The traditional method of establishing a nation is thru settlement, purchase, and conquest. Look at US history as a typical example. Does Israel differ from this? Obviously, no. Were there skirmishes between the settlements of Jews and Arabs prior to '47? Obviously. Were there Arab terrorists who killed Jewish civilians? Yes.
However, the mandated international body, the UN, determined boundries and seven Arab nations declared war on what they thought was an easy target.
More-- from this weekend's NY Times:
>>Jews first settled in Arab lands more than 2,500 years ago, after Babylon conquered ancient Judea. The problem of refugees, both Jewish and Palestinian, goes back to the formation of Israel. During United Nations debates in 1947 over the partition of Palestine, Arab delegates warned that the formation of a Jewish state might lead to violent retaliation against Jews in their countries. "The masses in the Arab world cannot be restrained," an Iraqi diplomat said at the time.
The immediate outcomes ranged from anti-Jewish riots in Yemen and Syria to the revocation of citizenship for Jews in Libya to the confiscation of their property in Iraq. After the overthrow of King Farouk of Egypt in a military coup in 1952 and Israel's invasion of Sinai in 1956, Egypt declared Jews enemies of the state.
For its part, Israel mounted operations to transport tens of thousands of Jews from Iraq and Yemen. While 856,000 Jews lived in Arab nations in 1948, only 7,800 were there in 2001, the American Sephardi Federation reports. About 600,000 went to Israel, the remainder to the United States and Western Europe.<<
Israel assimilated the refugees, many of them voluntary, to be sure, while the Arab states isolated them in camps.
fred |
