"Hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Arabs fled or were driven from their homes in the war that followed Israel's creation, marking the beginning of the Palestinian refugee problem that continues to this day. About 600,000 Jewish refugees from Arab countries, as well as some 250,000 Holocaust survivors in Europe, settled in Israel in the first few years of the state's existence, more than doubling its Jewish population."
However, the issue is still absent from the international mainstream press and media. Gaza's Great March of Return campaign should have invited comparisons between Palestinian refugees who want to return to their homes in Israel, and the greater number of Jewish refugees of the same era, who do NOT want to return to Arab countries. But no journalist has yet ventured into this territory, and attempts to get the message into op-eds in the New York Times and Haaretz have so far met with failure.
Curiously, Haaretz did publish an article by Moshe Arens declaring the Palestinian refugee issue a weapon of war against Israel. Although Arens mentioned refugee exchanges resulting from the Greek/ Turkish and India/Pakistan conflicts, not once did he mention Jewish refugees from Arab countries.
This is a cause for concern. It shows that campaigners for Jewish refugees still have some way to go before their issue becomes central to the conscience of Israel's Eurocentric 'liberal' elite. Haaretz Commenters either ignore the issue or blame the Zionists for creating the Jewish refugee problem.
We must redouble our efforts to change this disappointing state of affairs.
Click on this oriental version by Daniel Saadon of the state's national anthem Hatikva. It was released on Israel's 70th anniversary
Arens is getting on in years and he may simply not have been thinking about the fact of Jews driven from Arab lands. Maybe someone could try to reach him and urge him to make the argument.
ReplyDeleteHaaretz twisted language, especially on racism: slaps it on cultural divisions or on safety but not on Arab Muslim racist attacks
ReplyDeleteThe "competetive" tantrum trend among hard Israeli left to utter the "racisn" terminology has been for some time.
They are ever so loud on isolated cases of violent attacks against Arabs which we all condemn, of course.
Yet, they are silent on every weekly attacks by racist Arabs targeting Jewish civilians (at times travelling for miles far away from own Arab town...). Of course it's Arab Muslim terrorism but it's also anti-Jewish ethnic racism and religious bigotry.
Yet, will term any Israeli security measure as "racist." As if it's "not" saving lives, what it is really about.
Will minimize Arab Islamic Palestinian use of its own population as human shields (at least since 1980 by Arafat), and Israeli attempts to evacuate before an anti terror operation.
Will maximize exaggerate any claim of abuse.
Incidentally, with all the heavily funded anti Israel groups in Israel. why isn't there any peace movement on the Arab Palestinian side, Hamas' Gaza or Fatah's Ramallah?
If one specific community wants to keep its unique education, they immediately cry "racism".
They are silent on every Israeli court case that favors Arab vs Jew. But ever so loud on any partial-discriminatory incident. Despite the fact, it is rather ultra-orthodox who feel most all out discriminated against, mainly prompted by anti Religious hatred campaign by hard left like Haaretz.
These supposed "peaceninks", these same hypocrites, incite against, demonize Haredi ultra Orthodox conscientious objectors who refuse to serve in IDF draft in Israeli army.
Haaretz and the like, are not just biased. But hate mongers.