I was invited recently to participate in a discussion by the U.S. House of Representative's Committee on International Relations on the Jewish exodus from the Arab states in 1948. Together with reports from experts and the testimonies of refugees, we presented the exodus of some 900,000 Jews as part of an anti-Semitic policy that included anti-Jewish legislation and incitement, the seizure of assets and pogroms.

From a legal point of view, as portrayed by jurist Carol Bazri, the daughter of Jewish
refugees from Iraq, the process was one of blatant "ethnic cleansing."

After the documents were submitted and the testimonies were heard, a congressman said to us: "The things I have read in the material submitted to me and the things I have heard in the testimonies are astounding. The systematic persecution and discrimination against the Jews is reminiscent of Germany in the 1930s; and the
physical persecution, including merciless killing by hanging, is similar to the extermination of the Jews in the 1940s. Why haven't we heard about this? Why doesn't the government of Israel tell the world the story of the Jewish refugees from the Arab states?"