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JEWISH REFUGEES FROM ARAB COUNTRIES
The Case for Rights and
Redress
Jews and Jewish communities have existed
in the Middle East, North Africa and the Gulf region in substantial
numbers for more than 2,500 years - fully one thousand years before
the advent of Islam.
With the creation of the State
of Israel in 1948, the status of Jews in Arab countries changed
dramatically as virtually all Arab states in the region declared
war or backed the war to destroy Israel. These events triggered
a dramatic surge in a longstanding pattern of discrimination and
abuse that made the lives of Jews in Arab countries simply untenable.
Jews were either uprooted from their countries of birth or became
subjugated political hostages in the Arab world’s struggle
against Israel. In virtually all cases, as Jews fled, individual
and communal properties were seized and/or confiscated without any
compensation provided by the Arab governments involved.
The international definition of
a refugee clearly applies to Jews who fled the persecution of Arab
regimes:
A refugee
is a person who "owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted
for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular
social group, or political opinion, is outside the country of
his nationality, and is unable to or, owing to such fear, is unwilling
to avail himself of the protection of that country...The
1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees"
When the issue of refugees is raised within
the context of the Middle East, people invariably refer to Palestinian
refugees, not former Jewish refugees from Arab countries. Yet, there
were two major population movements that occurred during years of
turmoil in the Middle East. In fact, there were more former Jewish
refugees uprooted from Arab countries (over 850,000) than there were
Palestinians who became refugees in 1948. (UN estimate: 726,000)
The legitimate call to secure rights and redress for Jews who were
forced to flee Arab countries is not a campaign against Palestinian
refugees; nor is it about launching legal proceedings to seek compensation.
It is an initiative to ensure that the plight of former Jewish refugees
from Arab countries be placed on the international political agenda
as a quest for truth and justice and that their rights be secured
as a matter of law and equity.
No just, comprehensive Middle
East peace can be reached without recognition of, and redress for,
the uprooting of centuries-old Jewish communities in the Middle
East and North Africa by Islamic regimes hostile to the State of
Israel. It would not be appropriate, and would constitute an injustice,
were the United States to recognize rights for Palestinian refugees
without recognizing equal rights for former Jewish and other refugees
from Arab countries.
Legal and Political Bases for the Rights of Former
Jewish Refugees
In 2002, Justice for Jews
from Arab Countries convened an international Committee of
Legal Experts,
co-chaired by Prof. Irwin Cotler and David Matas, that produced
a report entitled: Jewish
Refugees from Arab Countries: The Case for Rights and Redress;.
This report, released in 2004, documents strong political and legal
arguments for the legitimate rights of Jews displaced from Arab
countries. The following are examples:
A) United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
On two occasions, in 1957 and again in 1967,
the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) determined
that Jews fleeing from Arab countries were refugees who fell within
the mandate of the UNHCR.
“Another emergency problem
is now arising: that of refugees from Egypt. There is no doubt in
my mind that those refugees from Egypt who are not able, or not
willing to avail themselves of the protection of the Government
of their nationality fall under the mandate of my office.”
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Mr. Auguste Lindt, United Nations High Commissioner
for Refugees, Report of the UNREF Executive Committee, Fourth Session
– Geneva 29 January to 4 February, 1957.
“I refer to our recent
discussion concerning Jews from Middle Eastern and North African
countries in consequence of recent events. I am now able to inform
you that such persons may be considered prima facie within the mandate
of this Office.”
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Dr. E. Jahn, Office of the UN High Commissioner,
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Document No. 7/2/3/Libya,
July 6, 1967:
B) UN Resolution(s)
On November 22nd, 1967, the Security
Council unanimously adopted, Resolution 242, laying down the principles
for a peaceful settlement in the Middle East. Still considered the
primary vehicle for resolving the Arab-Israel conflict, Resolution
242 stipulates that a comprehensive peace settlement should necessarily
include “a just settlement of the refugee problem.”
No distinction is made between Arab refugees and Jewish refugees.
The international community’s
intention to have Resolution 242 include the rights of Jewish refugees
is evidenced by the fact that during the UN debate, the Soviet Union’s
delegation attempted to restrict the “just settlement”
mentioned in Resolution 242 solely to Palestinian refugees. (S/8236,
discussed by the Security Council at its 1382nd meeting of November
22, 1967, notably at paragraph 117, in the words of Ambassador Kouznetsov
of the Soviet Union). This attempt failed clearly signaling the
intention of the international community not to restrict the “just
settlement of the refugee problem” merely to Palestinian refugees.
