Jewish Refugees from Arab Countries Although much is heard about the plight of the Palestinian refugees, little is said about the Jews who fled from Arab states. In 1945, there were more than 870,000 Jews living in the various Arab states. Many of their communities dated back 2,500 years. Throughout 1947 and 1948 these Jews were persecuted. Their property and belongings were confiscated. There were anti-Jewish riots in Egypt, Lybia, Syria, and Iraq. In Iraq, Zionism was made a capital crime. Aproximately 600,000 Jews sought refuge in the State of Israel. They arrived destitute, but they were absorbed into the society and became an integral part of the state. In effect, then, a vertible exchange of populations took place between Arab and Jewish refugees. Thus, the Jewish refugees from Arab countries became full Israeli citizens whereas the Arab refugees who fled their homes in Palestine, remained refugees unaided by the neighboring Arab countries. Little is heard about the Jewish refugees because they did not remain refugees for long. Of the 820,000 Jewish refugees, 586,000 were resettled in Israel at great expense, and without any offer of compensation from the Arab governments who confiscated their possessions. During the 1947 UN debates, Arab leaders threatened the Jews living in their countries with expulsion and violence if partition were to occur. Egypts delegate told the General Assembly: The lives of one million Jews in Muslim countries would be jeopardized by partition. Following the 1947 United Nations vote to partition Palestine, Arab violence against Jews erupted throughout the Middle East and North Africa. On January 18, 1948, the president of the World Jewish Congress, Dr. Stephen Wise, appealed to U.S. Secretary of State George Marshall: Between 800,000 and a million Jews in the Middle East and North Africa, exclusive of Palestine, are in the greatest danger of destruction at the hands of Moslems being incited to holy war over the Partition of Palestine. . .Acts of violence already perpetrated, together with those contemplated, being clearly aimed at the total destruction of the Jews, constitute genocide, which under the resolutions of the General Assembly is a crime against humanity. The United States, however, did not take action to investigate these pleadings. On May 16, 1948, a New York Times Headline read Jews in Grave Danger in all Muslim Lands: Nine Hundred Thousand in Africa and Asia face wrath of their foes. The story reported of a law drafted by the Arab League Political Committee which was intended to govern the legal status of Jewish residents of Arab League countries. Their bank accounts would be frozen and used to finance resistance to Zionist ambitions in Palestine. Jews believed to be active Zionists would be interned and their assets confiscated. Pogroms and persecutions, and grave fears for their future, regularly preceded the mass expulsions and exoduses of the Jews, whose ancestors had inhabited these regions from time immemorial. Beginning in 1948, more than 650,000 Jews left their homes in the Arab world to become refugees, and were eventually integrated into Israel, even as the country was being threatened with annihilation by neighboring Arab League states. Since their belongings were confiscated as the price of leaving from their repressive homelands, they arrived in Israel penniless, but they were welcomed and quickly absorbed into Israeli society. Approximately 300,000 more Jews found refuge, and a new homeland, in Europe and the Americas. The mass displacement of the Jews from Arab countries has been a breach of international law. The 1945 Nuremberg Charter made wartime mass deportation a crime against humanity, and the 1949 Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Civilians in Time of War also prohibits deportations and forcible transfers, whether mass or individual. Decrees and practices discriminating against Jews in Arab countries, especially denationalization, is eerily similar to the Nazi Nuremberg Laws on Citizenship and Race, and the victims are the same, the Jews. Roughly half of Israels 5 million Jews are Jewish refugees from Arab countries or their descendants, and they received no humanitarian aid from the United Nations. To this day, the Arab states have refused to pay any compensation to the hundreds of thousands of Jews who were forced to abandon their property before fleeing their homelands. Israel has consequently maintained that any agreement to compensate the Palestinian refugees must also include Arab compensation for Jewish refugees. ..> Country of Origin Year Expelled Number of Jews Expelled Syria 1946 15,000 1994 15,000 Egypt 1956 25,000 1957 25,000 1967 12,500 Iraq 1950 130,000 1951 14,000 Morocco 1963 100,000 Yeman 1948 50,000 1959 3,000 Tunisa 1967 105,000 Libya 1942 2,000 1949 30,000 Algeria 1962 150,000 Lebanon 1958 1968 3,000 2,600..>
Posted on: Thu, 27 Nov 2014 17:13:06 +0000