Hanan Ashrawi: Ugly Lies From An Ugly Woman
PLO’er, former Sydney Peace Prize recipient and part-time camel impersonator Hanan Ashrawi is denying there were any Jewish refugees from Arab countries.
Jews who came to Israel from Arab countries are not refugees, because they left their homes voluntarily and under pressure from Zionist groups and the Jewish Agency, Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the PLO Executive Committee, said over the weekend.
In an article published in a number of Arab media outlets, Ashrawi, who is also a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, said the “claim that Jews who migrated to Israel, which is supposed to be their homeland, are ‘refugees’ who were uprooted from their homelands… is a form of deception and delusion.”
She explained: “If Israel is their homeland, then they are not ‘refugees;’ they are emigrants who returned either voluntarily or due to a political decision.”
Ashrawi’s comments came in response to Israeli efforts to hold a summit on the issue of Jewish refugees from Arab countries next month.
The Foreign Ministry – together with the World Jewish Congress and the Senior Citizens Ministry (formerly the Pensioners Affairs Ministry) – is stepping up its campaign to bring the issue of Jewish refugees to public and diplomatic attention.
The Foreign Ministry says more than 850,000 Jews from Arab countries fled their homes following persecution that ensued after the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948.
Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon told The Jerusalem Post last week that the government was finalizing plans to institute a national day of recognition for the Jewish refugees. It also plans to build a museum to document the historical events of these communities, as well as their cultural heritage; collate testimony from thousands of refugees; and bring the issue front and center on the diplomatic stage.
Ashrawi, however, rejected the assertion that Jews left their countries of birth because of persecution.
“Arab Jews were part of the Arab region, but they began migrating to Israel after its establishment,” she argued. “They did so in accordance with a forethought plan by the Jewish Agency to bring Jews from all around the world to build the State of Israel.”
Ashrawi did, nonetheless, acknowledge that “some Arab countries at that time were ruled by tyrannical regimes.”
But, she noted, “all citizens, regardless of their religion, were subjected to suffering.
Jews were not singled out, although there had been some suspicious incidents of persecution or individual violence [against Jews] to encourage them to emigrate [to Israel]. The emigration of Jews was a voluntary act that was influenced by factors of pressure and temptation by Zionist movements and the Jewish Agency.”
Ashrawi called for drawing a distinction between Arab and Jewish refugees.
Zionist gangs, she said, “forced Palestinians out of the land that had belonged to the Palestinian people for thousands of years, while Jews voluntarily and collectively left.”
What a bunch of hogwash. What a detestable woman.
Perhaps she can make like a gerbil and exercise her right of return to..oh, never mind.
About the Author
An Australian immigrant to Israel, Aussie Dave has been blogging since early 2003.Filed Under: Aussie Dave
Wasn’t she separated at birth from radical leftist Naomi Chazan?
“Jews who came to Israel from Arab countries are not refugees, because they left their homes voluntarily…”
Should a Zionist dare to suggest so about the fate of most Arab settler-colonists in the War of 1947–9, he’d be banned from your typical lefty forum quicker than you could say “double standard.”
“Arab Jews…”
That’s a staple of anti-Zionists everywhere—calling the Sephardim “Arab Jews” is de rigeur in cesspools like Mound o’ Scheiss, with the implication that everything was hunky-dory between Jews in Islamic countries and their Arab neighbors until those “dirty White European AshkeNazi Zionists” ruined everything.
In reality, the land-faithful Israeli Jewish Right has had Sephardim at its core from the very start, mainly because they’re far more likely to believe the stories of their parents and grandparents who had lived under Islamic apartheid, rather than Edward Saidian myths about an idyllic coexistence.
“Zionist gangs … forced Palestinians out of the land that had belonged to the Palestinian people for thousands of years…”
More projection. Arab colonial gangs tried, and still try, to force Palestinians, true Palestinians, meaning Jews, and only Jews, out of the land that has belonged to the Palestinian people, the Jewish people, for thousands of years.
Arab colonist land-grabbing invaders like Hanan Ashrawi out! No peace without justice! No peace while the injustice of Arab settlers stealing Palestinian (=Jewish) land persists!
not in thirty years has this woman made one useful comment towards mutual recognition, understanding and reconciliation. She is propagandist who distorts and twists history to fit FBMP Arab interests.
Not only that, she is also a Christian dhimmi.
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