What if the Persecuted Palestinians now Sue for Restitution Payments?

Reply-To: H-NET List for History of the Holocaust <[email protected]>
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Friday, February 26, 1999

Author: Stephen Feinstein

Edward Said, well-known Palestinian-American and Prof at Columbia spoke this week at the University of Minnesota. His approach contained some of the usual analysis of Israel's creation in the context of colonialism. However, he did talk about the Holocaust and its effects on the Palestinian people, then about Israeli revisionist historiography on the consequences of 1948, the now candid admissions about Palestinian expulsions.

He then moved the the assets question of Jewish claimants against Germany and other countries and suggested very strongly that the Swiss Banking issue and property claims by Jews had created a precedent for Palestinian Arabs making claims on lost property in Israel, on an individual basis.

I am bringing this up because I think you will hear more of this question in the near future, as more discourse is heard about 1948 and it seems obvious that Palestinians will use the restitution issue.

Dr. Stephen Feinstein,
Director, Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies
University of Minnesota
105 Jones Hall #27
Pleasant Street SE
Minneapolis, MN. 55455-0125

612-626-2235 Feinstein direct 612-624-0256
CENTER HOME: 612-377-3857
FAX: 612-624-4894 World wide web site: http://www.chgs.umn.edu

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