A century ago, my grandmother came from Sana'a in Yemen to Israel. She did not know about "Palestine", because at that time no such entity existed. What did exist then was the Ottoman Empire. My grandmother ran away because she was widowed and had she remained in Yemen, my father, who was a baby at the time, would have been forced to convert to Islam.
I remembered these things when I read the words of Omar Barghouti, one of the leaders of the anti-Israel boycott movement BDS, in an interview with Le Monde, about the Jews in Arab countries. Does he have any idea what he's talking about? Does he really have no idea about the centuries of discrimination and persecution? Does he have no idea about the many pogroms and blood libels by Muslims against Jews, before Zionism and before the establishment of Israel?
The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, who was the most prominent leader of the Palestinian Arabs for decades before the establishment of Israel, was a Nazi who collaborated with Hitler. He lived in Berlin during World War II, encouraged the Nazis to kill more and more Jews, and planned to destroy all Jews from Arab countries, if only he would have a chance to fulfill his dream.
Al-Husseini is the man who opposed any compromise with the Jewish community, and led the opposition to the partition plan of the United Nations. He is responsible for the Nakba (as the Palestinians call their defeat in 1948) more than anyone else.
The main demand of the BDS movement is the "right of return" (of Palestinians to Israel). Well, in Europe alone after World War II, more than 20 million people were displaced. Millions of Germans, Czechs, Hungarians, Poles, Romanians and Ukrainians. Does anyone seriously think that the Poles who were deported from Ukraine have a "right of return" to Ukraine? Implementation of the "right of return" would cause chaos. Europe does not need it. Nor does the Middle East.
Towards the end of the Second World War, Winston Churchill made it clear in a speech in parliament: “Expulsion is the method which will be the most satisfactory and lasting. There will be no mixture of populations to cause endless trouble… A clean sweep will be made. I am not alarmed by these transferences.”
This was the norm of those years. Some 52 million people became refugees in the first half of the last century. How many were granted the "right of return"? The answer is zero. So of what right does Barghouti speak? He obviously forgets that hundreds of thousands of Jews were expelled from Arab countries and their property was confiscated. They have no right of return and their property will not be returned, just as the property of ethnic Germans and Poles and Ukrainians and Czechs and Slovaks and Hungarians was not returned. Why should the dynamics in the case of the Palestinians be any different?
Refugees appealed to the European Court of Human Rights. Their claim was rejected, just as the claims of refugees from the 1940s were rejected before. Does Barghouti, who deals with refugees and their return, not recognize these precedents? Strange.
The problem with BDS is that it is the greatest tragedy of the Arab-Israeli conflict in general, and of Palestinians, in particular. BDS speaks of rights, but its main purpose is the denial of the right of Jews to self-determination.
Barghouti wants to abolish the existence of Israel. It's called "politicide". He invites the Jews to live in harmony, as a minority, under Arab or Muslim rule. Is he serious? Given that the Middle East has in recent years turned into a huge bloodbath, in which each tribe, minority or not minority slaughters any slightly different tribe - Barghouti's proposal is a fantasy.
Read article in full
Why Jewish refugees are the correct response to BDS (JPost blog)
BDS's useful idiots at Haaretz (YNet News)
YNet's treatment of the last Israeli election was as unhinged as Haaretz, for the record. They quite nearly came out in favor of Hamas over Netanyahu
ReplyDeleteI would like the right of return of Jews who were expelled from Hebron, Nablus (Shechem), Gaza City, etc. Well? Is there anybody out there AT ALL, who will advocate for that? ANYBODY? Where are the Jews?
ReplyDeleteGood point, Davsil. Since those Jews were expelled in 1929, nineteen years before there were Arab refugees, then those Jews should have priority for exercising any right of return.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.danielpipes.org/comments/259821
ReplyDeleteProfile of BDS promoter (dangerously pro Arab-racist anti-Jewish terror; ridiculously contradictory)