Love of the Land: African journalist stumbles on Jewish refugee issue

African journalist stumbles on Jewish refugee issue

Bataween
Point of No Return
06 May '10

All power - or kol hakavod - to the foreign ministry for arranging fact-finding trips to Israel for African journalists, particularly since the temptation exists to invite misleading comparisons with Apartheid, which several might have experienced first-hand. Rhoda Kadalie wrote this article for Business Day after her mission:

"For me this visit was a chance to explore the Israeli narrative, given the dominance of the Palestinian narrative in the national, international and African National Congress discourse. I now realise that much of what I thought about Israel was based on ignorance and assumption. I returned home on Friday understanding why Israel feels assaulted by a world that is blatantly partial and hypocritical. Why Israel is always held to the highest standards of democracy when every other country flouts them intrigues me.

"Sometimes I think the world is jealous of a small country that has turned a desert into a garden, adversity into prosperity . Those who are prejudiced against Israel for ideological reasons do us a disservice when they portray the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in black-and-white terms. It has parallels in the way SA is portrayed in the international media — constant protests and police shooting at people demanding access to water, sanitation and housing . That is not all SA is about. It is the same with Israel, constantly and popularly portrayed as Holocaust survivors who have now turned on disempowered Palestinians. The nuanced nature of the two narratives are lost.

"An interesting statistic about the numbers of Jews that have fled Arab territories since 1948, rarely reported upon, caught my eye in an Israeli newspaper. In Algeria there were 140000 Jews in 1948, by 2008 none; in Morocco there were 250000, today there are about 6000. For more than half a century there was a flight of more than 850000 Jews from Arab lands, which, in effect, means that more Jews were forced to flee Muslim persecution than the approximately 762000 Palestinian Arabs who left their homes in the newly declared state of Israel. "

(Read full story)

Love of the Land: African journalist stumbles on Jewish refugee issue

Love of the Land: The hard truths the UN does not want to hear

The hard truths the UN does not want to hear

Bataween
Point of No Return
28 March '10

When David Littman of the NGO World Union of Progressive Judaism chose to address a poorly attended session about the rights of Jewish refugees from Muslim lands at the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva (sic) on 23 March, it was too much for the vice-president of the session to take: to Littman's point that there were more Jewish refugees than Palestinian Arab refugees, the vice-president blurted out his surprise: "Excuse me, sir?" and promptly cut Littman off. He allowed other delegates to have their say uninterrupted. Via Jihadwatch (With thanks: Eliyahu)



Here is most of David Littman's text:

"Our written statement *contains full facts and figures relating to the British Partition Plan of 1922, by which more than 77% of the 1921 League of Nations designated area of Palestine [120,000 km²] became the Hashemite Emirate of Trans-Jordan, renamed The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in 1946. Then came the UN General Assembly 1947 Partition Plan, whose aim ** was to divide the area west of the river Jordan - covering the remaining 23 percent of the original Mandate area - into "independent Arab and Jewish States", with Jerusalem as a corpus separatum administered directly by the United Nations. This UN 'Partition Plan' was categorically refused by all Arab League countries, five of whom then invaded Israel [- a day after its rebirth on 15 May 1948].

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Love of the Land: The hard truths the UN does not want to hear

Love of the Land: Novel on exodus from 1956 Egypt and Hungary

Novel on exodus from 1956 Egypt and Hungary

Jewish immigrants from Port Said arriving

in Israel in 1958 (Jewish Agency)

Bataween
Point of No Return
26 March '10
Posted before Shabbat

A new novel examines the parallel dislocation in two Jewish refugee stories of 1956, and their resettlement in Israel: one from Egypt and one from Hungary. Adam Kirsch reviews Haim Sabato's novel, 'From the Four Winds', in The Tablet:

It is billed as a work of fiction, but for its first few chapters, From the Four Winds, the new book by the Israeli rabbi and novelist Haim Sabato, reads like a memoir. Sabato begins conversationally, recounting his early memories as a young immigrant to Jerusalem in the late 1950s. In a kind of modern-day Exodus, the Jews of Egypt were expelled after the 1956 Sinai War, and they made their way to Israel by roundabout stages, passing through Italy and Greece along the way. When the Sabatos arrived, they were assigned to a housing project in a new neighborhood in West Jerusalem, which the novelist refers to by its traditional name of Beit Mazmil, though by the time he lived there it had already been renamed Kiryat HaYovel.

