The Jewish comunities in Tripoli and Benghazi had maintained longtime relations with the communities in Italy. Many of the Jews carried British passports, others were considered French nationals. When Italy invaded, most of the Jews found it natural, after years of Ottoman rule, to support the new governors. The Racial Laws, first imposed in Italy and only later in Libya - for economic reasons as the Jews were considered fundamental to the wellbeing of the colony - were just the beginning. Things got worse when Mussolini received word that members of the Jewish community in Benghazi had demonstrated their happiness at the arrival of the Allied soldiers (understandably, as they were accompanied by elements of the Jewish Palestine Brigade), that had entered Libya from Egypt. It was a difficult situation; the front was moving back and forth. In 1942, Mussolini ordered that all the Jews of Cyrenaica be transported to concentration camps in Tripolitania. "If a prisoner dared go near the fence, the police were entitled to shoot and kill him. The fence was made of barbed wire and the guards were Arabs. I remember their names: Brobashi Abas and Abid Oni. There were also Italian guards…the Italian guards were the Arab guards’ commanders. The Arabs treated the Jews very well…When they saw a Jew they wouldn’t talk to him or torture him. Only the Italian major and the camp informer gave us trouble. The Italian police were cruel to us.", said Yehuda Chachmon. The Arabs gave refuge to Jews outside the Hara (Jewish quarter) and in the villages near the city, even if, at times, they overcharged them rent. And for their part, the Jews helped the Arabs when they could with basic necessities. On the other hand, the Italians , particularly the Fascists, abused the Jews, humiliating and offending them with insulting names, beating them whenever possible.

Ghadafi will not pay any compensation to Libyan Jews for the crimes Libya committed against the Jewsl; among the worst of any Arab country. Italy should block part of the compensation.

The Libyan Jews suffered during WWII, but before that life was good. They educated Jews and others in their schools. The provided law and order.

we all seek justice! The real refugees of 1948 are speaking out. Is UBRWA listening?

You constantly lie, lie, and lie. It was the Arabs who supported Mussolini's Fascism and Nazi Germany, and championed the invasion of North Africa by the Wehrmacht. As a token of friendship, Mussolini donated to the al Aksa Mosque the Corinthian columns under the dome made from Italian white marble. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Aqsa_Mosque Even Mussolini did not expel all the Jews of Italy. It was Qadaffi that cancelled all debts owed to Jews and in 1967 expelled them all in one fell swoop. Many of them found refuge in Italy.

like all the other lies floating about in the Arab street, so many that nobody can keep track any more of what is true and what is not.

to # 1 ... Italy pay Libia for ocupation ... so when Israel will pay Palestinians for 40 year of ocupation ??:) hahahaha

big concentration camp; allies' camps were much worse. for Jews, the biggest concentration camp was the US; they were not living but dieing in dullness imposed on them because for more than 7 years they could not extend the minimum help to their brethren abroad.

= NO compensation!

"Palestine" is an evil, occupationist force imposed upon the Land of Israel by the Romans and continued by the Arabs. Want proof? "Palestinians" speak Arabic, a foreign language to the Levant. "Palestinians" follow Christianity and Islam, the two religions of Israel's occupiers over the past 2 millenia. "Palestinians" are more closely related genetically to populations in Africa than they are to the indigenous peoples of the Levant. If you think "40 year of ocupation" is something to get your panties all twisted up about, how about 2000 years of occupation, second-class citizenship and the ethnic cleansing of the region's indigenous inhabitants? I rest my case.

because not only the capitals of the columns in Al-Aqsa were made of good Italian marble; but thousands of whole marble giant columns in the Holy Mosque of Makkah are made from the best Italian marble. There is, as well, the Italian marble paving the whole place over an area may be double the Old City. Mussolini must have a long vision to donate in advance those few marble capitals as a bonus for $ billions marble deal with the Saudis.

My parents and grandparents were ethnically cleansed from Aleppo when riots broke out in 1947. They left with nothing but the clothes on their backs. You are either grossly undereducated or an outright liar!

there was a debate whether Gaddafi is a Jew or not. genealogy was considered; the bible is clear as Num 1:2 "'Take ye the sum of all the congregation of the children of Israel, by their families, by their fathers' houses, according to the number of names, every male, by their polls". But, Gaddafi's father was a Muslim. so they reverted to the halakah law stressing the maternal aspect, as the contemporary complexities would make the paternal aspect difficult to identify. after all, it’s the one adopted by the state to define a born Jew. It was agreed that indeed Gaddafi is practically Jewish. In that case Gaddafi would never extort from Israel any compensation for the downed airliner over Sinai in 1973; Jew can't coerce Jew. and more, Gaddafi's son was enticed for engaging to marry a Israeli actress.

#12. Yes Jews were not allowed to flee Syria and were kept prisoners. Thise who tried to flee were shot.

A flight from Tripoli to Cairo got lost and entered Israeli airspace. The Israelis told them to land the plane and the Libyans refused to Israelis. Nothing would have happened had the Libyan pilots landed the plane instead of fearing repraisals for defusing the situation with Israel. The Libyans deserve nothing for dumb and bigoted.

but, Libyan pilot thought it was thumb-up?

Two days later, on February 24, General Dayan's case fell apart completely when the discovery of the "black box" containing records of the pilot's conversations with Cairo's control tower revealed that the Egyptian version of what had happened was the right one. In a new communiqué, Israel conceded that the pilot of the plane had "apparently thought that the plane was flying in Egyptian skies. When the Israeli planes appeared, the pilot thought that those were Egyptian MIGs circling around the plane." There was no conclusive evidence in the black box that ny warning shots had been fired, or that if they had, the crew of the plane had heard them. The next day, February 25, Israel's government changed its mind about the compensation—but not about the guilt. It announced it would pay compensation voluntarily, out of "humanitarian considerations"—but that it had determined that the Israeli air force had acted "in strict compliance with international law" in firing on the airliner. The 30 member nations of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) voted to censure Israel for the attack. The United States did not accept the reasoning given by Israel, and condemned the incident.

I said that the plane was lost but the surviving co-pilot of the plane admitted they ignored Israeli instructions for fear of being reprimanded for taking orders from Israelis. That Israelis thought to pay compensation to defuse an international incident doesn't indicate anything as much as Israeli public refusal to accept responsibility for Libyan mistakes.

I vote for outright liar. Syrian Jews have been the victims of horrific crimes, such as the young man who was accused of spying for Israel several years ago, a common accusation against Jews in that country. Not only was he tortured, but his pregnant wife was horribly mutilated in an effort to get him to "confess." Throwing the Jews out of a racist hell hole like Syria would have been doing them a favor.

Is Italy ever going to compensate Ethiopia for bombing them with chemical weapons and occupying their country ? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Italo-Abyssinian_War#Atrocities