This is a follow up to my post " Then Compensate everyone including the Egyptians" as I have found more information relevant to the the topic. It turned out this delegation is formed from a group of Egyptian Jews who are living in Canada "it makes it Canadian", this delegation was going to stay in Alexandria ,already the association of the Jewish community is there. They were invited by the Israeli Embassy. They were not planning to demand a compensation for their nationalized properties but they were going to demand the Jewish antiquities from old Torahs which is in the custody of the high supreme council of antiquities, the thing which also Egyptian state refuses and I am with that refusal.These stuff were found in Egypt and they are Egyptian and should stay in Egypt . For God Sake in the same way Egypt is entitled to restore its statues from Syria , you know the ancient Egyptians invaded old Syria and there are many ancient Egyptian antiquities there !!
FYI the high supreme of antiquities in Egypt is headed by no one other than our local Indiana Jones ,Dr.Big Diva Zahi Hawas
Anyhow the Egyptian authorities acted proactively for once in their lives releasing their media speakers to speak about this delegation in the newspapers attacking them.
The Embassy of Israel could not find a hotel to host them because of the media campaign .
Let's not forget that they are coming in a very critical timing ,the 60th anniversary of the Nakba ; the ambassador of Israel is insisting on provoking the Egyptian people in all possible ways , and it is not only Cohen , the current ambassador but all other ambassadors did the same and then in the end of their service they complain of how Egyptians ignore them.
Anyhow I think the timing was wrong and the propose of this delegation was wrong. They are welcomed any time to visit their country mother in Egypt but not to demand impossible stuff.
I have a very curious question is the Embassy of Israel the spokesperson of the Jewish people or what ?? I mean why does the Embassy of Israel care about a delegation coming from Canada ?? Is not this the specialization of the Canadian Embassy ??
I mean if an Egyptian Muslim delegation goes to Turkey to restore back the Islamic prophetic antiquities the Ottomans took from Cairo , the Saudi Embassy will not interfere in the matter !!??
Seems like maybe theres some other agenda going here, a more political one perhaps. I dont want to jump the gun so to speak but maybe the Israeli Embassy is getting involved because they are clearly trying to throw their weight around even when it doesnt concern them. I think we only have to look back at some of the past disputes that took place between Israel and Egypt. This is just another way of the Israeli establishment trying to undermine other Middle Eastern countries. I like the point you make about the Ottomans and the Saudis to compare the situations, good way of describing it. Whats everyone else thinking ?
ReplyDeleteI'm just wondering if they will label the egyptian courts as 'antisemitic.'.......when in all intensive purposes they are preserving the nation's historic sovereignty.
ReplyDeletePS there is way too much zahi on tv......
Z...I'm not surprised it's the Israeli and not Canadian embassy that is looking after this delegation. You have to realize that they are Jewish first and foremost. Anything else is secondary. Their network is incredible frankly. I admire how united the Jewish people are as a race. The Israeli ambassador in Canada recently commented that he is worried about Canada having too many muslims. Muslims now outnumber Jews in Canada...primarily through immigration of refugees. Here's a thought. Stop invading muslim lands and perhaps there won't be so many muslims immigrating to countries like Canada.
ReplyDeletePowerful lobby group and they donate to political parties here much like they do in the USA. Definite pull with those in power. Frankly he has nothing 2 worry about. Muslims in Canada aren't anywhere near as homogenous or as organized as their cousins. However, after hearing this statement, I wouldn't be surprised if the Canadian immigration laws which are already pretty stringent, became even more so. So yeah, the Jewish delegation knows that it can get more results out of the Israeli embassy in Cairo than it ever could out of the Canadian one.
@anonymous, for sure there is some hidden political agenda there when it reaches to embassies level , already the news is finding its way so rapidlly , bad publcitity
ReplyDelete@paxmachine,I think they already did , about Zahi is guy every where in a very stupid way , he is the hot asset of the ministry of culture
@NA Princess, I know all this and this is why I was not surprised when Bush once described as the Jewish state instead of Hebrew state
Well, it's evident that the canadian embassy did very little to support their cause. For better or for worse, israel puts itself as a supporter of jewish causes. They're entitled to ask for any support from whichever organization will help them.
ReplyDelete@NA-Princess:
is israel to blame for brazil having more lebanese citizens than lebanon?
(this is not a question.)