The hardships of the Mizrahi immigrants to Israel are more widely known today than they once were, though for American Jews, who are mostly of Ashkenazi descent, the early history of the Jewish state is still more often viewed through the eyes of Eastern European pioneers. Sabato introduces us to this hardscrabble immigrants’ world through the eyes of the child he then was, never certain that he really understood the folkways of his new country. For instance, he is bewildered by the enthusiasm of his fellow second-graders, mostly native Israelis, who are planning their Purim costumes:

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Love of the Land: Novel on exodus from 1956 Egypt and Hungary

Love of the Land: Obama's Victimization of Jewish Refugees from Muslim Countries

Obama's Victimization of Jewish Refugees from Muslim Countries

Daniel Greenfield
Sultan Knish
23 March '10

One of the unreported aspects of Obama's manufactured insult over an Israeli housing project in Jerusalem is the way in which the administration has targeted Jewish refugees from Muslim countries.

While media reports frequently denounced Interior Minister Eli Yishai, as a "Right Wing Extremist", for approving one stage of the planned housing project-- what they did not report was the larger story. Eli Yishai is the head of the Shas party, one of Israel's largest political parties, which represents the interests of Sefardi and Mizrahi Jews from Muslim countries. And the housing project would have benefited Jerusalem's sizable population of Jews from Muslim countries.

In the 20th century a vast exodus took place in which as many as a million Jews from Muslim countries fled or otherwise departed, often leaving behind homes and valuables. Some came to America and Europe. Many more came to Israel instead. Today three million Mizrahi Jews live in Israel, indeed the majority of Israeli Jews are not the "immigrants from Brooklyn" derisively referred to by Israel-bashing pundits, but Jews whose families came to Israel from Muslim countries, or who spent many centuries living in Jerusalem under Muslim dominion.

They came from Yemen, Turkey, Libya, Syria, Morocco, Iran, Egypt, Iraq and Algeria. Some were driven out by enraged Muslim mobs. Others had their children stolen and their property seized by the government. Others remained behind "sand curtains", unable to leave. The ways in which some of these Jews were smuggled out of the country through a virtual "Underground Railroad" is unknown to most. And this is a story that continues today.

Consider the story of one woman who successfully helped smuggle out thousands of Syrian Jews by bribing Syrian government officials. And though she describes the work in terms of the Holocaust, "How do you negotiate the price of human lives? I was breaking up children from their parents. It was like the 1940s – they were desperate to get their children out", in fact the last family she saved was in 2001.

This is what a million Jews from Muslim countries escaped to begin their lives again in Israel. They left behind life in Muslim countries where they were Dhimmis, legally treated as second class citizens under Islamic law. They thought that they had turned their backs on a state of affairs where Muslims could dictate that synagogues should be built no taller than mosques, where their lives were worth less than a Muslim's and were paid for with blood money and forced to live in ghettos. That is until Obama decided to be gravely insulted because they had decided to live in a place that he thought they had no right to live.

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: Obama's Victimization of Jewish Refugees from Muslim Countries

Love of the Land: Land exchanges benefit Arabs disproportionately

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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Love of the Land: Land exchanges benefit Arabs disproportionately

Love of the Land: Jews still owed lion's share of lost property

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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Love of the Land: Jews still owed lion's share of lost property

Love of the Land: New law creates 3 million stakeholders in peace

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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Love of the Land: New law creates 3 million stakeholders in peace

Love of the Land: Far From Home

Far From Home

On the eve of the Iraqi elections, the daughter of Iraqi Jews mourns the destruction of Baghdad’s once-vibrant Jewish community


Marina Benjamin
Tabletmag.com
02 March '10

As Iraq’s March 7 election draws near, I can’t help reflecting on how far the Iraqi nation, now entrenched in factionalism, has departed from the commitment to multiculturalism so vital to its birth. “There is no meaning in the words Jews, Muslims, and Christians in the terminology of patriotism, there is simply a country called Iraq and all are Iraqis,” King Faisal proclaimed in 1921, soon after the British installed him as king. These were fine words, underscored by a constitution that granted all of Iraq’s indigenous minorities equal rights. But Faisal’s valiant experiment in diversity proved short-lived, as I know all too well—my own family was forced into exile in 1951, after the government decided to eject Iraqi Jews en masse from the country.

