WASHINGTON – Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, announced on Tuesday his intention to file a resolution recognizing Jewish refugees from Arab countries.
Danon announced the initiative during a General Assembly discussion to mark 72 years since the November 29 partition plan. During the annual session, the Palestinians are traditionally introducing a series of resolutions, including one supporting the Palestinians’ right of return.
The General Assembly considered five reports on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and approved five resolutions later on Tuesday. Those five are part of a list of 20 that will receive final UNGA approval this month. One of them A/74/L.9, condemns Israeli sovereignty on the Golan Heights.
The Palestinian representative, Riyad Mansour, said in his speech: “72 years since the general assembly’s adoption of resolution 181 of partitioning Palestine against the will and rights of our people, and after more than 71 years of Nakba and 50 years of Israeli foreign occupation we remain determined to realize our inalienable rights and will not relinquish our right to freedom and independence in our homeland.”
“The fact is Israeli settlement activities, and annexation measures are illegal regardless of schemes or proclamations trying to legitimize such actions. This was an equivocally reaffirm and the blanket rejection of the recent US pronouncement on Israeli settlements including in the security council,” he added. “Such decisions as with all of Israel’s unlawful measures to alter the demography, geography, character, and status of the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem, are null and void and without any legal effect. “
In his speech, Ambassador Danon pushed back against the proposed pro-Palestinian resolutions. “For the international community: you must recognize that over the past 72 years, you have gone from holding a pragmatic approach, to fully embracing the Palestinian method and perspective,” he said. “This new approach – call it the “Palestinian way” – stands in the way of ending the conflict as it encourages the Palestinians to refuse direct negotiations and instead hold pointless events such as today.”
“The international community should be able to criticize the Palestinians when they do something wrong, in the same way, that it doesn’t hesitate to do so when it believes Israel has acted in error,” he added.
The Israeli Ambassador called on the General Assembly to adopt a resolution recognizing the Jewish refugees. “There were an estimated 850,000 Jews who were forced out of Arab countries and Iran and became refugees in the 20th century,” he said. “These Jews were subject to brutal attacks and harassment and were forced to flee, leaving everything behind: in Iraq, Egypt, Morocco, Iran, and many other countries. And still, 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.”
“Israel took in these refugees and integrated them into our society,” he continued. “The international community, on the other hand, ignored them and built corrupt institutions that only serve so-called Palestinian refugees. In order to right the historical injustice that was done to the Jewish refugees of this conflict, I will propose a resolution to the Assembly that will acknowledge the wrong done to the “forgotten” Jewish refugees and will make right the injustice that they suffered.”
According to the Israeli Mission to the UN, the new resolution, which is still under work, will ask the United Nations to recognize the 800,000 Jewish refugees from Arab countries and Iran, is aimed to undermine the proposed Palestinian resolutions.
The Israeli Mission will also host an event to formally launch the new initiative in New York on Wednesday, featuring US Special Envoy to Combat Anti-Semitism Elan Carr.
