Israeli youth send winter equipment to Syrian refugees

 ADELIE PONTAY, Jerusalem Post 09/01/2014 

An Israeli NGO is helping Syrian refugees survive by collecting winter clothing, but has to remove all traces of its origin before sending it to the war-torn country.

Operation Human Warmth was organized in response to the snowstorm last month during which 27 Syrian children died. Israeli Flying Aid launched the campaign in cooperation with two youth movements, DrorIsrael and Hano’ar Ha’oved Vehalomed.

Israeli Flying Aid supplies humanitarian aid to people around the world, including in countries that have no diplomatic relations with the Jewish state. The organization does not usually publicize such actions so as not to be prevented from carrying out its missions. This time it is speaking out, in an effort to raise awareness of the refugees’ plight and to attract financial donations.

Gal Lusky, founder of Israeli Flying Aid, told The Jerusalem Post that because of the Jewish people’s past, there was a “moral obligation to be the voice of the voiceless.”

The aid effort is meant to “help Israeli children understand that Syrians are in desperate need of help, and that humanitarian reasons require one to put politics aside for a while.

“It is a great moment for democracy,” she added, “as these children might one day fight against each other, to educate Israeli youth,” and to act to help the children of their “worst enemy.”

Members of the public can bring sweaters, blankets, sleeping bags and other garments to 15 Hano’ar Ha’oved Vehalomed youth centers across the country through January 10. Members of the two youth groups are also going out and collecting the needed items.

The donations will be checked to ensure the safety of the refugees who will receive them. Thus, clothing with Israeli brand names or Hebrew writing will not be accepted, and all Hebrew-language tags will be removed.

Israeli Flying Aid will transfer them to Syrians in need. The NGO declined to say the supplies would be sent to Syria.

Some 100,000 members of the youth groups between the ages of 12 to 18 will participate in the operation.

Israeli Flying Aid plans to start another operation later this month with the Scout movement to collect dry foods and other goods to send to Syrian refugees and internally displaced persons. 

The Real Number of Palestinian Refugees?

From the recent Ettinger report analysing the true number of refugees, we read:-

*According to an August, 1971 Ford Foundation report, by 1950, the majority of the Palestinian refugees began evacuating the camps and non-refugees moved in to benefit from UNRWA’s services. For example, half of the population in the Jelazoon refugee camp, near Ramallah, settled there after 1950.

*A November 17, 2003 report by the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) documented that less than 33% of registered Palestinian refugees live in refugee camps.

*The actual number of Palestinian refugees is determined by the following: 

a) Before the 1948/9 War, 800,000 Arabs (per inflated numbers) resided within the boundaries of “pre-1967 Israel”. 

b) At the end of that war, 170,000 Arabs stayed in Israel.  

c) Of the remaining 630,000Arabs, 

     - 100,000 were absorbed by Israel’s family reunification gesture; 

     - 100,000 middle and upper class Arabs left before the beginning of the               1948-49 war and were absorbed by neighboring Arab states; 

     -  50,000 migrant laborers returned to their Arab countries of origin; 

     -  50,000 Bedouins joined their brethren-tribes in Jordan and Sinai; 

     -  and 10,000 were war fatalities. 

Thus, the actual total number of Palestinian refugees was 320,000.  

*Most of the refugees followed their political, economic and social leadership, which left before the eruption of the war.  Many were enticed to depart by Arab leaders, who promised a quick devastation of the Jewish state that would provide the evacuees with Jewish property. British authorities influenced others, pressuring the minority in mixed Jewish-Arab towns to evacuate: Arabs evacuated but Jews did not. 

For a full report see http://bit.ly/18GhJP0 

Let’s Get the Facts Right on Refugees.

(With thanks to Charles Abelsohn who did the research)

Many people blindly following a predetermined agenda argue “that there is no evidence of widespread calls from neighbouring Arab states for the people to flee – if anything, there were calls to stay”. By quoting directly from Arab and objective sources at the time before revisionists attempted to change history. The calls to stay were – by the Jews!!!

