One of the major issues pushed by the Arab propaganda machine is the so-called “refugee problem,” which is utilized to justify the terror and murder unleashed upon Israel and to elicit support from a misled world.
Population displacement is a common phenomenon in times of war. What is uncommon is the sinister and purposeful keeping of the displaced in ”refugee camps” for well over half a century. It is indeed a sinful leadership that prevents such displaced people from making new lives for themselves in the vast oil-rich areas the Arabs possess.
Why, given the vast land and ”black gold” resources held by the Arabs, does this refugee problem still fester? And how is it that only the Arabs are still considered refugees while so many others who were simultaneously displaced by the same catastrophic events half a century back are not?
Who created the circumstances that brought about the displacement and the suffering that continues for all these years? And who keeps these fires burning without respite?
The Israeli War of Independence was not of Israel’s choosing. It was a war of defense necessitated by an attack initiated by Arab states attempting to eliminate Israel’s re-emergence in its ancestral land.
For the sake of peaceful coexistence, Israel at the time agreed to accept a two-state arrangement. But its Arab neighbors took up arms against the nascent Jewish state with the objective of destroying it and its Jewish population.
As in most wars, the outcome of the aggression against Israel did indeed give birth to numerous refugees and displaced populations. Unlike other wars, however, the population transfers in the Middle East took on a unique characteristic. Beyond the refugees from both sides of the front, Israeli and Arab, there was an artificially created third major refugee group: Jewish residents of Arab countries, ousted by force from their homes.
The Israeli refugees of the Arab war zone were legal residents of areas that were conquered and annexed by Transjordan (renamed Jordan after its annexation of the western bank of the Jordan river). These Jewish refugees were the inhabitants of the old city of Jerusalem and Gush Etzion, among other areas, who were forcefully expelled from their homes while their properties were confiscated.
In sharp contrast to the Arab ”Judenrein” policy, the Arab population on the Israeli side was allowed to stay and given full citizenship rights. Yet many of these Arabs fled from the areas of combat, mostly encouraged by their leaders to evacuate the areas of battle with a promise of a quick, victorious return and participation in the expected spoils of war.
Thus, unlike the Jewish population from the areas conquered by the Arab armies who were forcefully expelled from their homes, the Arab refugees were the creation of their own leadership.
The Jewish refugees driven out by the Arab conquest, the Arabs who stayed in Israel, and other refugee groups were absorbed and given a chance for full integration within the democratic Israeli state. These included the refugees from Arab lands in addition to the ones saved from the Holocaust death camps. All this while Israel was impoverished and lacking any significant resources.
The Arab refugees who stayed within the areas under Arab control were prevented from integrating into any of the numerous Arab states and have been held hostage to political manipulation by Arab governments for all these years. Today, more than half a century later, they, together with their third and fourth generations, are still kept in the so-called ”refugee camps” that have purposely been allowed to evolve into bastions of terror.
Meanwhile, the State of Israel is falsely blamed for the suffering and impoverishment of the so-called ”Palestinian refugees.” Such a diversion of the people’s frustration away from the Arab autocrats and onto Israel allows Arab leaders to continue the plundering of oil resources for their own selfish benefit.
Even Yasir Arafat is reported to have amassed for himself more than 300 million dollars – money mostly shnorred from various nations and the UN refugee funds, supposedly for the alleviation of his people’s suffering. Needless to say, his people are kept impoverished and desperate in spite of all the donations.
World awareness of the Middle East refugee problem is limited solely to the displaced Arab population. No attention is being given to the Israeli inhabitants driven out by the Arabs during the 1948 war or the Jewish citizens of Arab countries expelled from their homes.
The Arab leaders, frustrated by their failure to drive the Jews out of the Holy Land, started venting their anger onto their own loyal Jewish citizens. That ensuing persecution created a third, massive refugee group, a group that had nothing to do with the fighting and were actually living outside the area of dispute.
It is the latter refugee problem that I wish to address. Almost one million Jewish inhabitants who lived from time immemorial in Arab countries were forced to flee their homes between 1948 and 1950 under the pretense of the need to make room for the ”Palestinian” Arab refugees. Yet these Arab ”brothers” were kept in refugee camps in abject poverty and despite the Arabs’ oil wealth and massive territories.
As the United Nations representative for the World Organization of Jews from Arab countries, I feel a need to express the anguish of these neglected Jewish refugees who were forced to flee their homes in the Arab countries where they lived from time immemorial.
While the media seem to totally ignore the Jewish refugees, the ”Palestinian refugee problem” keeps surfacing again and again..
As an Iraqi Jew, I can recall when Prime Minister Nuri Al-Said stripped the Jewish citizens of Iraq of their rights. I will not forget the day we had to turn over to the police the key to our house and were allowed to take only one suitcase per person, leaving behind everything we had. In less than two hours, in a flight out of Iraq directly to Tel Aviv, we became penniless refugees. We were fortunate that an impoverished Israel did not use us as a propaganda tool, as the 20 oil-rich Arab countries did to their brethren, the Palestinian Arab refugees.
The refugee problem should be solved, but not at the expense of Israel. The Arab countries should be the ones to shoulder the burden of a problem they started and have perpetuated.
It is indeed shameful that 54 years have passed and these Arab ”brethren” are still being held as refugees, hostage to the dictatorial needs of their own leaders. Tthe Arab League should be called to the table to finally take care of the problem by resettling the Arab refugees within the vast stretches of land they possess.
Likewise, Arab regimes should be called upon to compensate their former Jewish loyal citizens whom they unjustifiably drove out of their homes, stripping them of all they had. Full compensation for the billions of dollars of confiscated property and frozen bank accounts should be mandatory.
The two refugee problems should be addressed from a perspective of reparation and not repatriation, in order to once and for all smooth over this obstacle to negotiations and a just peace.