Israël heeft tot plicht recht te doen gelden voor het ca. miljoen Joden die tussen 1948 en 1973 gedwongen werden uit de Arabische landen weg te vluchten. De Joods-Arabische vluchtelingen kunnen minstens evenveel rechten laten gelden als de Palestijnse vluchtelingen en werden door de wereldorganisaties nooit als zodanig erkend en hebben nooit of te nimmer restitutie gehad voor hun verloren en/of door de Arabieren gestolen bezittingen, gronden en banktegoeden.
Jewish Middle Eastern Refugees Lost far more than Palestinian Refugees
Manfred Gerstenfeld interviewt Sidney Zabludoff
door Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld [Arutz-7]
“Ruwweg geschat werden één miljoen Joodse mensen vluchtelingen toen zij uit de landen van het Midden-Oosten en uit Noord-Afrikaanse landen werden verdreven nà 1948. Hun voorvaderen hadden daar in veel gevallen voor duizenden jaren geleefd. Vóór 1948, waren er meer dan één miljoen Joden in Noord-Afrika, in het Midden-Oosten en buiten het gebied dat Israël werd. Het totale aantal daalde met de helft tijdens de jaren die volgende na de oorlog van 1948 en daalde vervolgens tot zowat 100.000 na het conflict van 1967. De Joodse bevolking daalde in de volgende jaren nog verder en tegen 2012 bedroeg het resterende aantal ongeveer 30.000.
“Het exact aantal Palestijnen die sinds november 1947 tot december 1948 uit Israël zijn gevlucht, zal wellicht nooit bekend worden. Het meest aannemelijke cijfer is zowat 550.000. Hierbij moeten nog ongeveer 100.000 nieuwe vluchtelingen van de oorlog van 1967 worden bijgeteld, die het netto totaal brengt op 650.000. Aldus werd het aantal Joden dat gedwongen werd te vluchten omwille van de daden in de landen waarin zij leefden, overschreden met ruim vijftig procenten in vergelijking met het oorspronkelijke aantal gevluchte Palestijnen.”
Sidney Zabludoff is een economist die meer dan dertig jaren gewerkt heeft voor het Witte Huis, de CIA en het Amerikaanse Departement van de Schatkist. Tot aan zijn pensionering in 1995, concentreerde hij zich voornamelijk op kwesties die te maken hadden met de restitutie van Joodse bezittingen die hen ontstolen werden tijdens de periode van de Holocaust.
Even geduld… verdere vertaling is onderweg.
“The difference in individual assets lost was even bigger. It should be noted that it is impossible to determine an exact value for asset losses and arguments can be made for different asset values. The most solid estimate for assets given up by Palestinians fleeing the 1948 war was by John Measham Berncastle, who undertook the task in the early 1950’s under the aegis of the newly formed United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine (UNCCP). His estimate was 120 million Palestinian pounds of which about 100 million was for land and buildings and 20 million for movable property. One might add another 5 million pounds for bank accounts.
“This total of 125 million Palestinian pounds amounted to $350 million in 1948. This is equal to some $650 per 1948-1949 refugee. This number seems reasonable when compared to similar data. For example, per capita assets for Eastern Europe during the late 1930’s ranged from $550 to $700. These were the best equivalent asset statistics available. To this must be added the asset losses for those additional 100,000 Palestinians who fled in the aftermath of the 1967 war and the 40,000 internally displaced persons in Israel (IDPs). The latter are included even though they were often given new property and/or compensation. At a realistic $700 per capita, that would amount to another $100 million in lost Palestinian assets. Thus the total of assets lost by Palestinians is some $450 million. In 2011 prices, this would amount to $4.2 billion.
“A comparable estimate of the assets lost by the Jews fleeing Middle East and North African countries is $6.5 billion at 2011 prices. There are two major reasons for the higher value of assets lost by Jewish refugees. First, the number of Jewish refugees is some 50 percent higher than that of Palestinian refugees. Second, the demographic nature of the two groups varied. A higher percentage of the Jewish population was urban, mainly traders and professionals, who would tend to accumulate more assets than the Palestine population, which was more rural.
“There are other considerations. A major unknown is community property such as hospitals, mosques, synagogues, and religious schools. One estimate put the value of such Jewish-owned property in Egypt at $600 million in 2011 dollars. It can be assumed that here also the Jewish amounts are larger than those of Palestinians, because of the higher number of refugees and a larger number of locations.
“From a global perspective, the Palestinian refugee issue is unique. Since 1920, all other major refugee crises involving the exchange of religious or ethnic populations, while creating hardships, were dealt with in a single generation. Issues, such as right of return and compensation were never adequately resolved and were largely forgotten. As in the case of Jewish refugees from the Middle East and North Africa, all non-Palestinian refugees were absorbed into their new homeland. Such circumstances occurred in the case of Greek-Turkish and India-Pakistan disputes as well as the enormous number of refugees from World War II.
“For most refugee crises of the post-World War II era, compensation came mainly in the form of temporary assistance and lasted only a few years while the refugees were becoming assimilated into their new surroundings. Only the Palestinian refugee issue has persisted for such a long time. The result is that during the past 62 years, UNRWA has spent some $18 billion (current prices) to support Palestinian refugees. This amount is considerably more than the assets these refugees lost.
“In comparison, examples of compensation falling short are numerous. Less than 20 percent of asset losses by Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe have been returned, despite the fact that the Holocaust was an event unequaled in modern history – the extermination of more than two-thirds of continental European Jewry. This is the reality we face.”
13 OKTOBER 2012