"Of the 62,000 Arabs who formerly lived in Haifa not more than 5,000 or 6,000 remained. The most potent of the factors were the announcements made over the air by the Higher Arab Executive, urging the Arabs to quit. It was clearly intimated that those Arabs who remained in Haifa and accepted Jewish protection would be regarded as renegades."                 The London weekly Economist, October 2, 1948

"It must not be forgotten that the Arab Higher Committee encouraged the refugees' flight from their homes in Jaffa, Haifa, and Jerusalem."     Near East Arabic Broadcasting Station, Cyprus, April 3, 1949

"The mass evacuation, prompted partly by fear, partly by order of Arab leaders, left the Arab quarter of Haifa a ghost city...By withdrawing Arab workers their leaders hoped to paralyze Haifa." Time, May 3, 1948, p. 25

The Arab States encouraged the Palestine Arabs to leave their homes temporarily in order to be out of the way of the Arab invasion armies.    Falastin (Jordanian newspaper), February 19, 1949

We will smash the country with our guns and obliterate every place the Jews seek shelter in. The Arabs should conduct their wives and children to safe areas until the fighting has died down.         Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Said, quoted in Sir Am Nakbah ("The Secret Behind the Disaster") by Nimr el Hawari, Nazareth, 1952

"The Arab governments told us: Get out so that we can get in. So we got out, but they did not get in."               from the Jordan daily Ad Difaa, September 6, 1954

"The Arab civilians panicked and fled ignominiously. Villages were frequently abandoned before they were threatened by the progress of war."    General Glubb Pasha, in the London Daily Mail on August 12, 1948

"The Arab exodus from other villages was not caused by the actual battle, but by the exaggerated  description spread by Arab leaders to incite them to fight the Jews"  Yunes Ahmed Assad, refugee from the town of Deir Yassin, in Al Urdun, April 9, 1953

"The Arabs of Haifa fled in spite of the fact that the Jewish authorities guaranteed their safety and rights as citizens of Israel."  Monsignor George Hakim, Greek Catholic Bishop of Galilee, according to Rev. Karl Baehr, Executive Secretary of the American Christian Palestine Committee, New York Herald Tribune, June 30, 1949; and, yes, no less than the Times of London , reporting events of 22.4.48  "...the Jewish hagana asked (using loudspeakers) Arabs to remain at their homes but the most of the Arab population followed their leaders who asked them to leave the country."

So the evidence is, that the Jews asked the Arabs to stay and the Arabs forced other Arabs to leave. This is the evidence not of historians but of Arabs themselves and journalists on the spot is that there was no ethnic cleansing and no wanton destruction but simply abandonment of property, no different from any other war.

Actually, one has to admit that there was some wanton destruction of property and some ethnic cleansing. The illegal Jordanian occupiers of Jerusalem destroyed 57 of the 58 synagogues in Jerusalem`s Old City and expelled its 20,000 plus inhabitants.

There is a bona fide dispute about the number of Arabs who left Israel in 1948. The UN figure based on Arab census figures is about 539,000. Many who left were part of the huge illegal immigrants doing as immigrants do today: leaving poverty struck Arab countries and following the prosperity. It seems that by the 1930s the standard of living of Palestinian Arabs was approximately twice that of Arabs in surrounding countries, whereas in Ottoman Turkish times it was lower than in surrounding countries. The number of 750,000 Arab refugees is often referred to yet there were only about 696,000 Arabs within the Armistice lines prior to the commencement of fighting! The UN figure is thus definitely on the high side but is still less than the 850,000 Jews expelled by Arab countries whose confiscated properties in today’s currency amount to $100 billion dollars. There was a population exchange similar to the 1948 Indian – Pakistan population exchange. 

