Kadhafi’s Son Invites Jewish Emigrés Back To Libya
Saif al-Islam, a son of Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi, said in remarks published here Tuesday that Tripoli is ready to compensate Jews that left Libya for Israel and other countries and whose assets were seized. […] “It is a responsibility to invite Libyan Jews, including from Israel … to return to Libya, their ancestral land, and to abandon the land they acquired from the Palestinians,” he added.
what–nobody wants to talk about this? this is huge.
This is total bullshit! From thier side it’s simple, invite Jews back, thus ‘forcing’ Israel to give the ‘right of ‘return” to Palestinians.
However, they know that no Jew in thier right minds would think of going back to Libya.
This is total bullshit! From thier side it’s simple, invite Jews back, thus ‘forcing’ Israel to give the ‘right of ‘return” to Palestinians.
However, they know that no Jew in thier right minds would think of going back to Libya.
sorry about that.
The right of return is a universal principle and it should be respected by all countries
I think it’s great. How do you know whether people would go back or not? Also they are talking about having the right to compensation instead of return, which could be an option for the 1948 palestinian refugees too.
Now if other muslim countries would seriously do this, then Israel would have no excuse not to follow suit
There is no such thing as a right to an ethnic or religious majority
nuke libya
Libya, with it’s great open-mindedness, (spelling?) would be immediately filled with Jews. A new Jewish community would spring forth, secure in the knowledge of thier safety and well-being, at the hands of thier friends the Libyans. Never mind having been thrown out 50 years earlier.
/sarcastic.
And the money is all a smoke screen. They can play around for years, claiming they don’t have sufficient proof etc. I’m not big into trusting them.
what–nobody wants to talk about this? this is huge. / This is total bullshit!
This is consistent.
I’ve always been surprised that more Arab countries haven’t done this — it’s entirely consistent with the Arab League’s (and OIS’s) nationalist antisemitism and anti-Zionism, which insists that there is no Jewish people, only Libyans of the Jewish faith, etc., etc.
The general idea being for Jews to go back to “where they came from”. (Ie, places in which they were being told to go back to “where they came from”. But, as they say, I digress.)
Which, hey, I’m all for Libya’s move; just ready to acknowledge that it in no way represents any kind of political shift — just the opposite.
Incidentally, on the right of return is a universal principle and it should be respected by all countries : I’m honestly curious. How so?
If the Arab countries offered reperations in place of return, and Israel did the same, and the Palestinians accepted the agreement, that would go a long way to solving a multitude of Israel’s problems. If this is a publicity stunt by the son of a mad tyrant to score points against Israel to build his country’s standing in the international community…well, then it seems harmless.
mhz wrote : Never mind having been thrown out 50 years earlier.
the article says :
“There were around 38,000 Jews in Libya in 1948 when the Jewish state was created and the vast majority emigrated in the next three years.”
If they were thrown out then why did they leave gradually over the course of 3 years ?
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8opus wrote: it’s entirely consistent with the Arab League’s (and OIS’s) nationalist antisemitism and anti-Zionism, which insists that there is no Jewish people, only Libyans of the Jewish faith, etc., etc.
How do you define that as anti-semitic ?
“Incidentally, on the right of return is a universal principle and it should be respected by all countries” : I’m honestly curious. How so?
The abridged answer:
The right of refugees to return is guaranteed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 13(2) which states: “Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.”
Ah, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. That beautifully utopian document that has been violated by every government (if not every institution, if not every person) in the history of man. While I whole heartedly support the cause of Human Rights, the document offers virtually no ways of preserving rights. But you’re right about people leaving over a period of three years. Just like those Native Americans who claim they were kicked off their land. I mean, they took like, 100 years to all be forced into Oklahoma.
The right of return is a universal principle and it should be respected by all countries as right of refugees to return is guaranteed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 13(2).
Oh. Sorry — thought you were talking about something different and perhaps outside refugees and the nation-state regime. Yes, UDHR 13 is well-known and complex and all that, sure.
(Though I don’t agree with EMTZAlex that, because many people have violated it, it ceases to be operative.)
Arab League’s (and OIS’s) nationalist antisemitism and anti-Zionism, which insists that there is no Jewish people, only Libyans of the Jewish faith, etc., etc. How do you define that as anti-semitic ?
What, seriously? For the same reason I regard the accusations that Palestinians aren’t really a people, Kurds aren’t really a people, and so on as racist. They’re manoeuvres to deny {Jews,Palestinians,Kurds} their basic rights under international law.
“why did they leave gradually over the course of 3 years ?”
LOL…sorry, that was rude…
You’re right that they weren’t exactly loaded on boats and shipped east in ‘48, but the systematic and methodological way the Arabs counties forced the Jews out was a combination of asset seizures and open support for anti-Semitism. The same anti-Semitism that drove the Jews away also kept them in Arab lands. Same thing with the Jews of pre-war Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union. The government didn’t want the Jews to stay and the Jews wanted to leave. But don’t give the Jews what they want, so don’t let them leave. A friend of mine, his family didn’t manage to leave Syria until the mid-Sixties. And believe me, they weren’t staying for their health or wealth.
fyi, the Lybian Jewish community was not expelled but subjected to a series of debilitating and humiliating repressions.
This began with the Facist ocupation of Lybia (don’t forget, it was an Italian colony) which saw the repression of the Tripolitan community and the closure of the Benghazi quarter.
But the real issue was the British. After years of repression at the hands of facists, The Lybian Jews wanted out. The Brits held Lybia after the war and made emigration illegal (wouldn’t want the Jews forming a state of their own where they can’t be repressed, now). So immigration of the community to Israel was a slow process.
Eventually immigration was allowed in ’49 and over 30,000 left for Israel. Only 500 remained when Gaddafi staged his could in ’69. He made it illegal for Jews to hold property and generally made life shitty.
fascinating documentation at http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/JewsofLibya/LibyanJews/testimonies/testimonylillo-excerpt.html
I question this idea that (for instance) Ethiopian Jews, Ashkenazi Jews, former Soviet Asian Jews are obviously one people. There is no common language, culture, dress. The only thing in common is religion.
So what if there is some common lineage ? All of mankind comes from Africa if you go back far enough.
I question this idea that (for instance) Ethiopian Jews, Ashkenazi Jews, former Soviet Asian Jews are obviously one people. There is no common language, culture, dress. The only thing in common is religion.
That’s nice. (As it happens, “religion” is a modern European construct that has no analogue in Jewish tradition.) But, then, this is a boring debate; believe whatever you like about Jews (or Gypsies, or Kurds, or any other diasporic people). Passover’s coming up; consult your local Haggadah for details.
Babylonian, you do, on the surface, seem to have a point. But if you believe at all in human self-determination, then you can’t deny a group their identity based on lack of clothing. Article 15 of the UDHR says (1) Everyone has the right to a nationality. (2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality. Why not the Jews?