Uncovering Stolen Arab Jewish Children

Occupied Jerusalem: The stories have been circulating in Israel for decades: Newborn babies and young children of Jewish immigrants from Arab countries mysteriously disappeared shortly after arriving in the country, purportedly snatched away and given to childless couples of European backgrounds.

Although a series of inquiries have dismissed claims of abductions, the accusations of a conspiracy have lingered. Now, the regime is moving to declassify reams of documents surrounding the affair, hoping to unravel a 60-year-old mystery that touches on one of the most sensitive issues in the country: the long-simmering fault line between Jews of European origin and those of Middle Eastern backgrounds.

Leading the charge is Nurit Koren, a freshman lawmaker of Yemeni origin from the ruling Likud Party.

“I want to know the truth. I want to know who took the children, where they were taken and if they are alive,” she said. “This is a serious wound that needs to be opened to heal society.”

Arriving from Arabic-speaking countries in the Middle East and North Africa after Israel’s establishment in 1948, many Mizrahi, or Middle Eastern, immigrants were sent to shantytown transit camps and largely sidelined by the European, or Ashkenazi, leaders of the founding Labor Party. This seminal experience contributed to their massive support for Likud.

Among the immigrants were more than 50,000 Yemeni Jews, often poor and with large families. In the chaos that accompanied their influx, some children died while others were separated from their parents.

But many say the reality was far more sinister, that the establishment kidnapped these children — and others of Iraqi, Tunisian, or Moroccan descent — to turn them over for adoption by Ashkenazi families in the belief that they could give them a better life.

In later years, families reported being mailed military induction notices, tax information and senior citizen cards for their supposedly “dead” children, raising more speculation that something was awry.

Three high-profile commissions dismissed the claims and found that most children died of disease in immigration camps. The final one, in 2001, said it was possible that some children were handed over for adoption by individual social workers, but not as part of a national conspiracy.

However, citing privacy laws, it ordered that the testimonies it collected be sealed for 70 years. At Koren’s prodding, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has appointed a Cabinet minister to re-examine the material and consider publishing it.

“I think it is time to find out what happened, to do justice and make order of all this,” Netanyahu said.

The renewed interest in the case comes mostly as a result of the efforts of second and third generation Mizrahi advocacy groups. They’ve collected new testimonies, launched awareness campaigns and opened a DNA database for those interested in tracking down their biological families.

Avi Josef, a brother-in-law of Koren and leader of the “Achim Vekayamim” non-profit group, said most estimates are that about 5,000 children went missing, mostly Yemenis in the 1950s. He said an aunt and two cousins of his vanished under mysterious circumstances.

His mother’s account is typical of others they have collected. Josef said she was asked to take her 4-year-old sister Saada to a health clinic and leave her there. When she returned several hours later, she was told her sister had died, but the family was given no further details or a body to bury. As impoverished new immigrants, they had neither the resources nor the wherewithal to challenge authorities, he said.

“It’s a double injustice,” said Josef, a 45-year-old lawyer. “First they were traumatised and then they were told they couldn’t make any claims. They didn’t even let them grieve properly.”

His 84-year-old mother, Yona, wept as she clutched an old picture of herself as a child in Yemen.

“She just disappeared, like they took her to the moon,” she said. “It still hurts my heart.”

Josef says there is no way the scheme could have been carried out without institutional backing and insists there has been a cover up. He said his campaign is only seeking closure.

Others are less forgiving.

“This is a crime of the largest scale that touches almost every family. It’s a crime against humanity and it’s no different from any other Holocaust,” said Shlomi Hatuka, a poet and activist of the Amram organisation.

He casts his campaign as part of the “Mizrahi struggle,” claiming that despite widespread intermarriage and material gains, discrimination remains rampant at the hands of the Ashkenazi elite.

He says several government ministries and other state bodies provided children for Ashkenazim who had none or simply to make money by selling them to rich Jews abroad. He won’t be satisfied with opening the protocols of a state commission he doesn’t trust and demands that all the adoption files be disclosed.

“Anyone who was adopted in the 1950s can’t know for sure who their parents were,” he said.

After years of dismissing the abduction stories as urban legends, polls show the public now overwhelmingly believes the claims need to be investigated. But with few leaders of that era still alive, and others wary of going public, the painful saga may never be resolved.

Josef acknowledges that most of the adoptees are unlikely to want to open this “Pandora’s box,” but he thinks that the state admitting to a historical wrong would help ease the pain of the original families.

“The worst part of this is the uncertainty, not knowing what happened to the children,” he said.

