peace of ‎mind. But I always told them that I became a widow and worked hard all of these years to ‎keep this home, and to keep it for them, how can I sell it now? Why would I? It’s i‎mpossible. I would never sell this home and leave.”‎ Sara Afteem, 77-year old female resident of Jaffa. Interview: Jaffa, 20 March 2017‎ Israeli justifications for the denial One of the justifications used by Israel to deny the restitution of properties taken from displaced Palestinians has been that of reciprocity. The logic behind this narrative is that Israel absorbed a significant number of Jewish immigrants or refugees from neighboring Arab countries, some of whom had their properties confiscated by the states from which they came, particularly Egypt and Iraq. Therefore, Israel claims that a reciprocal exchange happened in 1948, in which Palestinian properties, and any income generated therefrom, were used to compensate and accommodate the large numbers of Arab Jews who abandoned their properties following Arab-Israeli hostilities.134 This issue became prevalent during the permanent status negotiations in Camp David (1999) and Taba (2000), when Elyakim Rubinstein, Israel’s Attorney General and chief negotiator, disclosed that the records of the Custodian of Absentee Property were no longer available.135 He also added that the money resulting from the administration of these properties since the establishment of the Custodian had been used up and thus, it was the responsibility of the international community to raise these funds. Again, Israel continued to justify the denial of the income generated by the assets of displaced Palestinians, claiming it is a form of ‘exchange’ for all the displaced Jews they hosted. However, regardless of the status of the properties of those Jews who arrived to Israel from Arab countries, it does not affect the legal right of Palestinians to restitution of their properties. To tie in such a way the claims to reparations of different, unrelated groups of refugees is without legal basis: all refugees and victims of gross violations of international law are equally entitled to receive reparations, with no group to be favored above the others, and no group’s claims are conditional on the realization of another group’s claims. To that end, claims to reparations can be made against the offending state only – that is, Arab Jews claiming 134 Michael Fischbach, “Palestinian Refugee Compensation and Israeli Counterclaims for Jewish Property in Arab Countries”, Journal of Palestine Studies 38, no.1, (2008): 6. 135 Salim Tamari, Review, supra note 132. 49