Good news from the BBC. (With thanks: Avril)
A BBC presenter actually uttered the words: 'Jewish refugees from Arab countries.' It happened on Tuesday 30 October during the BBC Today programme on Radio 4 (scroll down to 08.52). Pardon my excitement - such utterances are as rare as sightings of the Loch Ness monster.
The bad news is that in predictable BBC fashion, the entire report was slanted towards the part Palestinian refugees - the BBC unquestioningly put the numbers at four and a half million - would play at the Annapolis conference, scheduled for the end of November. Following a tear-jerking plea from a Palestinian in the Balata refugee camp near Nablus for him to be allowed to return home to Jaffa, Karen Abu- Zayd, Commissioner General for UNWRA based in Gaza, said it was only fair that the Arab refugees should be given the choice: return or resettlement.
When challenged about Jewish refugees, Abu Zayd quizzically replied that UNWRA was set up to deal with all refugees from 'Palestine'. Technically she is correct - UNWRA could in theory have initially helped those Jewish refugees who had fled areas conquered by Arab armies in the 1948 war (eg Jewish quarter of Jerusalem, Gush Etzion).
In practice, UNWRA helped very few, if any, of these Jewish refugees who were resettled in Israel at Israel's expense. Their numbers and the property they lost* pale into insignificance compared with the Jewish refugees from Arab countries.
*According to 'Locked Doors' by Itamar Levin (p 218) there were 1,587 claims filed with the Israeli ministry of Justice for property lost in those areas and worth some $38,677,701.
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