Israeli tablets to purify water for Syrians

Israeli government blesses a deal for Israel Chemicals to sell AquaTabs to UNICEF for Syria despite a law nixing trade with an enemy state.

By Viva Sarah Press October 17, 2012, Israel 21C http://tinyurl.com/cfdmuwp  


Citing humanitarian reasons, the Israeli Finance Ministry recently gave the green light for a subsidiary of Israel Chemicals – which is owned by the Israeli company but is based in Ireland – to sell water purification tablets for distribution in war-torn Syria, even though it is considered an enemy state.

With clean water availability at an all-time low in Syria, the United Nations international aid agency UNICEF has been working to rehabilitate the country’s water sources.

The organization turned to Medentech, Israel Chemicals’ Ireland-based subsidiary, with a request to buy its AquaTabs water purification tablets. But the law prohibiting Israeli companies from selling a product to a hostile state could have sunk the plan.

Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz was called to authorize the deal and did so, noting that the world’s best-selling water purification tablets would not be sold directly to Syria but rather to the UN agency.

Humanitarianism trumps politics

The Israeli law drafted in 1939 forbids Israeli companies from knowingly selling products that will benefit an enemy state. According to a report in Calcalist, the government must authorize all business agreements between Israel and enemy nations.

The Israeli business daily reported that while this is not the first time the government has okayed such a transaction, it is unusual.

But as Israel is known for its humanitarian efforts around the globe, obtaining special authorization and waiving the law for the water purification deal was more a formality than an anomaly.

The AquaTabs are effervescent tablets that kill micro-organisms in water to prevent cholera, typhoid, dysentery and other water-borne diseases. The chlorine pills are considered a better alternative to boiling water to remove contaminants.

“UNICEF is urgently scaling up its emergency response to reach hundreds of thousands of children with child protection, water, sanitation and hygiene, health and nutrition, and education initiatives,” according to a UNICEF statement.

According to the UN about 1.2 million Syrians have been internally displaced within the country, and hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees have fled to neighboring countries. The UN also estimates that there are another one million Syrians still living in their homes in need of humanitarian aid.

How Many Refugees?

Elliott Abrams  June 20, 2012


http://blogs.cfr.org/abrams/2012/06/20/how-many-refugees/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+eabrams+%28Elliott+Abrams%3A+Pressure+Points%29

Today the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (or PCBS) commemorated World Refugee Day by releasing new statistics on Palestinian refugees. Therein lies a tale.

The PCBS reported that there are now 5.1 million Palestinian refugees. Here is what it said about their age:

The Palestinian Refugees are characterized as young population where 41.7% of them are under the age of 15 years for Palestinian refugees in Palestinian territory, 35.9% of Palestinian refugees in Jordan in 2007, and 33.1% for Palestinian refugees in Syria in 2009, while 30.4% for Palestinian refugees in Lebanon in 2010.

This means, for example, that more than a third of Palestinian “refugees” in Jordan were born after 1997. That is either thirty years (if after the 1967 war) or almost fifty years (if they fled when Israel was established in 1948) after their parents or more likely grandparents arrived in Jordan. Those in Jordan have full Jordanian citizenship and vote in Jordan, which means this: a young Jordanian of Palestinian origin, whose family has lived in Jordan for thirty years and who has himself or herself always lived in Jordan, is still considered a “refugee.”

This is bizarre, and the new statistics are a reminder of the unique definition applied to Palestinian “refugees.” For every other category of refugees in the world, the 1951 UN Convention on the status of refugees clearly applies to the refugee only and not subsequent generations. This is the definition used by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees today. Only in the Palestinian case does a separate organization, the UN Relief and Works Agency, count not only those who actually left their homes but those in succeeding generations, presumably forever, and regardless of whether those progeny were born and are settled elsewhere with full citizenship.






So a young American boy of, say, ten years of age born in Chicago to American parents, but whose grandparents were Palestinians who fled Israel in 1948, is counted by UNRWA as a “Palestinian refugee.”






