Refugees, The Palestinian Refugees

Frequently Asked Questions:

• What happened during the war of 1948 that caused the Palestinian refugee
problem? Did the Jews expel the Arabs?

• How many Palestinian Arabs left their homes, how many are still listed as
refugees now?

• Who qualifies for Palestinian refugee status?

• Why are there still refugees from 1948, still living in refugee camps generations
after the original displacement?

• Who is responsible for their condition, who should absorb them and compensate
them?

• Even if Israel is not the cause of the Arab refugee problem, didn't they do
anything to compensate those people?

• What has been the longest refugee situation in recorded human history?

• Another refugee situation also resulted from Israel's independence. It was larger
in numbers and in property lost than the Palestinian Arabs, yet we never hear
about it, why?

• Can we hear about these refugees from a human rights perspective?

• Were these two refugee crises a simple 'exchange' of population and therefore
'equal'?

What happened during the war of 1948 that caused the Palestinian
refugee problem? Did the Jews expel the Arabs?
• The British had wrestled Palestine away from the Ottoman Turks in 1917, and
they occupied Palestine until 1947, and shortly thereafter, the United Nations
voted to divide western Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab areas. The Jews
accepted this plan, and the Arabs rejected it. Not only did they reject the UN
partition plan, but 7 Arab nations decided to attack the fledgeling Jewish
microstate with public proclamations of Jewish extermination. It was surrounding
these events that the Palestinian Arab refugee problem was born:

• "According to official records of the League of Nations and Arab census figure
539,000 Arabs left Israel at the urging of 7 converging Arab armies so that they
 would not be in the way of their attack. They promised the fleeing Arabs they
would return and move into the Jews' houses after the anticipated successful
annihilation of the Jews.
"We know that 850,000 Jews were ejected from the Arab countries where they
had lived for hundreds of years. This included successful people whose property
and assets, including community assets were immediately confiscated. 750,000
penniless Jews from Arab countries fled to Israel.
"This was a virtual exchange of population. The Jewish refugees were
immediately accepted by the new State of Israel. They were provided with shelter
(albeit temporary tents) food and clothing.
"The Arab refugees who had migrated to various Arab nations were not similarly
well received. They were regarded not as Arab brothers but as unwelcome
migrants who were not to be trusted. Squalid refugee camps were set up as
showpieces to induce the West's sympathy and kept that way. The UN through
UNRWA (UN Relief Agency) provided assistance to the camps when the host
country could not or would not. These camps became a training ground for
terrorist youth to be targeted at Israel. The host country, like Syria, would provide
training, weapons and explosives, but refused to absorb the Arab refugees as
equal citizens. Keeping them in misery made them valuable and irreplaceable as
angry front line terrorists attacking Israel as proxies for the Arab armies who lost
to the Jews on the field of battle in declared wars. The Twin Pillars supporting
Arab Muslim society are "Pride and Shame". Losing to the Jews on the battlefield
time and again in 6 wars shattered the self perception of the Macho Man.
- Emanuel A. Winston, Middle East analyst & commentator

• THE HISTORICAL EVIDENCE:

• "Even amidst the violent attacks launched against us for months past, we
call upon the sons of the Arab people dwelling in Israel to keep the peace
and to play their part in building the State on the basis of full and equal
citizenship and due representation in all its institutions, provisional and
permanent.
"We extend the hand of peace and good-neighborliness to all the States
around us and to their people, and we call upon them to cooperate in
mutual helpfulness with the independent Jewish nation in its Land. The
State of Israel is prepared to make its contribution in a concerted effort for
the advancement of the entire Middle East."
- David Ben-Gurion, in Israel's Proclamation of Independence, read on
May 14, 1948, moments before the 6 surrounding Arab armies, trained and
armed by the British, invaded the day-old Jewish microstate, with the
stated goal of extermination.

• "The Arab armies entered Palestine to protect the Palestinians from the
 Zionist tyranny but, instead, THEY ABANDONED THEM, FORCED
THEM TO EMIGRATE AND TO LEAVE THEIR HOMELAND, imposed
upon them a political and ideological blockade and threw them into
prisons similar to the ghettos in which the Jews used to live in Eastern
Europe, as if we were condemmed to change places with them; they
moved out of their ghettos and we occupied similar ones. The Arab States
succeeded in scattering the Palestinian people and in destroying their
unity. They did not recognize them as a unified people until the States of
the world did so, and this is regrettable".
- by Abu Mazen, from the article titled: "What We Have Learned and
What We Should Do", published in Falastin el Thawra, the official journal
of the PLO, of Beirut, in March 1976

• "The first group of our fifth column consists of those who abandon their
houses and businesses and go to live elsewhere. . . . At the first sign of
trouble they take to their heels to escape sharing the burden of struggle."
- Ash Shalab (Jaffa newspaper), January 30, 1948

• "The Arab streets are curiously deserted and, ardently following the poor
example of the more moneyed class there has been an exodus from
Jerusalem too, though not to the same extent as in Jaffa and Haifa."
- London Times, May 5, 1948

• "The refugees were confident that their absence would not last long, and
that they would return within a week or two. Their leaders had promised
them that the Arab armies would crush the 'Zionist gangs' very quickly
and that there was no need for panic or fear of a long exile."
- Monsignor George Hakim, Greek Catholic Bishop of Galilee, in the
Beirut newspaper Sada al Janub, August 16, 1948

• "Of the 62,000 Arabs who formerly lived in Haifa not more than 5,000 or
6,000 remained. Various factors influenced their decision to seek safety in
flight. There is but little doubt that the most potent of the factors were the
announcements made over the air by the -Higher Arab Executive, urging
the Arabs to quit.. . . It was clearly intimated that those Arabs who
remained in Haifa and accepted Jewish protection would be regarded as
renegades."
- The London weekly Economist, October 2, 1948

• "It must not be forgotten that the Arab Higher Committee encouraged the
refugees' flight from their homes in Jaffa, Haifa, and Jerusalem."
- Near East Arabic Broadcasting Station, Cyprus, April 3, 1949
• "This wholesale exodus was due partly to the belief of the Arabs,
encouraged by the boasting of an unrealistic Arab press and the
irresponsible utterances of some of the Arab leaders that it could be only a
matter of some weeks before the Jews were defeated by the armies of the
Arab States and the Palestinian Arabs enabled to re-enter and retake
possession of their country."
- Edward Atiyah (then Secretary of the Arab League Office in London)
in The Arabs (London, 1955), p. 183

• "The mass evacuation, prompted partly by fear, partly by order of Arab

leaders, left the Arab quarter of Haifa a ghost city...By withdrawing Arab
workers their leaders hoped to paralyze Haifa.".
- Time, May 3, 1948, p. 25

