A conference on the rights of Jews who had to flee their Arab home countries after 1948 was held at the Knesset in Jerusalem as Israel’s parliament is set discuss a bill that would make the issue an integral part of future Middle East peace negotiations. Former Canadian Justice Minister Irwin Cotler, US Congressman Eliot Engel, the head of the group Justice for Jews from Arab Countries (JJAC), Stanley Urman, and leaders of Jewish organizations from Egypt, Syria, Libya, Morocco, and other Arab countries took part in the gathering, which was held in the Knesset building.
Originally submitted almost a year ago to the Knesset, 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 submitted for a second and third reading next week. The bill was sponsored by Knesset member Nissim Ze’ev of the Orthodox Shas party and follows a resolution passed in the US House of Representatives in 2008, which calls for the recognition of Jewish and Christian refugees in addition to Palestinian refugees.
Irwin Cotler said: “We are not just speaking about financial compensation or indemnification. We are talking about justice for Jews from Arab countries. This speaks to the question of, among other things, rectifying the justice and peace narrative of the last 62 years where the question of Jews from Arab countries has not been part of the narrative. There have been more than 160 UN resolutions on the matter of refugees. All 160 dealt with Palestinian refugees only. I am not saying they shouldn’t address Palestinian refugees, but I am saying there is no justice and no truth if it does not also address the plight of Jews seeking justice from Arab countries.”
According to JJAC, some 850,000 Jews were displaced from Arab countries after the State of Israel was established. These include Jews from Syria, Trans-Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, Yemen, Iran, Iraq, Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco.
The speaker of the Knesset, Reuven Rivlin of the governing Likud Party, said the issue was an important counterweight to Palestinian demands for a right of return to homes from which they were expelled or had to leave in 1948, and which are now part of Israel.
“The Arab peace initiative, based on the Saudi initiative, has a clause that calls for a just solution to the Palestinian refugee issue,” Rivlin told participants at the conference. “Israel is opposed to the right of return… we have to make an appeal today, to say that there is no room for bringing up the Palestinian right of return without the Jewish refugee issue being resolved. This has to be heard in the political discourse in Israel and in the international community.”
Congressman Eliot Engel said there was hypocrisy in the way the international community dealt with the Palestinian refugee community: “The Arabs today, as they have done for 50 years, use the Palestinian refugee population as political pawns. They want them to live in misery. They want them to suffer and then to blame the Jews. The fact of the matter is that the blame lies right at the foot of the Arab states, be it Saudi Arabia or Jordan or Egypt or any of those countries that have lots of petro-dollars and they don’t even spend a shekel to help their refugees.”
For further information on the issue, visit the website of the advocacy group Justice for Jews from Arab Countries.