It is not surprising that the Appropriations Committee of the U.S. Senate on May 31 adopted an amendment defining Palestinian “refugees” the way all other refugees are defined, and rejecting the definition that produces the number 5.1 million today and who knows how many more millions as the years roll by. What’s surprising is that this effort, led by Sen. Mark Kirk of Illinois–who would represent the young boy in my illustration, and his parents–was widely held to be controversial. It is common sense.

From Israeli Soldier on Egyptian border

I am 25 years old, was born in Brooklyn NY, and raised in Efrat Israel. Though very busy, I don’t view my life as unusual. Most of the time, I am just another Israeli citizen. During the day I work as a paramedic in Magen David Adom, Israel’s national EMS service. At night, I’m in my first year of law school. I got married this October and am starting a new chapter of life together with my wonderful wife Shulamit.

15-20 days out of every year, I’m called up to the Israeli army to do my reserve duty. I serve as a paramedic in an IDF paratrooper unit. My squad is made up of others like me; people living normal lives who step up to serve whenever responsibility calls. The oldest in my squad is 58, a father of four girls and grandfather of two; there are two bankers, one engineer, a holistic healer, and my 24 year old commander who is still trying to figure out what to do with his life. Most of the year we are just normal people living our lives, but for 15-20 days each year we are soldiers on the front lines preparing for a war that we hope we never have to fight.

This year, our reserve unit was stationed on the border between Israel, Egypt and the Gaza Strip in an area called “Kerem Shalom.” Above and beyond the “typical” things for which we train – war, terrorism, border infiltration, etc., – this year we were confronted by a new challenge. Several years ago, a trend started of African refugees crossing the Egyptian border from Sinai into Israel to seek asylum from the atrocities in Darfur.

What started out as a small number of men, women and children fleeing from the machetes of the Janjaweed and violent fundamentalists to seek a better life elsewhere, turned into an organized industry of human trafficking. In return for huge sums of money, sometimes entire life savings paid to Bedouin “guides,” these refugees are promised to be transported from Sudan, Eritrea, and other African countries through Egypt and the Sinai desert, into the safe haven of Israel.
We increasingly hear horror stories of the atrocities these refugees suffer on their way to freedom. They are subject to, and victims of extortion, rape, murder, and even organ theft, their bodies left to rot in the desert. Then, if lucky, after surviving this gruesome experience whose prize is freedom, when only a barbed wire fence separates them from Israel and their goal, they must go through the final death run and try to evade the bullets of the Egyptian soldiers stationed along the border. Egypt’s soldiers are ordered to shoot to kill anyone trying to cross the border OUT of Egypt and into Israel. It’s an almost nightly event.

For those who finally get across the border, the first people they encounter are Israeli soldiers, people like me and those in my unit, who are tasked with a primary mission of defending the lives of the Israeli people. On one side of the border soldiers shoot to kill. On the other side, they know they will be treated with more respect than in any of the countries they crossed to get to this point.

The region where it all happens is highly sensitive and risky from a security point of view, an area stricken with terror at every turn. It’s just a few miles south of the place where Gilad Shalit was kidnapped. And yet the Israeli soldiers who are confronted with these refugees do it not with rifles aimed at them, but with a helping hand and an open heart. The refugees are taken to a nearby IDF base, given clean clothes, a hot drink, food and medical attention. They are finally safe.
Even though I live Israel and am aware through media reports of the events that take place on the Egyptian border, I never understood the intensity and complexity of the scenario until I experienced it myself.

In the course of the past few nights, I have witnessed much. At 9:00 PM last night, the first reports came in of gunfire heard from the Egyptian border. Minutes later, IDF scouts spotted small groups of people trying to get across the fence. In the period of about one hour, we picked up 13 men – cold, barefoot, dehydrated – some wearing nothing except underpants. Their bodies were covered with lacerations and other wounds. We gathered them in a room, gave them blankets, tea and treated their wounds. I don’t speak a word of their language, but the look on their faces said it all and reminded me once again why I am so proud to be a Jew and an Israeli. Sadly, it was later determined that the gunshots we heard were deadly, killing three others fleeing for their lives.

