beirut was nothing like the warm, friendly, village environment that made Katul feel safe.

The other aspect is that Munir's father convinced himself that sooner or later his home would be caught up in a war zone, although his wife and his Jewish neighbours tried to persuade him to stay. We know that Arabs did choose to stay, and became Israeli citizens:

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New law creates 3 million stakeholders in peace

Bataween
Point of No Return
11 March '10

From Nathan Jeffay of The Forward, the first real comment piece to be published since the passing of the Knesset bill requiring compensation for Jewish refugees from Arab countries was passed on 22 February. The piece says that all Israel's Zionist parties supported the new law. Some Israelis, however, voice doubts about linking Palestinian and Jewish refugees, based on the myth that the Palestinians can be exonerated from responsibility for the plight of Jewish refugees. This view is not supported by the facts: the Mufti of Jerusalem played a key role in dragging the Arab League into conflict with the Jewish state, and for decades actively incited violence and antisemitism against Jewish citizens of Arab countries.

"The plight of the estimated 856,000 Jews who were forced to leave Arab countries after the establishment of the State of Israel has played a minimal role so far in negotiations for Middle East peace. But on February 22, the Knesset adopted a law under which any Israeli government entering into peace talks must use those talks to advance a compensation claim for those who became Israeli citizens.

The impact on the Middle East peace process is unclear. But according to the law’s supporters, its implications for Jews from Arab countries is substantial.

“This is a historic decision that will make peace in the Middle East about justice for everyone,” said Isaac Devash, the lobbyist who brought the various communities together around the legislative proposal and then took it to the Knesset. Devash, a Tel Aviv businessman and child of Libyan Jews, is a volunteer with the New York-based group Justice for Jews From Arab Countries.

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Full text of Knesset Law passed 22 February 2010

Bataween
Point of No Return
26 February '10

The rights to compensation of Jewish refugees from Arab countries and Iran, 22 February 2010

1.Purpose

The purpose of this Law is to protect the rights to compensation of Jewish refugees from Arab countries and Iran in the framework of peace negotiations in the Middle East.

2.Definitions:

In this Law --


"Refugee Jews from Arab countries and Iran" - who are any of the following:

(1) He is a citizen of Israel*, or lived there before the establishment of the state;

(2) He was a resident of Arab countries or Iran, and left mostly because he was persecuted on account of his Jewishness and his inability to defend himself against such persecution.

(3) He left property** he owned in his country of origin

**"Property" - land, assets, cash, rights, and other property seized by government order.

3. Negotiations to achieve peace

In negotiations to achieve peace in the Middle East, the government must include the issue of providing compensation for loss of property to Jewish refugees from Arab countries and Iran, including property owned by Jewish communities in these countries.

4.Execution

The Prime Minister is to be in charge of the implementation of this Law.

Signed by

Benjamin Netanyahu
Prime Minister

Shimon Peres
President

Reuven Rivlin
Speaker of the Knesset

* Although the Law applies only to Israeli citizens, a mechanism is being sought to cover Jewish refugees living outside Israel, similar to that for Holocaust survivors
resident outside Israel.

Related: Israel's answer to the Palestinian 'right of return'

Israel's answer to the Palestinian 'right of return'

Bataween
Point of No Return
23 February '10

On Monday evening, Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, quietly passed a bill that could change the Middle East agenda forever.

Up to a million Jews were forced to leave Arab countries and Iran in the decades following the foundation of the State of Israel in 1948, due to state-sanctioned persecution and violence. Today only some 4,000 Jews are left in the Arab world, bringing to an end a Jewish presence that in many cases pre-dated Islam and the Arab conquest by 1,000 years.



The bill has taken two years, since its initiation by MK Nissim Ze’ev of the Sephardi Orthodox Shas party, to become law. The new law aims to protect the rights of Jewish refugees from Arab countries and Iran in future peace negotiations in the Middle East. The bill defines a Jewish refugee as an Israeli citizen who left one of the Arab states, or Iran, following religious persecution. It stipulates that the Israeli government must include Jewish refugee rights, notably compensation, in all future peace talks.

Stanley Urman, the head of the advocacy group Justice for Jews from Arab Countries, welcomed the Knesset decision, saying: “The world must realise that Palestinians were not the only Middle East refugees; that there were Jewish refugees who also have rights under international law. This recognition is good for the State of Israel and it is good for the people of Israel."

Why is this bill so important? Because it holds the key to real peace in the Middle East. So many efforts at making peace between Israel and the Palestinians have run aground on the rock of the Palestinian ‘right of return’. Not content with a Palestinian Arab state in the West Bank and Gaza, even the ‘moderates’ of the Fatah camp have been reluctant to recognise Israel as a Jewish state. The reason is that they are unwilling to drop their demand for the Arab refugees of 1948 – who now number upwards of four million if you include their descendants - to return to their homes in what is now Israel. This demand amounts to no less than the destruction of Israel by demographic means and the de facto creation of two Palestinian states, one in the West Bank, and one in place of Israel.

(Read full article)
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Jewish refugees must be tied to Palestinian issue

Bataween
Point of No Return
18 February '10

The fullest account yet of Monday's important Knesset reception to mark the passing of Israel's prospective law tying compensation for Jewish refugees expelled from Arab countries to a future peace deal comes from Rachel Kliger of The Media Line. There would be no discussion of Palestinian refugees unless the Jewish refugees problem was resolved.In heated exchanges with refugees in the audience deputy foreign minister Danny Ayalon revealed that his father left his belongings behind in Algeria to come to Israel in 1948.

The Palestinian spokesman interviewed at the end admits that the Arabs have enough money to solve the plight of Palestinian refugees, but 'the problem belongs to Israel'. If Israel gave them their 'rights' - consenting to being overrun by the Arab 'right of return', perhaps? - the Arabs might compensate Israel, he concedes. (With thanks bh)

Israeli lawmakers are seeking a law that will make compensation for Jewish refugees expelled from Arab countries after 1948 an integral part of any future peace negotiations. Lawmakers put together a bill demanding compensation for current Jewish Israeli citizens, who were expelled from Arab countries after Israel was established in 1948, leaving behind significant valuable property.

Originally submitted almost a year ago in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, the bill passed its first hearing two weeks ago. Now various interest groups are pushing the bill with the Knesset’s 120 members before it is subjected to a second and third hearing next week.

(Read full article)
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