Actually, it would be more accurate to say my family exploded into exile, atomizing in the process. Some members landed in Israel, some in Iran, and some in North America; my immediate kin escaped first to India and then eventually to the United Kingdom. The dynamite involved was—as is ever the story with Jews—racial hatred, which played itself out in the Iraqi political arena as an inability to resolve escalating tensions between Arab Nationalism and Zionism.

My family was far from alone in being shattered. Iraq’s entire Jewish population—a community with roots in Mesopotamia that pre-date the birth of Islam by a millennium—was unceremoniously ejected from the country between 1950 and 1951. But first the Iraqi government had “denaturalized” the Jews, effectively making them refugees in their own land and rendering them defenseless against marauding gangs eager to harm Jews in a kind of skewed quid pro quo for the displacement of Palestinian Arabs.

(Read full story)

Love of the Land: Far From Home

Love of the Land: Israel's 'crime' : failing to use Jewish refugees

Israel's 'crime' : failing to use Jewish refugees

Bataween
Point of No Return
04 March '10

Israel committed the mistake, nay, the crime, of failing to use the Jewish refugees from Arab countries in putting its case.

Addressing a London audience yesterday at the launch of the English edition of book The Dove Flyer, Eli Amir, the distinguished Baghdad-born writer, did not mince his words. " Why did Israel not use us 850,000 Jewish refugees from Arab countries? There were more of us and we lost more than the 650,000 Palestinian refugees."

Amir commended the passing of the Knesset law last week safeguarding the rights of Jewish refugees but implied it might have come too late. " The Palestinians have won," he said.

Amir urged people to read his novel The Dove Flyer (Mafriah hayonim). When the last Jew disappeared from Iraq, and its Jewish history had been erased, Amir's account of the anti-Jewish atmosphere in Iraq between 1948 and 1951, when 90 percent of the Jewish population was airlifted out to Israel would be the only enduring testament to the presence and persecution of Jews in Iraq." Iraq was the only country to hang Jews because they were Zionsts", he exclaimed. (He might have added that Iraq was the only country to hang Jews in 1969 because they were Jews.)

Amir missed places in Iraq, but he did not miss being 'under the yoke of the Muslims'. He relished Israel as a free and independent state. "We must do everything in our power to maintain it," he said. He himself was a living example that any citizen of Israel, regardless of origin, could 'make it' if he worked hard enough.

Review of The Dove Flyer

Love of the Land: Israel's 'crime' : failing to use Jewish refugees

Love of the Land: Full text of Knesset Law passed 22 February 2010

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'

Love of the Land: Full text of Knesset Law passed 22 February 2010

Love of the Land: 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)

Love of the Land: Israel's answer to the Palestinian 'right of return'

Love of the Land: Jewish refugees must be tied to Palestinian issue

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)

Love of the Land: Jewish refugees must be tied to Palestinian issue

Love of the Land: 'Justice cannot be one-sided': Knesset speaker

'Justice cannot be one-sided': Knesset speaker

Bataween
Point of No Return
16 February '10

The Arab refugee problem was smaller than the Jewish problem, Knesset speaker Reuven Rivlin said at yesterday's prestigious reception to mark the passage of the bill safeguarding the rights of Jewish refugees, reports Israel National News. Others attending were U.S. Congressman Mr. Eliot Engel, Stanley Urman, executive director of Justice for Jews from Arab countries, Former justice minister and member of the Canadian Parliament Prof. Irwin Cotler, former minister Mr Rafi Eitan, Interior Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Rabbi Eli Yishai, Minister Benny Begin, Deputy Foreign Minister, MK Danny Ayalon Deputy Finance Minister, Rabbi Yitzhak Cohen and Immigration and Absorption Committee chairman and MK Lia Shemtov, and representatives of organisations of Jews from Arab countries.

“While Israel is constantly under attack around the world,” Rivlin said, “regarding its approach to the Palestinians and the Palestinian refugees, the world must remember that historic justice cannot be allowed to be selective and one-sided. The fact is that since 1948, Israel has absorbed over a half-million Jewish refugees – and they, too, have rights and demands and financial claims.”

“This matter must be an inseparable part of all negotiations regarding the future of this region,” Rivlin said.

