Point of No Return was perhaps too hasty in condemning the Economist for failing to provide an opportunity to refute the distortions in its article 'Let there be justice for all' (April 12). In its May 9 issue, it printed this letter from JIMENA co-founder Joseph Abdel Wahed :
A refugee's tale
SIR – Resolutions that recognise the plight of Jews forced to flee from the Arab world when Israel was founded are not primarily about compensation (“Let there be justice for all”, April 12th). What we want most of all is to tell our side of the story. For 60 years the focus has been on the Palestinians, with nothing much said on the brutal expulsion of nearly 1m Jews from the Arab world and Iran. No trial; no jury; no justice. Human-rights organisations did not call attention to this crime against humanity. The United Nations did not convene the Security Council to censure the Arab countries. British academics did not seek to divest from these countries.
“Who is fighting for my rights?” I asked in 1948 when I was 12 years old and living in Cairo. This was when the Arab League likened its “war of extermination...to the Mongolian massacre and the Crusades” and after the Mufti of Jerusalem exhorted Palestinian Arabs to kill Jews “wherever you find them”. The Middle East conflict created not one, but two refugee populations.
Joseph Abdel Wahed
Moraga, California
You were not too hasty - the meager crumbs thrown by the Economist are far fom enough.
ReplyDeleteFor more than two generations the Western press has suppressed information about the injustices done to Jews in both the Christian and Moslem worlds. Publishing one letter pointing out that fact does not make their coverage balanced or fair.