[Al Arabiya Latest] A prominent Algerian human rights activist called on the government to acknowledge the rights of Jews of Algerian origin and said such people should be naturalized as he stressed there was a difference between being Jewish and being a Zionist.
| True. But those Jews who would deny others the possibility of living in freedom instead of dhimmitude, whether in an Arab country or, say, Venezuela, are either fools or... tactful. |
Malia Bouzaid, a member of the Arab Commission for Human Rights, launched a campaign to grant Algerian Jews living abroad citizenship as she believed they were suffering greatly because they were deprived from returning to their homeland. "Algerian Jews meet all the conditions to become citizens," Bouzaid told Al Arabiya. "Most of their fathers or grandfathers were born in Algeria. Many of them were born to Algerian mothers."
Bouzaid said the Jewish issue was very sensitive in Algeria but argued that handling the issue realistically would play a major role in solving many of the problems Algeria has faced for decades. "What I mean by 'realistically' is learning from the experience of other Arab countries like Tunisia, Morocco and Yemen in the way they preserved their Jewish communities and treated them as citizens," Bouzaid said, adding "'Realistically' also means knowing the difference between Jews and Israel."
| Bouzaid has not been keeping up with the news from Yemen, I think. |
Bouzaid stressed that the Jews she met in French cities like Paris, Lyon and Marseille pledged allegiance to Algeria rather than Israel and that given the choice they would love to resettle in Algeria.
| No, dear, what they would have liked was to get their old lives back, including their old homes and livelihoods, not to start over from scratch in a country which has changed as much as they have in the interval. |
When asked about French-Algerian relations, Bouzaid said that 25 percent of the decision makers in France were Jews of Algerian origin and that they have the ability to help their homeland if it were to acknowledge them.
| How many Jews were allowed to become decision makers back when they lived in Algeria, my dear? |
"They might get back at Algeria for denying them citizenship by grabbing every opportunity to weaken it in front of the international community. But if Algeria recognizes them as citizens, they will work for its benefit," she said. |