" I join in expressing sorrow for what happened to the Palestinian refugees. But also what happened to the Jewish refugees expelled from Arab countries."
Already Ehud Olmert's words to a Knesset committee, leaked anonymously to the press, are making waves.
Olmert's sorrow is already being misrepresented as an apology and an acceptance that Israel was responsible for the Arab refugees of 1948.
People on both sides are irritated by Olmert's equating of both sets of refugees. On the one hand, Arabs are busy denying that the Jews were refugees at all. On the other hand, Jews are saying that there is no equivalence between Arab refugees who escaped a war zone, and Jews 'ethnically cleansed' by deliberate Arab state policy.
But official resolutions and peace agreements throughout the decades have always referred to a just settlement of the 'refugee problem', both Jewish and Arab. The trouble is that the Jewish refugee problem was always implied, never stated explicitly. Thus advocates for Jewish refugees are overjoyed that Olmert, at the very end of his term as Prime Minister, has actually mentioned Jewish refugees from Arab countries for the very first time.
Olmert also declared: "Under absolutely no circumstances will there be a right of return, but we are prepared to be part of an international mechanism that will work to solve the problem."
The 'international mechanism' idea is not new. One of those 'international mechanisms' will be "compensation" -- and Israel won't be the only country asked to pay it. Therefore Israel cannot be held solely responsible for what befell the Arab residents who left Palestine in the wake of the Arab-Jewish conflict in 1947-1948. Other countries -- including members of the Arab League who have perpetuated the refugee issue for the last 60 years -- will also be expected to contribute generously to an internationally administered and funded compensation package.
An international fund is also the preferred solution for the compensation of Jewish refugees.
It was first put forward by President Clinton in 2000 and reiterated by President Bush in January 2008.
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”.
Olmert shoots from the hip, as we saw in the Second Lebanon War. He doesn't think before he speaks, and he often chooses his words carelessly. Shortly after becoming Prime Minister, he told the world that Israel is tired and fed up, thus waging psychological warfare against his own country. He also blithely chattered about Israel's nukes, an act of sheer folly.
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