Israel to Seek $250bn from Arab Countries that Expelled Jews to ‘Restore Their Rightful Property’

Iraqi Jews leaving Lod airport (Israel) on their way to ma'abara transit camp, 1951 © GPO Israel

Israel will demand $250 billion in compensation from seven Arab countries and Iran for assets left by Jews forced to flee after the creation of the State of Israel, in an effort to correct the “historic injustice” of the pogroms.

The specific demands are being finalized for the first two of the eight countries, according to Hadashot TV news, which reported that Israel would seek $35 billion from Tunisia and $15 billion from Libya. Compensation will also be sought from Morocco, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Yemen and Iran.

Gila Gamliel, Israel’s Minister for Social Equality, who is coordinating the effort, said that the time had come to “correct the historic injustice of the pogroms [against Jews] in seven Arab countries and Iran, and to restore, to hundreds of thousands of Jews who lost their property, what is rightfully theirs.”

With the help of an international accountancy firm, the Israeli government has been quietly researching the value of property and assets that Jews were forced to leave behind when they left the countries in question, the Hadashot report said. Compensation, if it were received, would not be allocated to individual Jewish families, but would be distributed through a special Israeli state fund, according to the report.

An estimated 856,000 Jews fled 10 Arab countries after Israel was established in 1948, according to Justice for Jews from Arab Countries (JJAC). Until now, however, Israel has never formally requested compensation for Jews forced to leave Arab countries.

Meir Kahlon, chairman of the Central Organization for Jews from Arab Countries and Iran told the Times of Israel that at the time, Jews did not seek refugee status in the newly-created Israel as it was seen as a return to their “historic homeland” and the country’s first prime minister, David Ben Gurion, wanted to project an image of a state that was legitimate and could care for its people.

The move comes as the Trump administration in the United States prepares its long-awaited Israeli-Palestinian peace proposal — an effort which some analysts have already declared dead-in-the-water after the US, in a hugely controversial move last year, recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. It also relocated its embassy to the city, which Palestinians in turn consider as the designated capital of the State of Palestine.

In 2010, Israel passed a law which states that any peace deal must provide for compensation for Jews forced to flee Arab countries and Iran.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority has also sought $100 billion in compensation from Israel for assets left by Arabs forced to leave the lands controlled by Israel today. Palestinians have also sought a “right of return” for the surviving refugees and their descendants — a demand that has repeatedly been dismissed by Israel. The Trump administration also seems to have taken Israel’s side on that issue, halting funding for the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA) last year.

In 2014, Israel officially made November 30 a national day to commemorate the exiting of Jews from Arab and Iranian lands. Each year the day is used to raise awareness of the subject and to promote the issue of compensation to Jews. That year, Canada also formally recognized the refugee status of its Jewish emigres who fled there after 1948.

At a 2014 event marking the displacement of Jews, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Arab countries had “compelled” Jews living in their territories to leave their homes and assets behind and that the state would “continue to act” so that the claims of those Jews “are not forgotten.”

I always wondered how the Arab countries and Iran got away with that for all these years. Glad to see some movement on this file.

UK's Key Role in Brokering UN Resolution on Israeli Settlements Confirmed

Brokering the resolution wording between the

Palestinian Authority and the USA

Confirmation that Britain helped draft resolution in secret puts UK on collision course with Israel – and at odds with Donald Trump

Members of the United Nations Security council vote in favour of condemning Israel for building settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem. Photograph: Manuel Elias/AP

Patrick Wintour Diplomatic editor, Guardian

Britain played a key behind-the-scenes role in brokering the UN resolution condemning Israel for violating international law with its policy of building settlements on occupied Palestinian territory, it has been confirmed. The UK helped draft some of the key wording to ensure it met US concerns.

The UK role, first highlighted by Israeli diplomatic sources, leaves the UK on a collision course not just with Israel, but at odds with Donald Trump, the US president-elect and a strong opponent of the UN resolution, the first to be passed that is critical of Israel for seven years.

The UK has never hidden its support for the UN resolution, voting for its terms, and subsequently both UK ministers and diplomats have publicly justified its wording. It is also usual for the UK to play a key brokering role on UN resolutions, especially on the Middle East.

Obama's Legacy

It has been confirmed the UK helped with drafts of the resolution with Egypt and the Palestinians in a bid to ensure that it met with the concerns of the US president, Barack Obama. The US said it did not veto the resolution because it was balanced, condemning violence and incitement, as well as illegal settlements. The US has insisted it did not draft the text, and did not even tell other delegations how it intended to vote in the key consultations process.