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: 'Justice cannot be one-sided': Knesset speaker

Love of the Land: Rami Khouri alarmed at Knesset refugees bill

Rami Khouri alarmed at Knesset refugees bill

Bataween
Point of No Return
08 February '10

Reports that the Knesset is due shortly to pass a bill recognising the rights of Jewish refugees seem to have attracted little media coverage, still less comment. But one man has been sitting up and taking notice - the Palestinian commentator Rami G Khouri, writing in the Beirut Daily Star. This is what he has to say. My comment follows:

"The complexity of applying a single standard of law and morality to both sides – the critical foundation on which any successful diplomacy must proceed in the Palestinian-Israeli and wider Arab-Israeli conflict – was raised in the second development that caught my eye this week: a draft bill in the Israeli Parliament to compensate Jews who were forced out of or who fled Arab countries after the establishment of Israel in 1948.

"Among the arguments for the bill before the Immigration and Absorption Committee on Tuesday were references to a February 2008 US House of Representatives resolution saying that the United States should demand that Jewish refugees be acknowledged and treated in the same way as Palestinian refugees. The Israeli bill also demands compensation for Jewish communal properties, like synagogues and cemeteries.

"The prevalent Israeli aim in this bill is not to resolve all refugee cases fairly, but to claim that a “population exchange” between Palestinians and Jewish Israelis occurred in 1948. The point is to underline that the Palestinians have no more claims as refugees and, therefore, that there is nothing to be resolved.

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: Rami Khouri alarmed at Knesset refugees bill

Love of the Land: Eloquent refugee piece from our man in Uruguay

Eloquent refugee piece from our man in Uruguay

Bataween
Point of No Return
18 January '10

Roni Goldberg's eloquent piece in Guysen International News (Spanish) 'La Nakba de los judios de los paises arabes' contrasts the two sets of refugees created by the Arab-Israeli conflict - the Palestinians, 'living propaganda'; the Jews, putting the past behind them. It marks a departure from the hitherto 'pusillanimous' approach of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, to a more assertive, rights-based message. At least, we hope it is a harbinger of change. Roni Goldberg is vice-consul at the Israeli embassy in Uruguay.

"The establishment of Israel in 1948 brought with it two migratory movements : the so-called Nakba ( "tragedy") of the Palestinian people, during which some 650,000 Palestinians, according to UNRWA, abandoned their properties and lands to head into exile, and the - no less tragic - exodus of 850,000 Jews who had lived until then in the Arab world, and had to leave everything in their flight toward the Jewish state.

"As is well known, the Palestinian exile over 62 years does not make it a more tragic historical event than the forced exile suffered by Jews in the Arab world.

"The Palestinians left their land in the heat of battle, in which many of them actively participated, although most were told to stay away for a few days or weeks until the nascent Jewish state was swept away and the Jews driven into the sea, then they would be allowed to return, and "all will be yours. " Unfortunately for them, the end was very different. The Jews, however, had to flee en masse from their country leaving everything to escape the pogroms, the unpunished murders and institutional discrimination to which they were subjected by the Arab rulers since even before the institution of the Jewish state, making a peace settlement and their loyal subjects hostage to what happened in distant Palestine. Ancient Jewish communities were condemned to disappear in a short time almost without trace.

(Read full post)

Love of the Land: Eloquent refugee piece from our man in Uruguay

Love of the Land: Shragai piece puts Jewish refugees centre stage

Shragai piece puts Jewish refugees centre stage

Bataween
Point of No Return
08 January '10

Almost a million Jews from Arab countries have suffered persecution and looting of their properties before Israel was established and in its early years. But the State of Israel has never fought for their compensation. Even the US Congress had decided years ago that any compensation to the Palestinians will be conditioned on compensation to Arab Jews. In Israel, only now is a law being debated on a story about suffering and injustice that everyone felt more comfortable ignoring. Nadav Shragai reports for Israel Hayom of 8 January 2010 (Musaf Israel hashavua) :

Levana Vidal-Zamir was ten when the door of her parents' house on Mansur street in Helwan, then a lovely garden city, 25 km from Cairo, was broken down by Egyptian police officers in black uniforms. Even from a distance of 61 years, she vividly remembers the pale faces of her parents Esther and Victor, when they looked helplessly at the uniformed ransackers turning the house upside down, emptying drawers and cupboards and tearing mattresses apart. Levana remembers her uncle Habib was arrested, her brother David attacked, and her family printing business, "Imprimeries Vidal", one of the largest and oldest in Egypt, confiscated. Then their bank accounts were sequestered and their properties auctioned off.



