by David M. Weinberg
Last month, Ottawa once
again took the international lead in raising an issue important to
Israel and Middle East peace. The Harper government initiated hearings
on the matter of Jewish refugees from Arab countries in the Canadian
parliament.
The hearings are part
of a new push by Jewish groups (including Canada’s Center for Israel and
Jewish Affairs, which I represent in Israel, and the World Jewish
Congress) to highlight the plight of the Jewish refugees in the context
of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The issue is important because it
highlights the justice of Israel as the legitimate expression of an
indigenous Middle Eastern people.
Shimon Koffler Fogel,
CEO of the Center for Israel and Jewish Affairs, told the Canadian House
of Commons Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International
Development that Canada should officially recognize the persecution and
displacement of over 850,000 Jews from the Middle East and North Africa.
“Much of the Arab-Israeli peace process is about validation, of the
legitimacy of Israel as a Jewish state and the recognition of the
Palestinians as a people,” he said. “Redress for Jews displaced from
Arab countries is another example of this, and needs to be included for
true and lasting peace to be achieved.”
Fogel noted that
“Achieving peace in the Middle East is not a zero-sum game. The rights
and claims of one group need not come at the expense of or displace
those of the other. And thus, the purpose of incorporating the historic
claims of Jewish refugees from Arab countries is not to diminish or
compete with the claims of Palestinian refugees. The inclusion of the
issue of Jewish refugees is meant to complete, not revise, the
historical record.”
As gavel-holder of the
multilateral refugee working group (a moribund product of the 1991
Madrid Peace Conference), Canada is uniquely placed to raise the profile
of the Jewish refugee issue and to ensure that it is given the fair
consideration it merits.
The initiative in
Canada needs to be repeated everywhere. In fact, there is a bill pending
introduction in the US Congress which will require the State Department
to report annually on what it has done to advance the Jewish refugee
issue.
Why is this issue so
important? Because it establishes that Israel is not a “foreign implant”
in the Middle East; that Israel is not a mere by-product of the Nazi
Holocaust and of European war guilt. Rather, some 50 percent of the
Jewish citizenry of today’s Israel descends from Jewish refugees from
Arab countries; Jews who lived in Middle East communities that stretch
back 3,000 years.
As such, modern Israel
is the legitimate expression of the self-determination of an oppressed,
indigenous, Middle Eastern people. Israel is the nation-state of Jews
from Arab countries with a long history in the Middle East; of Middle
East Jews who were ethnically-cleansed from Arab countries in the
twentieth century, both prior to and mostly after the establishment of
the State of Israel in 1948.
This levels the playing
field in international debate over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It
makes it clear that Israel deserves and demands justice just as much as
the Palestinians do, if not more so.
Note this as well: The
differences in the two refugee experiences could not be starker. Unlike
Palestinian refugees who fled war, Jewish refugees fled systematic
persecution. Unlike Palestinian refugees who for seven decades cynically
have been kept in deprivation and isolation by their Arab brothers,
Jewish refugees have been welcomed and were successfully absorbed by
their brethren (mainly in Israel, but also in Diaspora Jewish
communities). Unlike Palestinian refugees, the narrative of Jewish
refugees has all but been ignored.
That Jews displaced
from Arab countries were indeed bona fide refugees, under international
law, is beyond question. This was recognized by the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees in 1957 and 1967. An international committee
of legal experts, co-chaired by Prof. Irwin Cotler and David Matas,
produced an unassailable report which
documents strong political and legal arguments for the legitimate
rights of Jews displaced from Arab countries. And Stanley A. Urman,
executive director of Justice For Jews From Arab Countries, wrote a Ph.D. thesisdocumenting the U.N.’s differential treatment of Arab and Jewish Middle East refugees.
There is no reason for
any person involved in Middle Eastern affairs to be unaware of this
important issue, and no excuse for the fact that to-date few pro-Israel
activists have made this an important part of their advocacy. (Judy Feld
Carr, the heroine who almost single-handedly smuggled Syrian Jewry out
Syria, is a laudable exception. In the 70s and 80s she ran a Canadian
Jewish Congress effort on this matter, and was a founding member of the
now-defunct World Organization of Jews from Arab Countries).
It is high time for us all to get educated. There is an excellent educational unitproduced
by Justice For Jews From Arab Countries available to teach students
about the history, heritage and subsequent plight and flight of Jews
from Arab countries. There are good resources online also from Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa(JIMENA), and a blog called "Point of No Return."
Key books on the topic
are "Forgotten Millions: The Modern Jewish Exodus from Arab Lands," by
Malka Hillel Shulewitz (Bloomsbury Academic); "The Case of the Jews From
Arab Countries: A Neglected Issue," by Maurice M. Roumani (WOJAC); "In
Ishmael's House: A History of Jews in Muslim Lands," by Martin Gilbert
(Yale); "The Jews of Islam," by Bernard Lewis (Princeton); and two JPS
books by Norman A. Stillman: "Jews of Arab Lands: A History and Source
Book," and "The Jews of Arab Lands in Modern Times."
The State of Israel has
been slow to recognize the importance of this issue. Only last fall,
Israel's then-deputy foreign minister, Danny Ayalon, launched the “I am a
Refugee” campaign in a bid to create parity between the struggle of
Jewish and Palestinian refugees. The Israeli Ministry for Senior
Citizens is currently running a radio campaign to collect testimonies
and claims from Arab-born Jews. A bill has been tabled in the Knesset by
Likud-Beiteinu MK Shimon Ohayon to set November 30 as the Memorial Day
for Jewish Refugees from Arab countries. And only last week, Sir Martin
Gilbert's book, "In Ishmael's House," was released in Israel in its
Hebrew translation.
It is important to note
that this initiative is not about money, nor about launching legal
proceedings to seek compensation. It is about rights and recognition --
that Jews were victimized and became refugees; and about equality --
that the international community must recognize equal rights for all
Middle East refugees.
As Prof. Cotler says:
"In the absence of truth and justice, there can be no reconciliation.
And without reconciliation, there can be no just, lasting peace between
all peoples of the region."
David M. Weinberg
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=4659
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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