During the 350 days a year when I am not on active duty, when I am just another man trying to get by, the people tasked with doing this amazing job, this amazing deed, the people witnessing these events, are mostly young Israeli soldiers just out of high school, serving their compulsory time in the IDF, some only 18 years old.
The refugees flooding into Israel are a heavy burden on our small country. More than 100,000 refugees have fled this way, and hundreds more cross the border every month. The social, economic, and humanitarian issues created by this influx of refugees are immense. There are serious security consequences for Israel as well. This influx of African refugees poses a crisis for Israel. Israel has yet to come up with the solutions required to deal with this crisis effectively, balancing its’ sensitive social, economic, and security issues, at the same time striving to care for the refugees.

I don’t have the answers to these complex problems which desperately need to be resolved. I’m not writing these words with the intention of taking a political position or a tactical stand on the issue.

I am writing to tell you and the entire world what’s really happening down here on the Egyptian/Israeli border. And to tell you that despite all the serious problems created by this national crisis, these refugees have no reason to fear us. Because they know, as the entire world needs to know, that Israel has not shut its eyes to their suffering and pain. Israel has not looked the other way. The State of Israel has put politics aside to take the ethical and humane path as it has so often done before, in every instance of human suffering and natural disasters around the globe. We Jews know only too well about suffering and pain. The Jewish people have been there. We have been the refugees and the persecuted so many times, over thousands of years, all over the world.

Today, when African refugees flood our borders in search of freedom and better lives, and some for fear of their lives, it is particularly noteworthy how Israel deals with them, despite the enormous strain it puts on our country on so many levels. Our young and thriving Jewish people and country, built from the ashes of the Holocaust, do not turn their backs on humanity. Though I already knew that, this week I once again experienced it firsthand. I am overwhelmed with emotion and immensely proud to be a member of this nation.

With love of Israel,

Palestinian Refugees Will Not Be Citizens of the New State

Palestinian refugees will not become citizens of a new Palestinian state, according to Palestine’s ambassador to Lebanon. From behind a desk topped by a miniature model of Palestine’s hoped-for blue United Nations chair, Ambassador Abdullah Abdullah spoke to The Daily Star newspaper in Lebanon last week about Palestine’s upcoming bid for U.N. statehood.

Let us just remind ourselves that when 700,000 Jews were kicked out of the Arab countries, many with only the clothes they wore, Israel immediately took them in and gave them citizenship.

Sorry, but whether there are left wing or right wing politics at play, this is incredible, this is an Alice in Wonderland scenario.

The ambassador unequivocally says that Palestinian refugees would not become citizens of the sought for U.N.-recognized Palestinian state, an issue that has been much discussed. “They are Palestinians, that’s their identity,” he says. “But … they are not automatically citizens.”

This would not only apply to refugees in countries such as Lebanon, Egypt, Syria and Jordan or the other 132 countries where Abdullah says Palestinians reside. Abdullah said that “even Palestinian refugees who are living in [refugee camps] inside the [Palestinian] state, they are still refugees. They will not be considered citizens.”

Abdullah said that the new Palestinian state would “absolutely not” be issuing Palestinian passports to refugees.

For the full article see http://tinyurl.com/5wke8nl

Co-Existance Projects Gain Ground in Northern Israel

The Circle of International Health COHI www.cohintl.org announced that on February 16th, about 15 midwives from Israel and Palestine will attend the first coexistence meeting of the new decade.

The goal of the meeting is to continue the efforts of coexistence that was started last year and to bridge the gap and reduce differences that have been created from of decades of war. The midwives will socialize and talk about their work, discuss professional and personal stories and learn from each other's experiences.