• The Arab exodus, initially at least, was encouraged by many Arab leaders,
such as Haj Amin el Husseini, the exiled pro-Nazi Mufti of Jerusalem, and
by the Arab Higher Committee for Palestine. They viewed the first wave
of Arab setbacks as merely transitory. Let the Palestine Arabs flee into
neighboring countries. It would serve to arouse the other Arab peoples to
greater effort, and when the Arab invasion struck, the Palestinians could
return to their homes and be compensated with the property of Jews driven
into the sea.
- Kenneth Bilby, in New Star in the Near East (New York, 1950), pp. 30-
31

• I do not want to impugn anybody but only to help the refugees. The fact
that there are these refugees is the direct consequence of the action of the
Arab States in opposing Partition and the Jewish State. The Arab States
agreed upon this policy unanimously and they must share in the solution
of the problem, [Daily Telegraph, September 6, 19481
- Emil Ghoury, Secretary of the Arab Higher Committee, the official
leadership of the Palestinian Arabs, in the Beirut newspaper, Daily
Telegraph, September 6, 1948

• The Arab States encouraged the Palestine Arabs to leave their homes
temporarily in order to be out of the way of the Arab invasion armies.
- Falastin (Jordanian newspaper), February 19, 1949

• We will smash the country with our guns and obliterate every place the
Jews seek shelter in. The Arabs should conduct their wives and children to
safe areas until the fighting has died down.
- Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Said, quoted in Sir Am Nakbah ("The Secret
Behind the Disaster") by Nimr el Hawari, Nazareth, 1952
• The Secretary General of the Arab League, Azzam Pasha, assured the
Arab peoples that the occupation of Palestine and of Tel Aviv would be as
simple as a military promenade. . . . He pointed out that they were already
on the frontiers and that all the millions the Jews had spent on land and
economic development would be easy booty, for it would be a simple
matter to throw Jews into the Mediterranean. . . Brotherly advice was
given to the Arabs of Palestine to leave their land, homes, and property
and to stay temporarily in neighboring fraternal states, lest the guns of the
invading Arab armies mow them down.
- Habib Issa, Secretary General of the Arab League (Azzam Pasha's
successor), in the newspaper Al Hoda, June 8, 1951

• Some of the Arab leaders and their ministers in Arab capitals . . . declared
that they welcomed the immigration of Palestinian Arabs into the Arab
countries until they saved Palestine. Many of the Palestinian Arabs were
misled by their declarations.... It was natural for those Palestinian Arabs
who felt impelled to leave their country to take refuge in Arab lands . . .
and to stay in such adjacent places in order to maintain contact with their
country so that to return to it would be easy when, according to the
promises of many of those responsible in the Arab countries (promises
which were given wastefully), the time was ripe. Many were of the
opinion that such an opportunity would come in the hours between sunset
and sunrise.
- Arab Higher Committee, in a memorandum to the Arab League, Cairo,
1952, quoted in The Refugee in the World, by Joseph B. Schechtman,
1963

• "The Arab governments told us: Get out so that we can get in. So we got
out, but they did not get in."
- from the Jordan daily Ad Difaa, September 6, 1954

• "The Arab civilians panicked and fled ignominiously. Villages were

frequently abandoned before they were threatened by the progress of war."
- General Glubb Pasha, in the London Daily Mail on August 12, 1948

• "The Arab exodus from other villages was not caused by the actual battle,
but by the exaggerated description spread by Arab leaders to incite them to
fight the Jews"
- Yunes Ahmed Assad, refugee from the town of Deir Yassin, in Al
Urdun, April 9, 1953

• "[The Arabs of Haifa] fled in spite of the fact that the Jewish authorities
guaranteed their safety and rights as citizens of Israel."
 - Monsignor George Hakim, Greek Catholic Bishop of Galilee,
according to Rev. Karl Baehr, Executive Secretary of the American
Christian Palestine Committee, New York Herald Tribune, June 30, 1949

• "Every effort is being made by the Jews to persuade the Arab populace to
stay and carry on with their normal lives, to get their shops and businesses
open and to be assured that their lives and interests will be safe.
[However] ...A large road convoy, escorted by [British] military . . . left
Haifa for Beirut yesterday. . . . Evacuation by sea goes on steadily. ...[Two
days later, the Jews were] still making every effort to persuade the Arab
populace to remain and to settle back into their normal lives in the towns...
[as for the Arabs,] another convoy left Tireh for Transjordan, and the
evacuation by sea continues. The quays and harbor are still crowded with
refugees and their household effects, all omitting no opportunity to get a
place an one of the boats leaving Haifa.""
- Haifa District HQ of the British Police, April 26, 1948, quoted in
Battleground by Samuel Katz

• "The Arabs did not want to submit to a truce they rather preferred to
abandon their homes, their belongings and everything they possessed in
the world and leave the town. This is in fact what they did."
- Jamal Husseini, Acting Chairman of the Palestine Arab Higher
Committee, told to the United Nations Security Council, quoted in the
UNSC Official Records (N. 62), April 23, 1948, p. 14

• "the military and civil authorities and the Jewish representative expressed
their profound regret at this grave decision [to evacuate]. The [Jewish]
Mayor of Haifa made a passionate appeal to the delegation to reconsider
its decision"
- The Arab National Committee of Haifa, told to the Arab League, quoted
in The Refugee in the World, by Joseph B. Schechtman, 1963

• "...our city flourished and developed for the good of both Jewish and Arab
residents ... Do not destroy your homes with your own hands; do not bring
tragedy upon yourselves by unnecessary evacuation and self-imposed
burdens. By moving out you will be overtaken by poverty and humiliation.
But in this city, yours and ours, Haifa, the gates are open for work, for life,
and for peace, for you and your families."
The Haifa Workers' Council bulletin, 28 April 1948

• "...the Jewish hagana asked (using loudspeakers) Arabs to remain at their

homes but the most of the Arab population followed their leaders who
asked them to leave the country."
The TIMES of London, reporting events of 22.4.48
• " The existence of these refugees is a direct result of the Arab States'
opposition to the partition plan and the reconstitution of the State of Israel.
The Arab states adopted this policy unanimously, and the responsibility of
its results, therefore is theirs.
...The flight of Arabs from the territory allotted by the UN for the Jewish
state began immediately after the General Assembly decision at the end of
November 1947. This wave of emigration, which lasted several weeks,
comprised some thirty thousand people, chiefly well-to-do-families."
- Emil Ghory, secretary of the Arab High Council, Lebanese daily Al-
Telegraph, 6 Sept 1948

