Palestinians in Southland Seek Assets Left in Kuwait : Gulf War: Refugees say they are being bilked by their former partners. Many are on welfare or in menial jobs.

Whatever Palestinian businessman Jamal Al Sarabi saved from destruction in the war with Iraq, he lost in the peace that followed.

Al Sarabi was the co-owner of two home appliance stores in Kuwait that were ransacked by Iraqi soldiers soon after Iraq invaded Kuwait almost two years ago. But it was only after liberation that he discovered how complete his losses were.

Al Sarabi and thousands of other Palestinians who fled during the war were barred from returning to the kingdom because of the Kuwaiti government’s belief that they supported the Iraqi invasion. Palestinians say they are being denied back pay, bonuses, retirement benefits and shares of businesses that have been expropriated by their onetime Kuwaiti partners.

The Kuwaiti government has largely ignored their pleas for help, they say, leaving many who sought haven in the United States to live on welfare or work menial jobs despite substantial assets in Kuwait.

“It has become a matter of greed,” said Al Sarabi, a Riverside County resident who, despite a master’s degree in business from an American college, has found no steady work since arriving in the United States 1 1/2 years ago.

Raed Al-Rifai, press attache for the Kuwaiti Embassy in Washington, said the government sympathizes with the Palestinians’ claims, but is hard-pressed to help since it views the issue as a largely private dispute between employers and employees.

“There are courts for this,” Al-Rifai said. “There are plenty of Kuwaiti lawyers willing to take these cases.”

He said the compensation issue is complicated by the economic turmoil in the country since the end of the war, which has made it difficult for some companies to consider paying their former employees. “You are dealing with some companies that have not risen back,” he said. “They themselves are seeking compensation.”

But for the Palestinians who fled Kuwait--the largest concentration of whom settled in Los Angeles--the public words of sympathy from the Kuwaiti government reinforce a feeling that they have become victims in a cynical game of denial and delay.

The plight of the Palestinians has drawn the attention of at least 20 U.S. senators, including Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Alan Cranston (D-Calif.), who have signed a letter to the Kuwaiti government urging a resolution to the Palestinians’ claims.

Dr. Iyad Alshurafa, a Torrance physician who has been leading the Palestinians’ efforts to reclaim their assets, also has repeatedly petitioned the Kuwaiti government to help them recover their losses, or at least allow them to return to the country so they can pursue their claims in court.

But so far, the only response from the Kuwaiti government is a request for the names of all the Palestinians who have complaints.

“They are just buying time,” Alshurafa said. “They know we have no money to go to court. They are waiting for us to have no hope and then stop fighting.”

The Kuwaiti Palestinians are part of the vast movement of refugees through the Middle East that began after the establishment of Israel in 1948 in the territory then known as Palestine.

In the ensuing 40 years of turmoil in the Middle East, they settled in Kuwait, Egypt, Jordan, Syria and other countries in search of peace, work and a new homeland.

The Palestinians were originally welcomed in Kuwait because the country lacked workers. The Palestinians, in turn, embraced the stable and affluent lifestyle of their adopted country, eventually rising to become part of the educated Kuwaiti elite--doctors, lawyers, engineers and other professionals.

“We worked hard,” Al Sarabi said. “We were the backbone of business in Kuwait.”

Al Sarabi was born in Haifa and moved with his family to Kuwait in 1959 when he was 2 years old. He grew up in a Kuwaiti neighborhood, attended Kuwaiti schools and graduated from Kuwait University with a degree in marketing. After graduate studies in the United States, he returned to Kuwait to teach at his alma mater.

Despite the trappings of comfort, Al Sarabi said, Palestinians and other foreign workers were always treated as outsiders--the hired help in a nation bursting with affluence. They were barred from owning homes or businesses, which led to the creation of unusual partnerships between Palestinians and Kuwaitis.

Although many of the Palestinians had lived much, if not all, of their lives in Kuwait, few were allowed to become citizens because of the country’s restrictive naturalization policies.

“Day to day it was fine,” Al Sarabi said. “But when push came to shove, we were foreigners to them.”