@Zeinobia:
There are many things which you can nationalize and you already have, the torah scrolls are not one of them. they're only as egyptian as the egyptian jews who shared them with egypt. if they want them back and if you consider them egyptian property, you need to examine where you err'd, despite the fact that such a self-search might put you in serious discomfort. remember, these jews preferred canada to israel. are you going to tag them as zionists now???
@Arab Jew , I did not call any Zionist here , but I still believe that they are part from the Egyptian history that should remain in Egypt and by the way I am from the people who are calling to restore all our Egyptian ancient artificats from Abroad.
ReplyDeleteThere is a still a Jewish community in Egypt , there are still Jews in Egypt
they are Egyptians and they will stay here
this is not nationalization , do not mix stuff dear
what makes those particular artifacts egyptian? their usage by egyptian jews. if those egyptian jews moved out, they should be allowed to take them. you didn't call them zionists, but most posts here allege some israeli conspiracy, ignoring the fact that these jews might not be zionist at all, and that it is crucial in judaism to maintain and protect torah scrolls.
ReplyDeletenow, those who really should be making the decision are indeed the remaining egyptian jews. they should be allowed to have control of their own items of worship.
top sum it up, i believe the destiny of religious relics is to be in active usage rather than on display, and they should be tied to religion and not nationality or locality. how would you feel if, for example, israel found a muslim relic and decided to put it on display? you'd be at least uncomfortable with the issue, if not more...
national soverignity and desire to maintain history should not come at the expense of any minority.
@ArabJew , first of all this Zionist smell comes from the Israeli Embassy
ReplyDeletesecond the ministry of Culture and high council of antiquities are responsible of all religious artifacts including the Christian and the Jewish artifacts
third the head of the Jewish community did not complain
fourth I think the last phrase would be suitable to Israel more
third in the same way Israel should return back all the monuments it took from Sinai
zeinobia, tagging the issue 'zionist' is a post-justification considering the fact that this is a jewish plight. you can't expect the israeli embassy not to support such a plight, but you shouldn't make use of it to tag it zionist either. if it looks like an excuse, walks like an excuse and talks like an excuse, it's an excuse. the posts here that focus on the israeli embassy support, as if that's the issue, disgust me, to be frank.
ReplyDeletenow i don't care which ministry is responsible. in israel, the ministry of antiquities is technically responsible for all antiquities, including muslim relics. but these should be in the hands of the muslim waqf. i don't think you'd say otherwise. so why are jewish relics any different? can you imagine the outcry if israel put on display some muslim relics? same with other religious relics.
as for the head of the jewish community not complaining, it's not as simple as that. he didn't go on to defend the egyptian government either. jewish communities are always in a precarious position and need to defend their jews first and foremost. i would expect that the default behaviour would be to leave the handling of the issue to jews who can get the back up of other countries and are not dependant on the goodwill of the regime. in particular where
as for relics taken from sinai - that'd be a bit different because thats a national issue and not a religious one. nonetheless, i fully agree that israel should not hold any historical artifacts from sinai. we have a saying in hebrew, "don't do to others what you do not wish done to you." which is exactly why the two countries should try for once and make good use out of the peace agreement and exchange artifacts.
@arabjew , why did they remember it suddenly now ?? after all that a group of Egyptian Jews ,that do not represent the whole Egyptian Jews outside come and say we want it !!
ReplyDeleteMr. Arabjew I love your style of using abstractions and intellectualized verbosity to relay your belief and you have the right to do so. However, I don't think you were successful for many reasons.
ReplyDelete1- The head of the jewish community in Egypt, who is by the way she not he, Miss Carmen Weinstein, explicitly said on her website that those artifacts and relics belong to the jewish temples in Egypt and WILL not leave Egypt under any circumstances. Jews from all over the world are welcome to come to Egypt and pray inside those temples. It will be a wonderful and enchanting experience for them. Here is the link for Miss Weinstein's website
http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/Vines/5855/bassai.htm
2- In your previous posts, again using abstractions and intellectualized verbosity, you talked about how the jews in arab countries, in particular your home country of Iraq, were treated unfairly, and their businesses were taken and nationalized. I am sure nobody likes injustice. However, in the same token, Palestinians were forced out of their homes and lands in 1948 and after because the new state of Israel was busy trying to accomodate the new jewish immigrants from all around the world. Isn't that injustice, Isn't it.