• "Since 1948 we have been demanding the return of the refugees to their
homes. But we ourselves are the ones who encouraged them to leave. Only
a few months separated our call to them to leave and our appeal to the
United Nations to resolve on their return."
- Haled al Azm, the Syrian Prime Minister in 1948-49, The Memoirs of
Haled al Azm, (Beirut, 1973), Part 1, pp. 386-387

• "Since 1948 it is we who demanded the return of refugees... while it is we

who made them to leave... We brought disaster upon... Arab refugees, by
inviting them and bringing pressure to bear upon them to leave... We have
rendered them dispossessed... We have accustomed them to begging... We
have participated in lowering their moral and social level... Then we
exploited them in executing crimes of murder, arson, and throwing bombs
upon... men, women and children - all this in service of political
purposes..."
- Khaled al Azm, Syria's Prime Minister after the 1948 war [note: same
person as above]

• "As early as the first months of 1948 the Arab League issued orders
exhorting the people to seek a temporary refuge in neighboring countries,
later to return to their abodes in the wake of the victorious Arab armies
and obtain their share of abandoned Jewish property."
- bulletin of The Research Group for European Migration Problems, 1957

• One morning in April 1948, Dr. Jamal woke us to say that the Arab Higher
Committee (AHC), led by the Husseinis, had warned Arab residents of
Talbieh to leave immediately. The understanding was that the residents
would be able to return as conquerors as soon as the Arab forces had
thrown the Jews out. Dr. Jamal made the point repeatedly that he was
leaving because of the AHC's threats, not because of the Jews, and that he
and his frail wife had no alternative but to go.
Commentary Magazine -- January 2000,
 http://www.commentarymagazine.com/0001/letters.html

How many Palestinian Arabs left their homes, how many are still listed
as refugees now?
• Estimates of the number of Arabs who fled the newly-created State of Israel in
1948 (i.e. from the area inside Israel's pre-1967 borders) vary from 430,000 to
957,000, depending on who you ask. The most reliable figure appears to be
539,000.
In the 1967 Six Day War, between 125,000 (Israeli estimate) and 250,000
(UNRWA estimate) Arabs fled from Judea, Samaria and Gaza, which came under
Israeli administration. Of these, say some researchers, close on two-thirds were
first-time refugees, the others were refugees from 1948 who fled once again.
According to the United Nations Relief Works Agency (UNRWA), in 1996 the
number of refugees stood at 3.3 million, located as follows:
Jordan: In 10 camps - 242,922. Not in camps - 1.1 million
Judea and Samaria: In 20 camps - 147,302. Not in camps - 385,136
Gaza: In five camps - 378,279. Not in camps - 338,651
Lebanon: In 12 camps - 182,731. Not in camps - 169,937
Syria: In 10 camps - 89,472. Not in camps - 257, 919
TOTAL: In 57 camps - 1.04 million. Not in camps - 2.26 million.
- Middle East Digest - October 1998

• The refugee problem was created in 1947-48, when the Palestinians and their
Arab allies rejected United Nations Resolution 181 and tried to prevent by force
implementation of the partition plan that called for the creation of a Jewish state
alongside an Arab state in Palestine. During the fighting, 600,000 to 700,000
Arabs fled or were driven out of areas that eventually became the state of Israel.
(There were also about 17,000 Jewish refugees who fled or were driven out of
areas that came under Arab, i.e., Jordanian, control.) Israel's record in this chain
of developments was far from spotless. But the major reason for the displacement
of people was the war itself, which the Arabs imposed on Israel in an attempt to
abort its birth.
The Palestinian refugees were but one example among many of the large-scale
involuntary population displacements that took place during and after the First
World War. Most of the other refugee problems, involving tens of millions of
Karelian Finns, Sudeten Germans, and Muslims and Hindus in the Indian
subcontinent, faded away as displaced populations were absorbed in countries of
 similar religious and/or national character. The one glaring exception was the
Palestinian refugees, who found shelter but few civic or political rights in
neighbouring Arab countries (Jordan being the main exception).
The refugee status of the Palestinians was perpetuated by the host countries and
the Palestinian leadership, and by the international community, through the UN
Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the only UN body dedicated to a specific
refugee group (all other refugees in the world are the responsibility of the Office
of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees). As a result, refugee status was
passed down from father to son to grandson over 50 years, so that, today, they
number three million to four million. That is why the Palestinians now account for
about one-fourth of the world's refugees -- an impressive figure until one
imagines how many refugees there would be if all the Finns and Germans and
Indian Hindus and Muslims and European Jews who were made refugees after the
Second World War (not to speak of the Greeks and Turks and Armenians who
were made refugees during and after the First World War) were still considered
refugees in the year 2000.
- Mark Heller, co-author of No Trumpets, No Drums: A Two-State Settlement of
the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

• With regard to the Palestinian refugees today, according to the "Report of the
Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for
Palestine Refugees in the Near East - 1 July 1997 - 30 June 1998" there were
3,521,130 refugees as of June 30, 1998 (Table 1). However, the report (available
at www.unrwa.org) also states that:
UNRWA registration figures are based on information voluntarily
supplied by refugees primarily for the purpose of obtaining access
to Agency services, and hence cannot be considered statistically
valid demographic data; the number of registered refugees present
in the Agency's area of operations is almost certainly less that the
population recorded.
Moreover, not only does the UN admit the figures are of doubtful accuracy, there
being obvious reason for families to claim more members and thereby receive
more aid, the UN also admits that the total includes 1,463,064 Jordanian citizens,
who cannot by any stretch be considered refugees.
- Alexander Safian, PhD, CAMERA (The Committee for Accuracy in Middle
East Reporting in America)

Who qualifies for Palestinian refugee status?

