Thursday, August 02, 2012

A bill in Congress for recognizing Jews displaced from Muslim lands

Some members of Congress have introduced a bill to recognize the plight of Jews who were exiled and endured other degradations in Muslim countries:
A bipartisan bill that would ensure recognition of the plight of 850,000 Jewish refugees displaced from Arab countries since Israel's War of Independence in 1948 has been introduced to the U.S. Congress.

The legislation, proposed by Representatives Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), Howard Berman (D-CA), Ted Poe (R-TX), Joe Crowley (D-NY), and Bob Turner (R-NY), calls on the Obama administration to pair any explicit reference to Palestinian refugees with a similar reference to Jewish or other refugee populations.

“The suffering and terrible injustices visited upon Jewish refugees in the Middle East needs to be acknowledged," Nadler said. "It is simply wrong to recognize the rights of Palestinian refugees without recognizing the rights of nearly one million Jewish refugees, who suffered terrible outrages at the hands of their former compatriots.

This no-nonsense legislation would help secure equal treatment of Palestinian and Jewish refugees."

"Jewish refugees who were forced to flee Arab countries and Iran endured unimaginable hardships,” Ros-Lehtinen added. “Their plight has been ignored by the United Nations, other international bodies, and many responsible nations. Any comprehensive Middle East peace agreement can only be credible and enduring if it resolves all issues related to the rights of all refugees in the Arab world and Iran, including Jews, Christians and others."
In the case of the so-called "palestinian" refugees, let's note though that in their case, they weren't driven out of Israel the way Jews were driven out of the ummah (and out of Jerusalem during 1948), and the Arab-Muslim countries they went to basically denied them equal rights, using them in some cases as tools for undermining Israel.

The new proposed bill is an important step in the right direction, and we must hope it passes into law.

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