© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com

As attorneys and politicians grapple over the validity of slave reparations, a group of Egyptians have trumped the debate with a claim against Jews that dates back thousands of years.

Dr. Nabil Hilmi, a dean at the University of Al-Zaqaziq, said Egyptian expatriates in Switzerland are mounting a massive lawsuit against "all Jews around the world" that seeks compensation for "tons" of gold they claim was stolen during the Jews' exodus out of the country.

Hilmi described the suit in an interview with the Egyptian weekly Al-Ahram Al-Arabi.

"Since the Jews make various demands of the Arabs and the world, and claim rights that they base on historical and religious sources, a group of Egyptians in Switzerland has opened the case of the so-called 'great exodus of the Jews from Pharaonic Egypt.' At that time, they stole from the Pharaonic Egyptians gold, jewelry, cooking utensils, silver ornaments, clothing, and more, leaving Egypt in the middle of the night with all this wealth, which today is priceless," Hilmi told the paper, according to a translation by the Middle East Media Research Institute.

Claiming the alleged theft was documented in Exodus, Chapter 35, verses 12 through 36 in the Torah, Hilmi described how a convoy of 600,000 Jews trailed by a long line of donkeys loaded with the stolen goods – including 300,000 kg of gold – crossed the desert in the heart of Sinai, in an attempt to confuse Pharaoh's army.

"The Egyptian Pharaoh was surprised one day to discover thousands of Egyptian women crying under the palace balcony, asking for help and complaining that the Jews stole their clothing and jewels, in the greatest collective fraud history has ever known," the MEMRI translation quotes Hilmi as saying. "The thieves stole everything imaginable."

"One of the women approached Pharaoh, her eyes downcast, and said that her Jewish neighbor who lived in the house on the right of her house had come to her and asked to borrow her gold items, claiming she had been invited to a wedding," Hilmi continued. "The Jewish neighbor took [the items] and promised to return them the next day. A few minutes later, the neighbor to the left knocked on the door and asked to borrow the cooking utensils, because she was having guests for dinner. Using this same deceitful system, they took possession of all the cooking utensils."

Hilmi estimates the nominal value of the 300 tons of gold purportedly stolen 5,758 years ago would be astronomically large. He figures the value doubled every 20 years and conservatively tacks on 5 percent interest.

Hilmi said a legal team will file the lawsuit after the calculation of the compensation is completed.

"If [the alleged theft] is for the purpose of borrowing, legally it has a temporary dimension, not a permanent dimension, and therefore they must return [the gold], with interest, to its owners," he said. "On the other hand, if the Jews took the goods from the Egyptians not for the purpose of borrowing it but to keep them for themselves, by legal norms this is theft, and therefore they must return the stolen goods to their owners, in addition to the interest for its use over the entire period of the theft."

Isn't it amazing to see how some will use the Bible for worldly benefit, ...but not eternal benefit?