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Who will compensate Jewish refugees from Arab lands?

Despite a willingness by US envoy Martin Indyk to consider compensation for Jewish refugees as part of an Israeli-Palestinian agreement, no Arab country or the United States has the financial means to make it happen.

BAGHDAD, IRAQ - APRIL 17:  Iraqi Jew Yusef Salman, 79, stands in front of the synagogue in the tiny remaining Baghdad Jewish community on Passover April 17, 2003 in Baghdad, Iraq. Salman's brothers left Iraq in 1948 and he has not seen them since. He has no remaining family in Iraq. The community members are not formally celebrating the holiday this year due to a lack of electricity, food and other problems associated with the war. The family has lived their entire life in Baghdad while the Jewish community
An Iraqi Jewish man stands in front of a synagogue, Baghdad, April 17, 2003. — Mario Tama/Getty Images

In December 2003, just days after deposed President Saddam Hussein was captured, I went to Iraq as a journalist.

“If you get to Hilla,” my mother told me, “look for our house on the banks of the Euphrates.”

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