A high-ranking Muslim Brotherhood official called on Jews who immigrated to the
Jewish state from Egypt to return to their native country and leave Israel to
the Palestinians, Egyptian daily Al-Masry Al-Youm reported on
Friday.
Senior Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood official Essam el-Erian said
in an interview to television station Dream TV that every Egyptian has the right
to live in Egypt, and Egyptian Jews living in Israel were contributing to the
occupation of Arab lands, according to the newspaper.
“Egyptian Jews
should refuse to live under a brutal, bloody and racist occupation stained with
war crimes against humanity,” Erian said.
“Why did [former Egyptian
president Gamal Abdel] Nasser expel them from Egypt?” Erian asked in the
interview.
Several online newspapers reported in October that
approximately 1.7 million documents that purportedly contained details about the
assets of Egyptian Jews in the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s – were seized by Egyptian
security services just before they were exported to Israel.
A report in
the Egyptian government-owned Al-Ahram daily newspaper said that the “Jewish
documents,” packed in 13 cartons, were confiscated by Egyptian authorities ahead
of them being “smuggled” out of Jordan.
The issue regarding Jews who
lived in what are long-gone or moribund communities in the Arab world recently
made headlines as Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon launched a campaign to
have them recognized as refugees.
He said any property owned by Jews from
Arab countries – some of whom left in 1948, while others immigrated to Israel
throughout the 1950s and just after the Six Day War – must be included in
discussions for compensation of refugees.
Ultimately, Ayalon argued, they
should be considered refugees, just as Palestinians who fled during those years
are – a controversial position that even some immigrants to Israel and their
descendants dispute.
The deputy foreign minister said in October that he
had no knowledge of the supposed documents that had been confiscated by Egyptian
authorities, adding that Israel already has all the documentation it
needs.
Ilene Prusher contributed to this report.