Jewish
and Palestinian Refugees
A
response to the article: 'The problem with Israel's Jewish 'refugee'
initiative'
in the December 16, 2010 edition of the UK paper, The Guardian
(PDF)
by David Matas
Justice
for Jewish refugees from Arab countries should, it seems, be
an uncontroversial position. Who, after all, favours injustice?
Yet,
Rachel Shabi in an opinion piece in the Guardian on December
16th, 2010 under the title "The problem with Israel's Jewish
'refugee' initiative" labelled the call for justice as
"cheap political point-scoring." That is an odd response
to a call for justice. Shabi
does not claim that there was no injustice, no history of mistreatment
of Jews from Arab countries. She acknowledges that Jewish properties
and possessions in Arab countries were impounded, that Arab
governments sacrificed Jewish communities for short term political
expediency.
Shabi
does not claim that the call for justice arose recently. She
dates it from the 1970s, though, in fact, it existed long before
that. Shabi questions the sincerity of those who call for justice,
Israeli deputy foreign Minister Danny Ayalon and the organization
Justice for Jews from Arab Countries (JJAC), arguing
that neither is "genuinely concerned" with justice
for Jews form Arab countries because they have not proposed
"setting up heritage centres to commemorate Jewish life
in Arab lands". Yet, JJAC has proposed exactly that
for many years. For instance, in November 2004, JJAC
issued a statement calling for "Building a Museum to preserve
and portray the vibrant, 2,300 year heritage and history of
the Jewish Community of Libya".
Shabi
also charges the advocates with insincerity because of their
attempt "to corral the subject into the frame of Palestinian
refugee claims". Yet, equality is an element of justice.
When there are two victims, both similarly victimized, then
both should receive justice. When one does and the other does
not, the victim without redress is doubly victimized, the first
time by the original injustice, the second time by the inequality
of treatment.
Shabi
argues that there is a difference between Palestinian and Jewish
refugees because some Jewish refugees do not like being called
refugees but rather would prefer to be described as being "uprooted"
from Arab lands. This argument is terminological flim flam.
Moreover,
it ignores the history of Palestinian refugees. For decades,
Palestinians rejected the refugee label. The PLO objected as
late as 1974, to the component of the 1967 UN Resolution
242 which calls for "a just settlement of the refugee
problem" not because it recognizes, by implication, that
Jews from Arab countries were also refugees, but rather because,
so the PLO said it "deals with their (the PLO'S) cause
as a reugee problem". Palestinian
refugee rights did not arise for the first time when Palestinians,
relatively late in their history, embraced the refugee label.
Nor do Jewish refugee rights cease to exist for those Jewish
refugees who reject the refugee label. Human rights are inalienable.
Shabi
argues that there is no real parallel between Jewish and Palestinian
refugees because the Jews have a homeland and the Palestinians
do not. Yet, most refugees do not want to be where they are.
What is unusual about the plight of Palestinians, compared to
refugees generally, is the unwillingness of the governments
of countries in which many of them are found to offer local
integration and the virulent rejection by the Palestinian leadership
of offers of resettlement.
Shabi
questions why Israel should represent Jewish refugees claiming
redress for injustice. One answer is that the loss for that
injustice was suffered not just by individual Jews, but, for
Jews from Arab countries who got refuge in Israel, also by Israel.
It was Israel who had to rehabilitate Jewish refugees in Israel
from Arab countries, establish them and treat them for the physical
and psychological wounds they suffered before flight.
As
well, the government of every country should stand up for respect
for human rights. It is hardly surprising that a Jewish state
would stand up for the rights of Jewish victims. The real question
would arise only if Israel did not do so. Shabi asks whether
the claim for justice for Jewish refugees would arise if there
were no Palestinian refugees. The answer to that is certainly
yes. A claim for justice arises whenever there is an injustice.
Jews
from Arab countries were victims of a great wrong. Communities
which existed for thousands of years, from well before the advent
of Islam, were brutally expelled, 850,000 in total, their assets
confiscated, and their institutions destroyed. How does one
remedy that wrong? The belated Palestinian adoption of the refugee
vocabulary presents an opportunity. If the wrong to Jewish refugees
will not be remedied in isolation, then, maybe it will be remedied
in the overall context of redress for refugee outflows sparked
by the Arab invasions of Israel in 1948.
Shabi
calls what Ayalon and JJAC have done "possibly the
worst sort of advocacy for Middle Eastern Jews." Yet, in
reality, what we are seeing now is the Jewish NGO world - in
this instance through JJAC - and the Government of Israel
at its best, acting as it has done to bring Nazi war criminals
to justice and pursue Holocaust compensation, standing up for
Jewish victims, taking advantage of an opportunity presented
by the twists and turns of history - in this case the peace
negotiations and the claims of Palestinian refugees - to do
so.
David
Matas is an international human rights lawyer based
in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada and Honorary Counsel to JJAC.