3- I think history was not your best subject in school but that is ok because I will teach you a piece of it now.
During the 700+ years of arab muslims presence in Spain, Jews were the most prosperous community in the whole Europe. Guess what happened to them after Spanish Catholics took over. You are right, they were either slaughtered or Baptized.
4- Finally, I think Zeinobia has done and is doing a great job for her country Egypt and the arab world. I think we can be a super power again if we have 1000 Zeinobia :)
@hazem (and item 1 to zeinobia too)
ReplyDeleteto the main subject, point number 1:
you might want to read this:
http://www.hsje.org/files/Weinstein/Letter%20to%20Weinstein%201.html
the issue of the sfarim is not a new one, as it seems. Ms. weinstein echos the decision of the antiquities authorities. it's what we call 'duress'. any self-respecting pious jew knows that the true destiny of torah books is to be used by worship and not to be put on display on some museum. furthermore, the number of egyptian jews in egypt is small to non-existant. it's not a safe assumption that Ms weinstein is more fit to represent the wishes of egyptian jews than a leader of an international egyptian jewish congress. however, that's not enough to mandate either HSJE or Prof Ada Aharoni to be given custody of the books. if/when we'll have a free discussion in which the egyptian government is not a party to, then we can truly know.
now lets clear some of the offtopic subjects.
regarding point 2, you couldn't be more wrong on the issue. two wrongs don't make a right, and binding the fate of arab jews to zionist jews only served to encourage zionism among them.
now, if anything, israel did dole out some crumbs to arab jews, while the palestinians saw very very little of aid derived from that property. the arab world loves to sympathize with the palestinians, but when it comes to compensating jews, suddenly stuttering starts. so, you're bursting into an open door. i'm critical of both parties but surely it's not your case to defend but rather the palestinian, and in essence you're robbing their positions. after all, the excuse given by the israeli government is that until the arab jews are compensated, it refuses to compensate palestinians. seems like israel can cooperate with arab countries, when it comes to robbing the palestinians and arab jews together.
regarding point 3, i'll try to ignore the rude presumptiousness and demeanings. having the catholic christians of various ages as the point of reference is quite telling. it's extremely poor defence. the true golden age was a rather short one as each dynasty became more anti-jewish than the other, making the life of jews quite hard. later, too, the lives of jews under arab countries would ebb and flow between relative security and various calamities. to quote albert memmi, of 'colonizer and colonized fame':
"I must be clearer: the much vaunted idyllic life of the Jews in Arab lands is a myth! The truth, since I am obliged to return to it, is that from the outset we were a minority in a hostile environment; as such, we underwent all the fears, the agonies, and the constant sense of frailty of the underdog. As far back as my childhood memories go - in the tales of my father, my grandparents, my aunts and uncles - coexistence with the Arabs was not just uncomfortable, it was marked by threats periodically carried out."
again, one wrong doesn't make another right. portraying the lives of arab jews as ideal is a myth.
you can read more at http://www.sullivan-county.com/x/aj1.htm
@Hazem,thank you so muhc for the nice words
ReplyDelete@arabjew , my dear friend please do not bring me links from anti-Islami ,Anti-arabic websites and consider it as reliable ,you come here with the ideas and memories you do not move inch from , with my all respect if you do not like the Arabs ,find their socities as hostile to the rest of this jazz , why associated them with your nickname !!
again history can't be modified despite all the efforts of those who want to modify it
check your history in Arab spain , Check your history in the Ayobian state in Egypt
Check your history in Morocco
the only time in the Egyptian middle age history I found injustice to Jews was in the time of El-Hakim's time at the Fatamid time and strangely he was injust to all the Egyptian population
Mr.Arab Jew ,you seem to me that you want to justify why the Arabs should be killed and their land to be occupied
@Arabjew, How did you come to the conclusion that Ms. Weinstein was under duress when she refused to send the Sefarims to the Jewish community in New York???
ReplyDeleteIn a letter dated March 1997, Ms. Weinstein's mother Esther Weinstein, who was the president of JCC at the time said the following
"Ever since I became the first woman president of the Jewish Community Council in Cairo (JCC), we have been assailed by letters, polite or otherwise, asking, or rather demanding, that we sent all the Sefarims domiciled in our synagogues to the ex-Egyptian Jewish communities scattered all over the world.
