...neighbours 'helped' their 'Palestinian' brothers and sisters

Jewish refugess from Arab countries, among them my grandfathers, were housed in slum camps called ¨maabarot¨ upon their arrival in Israel. The ¨lucky¨ ones were sent to remote locations in the desert under horrid conditions, while Jews who came from Europe were given ordinary houses in established cities or fertile territories. The ilusion of Arab citizens of Israel living happily portrayed in this film is far from the truth as well. We are used to this.. but if you are not from the middle east I suggest elaborating a neutral opinion and not falling to this kind of brainwash.

Wonderful news. The Palestinians have been whining about lost "anything", for decades. Whilst millions of Jew's, ejected from their ancestral lands of Iraq, Persia, Yemen, Algeria, Tunisia, etc... get no attention at all. They had their homes, lives, businesses, and bank accounts stolen and nobody ever says anything! This is way overdue!

After reading Shlomo Hillel book years ago I am surprised this has hardly been talked about.

This has the makings of a great campaign and well done to Danny Ayalon who is bringing some intelligent ideas to the table and a fresh approach to israeli PR. And don't forget to include the descendants of these refugees! I'm keen to see what the response of the arabs will be when the truth finally surfaces in a public forum and no suprise if they claim that they left voluntarily! It's also a very revealing contrast between Jewish refugees from arab lands who left with nothing, worked hard, with minimal assistance and made a life for themselves and the palestinians with their begging bowls out still expecting the rest of the world to support them. All this while the arab world with it's untold billions in oil wealth keep their hands in the pockets, deny the palestinians citizenship and exploit them in the struggle against Israel.

no special rapporteur for Jewish refugees,no gigantic bureaucracy bloated with syncophants receiving a vastly disproportionate amount if the worlds refugee budget. MSF does not disproprtionate numbers of clinics dealing with them and the UN NEVER mentions them.

as refugees by the UK 2 years ago.

Stop calling Mizrachim Arab Jews! Jews were all over this region thousands of years before the Arab came jihadding out of his barren peninsula.

the first government to be sued is Israel's.

Unfortunatelly the world do not recognize that there are jewish refugees because jews re started their lives without asking for help from the world, without stretching their hand for the world charity. We did what jews have done in the last 2000. We started again. With the help of IAS, the Jewish Agency and of the jewish communities around the world. That is what brothers do.. not as the arab world has done with ïts brothers-the palestinians. Give them money to blow up jews and themselves, and keeping them apart from their own societies. And that is the difference between us and them. We were robbed from all our material possession, but came out with the strength and will to make a new life. But those palestinians that still call themselves refugees are still waiting for somebody to solve their problems. The refugee issue is on their mind and they will always be refugees.

You certainly do not know what you are talking about. I can tell you from personal knowledge that in 1951 about 200000 jews from Iraq and Romania arrived in Israel. As there was no available housing, Maabarot were established made up of small one room wooden structures with corrugated sheet aluminium nailed to the wood. Water,toilet and washing arrangements were basic and communal. I personally saw both the Romanian and Iraq Jews living side by side in difficult conditions in Kiriat Shmoneh where there were thousand of these shacks on the west side of what is today the mainroad through the town. Over the years till about 1956, housing was built to replace the camps. In the meantime people who wished to, left the new town and were replaced by other new immigrants with housing which was was greatly improved. Other later immigrants who arrived in the mid 1950s were sent to outlying areas like dDimona where the conditions were difficult but the housing too was greatly improved.

We are Jews whose families once lived in Arab-dominated countries, but just because our families used to speak Arabic dialects doesn't make us any more "Arab" than it does make a Jew whose family formerly lievd in Germany a "German". We deserve compensation from Arab governments for our properties and assets that we were forced to abandon or that were confiscated from us, but we are not "refugees" because most of us are at home in Israel, our real country.

that we are having to resort to second and third generation refugees are expected to go cap in hamd to their parents and grandparent's countries of domicile demanding compensation? And you wonder why planet Earth treats Liebermean with disdain, and why there are no bang bang inTehran If elected as Prime Minister I would stop the handouts to the oarasites, in order to help balance the books. The days of pretending to read a book 24/7 will be well and truly over.

Great initiative that of Mr. Ayalon. Unfortunately, but not to my surprise, no word is spent about the thousands of refugees that were not properly "Jews", because born from marriages between a Jewish father and a non Jewish mother. We fled Egypt where my family was present since the end of the nineteenth century, in 1961. We did not receive any compensation for what we lost in Egypt, nor any aid from the Italian authorities. I would be most happy to assign to Israel any claim we might have towards the Egyptian Government, in full offset of an equivalent claim a Palestinian family might have towards the Israeli Government.

I take exception to the term 'arab jews'. These people are in fact 'Jewish Arabs'.

The fact that the ubiquitous "international community" has not recognized the claims or the plight of these victims of Arab and Muslim racism, injustice and hegemony is just another reason why all Jews should be wary of that community. Put simply, until the Arabs compensate their Jewish victims, many of whom lived in the states that expelled them long before the arrival of the Arab conquerors of those states, there cannot be a normal relationship with the perpetrators or their successors.

True, my grandfather was kicked out of his house during the Farhud in Iraq and his savings got pillaged. He came to Israel with nothing but his family. Yet, he never complained nor thought about a revenge of some sort. He was busy building a new house in Tebrias and he raised my father and his brothers and sisters honorably. Call it fate, god's hand or whatever, the fact still stands - we aren't refugees, just a bunch of people living in their historical homeland.

Would be even better a year before Abbas bid in 2011.

Houses, what houses? Fertile territories, what fertile territories? My relatives, my husband, together with his family, came after WW2 to Israel from Poland, were send by the Brits to Cyprus, came back and lived for years in tents and later in 'maabarot' which in the summer fetched temperatures over 40°. It was hard & difficult, primitiv & dirty, but they were free and didn't complain (or maybe a little). The friendships from those days are alive until this day and all those 'refugees from then developed into proud and free Jews.

I am going to send it to Jewish refugees from Arab countries by the time of Israel´s creation in order to have them also participating in this campaing .There are many,many in countries like Brasil and many others.

.. came from Europe and started out in a maavara too. Most did depending on WHEN they arrived.

like, the arabs really care for them.

Israel is overpopulated as it is. Too many welfare cases. Too much crime. In a real peace agreement the refugee Jews from Arab and Islamic countries should go back to their countries.

You are correct. It should be "Jewish Arabs" instead.

his mother is polish and his father ex algerian he left algeria in 1935 it means french algeria not independent algeria so if he want compensation he will must ask france ;his father is not refugee he went to diaspora willingly