Israeli daily, Yedioth Aharonoth, reported that despite extensive pressure from various Arab countries, Israel managed to get the United Nations to hold a conference on “Jewish Refugees displaced from Arab countries”.The conference started Friday at the United Nations headquarters in New York; Arab countries tried to prevent the meeting but the request was rejected. They then asked the UN to allow them to have a table at the entrance of the conference hall to distribute statements to the press, but this request was also denied.
Yedioth Aharonoth said that the meeting was arranged by the Israeli Foreign Ministry and the special envoy sent by Israel to the United Nations.
The UN officially accepted the conference that aims, according to Israel, at “achieving justice to Jewish refugees displaced from the Arab world”.
Senior UN officials and ambassadors of various European States, and the United States, are participating in the conference.
Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister, Dani Ayalon, described the event as “historic”, and said that this conference “will work on achieving justice to Jewish refugees, who were expelled and tortured, and their rights were taken away”, according to Ayalon.
Ayalon also stated that UN Security Council resolution #242 talks about justice for refugees in the Middle East, and added that, back then, the U.S. Envoy, Arthor Goldberg, rejected a proposal by the former Soviet Union to add the Arab refugees to the resolution.
“We are talking about a 64 year delay”, he said, “But it is never too late to achieve historic justice”.
Israeli Envoy at the United Nations, Ron Prosor, delivered a speech at the conference demanding the United Nations to establish a center for studying and documenting the issue of Jewish refugees, and demanding the U.N to help the Jewish refugees in providing their testimonies regarding what happened to them, and to “recognize the humanitarian crisis they faced”.
“Jewish refugees deserve justice”, he said, “Israel is acting on achieving this justice on their behalf”.
Yedioth Aharonoth said that Prosor said that the United Nations and the International Community remained idle regarding the issue of Jewish refugees, and that “the time has come for demanding the Arab countries to take responsibility, and admit the fact that they expelled around a million Jewish refugees, and confiscated their property”.
It is worth mentioning that several Jewish citizens of Israel, who immigrated to the country from different Arab states, were also invited to provide their testimonies. International Law experts are also attending the meetings.
Israel is demanding international recognition of the displacement of Jews from different Arab States, according to its version of events, and is totally ignoring and refusing to take responsibility for displacing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, and for destroying hundreds of Palestinian towns and villages, during its establishment in historic Palestine in 1948, and transforming an entire population into a population of refugees.
The Israeli demand is taking place while Israel, and since its establishment in historic Palestine in 1948, and its occupation of the rest of Palestine in 1967, is still refusing to recognize numerous United Nations and Security Council result ions calling for the Right of Return of all displaced Palestinians, and for ending its illegal occupation of Palestine.
While Israeli officials are currently arguing in the UN about resolution 242, Israel itself is refusing to recognize it when it comes to the Palestinian Right of return.
Israel is in violation of several UN and Security Council resolutions, and is also violating the Fourth Geneva Convention; despite the fact that it is one of its signatories.
Israel continues its illegal construction and expansion of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, and in occupied East Jerusalem, despite the fact that settlements are illegal under International Law and the Fourth Geneva Convention.
Millions of Palestinian refugees are currently living in dire situations in different Arab countries, and in refugee camps in the West Bank, in addition to several parts of the world, and their internationally-guaranteed Right of Return is still being denied by Tel Aviv.
