While President Bush and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice hope to reach some kind of peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians by the end of the year that will also include a solution to the problem of Palestinian refugees and their right of return, yesterday the US House of Representatives made an historic decision calling for a solution to the issue of Jewish refugees from Arab countries, as part of any future peace agreement.
850,000 Jews were expelled from their homes in the Arab world when the State of Israel declared its independence, and the property of many was confiscated by the authorities in the Arab countries, without any pretense of compensation..
The US House resolution, recommends to the American mediators in the Middle East that they “guarantee that any decision about the matter of Palestinian refugees In the Middle East also include a similar reference to Jewish, Christian or other refugees from Arab countries.”
The initiators of the decision, legislators from both parties led by New York Congressman Gerald Nadler, welcomed the resolution. Nadler said on Tuesday: Today the House of Representatives has helped shed light on the suffering of Jewish refugees in the Middle East. Their suffering is real and should be recognized. The enforced exile of Jews from Arab countries must be part of the public dialogue in the peace process.”
A BLOW TO DECEPTIVE PROPAGANDA
The resolution by the American Congress, recognizing Jewish refugees from Arab countries in 1948 as absolutely equal to the Palestinian refugees from 1948, is an historic, precedent-setting and dramatic resolution.
From now on, in the diplomatic arena, there are not only “Palestinian refugees.”
The Jewish refugees who came to Israel were housed in temporary refugee camps. They called them transit camps. They underwent difficulties, but no one wished to make them eternal refugees.
However, the Arab refugees who left Israel were also housed in United Nations UNRWA refugee camps. But they were memorialized as an open and bleeding wound and left there, deliberately and on purpose.
[This ran in the April 4th, 2008 edition of the Phila. Bulletin at:
http://www.thebulletin.us/site/printerFriendly.cfm?brd=2737&dept_id=576361&newsid=19452836 ]