We Believe in Israel (WBII) is proud to announce a new joint campaign with Harif, the UK Association of Jews from the Middle East and North Africa, to demand formal recognition for the 850,000 Jewish refugees who were expelled or forced to flee from Arab countries between 1948 and the 1990s.

This campaign seeks to address a long-neglected injustice. These Jewish communities, some dating back over 2,500 years, were violently uprooted through state-sanctioned persecution, pogroms, discriminatory legislation, and widespread expropriation. From Baghdad to Tripoli, Cairo to Aleppo, Jews were targeted solely on the basis of their identity—an identity now erased from almost every Arab capital.

Yet to this day, the United Nations General Assembly has never passed a single resolution acknowledging these Jewish refugees, and no UN body has been mandated to provide for their needs. By contrast, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has on several occasions affirmed that Jews fleeing from Arab countries qualify fully as refugeesunder international law. Their displacement was no less involuntary, and their loss no less profound, than that of any other refugee group.

Despite this recognition, international discourse continues to focus almost exclusively on Palestinian refugees. This selective framing obscures the reality that two refugee populations emerged from the same regional conflict. Ignoring one while elevating the other perpetuates an incomplete and politicised narrative—one that hinders reconciliation and a balanced pursuit of peace.

Together with Harif, WBII is working to ensure that this forgotten exodus is finally acknowledged as a matter of historical record, legal principle, and moral responsibility.

What We’re Calling For

We are urging the British Government to:

• Formally recognise the historic injustice suffered by Jewish refugees from Arab countries;

• Integrate this recognition into the UK’s Middle East policy frameworks;

• Support a balanced and inclusive approach to addressing refugee rights in any future negotiations.

How You Can Help

We are calling on our supporters to join our campaign and take action.

📨 Write to your MP today and urge them to press the Government to recognise the rights and losses of Jewish refugees from Arab lands.

This campaign is not about diminishing the experience of others — it is about ensuring that all victims of forced displacement are recognised with equal dignity.

History must be remembered in full. Justice must be applied evenly. Join us in making sure the voices of Jewish refugees are finally heard.

Model Letter

Recognition of Jewish Refugees from the Middle East and North Africa

Dear {MP’s name]

Between 17–20 June 2025, the United Nations will host a high-level conference, co-sponsored by France and Saudi Arabia, to deliberate on Palestinian rights. Yet notably absent from the agenda is any recognition of a second, historically linked refugee population: the 850,000 Jews forcibly displaced from Arab countries between 1948 and the 1990s.

This omission is both troubling and unjust.

Unlike Palestinian refugees, Jewish refugees received no dedicated UN agency to advocate for their rights. Nevertheless, the majority were successfully resettled in Israel—without international aid or compensation—and now constitute over 53 percent of the country’s Jewish population. Tens of thousands also rebuilt their lives in the United Kingdom and other Western nations. Of the nearly one million Jews who lived in Arab lands before 1948, fewer than 4,000 remain today.

The assumption that Jewish and Muslim communities coexisted in unbroken harmony prior to Israel's founding is a dangerous oversimplification. The brutal pogrom known as the Farhud, which erupted in Baghdad in June 1941—84 years ago this month—saw hundreds of Jews murdered and marked a grim foreshadowing of what was to come. It occurred seven years before Israel’s establishment. Similar waves of state-sponsored violence, expropriation, and expulsion followed across Aden, Iraq, Egypt, Libya, Syria, and Lebanon. The Arab League actively promoted laws stripping Jews of citizenship, property rights, and legal protection—measures that echoed the Nuremberg Laws in scope and intent.

It is estimated that Jewish refugees from Arab countries lost assets and property valued in the billions of pounds, including land holdings equal in size to Jordan and Lebanon combined. Yet no UN resolution has ever acknowledged their dispossession or suffering.

This silence is not due to a lack of precedent. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has publicly recognised that the Jewish refugees fall under its mandate. UN Security Council Resolution 242 deliberately uses the phrase “a just settlement of the refugee problem,” with no specification of ethnicity or origin—a formulation intended to encompass all victims of the 1948 conflict, not only Palestinian Arabs.

Several governments have already taken a principled stance on this matter.

• In 2008, the U.S. House of Representatives passed Resolution 185, affirming that “explicit reference to the rights of Palestinian refugees must be matched by a similar reference to the rights of Jewish refugees.”
• In 2014, the Government of Canada officially recognised the injustice experienced by Jewish refugees from the Middle East and North Africa.
• On 19 June 2019, the UK House of Commons held a debate urging the Government to formally recognise this issue.

As the UK considers its position ahead of the upcoming UN conference, I respectfully urge you to use your influence to ensure that Jewish refugees are not once again written out of the historical record. A just and credible approach to Middle East peace must acknowledge all victims of forced displacement. This includes the Jewish communities indigenous to the region, whose presence long predated the Arab conquest and Islam by over a millennium.

Recognition is not only a matter of justice; it is also a prerequisite for balanced diplomacy and a durable peace.

Yours sincerely,