We constantly hear about the Palestinian “refugees” but rarely about the hundreds of thousands of Jews transformed into refugees as they were expelled from Arab countries more than fifty years ago. Some Israeli leaders want to be sure that information is documented before those now elderly refugees pass away.
Here is the story from Israel National News:
The Knesset’s State Control Committee held a session Wednesday on the subject of the hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees from Arab countries who came to Israel in the late 1940s and early 1950s.
From 1948 to 1956 an estimated 856,000 Jews came to Israel from the Arab world. Of those, around 600,000 were refugees who had been expelled from their homes in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Tunisia and Egypt.
Activist Meir Kachlon credited MK Nissim Zev (Shas) with promoting refugees’ affairs, but warned, “There are excellent intentions, but the state is not giving the right tools. The Arab world is destroying any trace of Jewish presence, we must hurry, because people are elderly and are passing on.”
Some want to make claims on those Arab countries for stolen Jewish property.