Within days, immediately after the declaration of the State of Israel, the Vidal family lost all its possessions. A similar fate befell thousands of Jewish families in Egypt. During the next few months, the Egyptian authorities arrested approximately 1,300 Jews, only because they were Jews, and threw them into prison. They were never brought before a court, and after a year and a half in prison most of them were deported from Egypt and put directly on to ships.

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: Shragai piece puts Jewish refugees centre stage

Love of the Land: The myth of Jewish colonialism

The myth of Jewish colonialism

Point of No Return
15 December 09

In much discourse about the Middle East, there is a widespread myth that Jews are interlopers from Europe and the US - white westerners who came to ‘colonise’ and ’steal land’ from the ‘native’ Palestinian people to whom it rightfully belongs. This myth, drawing on Marxist terminology, gained increasing legitimacy after 1967 when Israel annexed East Jerusalem and ‘conquered’ the West Bank. The notion of 'occupation' and the use of the word ‘settlers’ reinforce the concept of Israeli ‘colonisation’ of ‘Arab’ land.

Aside from assuming that the Palestinians must be the true natives because they look authentically ‘brown’, the colonialism myth supports another myth: Jews are not a people, deserving of the right to self-determination, but a religion. Thus anti-Zionists habitually talk about of US citizens of the Jewish faith, Germans of the Jewish faith and even Arabs of the Jewish faith. At the time of the French Revolution, Clermont-Tonnerre said of the emancipation of Jews: “We must refuse everything to the Jews as a nation and accord everything to Jews as individuals.” The Jewish community would somehow disappear, leaving only French citizens of Jewish religion or ancestry.

Lately, the notion that Jews are not one people but a motley collection of converts has been given a boost by Tel Aviv Professor Shlomo Sand, whose bestselling book, The Invention of the Jewish People, is now out in English. Sand’s theories build on the work of Arthur Koestler, who popularised the idea that Ashkenazi Jews are descended from the Turkic tribe, the Khazars. Both men undermine the legitimacy of Israel by inferring that Jews have no link to Palestine. Genetic studies, however, discredit Koestler’s theory: they find that Jews from East and West have more in common with each other, and are genetically closer to non-Jews of Middle eastern origin – the Kurds in particular – than they are to the non-Jewish populations they lived amongst.

Last June President Obama articulated another myth: Israel was created as a penance for the Holocaust in Europe. This myth obscures the truth that every Arab state is equally a creation of western colonialism. It also ignores the fact that the institutions of a Jewish state-in-waiting were established decades before Ben Gurion read out Israel’s declaration of independence.

We often hear or read about Israel being populated by pork-munching non-Jewish Russians and settlers from Brooklyn. But these groups are marginal. We almost never hear that 40 percent of Israel’s Jews trace their ancestry from Muslim and Arab lands. The vast majority of these Jews merely moved from one corner of the ‘Arab’ world to that Middle Eastern coastal sliver known as Israel.

Until their expulsion 50 years ago, Jews had been settled in Iraq, for example, since the Babylonians exiled Jews from Jerusalem almost 3,000 years ago. In the early 20th century, Baghdad was the most Jewish city in the world, after Salonica and Jerusalem. The Jews can be said to have as legitimate a claim on Baghdad as Palestinians on Jerusalem.

(Full article)

Love of the Land: The myth of Jewish colonialism

Love of the Land: UNRWA: Perpetuating the Misery

UNRWA: Perpetuating the Misery

Isn't it time for UNRWA's chief to do some soul searching and look beyond blaming Israel?

Honest Reporting/Backspin
10 December 09

Writing in The Guardian, Karen AbuZayd, the outgoing commissioner general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) calls to address the Palestininan refugee question. While apportioning responsibility to Israel, she fails to acknowledge the fate of Jewish refugees in 1948, her own organization's role and the neglect of Palestinian refugees by their own leadership and fellow Arab states.

AbuZayd states:

Make no mistake, not a single conflict of contemporary times has been resolved, no durable peace achieved, unless and until the voices of the victims of those conflicts were heard, their losses acknowledged and redress found to injustices they experience. The precedents of recent peacemaking efforts and the methodology of contemporary conflict resolution affirm that giving high priority to resolving dispossession and the plight of refugees is a necessity, an international obligation and a humanitarian imperative.

