The Mideast's Other Refugees

...Village headmen, because of the food-rationing system, found it profitable to hide deaths and swell birth figures...

...Actually, this story is incorrect in fact, in origin, in numbers and in apportionment of the blame...

...The Mideast's Other Refugees Close to 500,000 Jews who were forced to flee from Arab and Moslem countries in recent years have been absorbed by the tiny state of Israel By Uri Ra'anan Jerusalem Egypt's tragic expulsion of its Jewish citizens is a timely reminder of the largely forgotten fact that there are two refugee problems in the Middle East, not one...

...As a result, the casual visitor sees hundreds of thousands of wretched refugees in the Arab countries huddled together in tents and camps, unable to find work and representing a permanent explosive force in the Middle East...

...In the latter instances, too, the Jews, often very wealthy and important figures in the economies of the countries concerned, were robbed of all their belongings and sent off without a cent...

...Until 1948, the rise of the Jewish community in Palestine and the immigration of 500,000 Jews, far from displacing Arabs, caused the Arab population to increase from some 500,000 before the British Mandate to about 1.2 million...

...In addition, even before 1948 some 50,000 Jews sought refuge in Palestine...

...In addition, the Arab per-capita national income in Palestine was far ahead of that of any other Arab country...

...According to a legend that has gained increasing acceptance in recent years, Israel's emergence as a state rendered one million Arabs homeless in order to make room for Jews, thus causing a major refugee problem and a serious injustice which must be righted...

...it has taken place under harrowing circumstances, but it would be sheer madness to reverse the process, to try after all these years of hatred and bitterness to saddle Israel with a large potential fifth column...

...Even with an unusually high birth rate since 1948, the total today cannot be over 600,000...

...When I visited El Arish, shortly after Israel captured the Sinai Peninsula, I found the town's 20,000 permanent inhabitants begging Israeli authorities to protect them from some 3,000 refugees...

...In the Arab countries, the refugees have not even been able to get work or food...

...In 1948, the Arab population of Palestine was estimated at 1.2 million, but there had been no census for over two decades and this may well have been an exaggeration...

...In any event, not more than 750.000 were estimated to be living in the area now belonging to Israel, and since Israel's normal Arab population is now around the 200,000 mark it is obvious that the number of genuine refugees cannot be very much in excess of 500,000...

...As a result, 90 per cent of the Arab population left...

...Similar scenes were repeated all over the country...

...Arab-Jewish relations in Haifa, incidentally, had always been good...

...Before Israel conquered the Gaza Strip, for example, the Cairo Government spent nothing on their unfortunate brethren, who were forbidden to leave the Strip and move into Egypt...

...But Arab leaders rejected the plan...

...All food and work was provided by the UNRWA...

...Israel has given its refugees permanent homes, dispersed them among veteran settlers, taught them the language, sent their children to school, and given them positions in the civil service and the Army...

...It developed that they had not only refused to aid the refugees, but had actually stolen UNRWA relief supplies from them and had forced them to live in a ghetto...

...This is how the Arab refugee problem began...

...The great difference is that the Arabs were not expelled en masse from Israel, while an Iraqi decree some six years ago drove out 125,000 Jews and Egypt has just evicted approximately 40,000 Jews...

...The same visitor does not see anything like this in Israel...

...The bronzed young man in uniform, the girl working in the kibbutz, the tourist guide, the elderly shopkeeper—they may all be refugees from Arab countries, but how is the visitor to know...

...When the United Nations partition plan for Palestine was proposed, Jewish leaders not only accepted it but also started making plans for integrating an Arab minority which was then likely to constitute more than 40 per cent of the new Jewish state's population...

...Ironically, this is because the Arab countries have done nothing for their compatriots—finding it more profitable to keep their difficulties alive as a festering political sore —while Israel has absorbed its refugees to the point where it is difficult to distinguish them from other citizens...

...Similarly, Egypt did nothing to educate the children ; 90 per cent of the schools were run by the UNRWA and the United Nations Economic, Social and Cultural Organization, while the remaining 10 per cent were also supported by UN funds...

...The Arab refugees, therefore, did not leave because they were driven out to make room for more Jews (Jewish immigration raised the country's absorptive capacity as well as its wealth), but because foreign Arab leaders ordered them to do so...

...They were afraid that their victims would now seek revenge for this heartlessness...

...As for numbers, legitimate refugees from regions held by Israel cannot total anywhere near the one million usually quoted by Arab propagandists...

...In fact, an exchange of minorities has taken place...

...The Arab countries should do likewise...

...In any case, would the Arab countries be prepared to take back their former Jewish citizens, to restore them to their former positions, wealth and homes...

...they should extend brotherly aid to their miserable people who, but for the orders of:foreign Arab military leaders, would never have become refugees...

...What is more, they displayed their displeasure by launching guerrilla attacks which soon led to a full-scale war against Israel that was admittedly intended to wipe out its Jewish inhabitants...

...Local residents probably wanted to comply, but they were told to flee by Arab officers (most of whom were non-Palestinians) because neighboring Arab armies would soon be invading the area and bombing out everything held by the Jews...

...Altogether, therefore, 400,000 -,to 500,000 Jewish refugees from Arab and Moslem nations are now in Israel, as compared with 500,000 to 600,000 Arab refugees from Israel...

...Why are these facts rarely mentioned...

...to help the Jews driven out of Arab and Moslem lands...

...Hence, almost half of the one million refugees usually referred to really do not exist...

...The number of Jews who have had to leave Arab and Moslem countries because of forced expulsion (Iraq and Egypt), danger to life and limb (Yemen, Afghanistan), and fear, discrimination and attacks (North Africa) has exceeded 370,000 since 1948...

...This is the nearest step yet to an exchange of minorities in virtually equal numbers anywhere in the world...

...Israel has settled its refugees and absorbed them...

...Consequently, the world has only an Arab refugee problem to concern itself with now, because Israel has solved its counterpart of that problem...

...How did the Arab refugee problem come about...

...As the United Nations Relief and Works Agency notes in all of its reports, many Arabs have claimed refugee status to benefit from the UN aid being distributed...

...Also, many refugee family heads claim more children than they actually have to secure extra rations...

...Israel's inhabitants, in contrast, have accepted the heaviest material sacrifices, tax burdens, housing shortages, etc...

...The first large city taken by Israel's citizen army was Haifa, and the troops' first act was an appeal to Haifa's Arabs to stay put and show the world that they could live together with the Jews...

...It is quite probable that the amount of compensation due to all the Jewish refugees from the Arab world far exceeds the value of Arab property abandoned in Israel...