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Originally Posted by Eleanora1
A roughly equal number of Arab Jews were also kicked out. They settled in Israel. Where the hell else were they supposed to go? To a Europe that had just engaged in the mass murder of Jews? To America? To deeply anti-Semitic Muslim countries?
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When we talk about affairs as delicate as this, it's important that we use appropriate language because even a simple expression can make all the difference. For example, when you say that "
a roughly equal number of Arab Jews were also kicked out [of Arab countries]" that's not a completely accurate description of what happened. There was unquestionably a huge upsurge of antisemitism in Arab countries around the time of the 1947-48 war, and in most Arab countries there were instances of killings of Jews and damage to Jewish properties and businesses. Against that backdrop, it's understandable that Jews would want to leave, I know I would. But while Jewish people had rock solid reasons for wanting to leave those countries; with the notable exception of Iraq, there weren't any
deportations of Jews. Arab Governments did not round up their Jewish populations and put them on a plane.
Indeed with the exception of Iraq, Arab countries tried with varying degrees of success to
prevent their Jewish populations from emigrating to Israel. One of the ways Arab Governments sought to discourage Jewish emigration was by forcing those who did emigrate, to sign over their land and property to the state of the country they were leaving. Ostensibly, this was to discourage Jewish emigration, however it would also be true to say that they wanted to profiteer on the possessions of Jews leaving the country, while simultaneously preventing that wealth from moving to Israel. When the discussion arises over compensation for Jews who fled Arab countries, the effects of this policy are what is being referred to. If the question is, "Do Mizrahi Jews who had their property confiscated deserve to be compensated for it?" Then the answer is - of course they do! However, when you say that they were
kicked out, you're only really talking about Iraqi Jews. There were clear
push factors pushing Mizrahi Jews to leave Arab countries, and I explained above what these were, but the distinction between what happened to Jewish and Palestinian refugee's is an important one for reasons I'll come to.
Before I do, we must also consider the
pull factors acting on Jews in Arab countries. For instance, the Israeli Government went to great efforts to try and attract as many Mizrahi (Arab) Jews to Israel as they possibly could. They made travel arrangements and guaranteed housing on arrival to the immigrants. These arrangements were even supported by the US and UK, who provided transport aircraft to move those seeking to travel to Israel. The reasons that Israel was so keen to attract the Mizrahi Jews was so that they could claim this idea of a
population transfer.
Your post here is a perfect example of this 'population transfer' attitude. The rough idea goes something like this: "Roughly the same number of Arab Jews fled to Israel as Palestinians who weren't allowed back to their homes in Israel - therefore, everything's fair and square and everyone's happy!"
Except not everyone is happy. With the exception of Iraq, no Arab Government consented to this idea of a population transfer. The whole idea of a population transfer was purely in the interests of Israel, so that it could strengthen its Jewish population and strengthen its legitimacy by appealing to this notion of population transfer. But population transfer idea ran completely
contrary to the wishes of Arabs and Arab Governments for the same reasons.
None of this detracts from the genuine need for Jewish refugee's to be compensated, however for a fair assessment of history, one must acknowledge several key differences between the Jewish and Palestinian refugee's.
1. Israel
wanted as many refugee's as possible to legitimise the idea of a population transfer.
2. As such, Jewish refugee's were helped to immigrate, and this in turn was financed by the US/UK/France.
3. Arab countries did
not want any refugee's, they wanted the dispossessed Palestinians to have their land back.
4. As such, Palestinian refugee's remained in refugee camps.
Even though both sides have genuine cases for compensation, there is not an equivalence between the experience of Palestinian refugee's and Jewish refugees.
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The land was largely uninhabited before the Jews moved there. When the Jews moved to a land where they had lived for a few thousand years, they were slaughtered by the hundreds by Muslims who allied themselves deliberately with Hitler.
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I'm afraid you might need to take a seat, whoever taught you your history has failed you. Palestine (including what is now Israel) was
not sparsely inhabited before the Zionist movement showed up, it had a large and growing Arab population with small Jewish and Christian minorities. The Ottoman/British census records of Palestine are as follows(1):
1800: 7,000 Jews, 22,000 Christians & 246,000 Muslims
1890: 43,000 Jews, 57,000 Christians & 432,000 Muslims
1914: 94,000 Jews, 70,000 Christians & 525,000 Muslims
1947: 630,000 Jews, 143,000 Christians & 1,181,000 Muslims
If that's not enough for you, and you know who Ahad Ha'am was try this. (If you're Israeli and you don't know who Ahad Ha'am was then I recommend you find out.)
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From abroad, we are accustomed to believe that Eretz Israel is presently almost totally desolate, an uncultivated desert, and that anyone wishing to buy land there can come and buy all he wants. But in truth it is not so. In the entire land, it is hard to find tillable land that is not already tilled; only sandy fields or stony hills, suitable at best for planting trees or vines and, even that after considerable work and expense in clearing and preparing them- only these remain unworked. ... Many of our people who came to buy land have been in Eretz Israel for months, and have toured its length and width, without finding what they seek.
Ahad Ha'am, 'Truth from Eretz Yisrael', 1891 (1)
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If for some reason even that isn't enough for you, then you're in need of an entire history lesson. At this link (2) is the best academic online source I've found for you covering the relevant history of Israel, edited by none other than Benny Morris. (Although he's a raging Zionist and I'm not a fan of some of his more recent anti-Palestinian outbursts, he's the perfect historian from my perspective because you really can't accuse me of any bias.)
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They [the Palestinians] have been repeatedly offered another state since, to go with the one they have in Jordan. They ignore the offering, feed their kids hatred and then wonder why they sit in camps instead of having a successful society like their Israeli neighbors.
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If you can forgive me for saying, your understanding of the legal position of Palestinians is about 40 years out of date. Palestinians can
not move to Jordan. Palestinian citizens who moved to Jordan prior to 1967 were granted citizenship because Jordan had effectively annexed the West Bank, but obviously this ended after the 1967 war when Israel occupied the West Bank. Jordan stopped accepting Palestinians as citizens in 1988 when it withdrew its territorial claim to the land, and it revoked the citizenship of Palestinians who did not ordinarily live in Jordan.
Your claim that the Palestinians have a 'choice' over their situation, but 'choose' to live in the conditions they do is derogatory towards the Palestinian people and I think you ought to have chosen your words more carefully.
Eoin
(1)
Demographics of Palestine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(2)
Benny Morris, Editor: Making Israel, University of Michigan Press
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