Excitement mounts in run-up to refugees meeting

Dan Diker of the World Jewish Congress, Deputy foreign minister Danny Ayalon and Lea Nass of the Senior Citizens' ministry meet with the Jerusalem Post's editor Steve Linde (not pictured) to discuss the upcoming Jewish refugee conference on 9 and 10 September in Jerusalem.

The excitement is mounting as a conference on Jewish refugees to be held in Jerusalem draws near. Arab states are panicking, imagining that the Jews are intending to claim back their property. We know that Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon was planning to raise the Jewish refugee issue at the UN General Assembly on 21 September. Now The Algemeiner is reporting that he has been pushing for the UN to 'hold a summit' (actually a media event - ed) in September on the issue of Jewish refugees from Arab countries.

The (Jerusalem) summit’s main goal would be to address the issue of Jewish property rights, according to a report in Yedioth Ahronoth. The Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs states that between 1948 and 1951 about 850,000 Jews were expelled or forced out of Arab nations, losing an estimated $700 million in property ($6 billion today). Most of these refugees were absorbed by Israel, where today they comprise over half the population.

A number of Arab news outlets have misrepresented this development, particularly in Egypt and Algeria.

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Arabs fear the Jews want their property back