Toward Redressing Injustices on All Sides
Aharon Mor and Orly R. Rahimiyan, JCPA
For over 2,500 years, Jewish communities have existed in the lands now known as the Middle East and North Africa, as well as in Iran. Around one million Jews lived there at the start of the twentieth century; today less than 3 percent of that one million still remain (including Iran).
Upon the establishment of the State of Israel, the status of Jews in Arab countries changed dramatically. The Arab world’s rejection of the Jewish state triggered a deliberate surge in state-legislated discrimination and abuse by Arab regimes and their citizenry, making Jewish residence in Arab countries simply untenable. As a result, the Jews were expelled.
There were nearly twice as many Jewish refugees as Palestinian refugees, and the value of the Jewish property confiscated by Arab governments during these expulsions is estimated to be at least 50 percent higher than the assets lost by Palestinian refugees. But the plight of Jewish refugees was not widely publicized, largely because they did not remain refugees for long.
In 1967, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 242, which stipulates that a comprehensive peace settlement must include “a just settlement of the refugee problem.” No distinction is made between Arab refugees and Jewish refugees.
Today, a large portion of Israeli citizens are descendants of Jews displaced from Arab countries. The rights of these Jewish refugees (and their descendants) should be recognized and addressed by appropriate measures such as an international fund, as part of any comprehensive negotiations to resolve the overall issue of refugees.
Such a solution would create a connection between the Jewish and Palestinian refugee problems and would offer a holistic, comprehensive, and just solution to the refugee issue for both sides.
Aharon Mor is Senior Director for Restitution of Rights and Jewish Property, Israel Ministry for Senior Citizens. Orly Rahimiyan is Counselor for Restitution of Rights and Jewish Property from Arab Countries and Iran, Israel Ministry for Senior Citizens.
@ yamit82:
I was going to send a comment parallel to yours, but you basically said it all. The (“Palestinian”)Arab refugees were largely “escapees,” having left their homes, largely voluntarily, at the urgings of their side – which parenthetically started that war in the first place. Moreover, most of those “refugees” had very shallow roots in the area since many had migrated subsequent to the development initiated by the Jewish aliyot in the nineteenth century. Most of the Arabs with deeper roots remained and are now the only Arabs living in the middle east enjoying real democratic freedoms. In contrast, the true refugees – the Jews – were forced out of their homes whence they had lived for centuries if not millennia. The pity is that facts or history regarding this issue are little known, widely distorted, and always finessed and equivocated by the intellectual and media elites.
@ CuriousAmerican:
Islam regards success in war as evidence of God’s favor.
It follows then that, from the same perspective, decisive defeat in war — viz., thorough humiliation unmitigated by any face-saving softening of the blow (this part is essential) — betokens God’s rejection.
THAT’s the only way to avoid war with these folk.
And that’s WHY there is always another war on the way in that neighborhood.
The world is willing to see them defeated.
But it won’t see them humiliated.
Notwithstanding that this is precisely what the doctor ordered.
Granted, it’s counter to the familiar pattern for promoting peace in the West.
But when dealing with the Arabo-Islamic mentality, it’s abundantly clear that
— we’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto.
Don’t shoot the messenger; I don’t presume to make the news
— just report it.
@ vivarto:I agree with regards to the arabs but with regards to the Jewish refugee problem there are other issues which make it important to follow through. This is a typical example of double standards, it is a violation of the Geneva Conventions by a host of nations and leaders and its outcome must have an affect on international law as determined by precedent. If the violations remain then the precedent is set for future ignoring of the conventions by Israel and for using methods already used by the arabs. This issue is making the arab world and the international organizations uncomfortable as there is no argument for having allowed it and no argument for allowing the violations to remain. But would Israel ever follow through and demand prosecution as the law allows? Certainly the PR aspect of calling all collaborators war criminals is useful.
Whatever else, this subject is a good arguing point on behalf of the Jews. The Israeli government needs to keep this subject in the headlines. The Muslim killing of Jews dates to the 7th century. The Jews Mohammed had befriended were suddenly labeled enemies and were chased out of Arabia or killed. A reason could be the Muslims wanted the Jewish assets in their coffers, and basically nothing has changed since then. The record shows, as written by historian Will Durant, the last Western scholar to have access to the ancient archives of the Middle East, that Companion Abu Bakr is the biggest culprit here. He not only stole the first caliphate from Ali, he is the author of the edict that Muslims should go out and kill and conquer others. He said this was a religious requirement but much of it was done for the sake of the coffers in Arabia. Muslim warriors could keep half of what they stole. They were starving at that time, and Durant notes they seemed to be great warriors on an empty stomach as they were on a full stomach–they had lots of practice performing on empty stomachs.
My research shows it was Abu Bakr and his ilk who wrote the verses in the Quran from Medina and inserted them first in the Quran in front of the holy verses of Mohammed in Mecca. A serious scholarly effort is needed to be performed by Islamic scholars to correct this corruption of the Quran, because as it stands today, these bad teachings of the Quran have turned many Muslims into the dumbest and most dangerous people on earth.
This is the discussion about the tactics.
Tactics depend on the circumstances. In some circumstances your solution is expedient, in others his.