While UNRWA may be concerned solely with the plight of Palestinians refugees (more on this definition later), how can AbuZayd make the above statement without reference to the Jewish refugees who were forced to flee from their homes in Arab countries after the creation of the State of Israel? As Avi Beker writes:

Although they exceed the numbers of the Palestinian refugees, the Jews who fled are a forgotten case. Whereas the former are at the very heart of the peace process with a huge UN bureaucratic machinery dedicated to keeping them in the camps, the nine hundred thousand Jews who were forced out of Arab countries have not been refugees for many years. Most of them, about 650,000, went to Israel because it was the only country that would admit them. Most of them resided in tents that after several years were replaced by wooden cabins, and stayed in what were actually refugee camps for up to twelve years. They never received any aid or even attention from the UN Relief And Works Agency (UNRWA), the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, or any other international agency. Although their plight was raised almost every year at the UN by Israeli representatives, there was never any other reference to their case at the world body.

Referring to an April 2008 US House of Representatives resolution on Jewish refugees, Lyn Julius argues that it:

(Full article)

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Love of the Land: UNRWA: Perpetuating the Misery

Love of the Land: A "dirty little secret"

A "dirty little secret"

Every time someone writes, speaks of ‘Palestinians’ a myth is reinforced

Moshe Dann
Ynet/Opinion
30 September 09

The establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, the Nakba (catastrophe) for Arabs, and the aggression by five well-armed Arab countries, assisting local Arab gangs and militias that had been attacking Jews for years, placed Jews in Israel and the state in mortal danger.

Fighting back, Israel eventually negotiated an armistice in 1949 that allowed a respite from open war, albeit not terrorism, and without peace. The Egyptians occupied the Gaza Strip; the Jordanians occupied Judea, Samaria and the eastern part of Jerusalem, including the Old City and Temple Mount; Syria continued to occupy the Golan Heights, from which it constantly shelled Israeli settlements; all trained and supplied terrorists who raided Israel. The UN did nothing.

Arabs who left homes and property in Israel and many from other countries who joined Arab armies and did not want to return, remained in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, most as "refugees" under the care of UNRWA.

This heterogeneous population was called "Arab refugees," not "Palestinians," because at the time there was no such group, or people.

One reason they were called "Arab refugees" was because there were many other refugees in Palestine, who were Jewish. Hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees from Arab countries streamed into Israel. UNRWA offered no aid, although Jewish refugees had lost everything and the newly established state had few resources.

It took a crafty Egyptian, Yasser Arafat, to create the PLO with his friends to promote the destruction of Israel and the return of Arab refugees. Arab countries saw them as convenient proxies in their war against Israel, to "liberate Palestine."

Except for Jordan, no Arab host country permitted the newcomers to obtain citizenship; as temporary residents, their civil and humanitarian rights were harshly restricted.

The designation "Palestinian" did not become widely accepted until after the war in 1967, in which Israel, in self-defense, captured areas that had been assigned to a Jewish State by the League of Nations and Mandate, and then occupied by Arab countries: Judea, Samaria, and eastern Jerusalem; the Gaza Strip, Golan Heights, rich in Jewish history and archeology, and the Sinai Peninsula.

As the PLO launched mega-terrorist attacks around the world, "Palestinianism" became accepted, backed by the Arab League, Muslim and "non-aligned" countries, and the United Nations.

As the proportion of anti-Israel countries in the UN grew, "Palestinians" were given more and more recognition, support and legitimacy, unlike any other group.

And the fraud worked! It worked so well because the world's media accepted the Palestinians' self-definition and their cause. Even the Israeli media, politicians and jurists adopted this myth. Academics promoted "Palestinian archeology," "Palestinian society and culture." Every time someone writes or speaks of "Palestinians" it reinforces this myth.

‘Liberating Palestine’

Most major newspapers use only the term "West Bank" – a Jordanian reference from 1950 to distinguish the area from the "East Bank" – rather than its authentic names, Judea and Samaria, apparently to deny its Jewish history.

"Palestinian" came to mean Arabs who lived in Judea, Samaria and Gaza – as well as those in UNRWA-sponsored "refugee camps" in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan, and hundreds of thousands of "Palestinians" living throughout the world. By UNRWA's unique and controversial definition, anyone who claims to live or have lived in Palestine, and all descendents, forever, are considered "Palestinian," with full rights and privileges.