• Any Arab who entered Israel up to two years prior to the rebirth of the Jewish
state could claim to be a Palestinian refugee, even if he and his ancestors had
lived elsewhere for generations before and he owned no land or property in
 Palestine. [Editor's note: the UNRWA collected information from 'refugees' on an
'honor basis' without checking even the above absurdly minimal requirements]
- Middle East Digest - October 1998

Why are there still refugees from 1948, still living in refugee camps
generations after the original displacement?
• "The Arab states do not want to solve the refugee problem. They want to keep it
as an open sore, as an affront to the United Nations and as a weapon against
Israel. Arab leaders don't give a damn whether the refugees live or die."
- Ralph Galloway, former head of the UN Relief and Works Agency for
Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), in Amman, Jordan, August 1958

• "In general, one can say that Arab governments regarded the destruction of the
State of Israel as a more pressing matter than the welfare of the Palestinian
refugees. Palestinian bitterness and anger had to be kept alive. It was clear that
this could best be done by ensuring that a great many Palestinians Arabs
continued to live under sub-normal conditions, the victims of hunger and poverty.
No Arab Government preached this as a defined policy; most Arab Governments
tacitly put it into practice."
- Terrence Prittie and Bernard Dineen, in "The Double Exodus: A Study of
Arab and Jewish Refugees in the Middle East"

• The decision to sacrifice them [the Palestinian Arab refugees] to the cause of
Israel's destruction was clearly enunciated in the aftermath of 1948-49 (keep them
in camps so they can learn hate and seek revenge), and no action by Arab elites
has shown evidence of a change of heart.
- David S. Landes & Richard A. Landes, The New Republic, September 8, 1997

• The Palestinians are the only refugees who cannot and must not be absorbed
elsewhere; their fate is to be played up as the mirror image of the Wandering Jew.
- Jacques Givet, "The Anti-Zionist Complex"

• In the 1967 Six Day War, under the threat of being "pushed into the sea" by
Egypt, Syria and Jordan, Israel actually liberated the "occupied territory" of
Jerusalem and granted free access to Jews, Christians and Moslems to worship at
their respective holy sites. Israel also liberated the "West Bank" and Gaza. How
easily recent history is forgotten. By comparison, Israel's administration, despite
its faults, has been much more humane. The realities of the Jordanian and
Egyptian occupation are conveyed in the following quote from HARSH
REALITIES:
For 19 years, until 1967, Jordan brutally occupied the renamed
"West Bank" with its 20 UNWRA refugee camps.... And when
western Palestinians rioted in December '55, April '57, April '63,
Nov. '66 and April '67, King Hussein sent in tanks which shelled
city streets and machine gunned people at random, killing
hundreds of men, women and children.
The Gaza Strip, as it was known for the 19 years of harsh Egyptian
occupation, had 8 UNWRA refugee camps in which the
Palestinians were forced to live in overcrowded squalor. Egypt
refused to absorb any refugees; kept them stateless, denied
passports, and forbade them to travel or work in Egypt. [On the
other hand, Palestinians were permitted to work in Israel after
1967.]
For 19 years of brutal occupation of their fellow Arabs, Jordan and
Egypt kept these areas in a deliberate state of economic stagnation
and severe unemployment. Average unemployment in the early
Sixties ran between 35-45%, and refugee unemployment hit a high
of 83%. Yet during this entire period, the world was silent. Only
after Israel's seizure of these territories in a defensive war in 1967,
did anyone discover the "legitimate rights and national aspirations"
of the Palestinian Arabs.
From a humanitarian viewpoint, their situation improved
immeasurably under Israeli administration. Unemployment hovers
around a mere 1% (1989) and per capita gross income tripled in
less than 20 years; infant mortality rates dropped from the pre-
1967 140 per 1,000 to only 30 per 1,000 today - at a time when the
rest of the Arab world is still at 80 per 1,000; 7 Arab colleges and
universities were established under Israel "occupation," where
none existed before 1967. Yet it is Israel that is now being
attacked.
Had the Arab countries any true intentions of helping their
beleaguered brethren from western Palestine, they would and could
have absorbed them easily 4 decades ago, as the Israelites did of an
even greater number of Jewish refugees from Arab lands. The
Palestinian Arabs share the same language, religion and culture,
and for 70% of them, the same countries of origin just 3
generations before when their grandfathers emigrated for economic
reasons to Palestine from surrounding Arab lands. But the 22 Arab
countries, uninterested in aiding in Palestinian brothers, preferred
to use them as a political weapon to wield against Israel, and the
U.N. supported this heartless human manipulation.
In the mid-1970's Israel attempted to give the Palestinian Arab
refugees in Gaza new and better housing. The U.N. General
 Assembly, at the urging of the Arab states, passed Resolution
32/90 condemning Israel for trying to relocate these refugees and
demanded they be returned "to the camps in which they were
removed." And yet, a senior U.N. official came to Gaza in January
1988 accompanied by 10 TV crews on a fact-finding visit and laid
the entire blame for the situation at Israel's feet. As if the U.N.'s
own complicity in the matter didn't exist!
When the six Arab nations invaded Israel at Israel's birth, many claim 600,000
Arabs were displaced in that war. What is not well known is that approximately
800,000 Jews, who were living in those six Arab nations, had to flee for their lives
because of Arab hatred. The solution to this refugee problem was simple - a fair
exchange.
Israel, at a terrible economic cost, absorbed the 800,000 Jewish refugees But the
Arab nations refused to accept these Arab refugees - their Arab brethren. Rather,
they placed them in refugee camps, which became dark holes of hate and misery,
models for propaganda to turn world opinion against Israel. They succeeded. How
well they succeeded....
Refugee Camps
When Israel inherited Judea and Samaria (the "West Bank") and Gaza in the 1967
War, Israel also inherited the Palestinian refugee camps that were administered by
a United Nations agency. Israel wanted to negotiate both the refugee problem and
a peace settlement, but the Arabs refused. One cannot help but agonize for the
poor refugee pawns in this ploy. The deplorable condition of the Palestinian
refugees is especially pitiful because the situation was designed and perpetuated
by their own Arab brothers. No wonder the "intifada" erupted. Many claim the
Arab nations refused to alleviate the refugee problem both in 1948 and in 1967.
Among many who have made this observation is Col. Richard Henry
Meinertzhagen, a British Middle East expert. He asked a fellow dinner guest at
the home of a British diplomat, "Why do not you Arabs, with all your resources
from oil, do something for those wretched refugees from Palestine?" The
Lebanese replied, "Good God, do you really think we are going to destroy the
finest propaganda we possess? It's a gold mine!" When Meinertzhagen observed
that this view was unkind and immoral, the Lebanese replied, "They are just
human rubbish, but a political gold mine!" In slightly different language referring
to the same attitude about the usefulness of Palestinian refugee camps,
Meinertzhagen notes in his book, "I received identical views from other Arabs."
The Palestinians who have taken to the streets, spoiling for trouble, are the new
generation-spawned in the refugee camps. From earliest childhood, they have
been taught hate.
Who is responsible for their condition, who should absorb them and
compensate them?
• "Statements have been made on the Arab refugee question, but why should the
State of Israel be blamed for the existence of that problem? When seeking to
determine responsibility for the existence of the problem of the Arab refugees, we
cannot fail to mention the outside forces ... They pursue their own selfish interests
..., which have nothing in common either with the cause of peace and
international security or with the interests of the Arab and Jewish peoples, and
which only correspond to the aggressive designs of the leading circles of some
states."
- Soviet delegation, UN Security Council on 4 March 1949

