The Arab Refugees

There is a sufficient amount of irrefutable evidence that the notion of “Palestine” is a post-1967 invention, to easily ascertain that “Palestine” is not a reality; the Arabs, however, who have been uprooted from their homes are a human reality. To be displaced by the fortunes of war, to be forced from the scenes where your life is unfolded, is not pleasant, emotionally or economically. A man's ties to his surroundings are quite real.

This misfortune has happened to many peoples, and particularly in the 20th century. From Greece to Turkey, China to Indonesia, Finland to South Korea, millions of refugees were absorbed by the lands of their fathers

Yet none of these peoples have reacted like Arabs. Each of these displaced populations was taken in by people of the same nationality elsewhere; Algerian Frenchman settled in France, Sudeten Germans settled in Germany or in Austria. It was never easy and most of the individuals involved had little to do with the political disasters in which they were caught. But they began life anew and ceased to be a problem

The Arabs in this respect are unique. Only the Arabs remain unabsorbed elsewhere, still refugees decades after the event and after generations have grown to manhood.

There are, after all, 22 separate Arabs countries and territories spanning two continents with considerable undeveloped land and only 325 million people; the refugees are but a fraction of 1% of this figure. Why were they not lord? Principally because most Arab governments did not permit their absorption, preferring to use them as a casus belli against Israel.

Consider the Jewish refugees of this century. Jews who fled from various Arab lands to Israel. They came from Morocco, from Iraq, from Yemen, and from the states between. These were for the most part impoverished communities, speaking Arabic as their mother tongue, and with ancient roots in those areas. The Jewish community in Egypt, for example, goes back to Alexander of Macedon; Jews had lived there continuously since his time; the Jewish community of Iraq goes back in an unbroken line to the time of Nebuchadnezzar. In other words, the Arabs have been in Egypt and India rock only half as long as the Jewish communities of those lands, but after 1948 the bulk of the Jews were forced or frightened out. Israel welcomed them

It would be useful if the Arab governments can show the same fraternal feelings for their “Arab brothers” that Israel has shown for Jewish refugees. There are, after all, no grandchildren of Sudeten Germans sitting by the Rhine waiting for some future war to return them to the Sudeten, and whatever problems the Greeks have today, displaced Anatolians are not one of them. It would be useful if the more than 20 Arab states would open their doors to Arabs who once lived in Israel, or whose parents once did, instead of supporting terrorist groups who throw grenades at them when they seek to improve their lot in Israel. Perhaps some of those still crowded in the Gaza Strip could be sheltered in the homes left behind by the million plus Jews who fled Arab lands with no compensation whatsoever, to come home to Israel.