Not that the world will do anything, but let’s get these facts out in the open, please.
Twenty-eight Jewish leaders from eight countries met Monday in London to strategize an international campaign to “assert the rights of former Jewish refugees from Arab countries.”
Stanley Urman, president of Justice for Jews from Arab Countries (JJAC), told The Jerusalem Post that the ultimate goal of the campaign is to link Jewish refugees with Palestinian refugees in peace talks.
“Our aim is that, every time there is a Middle East discussion on refugees, instead of discussing only Palestinian refugees they will talk about Jewish refugees who are a result of the Middle East conflict,” he said. “We are interested in ensuring that whatever rights and compensation are received by Palestinian refugees will be given to Jewish refugees of the conflict [as well].”
I’m going to be watching this with great interest.
The Arabs will offer to “allow” the Jewish refugees the Right of Return in exchange for Israel giving the Right of Return to the terrorists. They will know that, not only will the Israelis be unable to commit suicide, but the Jews will never want to give up Israel and commit suicide by “returning” to the Arab countries.
Besides, under the rules of Jewish Double Standard Time any compensation given to the Jewish refugees would never come from the Arab countries and be paid to the Jews. They will insist that the money be paid to the Arab governments by the United States and Israel to be forwarded to any Jews who do resettle in Arab contries (to be used to pay the funeral expenses).
Sabba Hillel has it about right. My guess is that the Arab states will argue (A) that no Jews left, and (B) that they went voluntarily anyway (despite begging them to stay) and (Â C) that they owned nothing, and (D) that they gave it all to the state to pay for the exit visas, and (E) that they are welcome to come back anytime, no hard feelings. What compensation?
Nevertheless, it’s well worth making the linkage between Arab and Jewish refugees, to remind the world that there were many expelled Jews, and to point out the difference in the two sides’ responses to their refugees. The Palestinian refugee problem is the Arabs’ best remaining weapon against Israel, and it needs to be turned back against them. The flight of the Jews from Arab lands is documented and proven, as is their absorption in Israel and the West. Publicizing this raises difficult questions for the Arabs about their guilt in keeping the Palestinians in purgatory.
Paul is quite right that this is the point at which the Arabs will trot out the myth that Jews and Moslems lived in harmony until the Zionists upset things. This is true, but only for a given value of “harmony.” Still, this is a point that should be made, for propaganda purposes, if nothing else, as long as no one expects anything concrete to come of it.
There’s another point I wish Israeli hasbara would bring up. The “right of return” is asserted as if it’s settled that there is such a thing and if it’s ceded the refugees should be compensated for it. Even Isael’s friends tend to concede this point. The “right of return” has little, if any, basis.
Following the First World War Greece and Turkey exchanged certain populations. The Ionian Greeks had lived in Turkey for three thousand years. They didn’t get any compensation. My “Oxford Comapnion to World War II” estimates conservatively that there were forty million displaced people after World War II in Europe, not to mention countless millions in the Indian subcontinent after their parition. There’s a reason why Sudeten Germans and eastern Poles, for example, aren’t living in refugee camps today…or, for that matter, engaging in escalatingly grotesque and savage violence against Czechs and Russians.