Al Sarabi’s life changed in 1986 when a childhood friend asked him to join him as a partner in a new consumer electronics chain. His friend came from one of the wealthiest families in Kuwait and owned a group of businesses that included supermarkets, travel agencies, marine service centers and real estate companies.

Al Sarabi jumped at the opportunity. He bought a BMW, moved to an upscale neighborhood and began talking with his wife about buying a house--a dream that few Palestinians could fulfill because of the restrictions on foreign ownership.

“I felt we finally did it,” Al Sarabi said. “This was home.”

The Iraqi invasion in 1990 dealt a disastrous blow to Al Sarabi’s business, but he was confident that he and his partner would start again when the war was over.

He stayed in Kuwait for two months before fleeing to the United States with his family and temporarily settling with his brother in Palm Desert. “I was 100% sure I would be going back to Kuwait,” he said.

It was only after the liberation of Kuwait in February, 1991, that Al Sarabi began to realize something was amiss. There was talk that Palestinians would not be allowed to return to the country because of their alleged Iraqi sympathies.

In the following weeks, he and his partner talked several times a month to discuss their plans to rebuild their business. But each time he asked his partner to apply for him for a return visa to Kuwait, he could get no firm answer.

As the months wore on, the phone calls became less frequent until they stopped in September. He has never heard from him again.

“We did not betray them,” Al Sarabi said. “They betrayed us.”

The loss of businesses is only a part of what the Kuwaiti Palestinians say they have suffered in the war’s aftermath.

Ahmad Askandarani, a 41-year-old computer executive who lives with his wife and three children in a cramped one-bedroom apartment in Anaheim, said he has unsuccessfully tried to claim at least $40,000 in termination pay--an important lump-sum payment to foreign workers in Kuwait that is the only form of retirement benefit they receive.

Since arriving in the United States, Askandarani and his family of five have been surviving on $820 a month in public assistance.

“The money means nothing for them,” he said of his former company. “I cannot get my children the things they want. I need the money badly.”

Mohamad Jazar, a 31-year-old telecommunications salesman who lives in Anaheim, said he has waged a fruitless battle to collect $40,000 in sales commissions that he had been saving for his wedding.

Jazar, who has been unable to find steady work in the United States since arriving in 1989, has pleaded for his commission for nearly two years. He has put off plans for marriage and has no way to bring his fiancee to this country from Jordan, where she went after the Persian Gulf War.

“Thank God, I didn’t get married. It’s a lot easier to travel as a single man,” Jazar said. “We were hoping for so many things, a good family, a good life and now, it’s all out. I told my fiancee, ‘I’ll do my best to fulfill the things we talk about.’ She doesn’t say anything.”

Alshurafa estimates there are as many as 10,000 Palestinians in the United States who fled Kuwait during and after the war--at least 1,000 of whom settled in Southern California. But he said there are hundreds of thousands of others overseas, including Palestinians, Sudanese and Jordanians, who also have been unable to collect their benefits from their former employers in Kuwait.

Al-Rifai of the Kuwaiti Embassy said despite the Palestinians’ complaints, there is no organized movement among private businesses to deny compensation to the Palestinians or other foreign workers.

He said that some Palestinians have been allowed to return and that he knows of several Sudanese who succeeded in reclaiming assets, despite their government’s support of Iraq during the war.

Al-Rifai said former employees of the Kuwaiti government have been given at least part of their termination benefits and back pay.

“Their rights are reserved in full,” Al-Rifai said. “We are not going to pocket what is theirs. . . . My understanding is they truly will be compensated. The length of time for that, I don’t know.”

But Alshurafa said time is critical in resolving the dispute because of the difficulties the Palestinians and others are facing in establishing themselves in other countries.

In light of the bitter feelings against the Palestinians, Alshurafa said, the Kuwaiti government will not willingly resolve the issue. But he is optimistic that pressure from the U.S. government will force Kuwait to relent.

“By ourselves, we have no hope,” Alshurafa said. “But I don’t think Kuwait wants to anger the U.S. government. They liberated their country.”