Study Estimates Assets of Arab Lands’ Jews

[Phx_Dem]

In the first effort to methodically calculate the amount lost by Jews who fled Arab countries after the creation of Israel, a Holocaust restitution expert estimated that the losses amounted to $6 billion.

The study, performed by Sidney Zabludoff and published this month in a journal published by the conservative Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, estimated that Jewish losses were significantly more than the amount lost by Palestinian refugees from Israel.

Close to 1 million Jews were forced to leave Middle Eastern and North African countries after the creation of Israel — a fact that has become a political volleyball as Palestinian refugees have pushed for compensation for their own expulsion from Israel.

Zabludoff peppers his paper with political references and proposals, and it seems likely that his figures will encounter protest from Palestinian groups. He estimates that the 550,000 Palestinian refugees lost $3.9 billion.

http://www.forward.com/articles/13134/

[azurnoir]

1. And this relates to the I/P conflict how?

Oh yeah lets see because the expelled Jews were welcomed in the newly founded Israel, in part as "place holders" for land confiscated from the expelled Palestinians.

[kayecy]

2. Why doesn't Israel help those who have suffered the losses?

Why doesn't Israel help those who have suffered the losses to get compensation instead of depriving some other innocents of their assets?

[LeftishBrit]

3. They have helped them. Quite a lot.

Much more than any Arab state has helped Palestinian refugees.

I actually support compensation from Israel for Palestinian refugees (it might happen) and also from Arab states for Mizrahi Jewish refugees (but don't hold your breath). I don't think that one should be, or will be, contingent on the other; but I think it *is* worth remembering that many Israelis *are* Middle Easterners evicted from Arab countries - they are not all, or even mostly, Europaeans, in contradiction with the stereotypes outside Israel.

[kayecy]

7. I find myself in agreement with you, but can I check one point.....

....I think it *is* worth remembering that many Israelis *are* Middle Easterners evicted from Arab countries - they are not all, or even mostly, Europaeans, in contradiction with the stereotypes outside Israel.

Have you a reference for the balance of European immigrants as against Middle east immigrants?.....I must admit that I thought about 42% of immigrants to Israel were Ashkenazi and only 47% Mizrachim.

[LeftishBrit]

8. I was referring to the population as a whole, not just immigrants

*Very* roughly, the Israeli populations consists of around 40% Europaean Jews, about 40% non-Europaean Jews, and about 20% non-Jews (mostly Arabs and Druze). This is probably not exact; and is complicated by the fact that there is intermarriage between different groups of Jews.

[ProgressiveMuslim]

4. Already up to a million is it? Utterly shameless. nt

[Vegasaurus]

5. No one disputes the 850,000 number

of Jews kicked out of their homes in Arab countries. That is close enough to a million, and look at their financial losses.

[Shaktimaan]

6. What is shameless about it?

It was always close to a million, the number isn't disputed.

Do you think the number is exaggerated and that is what is shameless; the exaggeration? Or do you think discussing it, not letting it drop even though the refugees have all been resettled in new nations, is the shameless thing?

I honestly don't see what there is for anyone to be ashamed of here. I mean, the expulsion of Jews from Arab nations exceeded the cruelty of the Nakba in pretty much every category. More people were expelled, it was more thorough, none were let back in, all of their finances and property were taken with no recourse... why is it a shameful thing to discuss while the nakba is considered an important historical event to be commemorated?

Is it that the nakba loses some of its impact once it is revealed that every state in the region created nakbas of their very own?

[Vegasaurus]

9. I think what is shameFUL

is that the world is expected to look at the crimes of humanity, perpetrated against the Palestinians, to support their right of return, their demand for reparations, apologies, etc., while the close to one million Jews who lost EVERYTHING when they were expelled from arab countries, can expect nothing, not even the apology.

Why is the nakba a worse catastrophe than that suffered by 850,000 Jews, who were systematically expelled from their homes, with no reparation of their property or finances?

The Palestinian nakba is not a WORSE catastrophe. Two peoples lost their homes and livelihoods. Why is only one worthy of discussion?

[ProgressiveMuslim]

10. I think the fact that this phenom become a talking point

suggests it's a tactic to try to escape responsibility for the tragedy that the Yishuv brought upon the indigenous people of Palestine in 1947.

These events are not equivocal by any means and the attempt to make them so is shameful.

What next, reparations? Will the nation of Israel sue the arab nations?

Puh-leeze.

[Shaktimaan]

11. I don't see it as a dodge.

But as an attempt to put the nakba in perspective with other, similar events of the day.

You say the events are not equivocal. I assume you aren't insinuating that the Jews' expulsion was the greater crime... tell me I'm right.
So, how are the two events not largely the same? What's special about the nakba?