• "Since 1948 Arab leaders have approached the Palestine problem in an

irresponsible manner. They have not looked into the future. They have no plan or
approach. They have used the Palestine people for selfish political purposes. This
is ridiculous and, I could say, criminal."
- Jordan's King Hussein, Associated Press, Jan 1960

• Many castigations of Israel for her alleged responsibility for the suffering of Arab
refugees have been terribly one-sided and unfair. Why is so little attention paid to
the fact that the original refugees in the situation were Jews fleeing the Nazi
terror, people who were barred from other lands and then denied access to the one
place that could give them hope? Why do we hear almost nothing of the
oppression in Arab countries since 1948 of indigenous Jewish populations or of
the thousands of Jewish refugees from Arab lands? Why is it hardly ever pointed
out that the original and continuing cause of the Arab refugee problem and its
recent aggravation has been Arab intransigence and hostility: the refusal to
recognize Israel and the pledge to annihilate the Jews? There would be no refugee
problem at all if the Arabs had not defied the United Nations' partition. The Arabs
started the war in 1948 that forced the refugees to leave -- not to be banished from
-- their homes. Israel tried to convince them to stay. Arab leaders frightened them
into fleeing, with dire warnings that the Jews would persecute and destroy them.
We are frequently advised that Israel's recent military victory [the six-day war,
1967] is the reason for the increase in refugees, but we are seldom reminded that
the latest Arab campaign to destroy Israel was the sole incitement for that victory.
An Arab triumph would have left not Jewish refugees but Jewish corpses. Any
help Israel now grants to Arab refugees -- and she is already giving succor and
beginning to offer resettlement, despite unabated Arab belligerency -- is largely a
matter of either prudence or charity. The moral debt is primarily that of the Arab
powers, who have callously manipulated these uprooted people to the end of a
devious program to exterminate Jews.
- by A. Roy and Alice Eckardt in "AGAIN, SILENCE IN THE CHURCHES",
The Christian Century, August 2, 1967
• The Arabs blame Israel for creating the Refugee problem while it was the Arabs
who insisted to keep the camps in Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon, to use the
Palestinians for political exploitation. In 1982: 65,425 Palestinian refu gees put in
camps in Syria, 123,442 in Lebanon, 192,392 in Jordan, this was reported by
UNRWA, while the Arabic propaganda lied and inflated the number to 4,000,000,
and ALL who fled on their own will and without any force. Now, please compare
with 850,000 Jews actually expelled from the Arab lands, forced to leave to Israel.
- Walid, a Palestinian Arab defector.
quoted at "Answering Islam"

• One of the throw-away lines in Bat Yeor's book, "the Dhimmis" is the
observation in passing that the Palestinians are the longest-lived group in history
who have been considered "refugees" while living in the land of their
countrymen.
Lets expand on that a bit. It is a topic I have written about before. UNRWA (the
United Nations Relief and Works Agency) was created in 1949. It exists solely for
the purpose of "nurturing" Palestinian refugees, to the exclusion of all the other
refugees in the world. 25% of its budget comes from American taxpayers (which
includes me). There were 750,000 of these guys in 1949, and there are 3.3
MILLION of them now. And here's where it gets even weirder: 1.2 MILLION of
the "refugees" LIVE IN YASSER ARAFAT'S PALESTINIAN AUTONOMY,
mingled with their fellow Palestinians, where they actually CONSTITUTE HALF
THE POPULATION!
Does that strike anyone else as strange? How can you have people living for 50
years among their brothers, 30 miles down the road from where they started, and
still consider them refugees? Will it ever end? Can it ever end? Obviously not as
long as the UN continues to pay them money.
And what about their Arab brothers? Ask an Arab to tell you about the five pillars
of Islam, of which he is so proud, and he will tell you about "charity to your
fellow Muslim". And yet the Arabs forbid the "refugees" from integrating into
their host countries. That's because they consider them "a disgrace to Islam, who
are responsible for the loss of holy Muslim land to the infidel Jews".
I guess this is just one more example of Shimon Peres' "New Middle East".
- Samuel Fistel

• It is important to note that the world has seen hundreds of millions of refugees.
It's a natural and expected end result of wars. All have resettled, begun new lives
and made the best of their situation. Tens of millions of refugees were created in
the aftermath of both World Wars. During the 1948-49 Arab-Israeli War, 860,000
Jews living in Arab countries were thrown out on their ears! We don't hear about
them anymore because they were absorbed by their fellow Jews within Israel. So
while the Arabs throughout the Middle East cry crocodile tears for their poor
 suffering Palestinian brothers and sisters, none of these countries has opened their
arms to them. The ones that were allowed in were placed into more refugee camps
for the world to see. Ironically, the Arabs who remained in Israel and became
citizens have fared far better than those in Arab countries! What makes the
Palestinian Arabs stand out among the world's refugees is that they created their
own pathetic situation or were misled by their leaders. That is their tough luck!
What was offered to them in 1947 cannot be offered once again. The world has
far more important things to concern itself with other than their constant belly-
aching! As they say, "Get a Life, Already!"
- Zion2000

• The surrounding Arabs states called for the Arab population to leave Israel and
fight in the 1948 war ("a war of extermination and a momentous massacre").
Those that left were told that they could come back and take all the Jews
possesions. Those that stayed were told they would be killed with the Jews. This
is not to say that during the war, the Jewish forces did not expel any Arab groups,
even villages, who were thought to be involved in the "war of extermination" of
the Jews. Many Arabs resisted the call to kill Jews - they and their descendants
make up 14% of Israel's population, as full citizens. So if there was an organized
effort at "ethnic cleansing", as the antisemites allege, the Jews failed miserably.
The "Palestinian refugees" of today are those who expected to return after the
Arab victory to find Jewish corpses. The descendants of those Arabs are kept in
refugee camps/villages by the United Nations and by other Arab governments as a
propaganda tool and as a constant source of soldiers in their long war against
Israel. Who should absorb these Arabs, as full citizens, compensate them for their
losses, house them, feed them, teach them? Should it be Israel, the intended
victim of the massacre? Or should it be their fellow Arabs who, because of their
hatred and violence, caused this mess in the first place? Or should this just be a
valuable lesson to the world that when you attempt the extermination of another
group, be prepared to lose land and property, and expect never to get it back
again. Only when such violence is rewarded, by the UN, Jimmy Carter, the
USSR, is there a material incentive to try again.
- The Society for Rational Peace

