Hamas betrays more Arab alarm as it lashes out at Israel over 'Arab Jews', decrying the meeting in the UN building on Friday to raise the Jewish refugee issue. Hamas reverses historical facts to suggest that 'Arab Jews' displaced Palestinians before expelling them. In fact the great MENA Jewish exodus took place after most Arab refugees had left. The Jerusalem Post reports:
Hamas on Saturday denounced the Israeli call to recognize the suffering of Jewish refugees from Arab countries and their material claims – the same way it acknowledges the plight of displaced Palestinians, the Ma’an News Agency reported on Sunday.
Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon, Ambassador to the UN Ron Prosor and World Jewish Congress President Ronald Lauder presented the recently launched diplomatic campaign to raise the issue of Jewish refugees, in a special gathering at the UN before Israeli officials, foreign diplomats, activists and journalists last Friday.
Following the gathering Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said in a statement that, “those Jews are criminals rather than refugees.”
He added that, “Those Jews were not refugees as they claim. They were actually responsible for the displacement of the Palestinian people after they secretly migrated from Arab countries to Palestine before they expelled the Palestinians from their lands to build a Jewish state at their expense.”
Zuhri said it was the fault of the Jewish refugees from Arab lands who “turned the Palestinian people into refugees,” Ma’an reported.
Commenting on the conference, he said: “The Hamas movement views this conference as a dangerous, unprecedented move which contributes to the falsification of history and reversing of facts.”
Palestinian politicians like Hanan Ashrawi have argued that Jews from Arab lands are not refugees at all and that, either way, Israel is using their claims as a counter-balance to those of Palestinian refugees against it.
Read article in full
Media in disarray over Jewish refugees
Hamas calls on 'Arab' Jews to return to Arab countries
" Hamas reverses historical facts to suggest that 'Arab Jews' displaced Palestinians before expelling them. In fact the great MENA Jewish exodus took place. after most Arab refugees had left."
ReplyDeleteAnd after many of them returned. Maahmoud Darwish's family, for example, returned from Lebanon in 1949. And they were not the only ones.
I think that their problem is not as much the refugees but rather the fear that opening the Pandora box of the treatment of non-Muslims can hinder their islamization project.
ReplyDeleteBut mostly, they spent ten years building the Palestinian as helpless victims (which is, Elyahu, the reason he ceased to call himself Arab in the first place) and now the world might find out he was in effect a victimizer.
So they are clouding the real issue with futile arguments yes refugees - not refugees hoping that history will never come to light.
Larry Derfner's rantings were posted in the French Huffington Post (in translation) in French on the day of Rosh Hashanah.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.huffingtonpost.fr/larry-derfner/nouvelle-campagne-dirigeants-israel_b_1884209.html
An article today in the Huffingtom Post French version by Johann Habib debunking that Hanan Ashrawi article in the English version.
ReplyDeletehere are the opening paragraphs, my translaation follows.
À réfugié, réfugié et demi!
Publication: 25/09/2012
By Johann Habib
Quelle étonnante tribune que celle de Hanan Ashrawi, l'éminente représentante de l'OLP (Organisation pour la libération de la Palestine), publiée dans le Huffington Post version anglaise!
Quête de légitimité
Rappelons qu'elle dénie aux centaines de milliers de juifs expulsés des pays arabes le droit de se revendiquer réfugiés, sous prétexte qu'ils auraient rejoint leur patrie ancestrale. Elle affirme, en quelque sorte, qu'il faut choisir: soit Israël est leur patrie et donc ils ne sont pas réfugiés, soit ils sont réellement réfugiés et peuvent retourner dans ces pays, avec en toile de fond, la délégitimation de l'Etat d'Israël comme Etat des juifs et l'accusation d'utilisation cynique de la notion de réfugiés.
La véhémence des propos sur la forme et les arguments erronés sur le fond mettent en évidence la situation peu enviable d'une organisation (l'OLP) aux abois, gangrenée par la corruption et décrédibilisée au sein de sa population. Par ailleurs, elle laisse apparaître la crainte de l'Autorité palestinienne, que ceux qu'elle est censée représenter, ne soient plus les seules victimes au Proche-Orient après-guerre, point sur lequel elle prospère depuis plusieurs dizaines d'années.
English translation of the above
Refugees: Two can play that game!
What an astonishing column published in the English version of the Huffington Post by Hanan Ashrawi, the distinguished representative of the PLO (Palestine Liberation organization)!
Quest for Legitimacy
Let’s remind ourselves that she denies hundreds of thousands of Jews expelled from Arab countries the right to define themselves as refugees, just because they have rejoined their ancestral homeland. She affirms, in a way, that they must choose: either Israel is their homeland and therefore they are not refugees, or they are really refugees and can return to those countries, with, in the backdrop, the de-legitimization of Israel as the Jewish State and the charge of cynical use of the refugee concept.
The vehement objections on the form and the faulty arguments on the substance highlight the unenviable position of a PLO in disarray, undermined by corruption and whose credibility among its population has been damaged. Furthermore, they reveal the Palestinian Authority’s fears that those it is supposed to represent are no longer the sole victims of the post-war Middle-East, a point that it has exploited for several decades.
http://www.huffingtonpost.fr/johann-habib/a-refugie-refugie-et-demi_b_1909305.html?utm_hp_ref=france
Bat Yeor has written about how she was thrown out Egypt. So have Andre Aciman & Lucette Lagnado who are respected writers in the US. They both wrote memoirs about leaving Egypt.
ReplyDeleteFirst they entreat the Jews to return to Arab countries then they call them criminals for leaving.
ReplyDeleteInverting the truth is a bit of a habit with Islamists, so Hamas's position on Jewish refugees from the MENA is hardly surprising.
ReplyDelete