The midwives in the north of Israel are continuing to do routine follow-up for pregnant women and post-partum women from the African community who live in a shelter for women & kids.

New Israeli COHI supporters are joining these efforts in a number of ways:-

Our local Carmel Hospital (in Haifa) is providing free treatment to the project's refugee women. The women are all welcome and taken care of by the most professional staff in a good and caring atmosphere.

A post-partum doula went out of her way to support, travel, and help organize services for one refugee who needed special care, staying hours with her before, during and after birth.

An OBGYN who does ultrasound check-ups and routine follow-ups for women voluntarily in his clinic.

This is the reality of life in Haifa

Sudanese Refugee gives Birth in Israel

For the past few years, a shelter outside of Haifa, has opened its doors to women who have fled violence and war in their own countries and have risked their lives to make the dangerous journey across the border into Israel from Egypt. These women come from the prisons, from the streets—broken, hurting, in desperate situations. A number of them come to us pregnant and needing immediate medical attention. The insurance companies will not give coverage for pre-existing conditions (which includes pregnancy!)

One particular story stands out as an example of how the Circle of International Health (COHI) team has dramatically impacted the life of one of the women. Teresa, a Sudanese woman from the Dinka tribe, was sent to the shelter from prison where she and her two year old child had spent a number of months. She was thin for someone who was already in her seventh month and seemed very much under stress as she was worried that her husband was not being released from prison.

Soon after she arrived, the COHI volunteers began their visits to the shelter. Teresa was examined and they detected some minor swelling in her ankles—a sign of possible edema. A few days later, Teresa complained that she was not feeling well. After taking her blood pressure which was extremely high, sent her immediately to the hospital. Clearly the advice to send her to hospital may have saved Teresa's life as she was experiencing preeclampsia and the doctors said that had she arrived any later, her condition would have been critical. The doctors agreed to give her the opportunity to have a natural birth. Unfortunately, as Teresa was brought into the labor room a volunteer came to the rescue to sit with Teresa during the labor. Amazingly the contractions began to speed up and she dilated quickly.

Several more babies have been born since that time and the shelter has been more than grateful that COHI has expanded its services for us—supplying doulas at birth, finding gynecologists to assist in pre-natal care, walking through a multitude of needs specific to each woman, providing counselors to help with breastfeeding. The level of compassion and concern displayed by the COHI team is tremendous. Recently, we had a heartbreaking situation where the husband of one of the refugees died in her arms while crossing the desert. The volunteers od COHI identified some very deep problems in this woman and we were able to act accordingly. Truly they give more than just medical expertise; COHI as exemplified by the team in Israel give fully of themselves to this work and to the women they serve. A HUGE thank you to all who make this possible.

A Story Not Found in any Newspaper

COHI, the Circle of Health International is a volunteer organization helping refugees who arrive in Israel. The story of these volunteers is never published in the International media and I hope that by sending out this story and others there can be a greater awareness of the humanitarian side of Israeli society.

Rochel Englander is the Group Organizer of the Sudanese Refugee Project and she writes the following:-

Being an active member of the Sudanese/Hillel refugee project is hard work but nothing can beat the satisfaction you get when you see the joy on a mother's face when her baby is handed to her for the first time. For those who are not aware, a group of midwives volunteering with COHI are participating in the Sudanese/Hillel Project in Arad, a small town in southern Israel, and in a women's shelter in Northern Israel. The aim of the project is to help and empower refugee women throughout the birthing process.

But unfortunately, not every birthing story has a happy ending. Working in this position exposes you to your fair share of heartbreaking situations. Here is one such story:

Recently, I was called in to deal with a Sudanese couple who had been through a harrowing experience.