Even if Israel is not the cause of the Arab refugee problem, didn't they
do anything to compensate those people?
• As a goodwill gesture during the Lausanne negotiations in 1949, Israel offered to
take back 100,000 Palestinian refugees prior to any discussion of the refugee
question. The Arab states, who had refused even to negotiate face-to-face with the
Israelis, turned down the offer because it implicitly recognized Israel's existence.
Despite this, on humanitarian grounds Israel has since the 1950's allowed more
than 50,000 refugees to return to Israel under a family reunification program, and
 between 1967 and 1993 allowed a further 75,000 to return to the West Bank or
Gaza. Since the beginning of the Oslo process Israel has allowed another 90,000
Palestinians to gain residence in PA-controlled territory.
Arabs who lost property in Israel are eligible to file for compensation from Israel's
Custodian of Absentee Property. As of the end of 1993, a total of 14,692 claims
had been filed, claims were settled with respect to more than 200,000 dunums of
land, more than 10,000,000 NIS (New Israeli Sheckels) had been paid in
compensation, and more than 54,000 dunums of replacement land had been given
in compensation. Israel has followed this generous policy despite the fact that not
a single penny of compensation has ever been paid to any of the more than
500,000 Jewish refugees from Arab countries, who were forced by the Arab
governments to abandon their homes, businesses and savings.
- Alexander Safian, PhD, CAMERA (The Committee for Accuracy in Middle
East Reporting in America)

What has been the longest refugee situation in recorded human history?
• The Diaspora, the Jewish Exile, the Golah. 1,900 years - between 80 and 100
generations.

Another refugee situation also resulted from Israel's independence. It

was larger in numbers and in property lost than the Palestinian Arabs,
yet we never hear about it, why?
• The Real Refugees
Most of the world is ignoring the real catastrophe of the past recent era: the brutal
expulsion of some 867,000 Jews from Arab countries, and the seizure, by the
Arab governments, of over $13-billion worth of Jewish property and assets.
Algeria
During the war for Algerian independence from France in the 1950s and early
1960s, Algerian nationalists carried out violent attacks on Algerian Jews. After
the French left, the Algerian authorities issued a variety of anti- Jewish decrees,
including the imposition of heavy taxes on the Jewish community. Nearly all of
Algeria's 160,000 Jews fled the country. All but one of Algeria's synagogues were
seized and turned into mosques.
Egypt
The ancient Jewish community of Egypt numbered over 90,000 by the 1940s.
Riots by Egyptian nationalists in 1945 claimed many Jewish lives, and
synagogues and Jewish buildings were burned down. A new wave of
discrimination and violence was unleashed in 1948. Over 250 Jews were killed or
 injured, Jewish shops were looted, and Jewish assets were frozen. Some 35,000
Jews left Egypt by 1950. Gamal Abdel Nasser, who seized power in 1954,
arrested thousands of Jews and confiscated their property. Emigration reduced
Egyptian Jewry to just 8,000 by 1957.
Iraq
The Jews of Iraq, with roots dating back to ancient Babylonia, numbered about
190,000 in 1947. When Israel was established, Jewish emigration was forbidden,
and hundreds of Jews were jailed. Those convicted of "Zionism" --a criminal
offense-- were sentenced to internal exile or fines of up to $40,000 each. Tens of
thousands of Jews slipped out of the country. Then, in 1950, the government
legalized emigration and pressured the Jews to leave; by 1952, only 6,000
remained. Jewish emigrants were permitted to take with them only $140 per adult;
all of their remaining assets and property were confiscated by the Iraqi
government.
Libya
The 2,000 year-old Jewish community of Libya, which numbered almost 60,000
by the 1940s, was the target of mass anti-Jewish violence in November 1945. In
Tripoli alone, 120 Jews were massacred, over 500 wounded, 2,000 were made
homeless, and synagogues were torched. There were more pogroms in January
1946, with 75 Jews massacred in Zanzur, and more than 100 murdered in other
towns. By the early 1950s, more than 40,000 Libyan Jews had emigrated.
Morocco
In 1948, there were about 350,000 Jews living in Morocco, a community with
ancient roots going back to the time of the destruction of the First Temple (586
BCE). In June 1948, pogromists massacred 39 Jews in the town of Djerada and 4
more in Oujda. Over 50,000 Jews fled Morocco in terror. During the 1950s, there
was violence against Jews in Oujda, Rabat, and Casablanca. Most of Moroccan
Jewry emigrated during the years to follow.
Syria
There were 17,000 Jews in Syria in 1948, a community dating back to biblical
times. Anti-Jewish pogroms erupted in the Syrian town of Aleppo in 1947. All of
the local synagogues were destroyed, and 7,000 of the town's 10,000 Jews fled in
terror. The government then enacted legislation to freeze Jewish bank accounts
and confiscate Jewish property. By the 1950s, just 5,000 Jews remained in Syria,
subjected to harsh decrees; they were banned from emigrating, selling their
property, or working in government offices, and were compelled to carry special
cards identifying them as Jews.
- HMAVERIK@aol.com

• Following is the statistics on the number of Jews in the Arab countries in 1988 as
reported by Israeli newspaper "Vesti" (in Russian) 1/4/99.
Algeria less than 100
 Egypt less than 100
Iraq 60
Libya less than 100
Morocco 7,000
Syria 100

• "This is hardly the place to describe how the Jews of the Arab States were driven
out of the countries in which they lived for hundreds of years, then how they were
shamefully deported to Israel after their property had been confiscated or taken
over at the lowest possible price.
"It is plain that Israel will air this issue in the course of any serious negotiations
that might be undertaken one day in regard to the rights on the Palestinians.
"Israel's claims are these: It may perhaps be the case that we Israelis were the
cause of the expulsion of some Palestinians, whose number is estimated at
700,000, from their homes during the 1948 War, and afterwards took over their
properties. Against this, since 1948, you Arabs have caused the expulsion of just
as many Jews from the Arab States, most of whom settled in Israel after their
properties had been taken over in one way or another. Actually, therefore, what
happened was only a kind of "population and property exchange," and each party
must bear the consequences. Israel is absorbing the Jews of Arab States; the Arab
States, for their part, must settle the Palestinians in their own midst and solve their
problems. There is no doubt that, at the first serious discussion of the Palestinian
problem in an international forum, Israel will put these claims forward."
- Sabri Jiryis, a well known Palestinian Arab researcher in the Institute for
Palestinian Studies in Beirut, published in Al-Nahar, Beirut, on May 15, 1975

• Some of the communities in more depth:

