Putting Jewish refugees on the UN agenda

I love the irony of this one! From the same issue of The Tablet as the item below on Israel as a modern Sparta, comes this gem from Danny Ayalon, Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister: "Echoing Bill Clinton’s call in July 2000 for an International Fund administered by the U.N. to compensate all people who were made refugees by the 1948 war, Ayalon announced that Israel will make the creation of such a fund a precondition of any peace agreement with the Palestinians." (That is, to compensate Jewish refugees from Arab lands.)

For those not completely au fait with the British notion of irony, it is (dictionary definition time) saying, in essence, the opposite of what you really mean. Perfect example: team A is hammering team B (at whatever sport), and team A send in another big hitter. Media commentator: "just the man you want coming in in a crisis!"

Ayalon must be a Brit in disguise. Reminds me of the time at a Maccabi World Union Congress, when we were in a sub-committee hammering out the wording of Resolutions, and one English speaker (a South African) looked at us Brits, doing devious things with words, and wondered, aloud, "How did you guys ever lose the Empire?" You have to imagine the accent.

By Brian Goldfarb.

By the editor. More information on the subject:

1. The webcast from the Jewish refugees conference.
2. A few more articles on the subject.
3. Reactions (in part) to Hanan Ashrawi's comments on the Jewish refugees.