Jews from Arab Countries to Demand Reparations in Any Mideast Settlement

Jews from Arab countries made it clear today that they will demand reparations from the countries of their birth in any Middle East settlement. “No final peace in the Middle East can be achieved without taking into account the rights of the hundreds of thousands of Jews from Arab countries who now constitute 41 percent of the population of Israel and 12 percent of all the Jews in the world,” Mordechai Ben Porat, co-chairman of the World Organization of Jews from Arab Countries (WOJAC), declared.

Ben Porat spoke at a press conference in the office of the American Jewish Committee where the formation of the American section of WOJAC was announced. Members of the new group’s steering committee participated in the conference.

Dr. Heskel M. Haddad, a clinical professor of ophthalmology at New York Medical College, who was born in Iraq, said the American section will represent the some 50,000 Jews in the United States from Arab countries, would fight for reparations for them and would seek to educate the American public and government about the just claims of these Jews.

Ben Porat, who was also born in Iraq, has been in the U.S. for the past four months as a member of Israel’s United Nations delegation. He said during that time he spoke of the problem of Jewish refugees from Arab countries on 160 occasions throughout the U.S.

He said that while everyone knows about Arab refugees, people seem surprised when he tells them that Jews from Arab countries were also refugees and they, too, had to live in refugee camps when they first came to Israel. Those camps, he noted, were not officially called refugee camps but transition camps.

OTHER REFUGEE CAMPS

He said he believes part of the problem was also neglect of the issue by the Israeli government and the Jewish establishment. But now both Israel and the Carter Administration have promised to include the Jewish refugee problem as part of the negotiations on the basis of UN Security Council Resolution 242 which calls for a settlement of the refugee problem, he said.

Ben Porat’s words were echoed by Mrs. Aviva Mutchnik, a graduate student at the University of Michigan, who said that when she came to Israel as a child of three from Iraq her family also had to live in refugee camps. She said that she has been in the U.S. for 10 years and was shocked by the ignorance of the plight of Jewish refugees here. “The settlement in the Middle East ought to include us, us who grew up in refugee camps, us who suffered,” she said.

Dr. Paul M. Raccah, head of the physics department of the University of Illinois, who was born in Tunisia, said one of the most tragic results of the Mideast conflict is the destruction of thousands of years of Jewish culture in the Arab countries. He also noted that Arab refugees had only to move some 30 miles to people with the same language, the same culture and even the same geography. But Jewish refugees not only lost all their possessions but also lost their culture, suffered culture shock and were forced to abandon their old ways. “Our culture has been fossilized,” he said.

Dr. Aziz Gourgi, an Iraqi-born Long Island physician, also pointed out that Jews had a long history in the Arab countries pre-dating Islam by centuries. Yet, he said, they were forced out of the Arab countries without any possessions. Haddad said Jews from Arab countries also want a return of their religious and cultural possessions that are being kept in the Arab countries.

EXPLAINING THE SOCIAL GAP

Asked about the social gap between Jews from Arab countries and others that now exists in Israel, Ben Porat said it exists but the situation is improving. He noted that critics point out that 16 percent of Sephardi Jews go to college, but 10 years ago it was only 6 percent. He said the biggest hope for the future is that intermarriage between Jews from Arab countries and European countries has risen to 21 percent.

Haddad said that the problem started when the Arab countries expelled Jews, sending some 650,000 Jews into Israel and thereby doubled its population in hopes of ruining Israel’s economy. He said these people have not stood still but have worked hard to gradually get themselves out of poverty.

Raccah stressed that the Jewish refugees accepted the fact that they had left their homelands and tried to make a new life in contrast to the Arab refugees. “They did not throw bombs, they did not kill people, they just tried to survive,” he said. He stated that he is grateful that he was given the opportunity in the U.S. to pursue his career in physics. But he stressed that he and other Jews from Arab countries did not think anyone owed them anything that anyone had to give them something. They knew that they had to work hard if they wanted to make a new life, he said.

Ben Porat rejected a suggestion that WOJAC was formed as a gambit to offset Arab demands for Palestinian refugees. But he said if a settlement would be reached in which the Arabs would grant Israel recognition and security and full peace, WOJAC would be satisfied. But Haddad said that Israel cannot reject the rights of Jews from Arab countries who live abroad, including some 650,000 in France. He said no matter what is decided between Israel and the Arab countries, Jews abroad will press their claim for reparations just as Jews from Germany did.