These requests are not new. We found several in our records dating back 17 years ever since the peace process was initiated during President Sadat's administration. Most of them were sent by heads of various Jewish communities.
The answer from JCC has consistently been "sorry, but the Sefarims are staying where they belong".
The only exception was when a well-intended member of the Alexandria community thought he was rendering a communal service to the diaspora: "It is a great Mitzvah because the people who donated them wish them to be placed in synagogues where there are minians to pray upon them."
Our do-gooder sent about 100 Sefarims out of Egypt. When this man emigrated a few years later, he was amazed and dismayed when he found only two in the destined synagogues, the rest having been sold to individuals and private collectors!"
So where is the "duress" here since there were already about 100 Sefarims sent overseas. Don't you think that the remainder of the Sefarims could have been easily smuggled out of the country if the jewish community of Egypt wanted to? Come on man or woman. Please be realistic.
Here is another part of the letter that I like to show you
"When I first went to Israel in 1983, I met a lady elegantly dressed from head to toe with hat, jewels, gloves, etc., not unlike the elegant ladies of the Egyptian Jewish community of yonder years. Her's was one of the most sensible comments I have heard from a former Egyptian Jew: "Egypt gave us so much; we deserve our lot because we were too selfish to give her anything in return"
You can read the full text of the letter if you follow this link
http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/Vines/5855/bassa4.htm
About the remainder of your answer to my post, what can I say?
It is obvious that you are blindly biased and you will not believe any historical facts about Palestine or Jews in Islamic Spain.
@zeinobia:
ReplyDeleteyou can say many things about albert memmi, but he's by no means anti-islamic, nor is jimena. is demanding justice anti-islamic? why? is anything that doesn't comply with naeim giladi's distorted version of the events, unacceptable?
nobody said i don't like arabs. through admitting the wrongdoings of the past, one gets better. it's not a function of enemity or hatred. i have plenty of arab friends, and you like me and like them know that there's plenty of get better on the todo list.
you're no stranger to criticising arab regimes. does that make you anti-arab? i doubt it. same with me. my criticism is against the regimes of past and today, not against arabs as a race or as individuals. here's the crux of the things - on the personal level, arabs and jews managed to make up very good relations. they'd live next to each other peacefully. but those with ambitions to rule would usually disrupt that balance or incite against the jews.
nowhere in my words did i find anything demeaning or suggesting that i hate arabs or that i justify killing arabs. my grandparents had a 4 room house and a grocery store in baghdad which is rightfully ours and should be returned to our posession. if anything, the only thing i've seen here is trying to justify why taking it from us was a fair thing to do, by using the palestinian suffering. i'd rather not expand and how that makes me feel.
@arabjew, what I want to say is that most of the suffering in the Jews in the East was because of Israel , these governments that took your stuff would not dare come to you and the people would not suspect you if there were no Israel
ReplyDeleteI believe the Egyptian Jews were not harmed by the 1948 as much they were hurt from the Lavon affair and the fact that the Egyptian people began to suspect the Jewish community due to the fact the some of its members can turn against their mother country
so, you're justifying these crimes, based upon the actions of other jews?
ReplyDeletedo you understand that the only logical conclusion that can come out of this, is that jews are one people, if we were to pay the price of the actions of other jews?
but that's not new to you i guess. you're a dissident, until it comes to the arab world attitude to jews...
and to hell with the fact that many of these crimes happened long before a single palestinian was deported, that even patently non-zionist jews (like shafiq ades) were hanged, that nazi propaganda struck gold(en square) in iraq and that other minorities also suffered from nationalism... no no, the nationalists are saints, it's all the evil zionists...
and lebanon also shows the shame in stark contrast, because when jews were not persecuted, surprise surprise - they remained in those countries, and found little to no interest in zionism at all. just another nail in the coffin of that theory
sorry to burst your bubble, but the harsh facts just point otherwise. and the arab world will not get anywhere before it stops invoking israel as the source of all its trouble and woes, which, btw, relates to my first post on this blog.
iraq perpetrated crimes against iraqi jews, and the rest is just excuses.
my dear sir , I am speaking about my own country , I am not speaking about Iraq , I do not know about the history the modern history of Iraq , but if it gives any solace the shiites and Sunnis also are leaving Iraq now
ReplyDeletemy country did not treat Jews in ill treatment even in 1948 and after it
do not generalize your experience in Iraq to the rest of the Arab world