The US did not draft the text but it is clear the UK was making sure the US concerns were being addressed. Technically, that is not 'drafting the text', but the impression the White House gives is that it wasn't involved in the back-stabbing when it most certainly was at the heart of it. 

Barack Obama's legacy was that he was a man of character, honest. That legacy is sinking into a quagmire of lies and hypocrisy when it comes to Israel. 

Formally the Foreign Office did not deny it had been involved in the drafting process. It stressed “the resolution was proposed and drafted by the Egyptian delegation”, adding that the UK, as one of the five permanent members of the security council, “engaged with” the text “as we do with all security council texts”.

Israel claims the UK’s diplomatic activity in New York, conducted in liaison with the French and the US, took place behind its back. It is dubious that the US played a hands-off role.

Israel’s ambassador to the US, Ron Dermer, speaking to the US media this week, said: “This is not a text that was formulated by the Palestinians or Egypt, but by a western power.” It was not clear if this was a reference to the US or the UK.

In particular the UK is thought to have played a major role in mediating between the Palestinians and the Americans to ensure the text eventually put forward by New Zealand, and not Egypt, met the concerns of both sides.

The UK in conjunction with Gulf states said the resolution should go ahead even when Egypt decided not to sponsor it.

A last-minute glitch came up when Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations, Vitaly Churkin, proposed postponing the vote until after Christmas, according to an interview the deputy Russian ambassador to Israel gave on Israel Army Radio. This reportedly followed a phone call between the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and the Russian president, Vladi­mir Putin. The other security council ambassadors refused to wait, however.

Growing antisemitism in the UK

The UK Foreign Office minister Tobias Ellwood welcomed the UN resolution on Twitter, and the UK ambassador to the UN, Matthew Rycroft, also highlighted the UK support for the resolution.

The British foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, has not so far issued any public statement either way, but it is not claimed this is significant.

The UK support for the UN resolution has already led to reports that a tentatively planned meeting between Theresa May, and Netanyahu scheduled for Davos international summit this month has been cancelled.

The UK role has divided opinion inside the Conservative party. Conservative Friends of Israel’s parliamentary chairman, Sir Eric Pickles, said: “CFI is disappointed by the UK’s decision to support the controversial UN security council resolution, which legitimises the Palestinian Authority’s attempts to internationalise the issue and avoid the necessary direct peace talks.

“In addition, the resolution will embolden the hardline BDS movement and the ramifications for Jerusalem and Judaism’s holiest site – the Western Wall – are seriously troubling.”

By contrast the Conservative Middle East council said the resolution affirmed the “establishment by Israel of settlements in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including east Jerusalem, has no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under international law and a major obstacle to the achievement of the two-state solution”.

If this is how a Conservative government treats Israel, it must be frightening for Israel to ponder the possibility of a Labour government in the future. Antisemitism is growing at an alarming rate in the UK Government and would be much worse under Labour. Is this a consequence of Islamization? Or is this an example of 'astro-turfing' - the acceptance of propaganda as being the truth and as being accepted by the majority of people?

How is it that all the pressure to accept a two-state solution is being applied to Israel when it is clearly the Palestinians who don't want a two-state solution. They want Israel gone, period! They are not willing to negotiate a reasonable settlement, yet the UK and the US are not pressuring them. Antisemitism! Surely they know that people in the Holy Land did not even call themselves Palestinians one hundred years ago? And they only began doing so as a response to Jews entering the land as they were expelled from across Arab countries of the Middle East and North Africa, 850,000 of them.

Was that 'ethnic cleansing' ever recognized or condemned by the UN?

The UK is also backing the French-hosted Middle East conference on 15 January, where more than 70 countries may endorse an international framework, including a two-state solution for peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Israel has long vowed not to attend, with the Israeli defence minister, Avigdor Lieberman, comparing the summit to “a modern version of the Dreyfus trial” at a meeting of his party’s deputies.

The trial and conviction of Alfred Dreyfus was the event that instigated the Dreyfus Affair,

a political scandal which divided France during the 1890s and early 1900s.

It involved the wrongful conviction for treason of Alfred Dreyfus,

a French artillery officer of Alsatian Jewish background.

Israel says it will only hold bilateral talks with the Palestinians.