Ashrawi claims no Jewish refugees from Arab countries

In an article published over the weekend in a number of Arab media outlets, PLO Executive Committee member Hanan Ashrawi claimed that there is no such thing as Jewish refugees from Arab countries.

In an article published in a number of Arab media outlets, Ashrawi, who is also an elected member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, said that the "claim that Jews who emigrated to Israel, which is supposed to be their homeland, are 'refugees' who were uprooted from their homelands…is a form of deception and delusion."

She explained: "If Israel is their homeland, then they are not 'refugees'; they are emigrants who returned either voluntarily or due to a political decision."

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"Arab Jews were part of the Arab region, but they began emigrating to Israel after its establishment," Ashrawi, argued. "They did so in accordance with a forethought plan by the Jewish Agency to bring Jews from all around the world to build the State of Israel."

Ashrawi did, nonetheless, acknowledge that "some Arab countries at that time were ruled by tyrannical regimes."

But, she noted, "all citizens, regardless of their religion, were subjected to suffering. Jews were not singled out, although there had been some suspicious incidents of persecution or individual violence [against Jews] to encourage them to emigrate [to Israel.]. The emigration of Jews was a voluntary act that was influenced by factors of pressure and temptation by Zionist movements and the Jewish Agency."

Ashrawi called for drawing a distinction between Arab and Jewish refugees.

Zionist gangs, she said, "forced Palestinians out of the land that had belonged to the Palestinian people for thousands of years, while Jews voluntarily and collectively left."

Ashrawi also voiced hope that Jews would be allowed to return to Arab countries. She claimed that Iraq and Morocco have welcomed the return of Jews.

"We expect the Arab countries to welcome the return of their Jewish citizens in the context of democratic regimes that respect pluralism," Ashrawi stressed. "From a legal perspective, the first right - before compensation - is the right of return of the refugee to his/her original homeland."

President Hussein Obama also wants to send Jewish refugees back to Arab countries.

But Ashrawi is totally wrong. Here is Yossi Ben Aharon, a former Director General of the Prime Minister's office.

Over the years, Arab and Palestinian spokesmen have presented a strong case regarding the plight of the Palestinian refugees. They have argued that the Palestinians are the original owners of the land, the Jews were foreign invaders who took it by force, and as a result, the Palestinian refugees became the innocent victims of the Arab-Israel conflict. Hence, they insist on the "right of return" of the Palestinians to the land and properties they left in 1948.

This narrative ignores another aspect of the story. Shortly after the November 1947 Partition Plan was passed by the UN, a wave of anti-Jewish pogroms took place in several Arab countries. By May 1948, the situation of Jews in these countries became untenable. The Arab invasion of Israel triggered a massive movement of populations in opposite directions. Jews fled to Israel and Arabs fled to the countries bordering on Palestine. In making their case, the Arabs have consistently refrained from acknowledging the mass exodus of some 800,000 Jews from Arab countries. Jewish communities had lived in the Arab world long before the advent of Islam - and before the Arabs gained their identity as a people.

SUCCESSIVE governments of Israel have embraced a proposal to conduct a survey of Jewish property which was confiscated by Arab governments, or left behind by Jews who were expelled or who emigrated to Israel. The idea is to prepare a dossier for negotiations on the refugee issue and addressing possible claims for restitution by both sides.

In fact, the United Nations colluded in the Jews' expulsion from Arab countries.

While it is known up to 850,000 Jews left Arab countries after the post-war division of the Palestine mandate, the group is holding a news conference to highlight a rediscovered Arab League "draft law" that suggests a pan-Arab conspiracy was at play.

The new assessment comes just ahead of a major Israeli-Palestinian peace conference in Annapolis, Md., where the rights of millions of descendants of up to 600,000 Palestinian refugees of the Arab-Israeli conflict will be discussed -- but not the rights of Jews squeezed from Arab countries.

Without the inter-Arab draft, the measures individual Arab states took against their Jewish citizens may not have been so widespread, the researchers will say. Only 8,000 Jews remain in 10 Arab countries today that once hosted many more.

"We will show that the various state sanctions in Arab countries did not occur haphazardly, but were the result of an international collusion organized by the League of Arab States at the time to set in place a blueprint for the denationalization of their Jewish nationals, the sequestrations of their property and the declaration of Jews as enemies of the state," Mr. Cotler said.

He said he and his research colleagues will also present evidence showing the United Nations failed to investigate the matter, in part because an Arab League representative ran the agenda at one of its key debating chambers.

"It is now clear the United Nations has played a singular role in expunging the whole question of Jewish refugees from Arab countries on the Middle East agenda for the last 60 years," Mr. Cotler said.

Yet another 'Palestinian' lie by Ms. Ashrawi....