Egypt:
Approximately 75,000 Jews lived in Egypt in 1948, a community whose origins
date back to the Babylonian captivity some 2700 years prior. In the preceding
decade, Muslim elements, believing that Hitler would be successful in completing
the 'Final Solution' in Europe, carried out almost continuous pogroms against
Jewish communities, killing and injuring thousands. The Egyptian Company Law
of July 1947 introduced prohibitive quotas against employing Jews, precluded
them from most areas of employment, and confiscated many Jewish-owned
businesses, properties and other assets. Then, in the days after the passage of the
Partition Plan, Muslims in Cairo and Alexandria went on a rampage, murdering,
looting houses and burning synagogues. In one seven-day period in 1948, an
eyewitness counted 150 Jewish bodies littering the streets.
During the War of Independence, Egyptian Jews were barred from travelling
abroad. In August 1949, Egypt lifted the ban and 20,000 Jews fled the country,
many going to Israel. Conditions for Jews improved somewhat under General
Naguib, but when General Abdul Nasser rose to power in Egypt, he ordered mass
arrests of Jews and confiscated huge quantities of Jewish property, personal and
commercial. Nasser issued deportation orders to thousands of Jews, concurrently
confiscating all their property and assets. Most of the deportees were limited to
one suitcase apiece. In 1964, Nasser boldly declared, in an interview with a
German publication, that Egypt still adhered to the Nazi cause: 'Our sympathy,' he
said, 'was with the Germans.' With the outbreak of the 1967 Six-Day War, Jews
were arrested en masse and sent to concentration camps, where they were
tortured, denied water for days and forced to chant anti-Israel slogans. By 1970,
Egypt's Jewish population numbered in the mere hundreds.
Algeria:
Like other Muslim nations, Algeria possesses a long history of anti-Semitism,
legal and popular. The colonization of Algeria by the French in 1830, though,
liberated the 2500-year-old Jewish community from much of the humiliation and
persecution it had sustained under Islamic rule. But the rise of the Nazi Party in
Germany augured a reversion to anti-Semitic activities. In 1934, twenty-five Jews
were massacred in Constantine. During the subsequent trial by French authorities,
evidence revealed the attack was organized by the city's leading Muslim
authorities. When the French Vichy government took power in 1940, it
immediately stripped Jews of their French citizenry, banned them from schools
and declared them 'pariahs.' Only the Allied landing soon thereafter saved the
Jews from mass deportation to European death camps. With the fall of the Vichy
regime, more than 148,000 Jews enjoyed the full benefits and affluence of French
society. A civil war erupted in Algeria, and as it intensified, thousands of Jews
fled the country, mostly for France.
Algeria achieved independence in 1962, by which time more than 75,000 Jews
had departed. State-sanctioned persecution began the following year with the
passage of the 1963 Nationality Code, limiting citizenship to those residents
whose father and paternal grandfather were Muslim. The new state confiscated or
destroyed Jewish private, commercial and communal property and ordered most
of the nation's synagogues converted into mosques. Following a flood of anti-
Semitic violence in 1965, the majority of the remaining Jewish community of
65,000 departed. Today, the once vigorous Algerian Jewish community numbers
a paltry 300.
Libya:
Today, no Jews are known to live in the north African nation of Libya. Like
Egypt and Algeria, massive pogroms decimated the once-thriving Jewish
communities in the 1940s. From 1941-1942, great waves of persecution washed
over Libya. Jewish property in Benghazi was pillaged and 2,600 were sent into
the desert to a forced labor camp, where 500 perished. On November 5, 1945, a
horrendous bloodbath ensued in the Libyan capital of Tripoli. According to New
York Times reporter Clifton Daniels: 'Babies were beaten to death with iron bars.
Old men were hacked to pieces where they fell. Expectant mothers were
disembowelled. Whole families were burned alive in their houses.' Several
hundred Jews died in the attack.
After the approval of the Partition Plan, another 130 Jews were murdered in anti-
Semitic rioting. The following year saw another Tripoli-like massacre. In 1948,
Libya's Jewish population was 38,000; by 1951 only 8,000 remained. After the
Six-Day War, another pogrom erupted, driving all but 400 from the country. On
July 21, 1967 Libyan strongman Colonel Qadhafi nationalized all Jewish
property, and soon thereafter, all remaining Jews left the country.
Syria:
The Syrian Jewish community in 1948 dated to the First Century destruction of
Jerusalem, approximately 1900 year earlier. Under Islamic rule, Jews were
routinely subject to cruel and inhumane treatment, including forced conversions,
routine pogroms and severe commercial and personal restrictions. By early 1947,
only 13,000 Jews lived in Syria; 20,000 had fled throughout the course of the
previous decade, as Nazi zeal permeated the region and made their lives
especially difficult. Immediately after Syria gained independence from France in
1945, vitriolic anti-Semitic propaganda was broadcast on television and radio,
inciting the Arab masses to violence. In December 1947, one month after the
Partition Plan's acceptance, a pogrom erupted in the Syrian town of Aleppo,
torching numerous Jewish properties, including synagogues, schools, orphanages
and businesses. Eyewitnesses to the violence noted Syrian firemen and police
dispatched to the scene actively participated in the rioting.
A flurry of anti-Semitic legislation passed in 1948 restricted, among other things,
Jewish travel outside of government-approved ghettos, selling private property,
acquiring land or changing their place of residence. A decree in 1949 went a step
further, seizing all Jewish bank accounts. Under threats of execution, long prison
sentences and torture, 10,000 Jews were able to depart between 1948 and 1962. A
report published in 1981 indicated Syrian Jews were subject to "the Mukhabarat,
the [Syrian] secret police, [who] conduct a reign of terror and intimidation,
including searches without warrant, detention without trial, torture and summary
execution." Due mainly to US influence in the context of the Madrid peace
process, all but about 800 of the Jewish community have fled, most settling in the
United States. Syria has confiscated all Jewish property aside from those who
remain.
Yemen:
The Yemenite Jewish community existed in what historian S.D. Goitein described
as the "worst aspect" of the Arab mistreatment of the Jew. Jewish life in Yemen,
up to the time of Israel's modern evacuation of the community, contained the
harshest elements imaginable under dhimmitude status. Jews could not testify in
court, and were regularly murdered, limited to employment in the most
demeaning of positions and forced to relinquish their property on demand, to
name a very few deprivations. An "age-old" custom of stoning Jews, permissible
by Muslim law, was still regularly practiced up to the time the Jews fled Yemen.
 Conditions for the community were exacerbated by Israel's victory over Arab
armies in 1948, making the swift extraction of the community a matter of rescue
or extinction. Arab mobs swarmed through Tsan'a and other towns, burning,
murdering, raping and looting in the city's Jewish quarters. The region's imam - or
religious authority - permitted the Jewish community to leave Yemen, provided
they forfeit all property to the state. Israel launched Operation Magic Carpet in
1949, and over the course of one year, successfully airlifted some 50,000
Yemenite Jews - almost the entire ancient community - to Israel.
Iraq:
The 135,000 strong Iraqi Jewish community in 1948 traced their origins to the
pre-exilic Jewish community of Babylon, 2700 years previous. Anti-Semitic
legislation in 1948, declared "Zionism" - a crime accorded to Jews automatically -
an offence punishable by a seven-year jail term. Additional legislation barred
Jews from government, medicine and education, denied merchants import
licenses and closed Jewish banks. The Jewish community faced economic ruin.
During Israel's War of Independence, immigration to Israel was declared a capital
offense while public Law No. 1, passed in 1950, stripped Jews of their Iraqi
nationality. In 1950, Israel launched Operation Ali Baba to extricate the destitute
remnant. Iraq, intrigued at the prospect of inheriting large quantities of abandoned
Jewish property, allowed the Jews to leave, reassuring emigrants they would
receive fair compensation for property and other assets they were forced to
abandon. The airlift spirited 123,000 Jews out of the country, with 110,000
choosing to remain in Israel. Despite it's promise, the Iraqi government
announced on March 10, 1951 - the day after the deadline for exit registration -
that emigrant's property, businesses and bank accounts were forfeit. That same
year, Law No. 5 was expanded to include all Jewish holdings in Iraqi banks. By
itself, this extension looted $200 million in Jewish assets. By January 1952, as
Iraq again closed the doors to Jewish emigration, only 6,000 remained. All
remaining Jewish communal property was confiscated in 1958. Today, only 200
Jews remain in Iraq, forced to reside in a Baghdad ghetto.
source: Middle East Digest - November/December 1999