Some of those with doubts have not waited for authorities.

After a lifetime of people questioning why he looked different from his European Holocaust-survivor parents, Gil Grunbaum started searching at age 40 at the prodding of his wife.

By using adoption databases and questioning relatives, he discovered that he was born to an immigrant from Tunisia who bore him out of wedlock and was told he had died during childbirth. He later reunited with his biological mother, but never had the heart to confront his elderly parents before they died.

“I have some closure and I’ve been able to move on,” said Grunbaum. “But I’m convinced that there are hundreds more like me out there who just don’t know.”

http://gulfnews.com/news/mena/palestine/uncovering-the-mystery-of-israel-s-stolen-arab-jewish-children-1.1861655

The Mossad are stealing them and turning into into brain washed sleeper agents. They are secretly distributing anaconda malt liquor to the Arab community with the purpose of emasculating them.

This evil Israeli's

Don't be foolish.

They're handing out Crazy Horse.

Where did you get this gif from the Nintendo NX ?

This post is wait for it...unbearable !

If true, and it easily could be, this mirrors what America, Canada, and Australia were doing with native children at the time.

Only difference is in America, Canada, and Australia it was stated government policy and wasn't hidden. Except from the children themselves.

The phrasing of this threads title...

It's one giant "get them evil Jews!!!" click bait.

Like I said, that evil Anaconda Malt Liquor.

Not sure if your dumb or an arrogant *** like if you people never have done this stuff you know what il be as arrogant as you from now on

Also the title is not a clickbait go ahead read about history thats not written by American hands wait no my bad just blame ur *** public schools you studied at

God, find your own children, you lazy ***. we're busy with pizza and pokemon go.

Bet if it was American children it would be diffrent anway focus on looking for pokemons!

From a non arabic source for dum dum herp a derp saevel. Your text to link here...

In that I wouldn't be asking for help from the middle east, sure.

You already did with the reporters in isis and we bombed the ***out of them and you made it worse by invading iraq get your ***straight mate and because of that everyone in my country is forced to join the army who knows i might be deployed to yemen in a couple of months thank you Murica once again for *** the middle east

. Also what we are barely three million

Also who ever consider himself a christiand and whats to see how the holy bread really looks like will have to watch this video.

I'm far too poor to send reporters anywhere. you bombed someone else's reporters, not mine.


I was at home mate! my cousin invaded your country, but he really didn't have any choice in the matter. He said we shouldn't have, I take his word on it, so we agree here.


you're welcome.

. So arrogant lol invaded your country wtf man am baffled not much to say ok bro you must be from the south nvm i dont care lol lol lol not much to say man really read read read maybe? *** lol

And bombing a reporter wrf man ur on ecstasy or something like that?

I was back in 2002 - 2004-ish when you accuse me of "invading your country"

Read Again now i really beleive americans are arrogant

so no one invaded the UAE, whoopity whip ***. I still had nothing to do with anything you'd love to have me take credit for.

So dismissive and sarcastic, as to imply what far fetched and improbable acts these are. You sound like a child who has finds such things to be as impossible as Santa Clause.

These things do happen, they have happened, and they continue to happen.

The funniest thing is you're from the country that has seen the greatest amount of conspiracy and controversy in the last 100 years and assume such a dismissive tone.

Make sure you catch this Sunday's game.

And people wonder how the likes of Trump and Hillary can come to power of the world's only super power; its because you have laymen like these in great abundance.

Anything that disturbs their cushioned comforted reality cannot exist. The world is all peaches, unless you're evil. And when you're evil, you're evil for the sake of being evil. Like the Devil.

Absolutely outstanding, the madness that is America.
Their presidents are assassinated, their whistleblowers are persecuted, their minorities are murdered, their wealth and rights pillaged and raped.. and yet they're worried about the rapture, or the second coming, or Aliens abducting them and probing their behinds... Absolute madness, absolute insanity.

Your politicians bend the knee when they want something. Top 20 richest people from the UAE = the entire annual GDP of the US. Money is what matters to your politicians, who do you think they come crawling to when they need a favor?
And that's just the UAE, Qatar is another scale entirely.

Reality sucks doesn't it?
What happened when the cops falsely detained an Emirati man last week?
They apologised, your ambassador delivered a keynote address on television begging for forgiveness. If that was an American they could have killed him on camera and gotten away with it.

'Murica!

Thank Saudi Arabia for that one.

Again, I have no control over what my stupid government does, I'm poor. I have no quarrel with the middle east, hell I bet they've even got some foxy women over there. You guys are all worked up for no reason.