Good morning.
Mr. Chairman, as co-president of Justice for Jews from Arab countries, I am here to give you an overview of our presentation.
Mr. Stanley Urman will speak to the international community's response to the problems of Jewish refugees in Arab countries. Mr. David Bensoussan will then present a historic perspective and Mr. David Matas will present a legal perspective.
Thank you for inviting us to appear.
I will begin the presentation. My name is Sylvain Abitbol. I am pleased to be here today as co-president of Justice for Jews from Arab Countries—JJAC—an international coalition of Jewish communities and organizations that represent the interests of Sephardim and Mizrahim Jews that were displaced from Arab countries. Our mandate is to ensure that justice for Jews from Arab countries appear on the international agenda and that their rights be guaranteed as a legal and fairness issue.
I would like to thank the Canadian government for its leadership, both Prime Minister Stephen Harper, the Minister of Foreign Affairs John Baird, and you yourself, Mr. Chairman, for the leadership you have shown in organizing these hearings before the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development, in order to address an injustice that has been ignored by the international community for far too long.
In the quest for peace in the Middle East, we need governments such as yours, that demonstrate leadership and search for sustainable solutions, and are not silenced by political opportunism, since the challenge is clearly monumental. The tragedy of the conflict in the Middle East is reflected in the hundreds of thousands of victims who were ejected from their homes, who lost their livelihoods and who have been deprived of all they owned.
It is the policy at JJAC that the legitimate call to guarantee the rights and reparation for Jews displaced from Arab countries not be used to counter Palestinian rights and claims. It is simply a recognition of the fact that there are two groups of refugees in the Middle East, whereas the world is only concerned with Palestinian refugees. It is also important to ensure that the rights of hundreds of thousands of Jews displaced from Arab countries remain recognized and dealt with in the future. This is the only way to ensure a sustainable and balanced solution for all the Middle East refugees.
When JJAC began its work, about 12 years ago, no government was interested in examining the rights of refugees from Arab countries. Only JJAC has undertaken a series of initiatives to raise the issue of Jewish refugees on the international stage. I have appeared before the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva and my colleagues have testified before the European Parliament in Brussels. JJAC has participated in official government hearings that took place in the American Congress, at the House of Lords in London and at the Chamber of Deputies in Rome.
I appear before you today as a Canadian, proud that my own government has planned these hearings and in the hope that the rights of all the refugees in the Middle East will be recognized, including Jewish refugees from Arab countries, and that that recognition will be enshrined as a principle of Canadian foreign policy. I am also appearing as a Jew from an Arab country.
Born in Morocco, I was one of the luckier ones since I was born in a Muslim country that is relatively tolerant. Morocco is one of the rare Arab countries in which Jews live and have lived in relative peace, thanks to the leadership of several successive sultans who behaved nobly. Yet, even in Morocco, despite its tolerant attitude, only 3,000 Jews remain there today out of a population of approximately 265,000 in 1948.
Others were not so lucky. During the 20th century, large Jewish populations were persecuted and finally, displaced, in countries such as Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Algeria. A little later, you will hear experts tell you about massive human rights violations against Jews: persecution, violence, mandatory arrest and detention—and I myself have been arbitrarily detained—expulsions, expropriation of community assets and of Jewish personal assets. The list of injustices is as long as it is varied.
These measures, taken in many Arab countries, did not take place spontaneously nor in a vacuum. Documents have been discovered by JJAC in the United Nations High Commission for Refugees in Geneva.