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Rabat – The Israeli ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, has asked the UN to recognize Jews who fled Arab and Muslim countries in the last century as refugees.
The Israeli envoy announced his plans to propose a resolution about “the ‘forgotten’ Jewish refugees” to the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, December 3.
“We don’t hear the international community speak of them when they discuss the refugees of the conflict, perhaps because it doesn’t serve the Palestinian narrative,” said Danon, accusing the international community’s approach to refugees of being partisan.
The Israeli representative did not give any details about his resolution, except that it would “acknowledge the wrong done” to the “Jewish refugees” and “make right the injustice they suffered.”
During the same meeting, Palestinian Ambassador to the UN Riyad Mansour called for humanitarian aid for Palestinian refugees. He also said that the assembly’s history of resolutions on the Israel-Palestinian conflict shows that there is no prejudice against Israel.
“It doesn’t work that way,” said Mansour.
The Israeli ambassador’s remarks came after the assembly approved several resolutions concerning the Israeli-Palestinian issue. One resolution includes a call for a stop to Israeli settlement of areas Israel captured in the 1967 Six-Day War.
Danon said that around 850,000 Jews fled Muslim countries, including Iraq, Egypt, Morocco, and Iran, during the 20th century after enduring violence and persecution. Many left for Israel around the year 1948.
The call for refugee recognition reflects Israel’s determination to put a stop to what it considers as pro-Palestinian bias at the UN.
The UN assists more than 700,000 Palestinians, who fled their homes during the Six-Day War, and their descendants, established now in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon.
The UN created its Relief and Works Agency in 1949 to support Palestinian refugees. Israel and the US, however, accused the agency of being anti-Israel. The US reduced its funding for the agency from $360 million in 2017 to only $60 million in 2018 and then cut it off completely this year, after calling the agency “irredeemably flawed.”
While Israeli leaders welcomed the US decision, Palestinians protested it.
International support is “an indispensable source of hope and stability until a just solution for the Palestine refugees is realized,” said the Palestinian representative Riyad Mansour.