Moreover, Justice Arthur Goldberg,
the United States’ Chief Delegate to the United Nations, who
was instrumental in drafting the unanimously adopted U.N. Resolution
242, has pointed out that:
“A notable omission in 242
is any reference to Palestinians, a Palestinian state on the West
Bank or the PLO. The resolution addresses the objective of ‘achieving
a just settlement of the refugee problem.’ This language presumably
refers both to Arab and Jewish refugees, for about an equal number
of each abandoned their homes as a result of the several wars….”
C) Multilateral Initiatives
The Madrid Conference, which was
first convened in October 1991, launched historic, direct negotiations
between Israel and many of her Arab neighbors.
In his opening remarks at a conference
convened to launch the multilateral process held in Moscow in January
1992, then-U.S. secretary of state James Baker made no distinction
between Palestinian refugees and Jewish refugees in articulating
the mandate of the Refugee Working Group as follows: “The
refugee group will consider practical ways of improving the lot
of people throughout the region who have been displaced from their
homes.”
The Roadmap to Middle East peace
currently being advanced by the Quartet (the U.N., EU, U.S., and
Russia also refers in Phase III to an “agreed, just, fair
and realistic solution to the refugee issue”, language applicable
both to Palestinian and Jewish refugees.
D) Bilateral
Arab-Israeli Agreements
Israeli agreements with her Arab neighbors allow for a case to be
made that Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinians have affirmed that
a comprehensive solution to the Middle East conflict will require
a “just settlement” of the “refugee problem”
that will include recognition of the rights and claims of all Middle
East refugees:
Israel – Egypt Agreements
The Camp David Framework for Peace
in the Middle East of 1978 (the “Camp David Accords”)
includes, in paragraph A(1)(f), a commitment by Egypt and Israel
to “work with each other and with other interested parties
to establish agreed procedures for a prompt, just and permanent
resolution of the implementation of the refugee problem.”
Article 8 of the Israel
– Egypt Peace Treaty of 1979 provides that the “Parties
agree to establish a claims commission for the mutual settlement
of all financial claims.” Those claims include those of former
Jewish refugees displaced from Egypt.
Israel – Jordan Peace Treaty, 1994
Israel – Jordan Peace Treaty, 1994
Article 8 of the Israel –
Jordan Peace Treaty, entitled “Refugees and Displaced Persons”
recognizes, in paragraph 1, “the massive human problems caused
to both Parties by the conflict in the Middle East”. Reference
to massive human problems in a broad manner suggests that the plight
of all refugees of “the conflict in the Middle East”,
includes Jewish refugees from Arab countries.
Israeli-Palestinian Agreements, 1993-
Almost every reference to the
refugee issue in Israeli-Palestinian agreements, talks about “refugees”,
without qualifying which refugee community is at issue, including
the Declaration of Principles of 13 September 1993 {Article V (3)},
and the Interim Agreement of September 1995 {Articles XXXI (5)},
both of which refer to “refugees” as a subject for permanent
status negotiations, without qualifications.
E) Recognition by Political Leaders
Former U.S. President Bill Clinton
made the following assertion after the rights of Jews displaced
from Arab countries were discussed at ‘Camp David II’
in July, 2000 (From White House Transcript of Israeli television
interview):
“There will have to be some
sort of international fund set up for the refugees. There is, I
think, some interest, interestingly enough, on both sides, in also
having a fund which compensates the Israelis who were made refugees
by the war, which occurred after the birth of the State of Israel.
Israel is full of people, Jewish people, who lived in predominantly
Arab countries who came to Israel because they were made refugees
in their own land”.
Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter,
after successfully brokering the Camp David Accords and the Egyptian-Israeli
Peace Treaty, stated in a press conference on Oct. 27, 1977:
“Palestinians have rights… obviously there are Jewish
refugees…they have the same rights as others do.”
Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin
stated, in a June 3rd, 2005 interview with the Canadian Jewish News
which he later reaffirmed in a July 14, 2005 letter:
“A refugee is a refugee
and that the situation of Jewish refugees from Arab lands must be
recognized. All refugees deserve our consideration as they have
lost both physical property and historical connections. I did not
imply that the claims of Jewish refugees are less legitimate or
merit less attention than those of Palestinian refugees.”
1Estimates
based on UN document “Trends and Characteristics of International
Migration since 1950 – Refugee Movements and Population Transfers”
(UN Department for Economic and Social Affairs, Demographic Study
No. 64 ST/ESA/Ser. A/64)
2Goldberg,
Arthur J., “Resolution 242: After 20 Years”, published
in Security Interests, National Committee on American Foreign Policy,
April 2002.
3Remarks
by Secretary of State James A. Baker, III before the Organizational
Meeting for Multilateral Negotiations on the Middle East, House
of Unions, Moscow, January 28, 1992.
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