The Jewish Refugees

My deadline was a couple of hours away and I was frantically searching for a topic for today's cartoon when I got an email headlined Congress adopts first ever Jewish refugees bill. The email was dated April 1st. Yikes! Was it true or just another annoying April Fools' Day joke?

The story then started appearing on various news sites.

Here's the story as just published in Haaretz

"The U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday approved an unprecedented resolution recognizing Jewish refugees from Arab countries who were forced to flee their homes in the aftermath of the creation of the state of Israel.

According to the language of the resolution, U.S. officials involved in Middle East peace negotiations which also reference the Palestinian refugee question are to "also include a similarly explicit reference to the resolution of the issue of Jewish refugees from Arab countries."

"The world needs to understand that it is not just the Arabs and it's not just the Palestinians in the Middle East, but also Jewish people who themselves were dispossessed of their possessions and their homes, and were victims of terrorist acts," one of the bill's co-sponsors, Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-N.Y.) said.

"Jewish refugees outnumbered Palestinian refugees, and their forced exile from Arab lands must not be omitted from public discussion on the peace process," said Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY)." -more

I was at first so sure that it was an April Fools Day hoax that I went to the source of the original information and left a comment asking if it was a joke.

You can see the comment I left, and the info that they sent me by clicking on Point of No Return, a blog about the Middle East's forgotten Jewish refugees.

So how do you think Condi and Bush will handle this one?