Can we hear about these refugees from a human rights perspective?

"The big issue between 1948 and 1967 was the Arab "refugees" who had left Israel
and moved to areas under the control of Arabs. There was great controversy, both
within Israel and outside, over whether these Arab refugees had been pushed out by
Israel or had left on instructions of Arab leaders with the promise of a glorious return.
There is obviously some truth to both positions. Certainly, many Arabs were
frightened away by Israeli soldiers; some obviously left after hearing of civilian
"massacres". (Whether these accounts were true, false, exaggerated or covered up is
not as relevant as whether they were believed by the Arabs who left.)
"As a civil libertarian and human rights activist, I was never much moved by the
claims of these refugees. Political solutions often require the movement of people,
and such movement is not always voluntary. Making Arab families move - intact -
from one Arab village or town to another may constitute a human rights violation.
But in the whole spectrum of human rights issues - especially taking into account the
events in Europe during the 1940's - it is a fifth-rate issue analogous in many respects
to some massive urban renewal or other projects that require large-scale movement of
people. For example, the building of the Aswan High Dam in Egypt necessitated the
relocation of 100,000 Arabs and the destruction of numerous Arab villages. There
were certainly numerous precedents following both world wars, as well as other
dislocating events of history - including the establishment of new states. There were
so many refugee groups throughout the postwar world, and in so much worse
condition, that it is difficult to understand why this particular dislocation assumed
such international proportions.
"For example, following the end of World War II, approximately fifteen million
ethnic Germans were forcibly expelled from their homes in Poland, Czechoslovakia,
Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia, and other Central and Eastern European areas where
their families had lived for centuries. Two million died during this forced expulsion.
Czechoslovakia alone expelled nearly three million Sudeten Germans, turning them
into displaced persons. The United States, Britain, and the international community in
general approved these expulsions, as necessary to secure a more lasting peace. [...]
President Franklin Roosevelt's assistant Harry Hopkins memorialized his boss's view
that although transfer of ethnic Germans "is a hard procedure, it is the only way to
maintain peace." [...]
[Dershowitz describes other population transfers in the Middle East, primarily
hundreds of thousands of Sephardic Jews who left their ancient communities in Arab
lands for Israel.]
"But the Arab leaders did not want peace. They used the refugee issue to encourage
continuing belligerency. It became an excuse for not making peace - for not accepting
the reality that the ancient land of Israel-Palestine could be populated by two peoples
and divided into two nations. It should be recalled that between 1948 and 1967, Israel
posed no barrier to the establishment of a Palestinian state on the West Bank and
Gaza. There was no Palestinian state because the Arab leaders did not want a
Palestinian state alongside a Jewish state. Their collective goal was the total
destruction of the Jewish state. The Palestinian refugees would better serve that goal
if they were kept in camps as a homeless people than if they were allowed to move
out of the camps and establish their own state.
"I believed then, and I believe now, that those who singled out the "plight" of the
Arab refugees were more interested in singling out those who had allegedly caused
the problem - namely the Jews - than they were in helping those who were its victims.
Elevating the Arab refugee problem above the more compelling problem of other
groups was a form of indirect international anti-Semitism, acceptable in a world too
close to the Holocaust to legitimate direct anti-Jewish bigotry.
 [Dershowitz adds here in a footnote:]
"A New York Times story of August 12, 1990, described the plight of 'fifteen million
men, women and children' who have been 'internationally recognized as refugees.'
Following World War II, the number was between thirty-three and forty-three
million, and at the time the Palestinian refugee problem began - with 600,000 to
750,000 refugees - the number throughout the world was between sixteen and
eighteen million. Many of the current group are refugees from Islamic nations. Yet
the world knows little of their situation. Only the Palestinian refugees have received
widespread international support. It is fair to ask why."
[...]
"All of this is not to diminish the suffering of the Palestinian people between 1948
and 1967, but it is to emphasize how much of that suffering was deliberately
engineered by the leaders fo those Arab nations that were determined not to settle the
Palestinian issue in a manner that permitted the continued existence of the Jewish
state."
by Alan Dershowitz in "Chutzpah" [from Roger David Carasso]

Were these two refugee crises a simple 'exchange' of population and

therefore 'equal'?
• Without Equal.
The exchange of Arab and Jewish populations in and around Israel's War of
Independence cannot be equated, as the circumstances perpetuating the refugee
movements prove vastly different. The record shows the bulk of Palestinian
refugees left their homes on their own accord and at the strong insistence of Arab
leadership at the time. None were forcibly deprived of their wealth, and most
expected to return to their homes after invading Arab armies crushed the nascent
Jewish state.
In contrast, the Jewish residents of Arab countries were, almost without
exception, forcefully expelled from their homelands and robbed of their wealth
and livelihoods by government-planned, anti-Semitic campaigns meant to
eliminate from their midst the "pariah" Jewish presence. This program of ethnic
cleansing came hard on the heels of Hitler's plot to make Europe "Judenrein."
Using tactics of terror, Arab/Islamic leaders effected a plan to expel their Jewish
citizenry, indifferent that its execution would mean the death of thousands, gleeful
of the untold wealth it would transfer into their coffers.