Will long-lost Jewish neighbours want to return?

There are three good things about this Haaretz article by Sultan al-Qassemi of Abu Dhabi. The first is that he recognises that Jews are a Middle Eastern people who go back thousands of years. The second is that Jews made a huge contribution to Arab societies. The third is that he acknowledges that Jews were subject to assault and oppression at the hands of Arabs who caused them to flee.

In other respects the article is badly flawed. It assumes that European Jews and their 'Israel project' are the root of all evil. The ill-treatment of the Jews in Arab countries is an understandable 'reaction' to the 'injustice' of Israel. And in a patronising and naive way, it assumes that Jews' undying loyalty to their 'ancestral Arab homelands' will make them return to Arab countries, if only citizenship were restored to them. (With thanks: Lily)

"Unfortunately, many Muslim Arabs from across the region reacted violently to these developments and decided to reciprocate; as a result, Jews who were living among them were shunned and assaulted. In Iraq, for example, about 120,000 Jews were compelled to emigrate to Israel, the U.S. and Europe in just less than three years.

"The streets of Cairo, the historic neighborhoods of Syria, the mountainous terrain of Lebanon and the bustling markets of Baghdad were, for the first time in thousands of years, emptied of one of the most successful ethnic minorities living within their communities. Doctors, architects, businessmen, scientists, poets and writers started to pack up and leave, some with good reason and some to avoid the repercussions of the founding of the state of Israel.

"It wasn't all bad blood between the Arabs and the Jews; in fact, there were stories of heroism that have gone unreported and unnoticed in the Arab media. In the midst of the horrors of the Nazi occupation of France in the 1940s, the imam of the Paris Mosque saved the lives of scores of Jews by issuing certificates stating that they were Muslim. In Tunis, entire Jewish families were saved by a local hero, Khaled Abdelwahhab, who hid them in his farm at great risk to himself and his family; he was honored posthumously for his bravery by the Anti-Defamation League. As a result of such actions, fewer than 1 percent of the Jews of Arabia - who numbered in the hundreds of thousands - perished compared to more than 50 percent of the Jews of Europe*.

"Since then, there has been predominantly negative coverage of Judeo-Arab relations. Europe, after the Second World War, was able to turn the page almost immediately, yet many Arabs still paint all Jews with the same brush used for Israelis.

"In 1975, in the wake of the death of the Egyptian revolutionary leader Gamal Abdel Nasser, many countries in which he had financed and encouraged revolutions shed the burden of his pan-Arab nationalism and scaremongering and decided to take action in order to restore the social unity of their countries. The pre-Saddam Iraqi Revolution Command Council issued advertisements in The New York Times and elsewhere inviting Jews to return to their home countries and guaranteeing their rights. Anwar Sadat's Egypt and Hafez Al Assad's Syria also issued such statements.

"In recent history, only the two forward-thinking Middle Eastern kingdoms of Morocco and Bahrain have broken the mold of suspicion toward their Jewish citizens and integrated them into the social and political spheres. The former with the case of Andre Azoulay, an adviser to the previous and current kings; and the latter with the recent appointment of Huda Ezra Ebrahim Nonoo as the new Bahraini ambassador to America.

"Today in New York City alone there are more than 75,000 Jews of Syrian origin, many of them educated in the best schools, who speak or understand Arabic and still have an affinity for Syria. Is it not possible to imagine that such persons have the right, if they so choose, to be full citizens of Syria?

"Is it not time to reassure the Jews of Arab origin that their ancestral homes are mature enough to welcome them back if they decide to invest, visit or even take up citizenship? If football players who spend a few months in the Middle East are given citizenship, shouldn't people who have a natural birthright, tremendous wealth, and valuable education and skills be accorded the same?"

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*The only reason why more Jews were not killed in Arab lands was that the Nazi advance was halted - ed