Spread among 58 "refugee camps" (in many cases entire towns) UNRWA's over half-billion dollar budget supports about 1.5 million "refugees in camps" and 5 million "registered refugees;" the total population is expected to reach 7 or 8 million next year, and growing.

As Palestinian nationalism spread among Israeli Arabs, the term became an identity magnet for Arabs on both sides of the 1949 Armistice Line – the "Green Line," as well as those living in other countries. Today, "Palestinian" can be anyone who for whatever reason identifies as such, including their children, grandchildren, etc.

This amalgam of national identity is possible because "Palestinian" is not a separate, unique linguistic, cultural, ethnic, religious or racial group. Nor does this motley group, currently led by Fatah and Hamas terrorist organizations, aspire to a country with clearly defined borders. Their goal is not statehood, but exterminating the Jews, thereby "liberating Palestine."

The success of "Palestinianism" is a tribute to what money, influence and Jew-hatred will buy and attract. That Jewish and Israeli media and NGO's support Palestinianism stems from liberal ideals of helping those who are less fortunate, the underdog, and even a genuine, although misdirected desire to live in peace, a supreme Jewish value.

Although there's probably no way to prevent the notion of "Palestiniansm" from spreading, there's no reason to ignore it, and less to accept it. Arabs of Palestine are entitled to civil and human rights in the countries in which they have resided for generations. That there needs to be a second Arab Palestinian state, in addition to Jordan, which was carved out of Palestine and whose population is two-thirds "Palestinian," and whether such a state will resolve all the attendant problems is extremely doubtful.

That the State of Israel should commit suicide to accomplish this goal is unthinkable.

The author, a former assistant professor of History, is a writer and journalist living in Israel.

Love of the Land: A "dirty little secret"

Love of the Land: Putting First Things First-Sovling The Arab Refugee Problem

Putting First Things First-Sovling The Arab Refugee Problem

Rael Jean Isaac and Ruth King
Mideast Outpost
September 09

Editors Note: In the September 2003 Outpost we published the first version of this article entitled “Putting First Things Last: The 55 Year Failure to Address the Arab Refugee Problem.” The failure is now 61 years old and we felt it was time to say it again: the integration of the refugees into Arab countries is a prerequisite for any meaningful agreement. We published an updated version of our 2003 article on the Family Security Matters website on August 12, 2009. We reprint that article—slightly expanded—because this issue has been neglected by Jewish organizations almost as badly as by diplomats, Middle East experts and the media. If Jewish organizations, each time the issue of settlements was raised, would say “No, the core issue is refugees, with their claimed ‘right of return,’ What are you doing to resettle them in Arab countries?” they could force a shift in the terms of the debate.

The Rogers Plan of 1969, like all subsequent and ill-fated efforts to resolve the Arab-Israel conflict, tabled the issue of the Palestinian "refugees," leaving it for "final status" negotiations. "It is our hope," said the Rogers Plan, "that agreement on the key issues of peace, security, withdrawal and territory will create a climate in which these questions of refugees...can be resolved as part of the overall settlement."

But this is to put first things last. As the passage of time has made abundantly clear, the issue of "refugees" remains the defining obstacle to any reconciliation in the region. Pretending to negotiate, without addressing this issue at the outset, is like operating on a patient and leaving a growing cancer intact. Had it been confronted in 1949, the prospects for finding a subsequent modus vivendi between Israel and the Arabs would have been vastly improved.

President Obama has promised a fresh perspective on issues, to bring "change" in the old ways of doing things. There is no better place to start than by confronting the core issue of the Arab refugees head on—and putting responsibility for solving it on the only ones who can do so, the Arab states.

When the problem of the Arab refugees was at last put on the table at Camp David in the year 2000, the issue blew up the tattered remnant of the Oslo "peace process." Then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak thought he had a winning formula. Israel would make a virtually total territorial withdrawal to the 1949 armistice lines. In return, all that would be asked of the Palestinian Authority was to abandon the "right to return," i.e. to eliminate, via demography, the Jewish state. If the Arab-Israel conflict was susceptible to solution via "land for peace," Barak should have had a deal. But Arafat refused to give up the "right to return" and launched outright war, including the most deadly series of terrorist attacks in Israel's history.

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Love of the Land: Putting First Things First-Sovling The Arab Refugee Problem