The important point is the goal.
The goal is to free Israel from the dangerous subversive and fast breeding minority.
CuriousAmerican Said:
Why not drive them out by truck to the 3 contiguous hostile borders? Who are you to say what Israel must do? What did you say the arabs must do when they expelled the Jews? You may not agree with my solution but it is practical and achievable.
CuriousAmerican Said:
When has Israel lived under stable conditions? Internally and externally conditions have been unstable. stability comes when the war is brought to the enemy. If Israel has any sense it will give up on these attempts at peace and at the advent of the next war solve the”refugee” problem with trucks to the border. Not politically correct as expelling Jews but still OK.
What about the Arabs in Judea and Samaria? If you do not want to naturalize them, you have to buy them out. You cannot continue to rule them under martial law. It is not stable.
There is just one fallacy in this article.
It sounds like the Arab persecution of Jews started with establishment of Israel.
In fact in 1941 600 Jews were killed in Baghdad thousands were tortured, wounded and countless women and girls raped.
@ CuriousAmerican:Very few of the Arab “refugees” are left. If the offer were limited to those who actually qualified as refugees in 1948, even under the loose standards of the UN, and not their descendents, I think Israel could likely absorb them without a problem. I doubt that more than 50,000 of the original 750,000 are still alive 64 years later. Before 1967, they had very low life expectancy — less than 50 years. Some of those would likely accept compensation for not returning.
I do not agree that this is sufficient! This portrays money as the only issue. The fact that the expelling of the Jews took place after the inception of the Geneva Conventions, with no world outrage, demonstrates the jew hatred of the international organizations. In order for there to be justice for the Jewish refugees the entire incident must be considered to be part of a population exchange between the warring parties and now the arabs must complete their part of the exchange. This precedent has taken place before plus the expelling of the Jews set a precedent. The idea of jews returning to the homes in the lands of the jew slaughterers is obscene; it is enough that Israel should be lying down with dogs who have fleas but in this case the fleas have aids. If the international jew hating structure does not rsolve the issue then Israel should act unilaterally with the immediate unilateral transfer of the arabs to any of the 2 borders with which Israel is in ongoing hostilities: for this action no agreements are necessary. It is good that this is finally being brought up but it should not be allowed to remain that the world allowed this expelling even though they had a Geneva conventions. If it is not part of a population exchange then the perpetrators should be indicted int the ICC. If this is not done then International law is a farce to be ignored or it must be made legal as an agreed population exchange.
Andrew Said:
you are absolutely right. However, Israel does not act in a manner that would instill fear: this is a mistake! One aspect that would generate rear would be unpredictability: Israel’s restrained proportionate response is a reliable prediction. How about unrestrained and disproportionate? How about attacks which are not responses but are outright unpredictable aggression?
CuriousAmerican Said:@ Andrew:
Yes. I have heard the figure today would be $300 Billion. The total value of property that that Jewish refugees left behind. I don’t know why Israel’s leaders aren’t constantly banging a drum about this issue.
“Do it to avoid war.”
I don’t want to sound like a war monger. But haven’t the arab nations lost every war with Israel. Shouldn’t they be the ones fearing war – not Israel.
@ CuriousAmerican:
Specious argument. Muslims do not offer peace. Muslims conquer.
War will be in any case and who said wars are without benefits or merit? Wars may not solve all problems nor bring lasting peace but wars are the norm and peace the consequences of war. Arabs cannot make peace with Israel. Any such Arab-Israeli peace agreement would exist only on paper. In Islam, jihad is perpetual obligation. The military jihad is interrupted only temporarily by truces, and a truce with Arabs is what Israel has now.
Arabs have always violated cease-fires with Israel; why imagine they would observe peace treaties with Israel?
Do it to avoid war.
Yes. I have heard the figure today would be $300 Billion. The total value of property that that Jewish refugees left behind. I don’t know why Israel’s leaders aren’t constantly banging a drum about this issue.
@ CuriousAmerican:
Very few of the original Jewish refugees are still alive and their children are not refugees but property is wealth and indemnification to any living Jewish refugees and their direct heirs should be the overriding consideration. Then there is the cost to the state of Israel who took in all these Jewish refugees and absorbed and assimilated them into the Israeli social fabric at a considerable national cost.
Arabs were displaced due to the consequence of war that the Arabs initiated in violation of the UN resolutions and recommendations and against the basic principles of the UN charter. Jews were forced to leave their countries with only the shirts on their backs because they were Jews their wealth, property businesses confiscated by the dictatorships in each Arab and Muslim country. That’s a combination of racism and fascism.
Except to state that both groups enjoyed the status of refugees, there is no other symmetry between Jews and Arab Muslims especially when considering that most Jewish populations in Arab countries predated Islam by a thousand years and were the true indigenous populations in those countries.
Who pays for Arab refugees is inconsequential as long as it’s not us. We owe them and the world Nada!!!
If Jews were ever pressured into considering reparations to Arabs I would deduct the amt, and give it to Jewish refugees and to the costs incurred to the State of Israel from the overall sum.
You are right.
But it might blow up in your face.
The Arabs might offer the Jews a right of return in exchange for a right of return of the Palestinians.