The young couple had come from Sudan to Egypt in mid-April. The couple, along with the group that they had fled Sudan with, had attempted to jump the Egyptian border to get to Israel, but unfortunately, not everyone made it. The rest of the group was shot by the Egyptian border patrol and the young couple fled to the desert where they wandered for two days without any food or water.
The wife, 19 years old and pregnant for the first time, gave birth to a baby boy on a mountaintop in the desert. Because of the unforgiving desert conditions, the baby was dead by the time the Israeli army found them. The army doctor transported the couple on a helicopter to a hospital in Be'er Sheva. He stayed with them the entire day and even helped them find a Catholic priest and cemetery to bury their son. I cannot begin to express how impressed I was by the gentle treatment given to the couple by the army doctor and the Israeli border police. And it didn't just end there – it seemed like the entire community came to their aid, even students from the local university who donated clothes to the young couple. It appeared everyone was trying in their own way to soothe the pain of the turmoil that they had been through.

Unfortunately, the experience had left deep scars, not just physical but emotional as well. I stayed with them and explained what was going on as best I could. I helped the hospital staff in their care and was able to bring the community leaders from Arad to help explain the situation. But the husband was inconsolable and terrified. He didn't believe that the border police was not there to hurt him. He thought the nurses were typing a deportation notice on the computer, when in fact they were simply entering medical records.
The couple seemed a little reassured when the Sudanese community leader came and talked to them. They felt even better when they were released from the hospital, because they weren't sent to a detention center but were free to do as they pleased.

The wounds from the turmoil that the young couple went through cannot be easily healed. But when I, along with other members of our Program, went to visit them the young wife said they were doing a lot better but her “body still weeps a little bit.” When you've lost your first born in such terrifying circumstances, what mother's wouldn't?

Jewish Assets in Muslim Lands

More than 850,000 Jews fled or were expelled from Arab lands and Iran, most after Israel's founding in 1948. Estimates of the value of the property they were forced to leave behind are hard to come by, ranging from as low as $16 billion in known assets to as high as $300b. when estimates of the value of their abandoned real estate are included.

Now a government ministry has created a new department that will now to collect specific claims by Jews who lost their property when they left Arab countries during the 20th century. The department will begin to collect the claims of the Jewish refugees, about 80 percent of whom settled in Israel.

Thus it was reported recently in the Jerusalem Post
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1233050188760&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

A spokesman of the department said "the new effort comes to fill a gap in awareness both in Israel and abroad. The UN has dealt at least 700 times with Arab refugees and their property, but not once with the issue of Jewish property."

There is little awareness in the world at large, and Israel in particular, thus it is thought it is now time for Israelis to get to know better the history of the Jews of Arab lands, who make up some 60% of the ethnic ancestry of Israeli Jews.

"It's time to deal with this amongst ourselves," says the spokesman. "I say that as a citizen, as a father and as an academic. We should know the history of the pogrom in Baghdad in 1941, of the Lybian Jews who ended up in Bergen Belsen. It's time for people to know that there was this part of the Jewish people and its history was brought to an end."

In late 2007, a Baghdad-born American Jew representing the World Organization of Jews from Arab Countries (WOJAC), called on the Israeli government to begin to seriously examine the issue of Jewish property left behind in Arab lands. At the time, WOJAC had a staggering 100,000 square kilometers in property deeds.

Internationally, the project has support. "The US Congress [in mid-2008] decided that any discussion of refugees in the Middle East must include the Jewish refugees from Arab lands. The current presidency of the EU, the Czech Republic, agrees with this position," said the spokesman.

In addition to the government, "Justice for Jews from Arab Countries" (JJAC), http://www.justiceforjews.com/int.html has been increasing the awareness of this problem which has been totally overshadowed by the pressure from Arab States to consider only one side of the coin. The goals of JJAC are:
1) To conduct public education programs on the heritage and rights of former Jewish refugees from Arab countries; and
2) To register family history narratives, and catalogue communal and individual losses, suffered by Jews who fled from Arab countries.

Both sides of the argument should be considered in parallel, not one withut the other