[tgs]

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/125772

US Congress Recognizes Jewish Refugees From Arab Lands

27 Adar Bet 5768, 03 April 08 09:39by Hillel Fendel

(IsraelNN.com) U.S. House Resolution 185, adopted on Tuesday, recognizes for the first time the rights of Jews who became refugees as a result of the Arab-Israeli conflict. The Resolution expresses "the sense of the House of Representatives regarding the creation of refugee populations."

The non-binding bill asks the President to ensure that in all international forums, when the issue of Middle East refugees is discussed, US representatives will make sure that any explicit reference to Palestinian Arab refugees is matched by a similar explicit reference to Palestinian Jewish and other refugees.

The bill's sponsors aimed to increase awareness of the fact that not only is there an Arab/Palestinian refugee issue as a result of the Middle East conflict, but that Jews, as well, lost their homes and livelihoods under similar circumstances. It is estimated that 850,000 Jews were displaced from their homes, often under threats and with violence, as a result of Israel's War of Independence and afterwards.

Many note that while many of the Arabs living in the Land of Israel left their homes voluntarily, goaded on by Arab promises that they would come back as victors and be able to displace the Jews, the Jews in Arab countries were generally expelled under duress and violence.

"We believe this Resolution will produce a more balanced and accurate historical account," stated JIMENA (Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa), "and ultimately, a more just resolution to the Arab-Israeli conflict."

JIMENA, which lobbied heavily for the bill, is a human rights organization that educates and advocates for the plight of Jewish refugees from the Middle East. It was co-founded by Regina Bubil-Waldman, whose family was nearly murdered - twice - while escaping from Libya in 1967.

JIMENA notes that before 1948, approximately 850,000 Jews lived in Muslim countries of the Middle East, North Africa, and the Persian Gulf, while today, 99% percent of these ancient Jewish communities no longer exist due to Arab and Islamic government actions that led directly to their displacement.

The Jews in Arab/Moslem countries, according to JIMENA, were subjected to a wide-spread pattern of persecution, including official decrees and legislation denying human and civil rights to Jews and other minorities, expropriation of their property, nullification of their citizenship, and the stripping of other means of livelihood. Jews in Arab lands prior to and following the creation of the State of Israel were often victims of murder, arbitrary arrest and detention, torture, and expulsions.

Since 1947, the United Nations General Assembly has adopted close to 700 resolutions on the Middle East conflict, including 101 resolutions on Palestinian refugees - yet there were "no UN resolutions, nor any recognition or assistance from the international community, for Jewish and other refugees from Arab countries," said Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL).%ad%

The passage of the resolution was the result of a bi-partisan House effort spearheaded by Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), along with Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), Michael Ferguson (R-NJ), and Joseph Crowley (D-NY).

"Discussions of Middle Eastern refugees invariably focus exclusively, and shortsightedly, on the plight of those of Palestinian descent," said Rep. Ros-Lehtinen. "Far fewer people are aware of the injustice faced by Jewish refugees from Arab lands and Iran. Many Jews saw their communities, which had existed vibrantly for centuries, systematically dismantled. They lost their resources, their homes, and their heritage sites, fleeing in the face of persecution, pogroms, revolutions and brutal dictatorships."

[S.T.D.]

US Congress Recognizes Jewish Refugees From Arab Lands

Why, what's the point? And how are Jews who returned to Israel "refugees"? Shouldn't we be happy that Jews are back in Israel instead of all this drama? Don't you wish Hitler and the Poles did the same as the Arabs instead of the Holocaust and post-Holocaust? Would a situation like in Soviet Union, where Jews weren't allowed to leave be better?

[tgs]

I think it's a significant event and should have been laid on the table many moons ago because:

1. It targets the myth that all Jews in Israel are colonists from ze Rhineland.
2. It makes the case that the PalArabs are not the only refugees in the middle east (refugee is the word that will be used, repatriates is not going to fly within your opponent's airspace, not now not ever) .

So every time someone demands or mentions the PalArab right of return for the 750,000 or so the expulsion of 850,000 Jews from Arab lands can be whipped out as a might hammer of STFU-ness.

[doctorzlo]

I am also glad that the Jews from the Arab countries in which they sojourned for over a thousand years, have come home, but here is the thing. Why should they have been forced to return home with nothing but the clothes on their backs? Why shouldn't they get compensated for leaving virtually ALL of their belongings (including houses) back in those countries?

[9mm_fan]

It's really about political symmetry. If the Palestinians press the issue there is an equally valid argument for the Jews. That is, it's essentially a wash or invalid.

[9mm_fan]

The problem is that the Arabs, the likes of Qadaffi or Moroccan Monarch will just issue a statement for their "beloved" Jews to "Come back" and sing kumbaya for the beloved old times on the thousand years of "coexistence " and the horrible Zionists who had ruined it all. While all parties knowing full well that behind that stands absolutely nothing..... may be that's why the issue was never really pushed that much.

[S.T.D.]

Becasue there was a war waged on them, and they neither won it or settled. So, no, they have no claims in that region. None whatsoever. They should be happy they are alive.

You're joking right?!?! They have no claim to their belongings

How easy for those of us, who were not run out of our countries with nothing but the clothes on our backs, to tell others that they should be happy just to be alive

[Raj_Copi_Jin]

And many were also killed, many men (and children) who had nothing to do with anything were killed or arrested on trumped up charges of being "zionist spies." These stories need to be shouted from the roof tops and exposed, lest anyone else believe the GREAT LIE that the Arab world treated Jews with respect and kindness before Israel's independence in 1948.

No one believes the Arab world will give back a dime of the billions they stole from the Jews, but this is only to expose them as hypocrites and to pay our respects to our brothers who lost all their belongings and sometimes their lives.