Israel's Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Danny Ayalon's latest youtube highlights the issue of the Jewish refugees, forced out of their homes in the Arab world and contrasts them with the Arab refugees perpetuated by UNRWA and the Arab nations.
In 1948, an estimated 500,000 Arabs left their homes in Israel- of those, 160,000 returned and resettled after agreeing to live in peace with their Jewish neighbors. These Arabs, and their descendants make up the 1,300,000 Israeli Arabs who are full citizens of Israel today.
The others? Their number has grown to nearly 5 million today as they languish in refugee camps throughout the Arab world, used as pawns in the perpetual war against Israel.
Incidently, Minister Ayalon, a descendent of Jewish refugees from Algeria gave a talk at the UN High commission for Refugees Ministerial Meeting in Geneva yesterday, saying:
"The State of Israel is a country that was established as a shelter for Jewish refugees from all over the world, including, survivors of the Holocaust and those forced from their homes in North Africa and the Middle East. Our society is a mosaic of people from around 100 countries who returned to their ancestral homeland escaping the horrors of persecutions and violence.
As a result of our experience, Israel was one of the initiators of the Refugees Convention and one of the first countries to join it. Israel is committed to all its articles.
In addition, we support the application of the general principles governing the treatment of refugees worldwide to apply universally, without exception, including those in the Palestinian context. While the UNHCR has found durable solutions for tens of millions of refugees, the agency created specifically for the Palestinian context has found durable solutions for no one."
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