Emile, I am surprised at you, I thought you were educated and knew a little history. Of course the "refugees" problem is not easy to solve. The state of Israel took in from Arab countries and granted full citizenship to about the same number of people that left the newly born state of Israel. Arab that stayed in the new stated were granted full citizenship. The situation is really not different from what happened in Europe, where big chunks of population have been redeployed after the constant redesigning of their boundaries. Nor is it at all different from what happened between Greece and Turkey in the 20' when similar population "exhanges" have occurred. The difference between these historical examples and what happened to the refugees is that in those examples, the host countries granted the newcomers citizenship rights, but the arab hosts countries of the refugees segregated those refugees in camps and refused them and their descendents any citizenship rights. Take for an example Quwait, this great emirate we saved from Sadam. They instituted a citizenship law that assures that no refugee could ever be a citizen of their country (you have to show a lineal ancestry through the male line to about 1913 to be a citizen there). Similar descriminatory laws against their brethern exists in all Arab countries. Just as I srael assimilated few million Jews from the Arab countries, so should the Arab countries have assimilated the refugees in their lands and the problems would have long been gone. The Arab leaders however, always needed to have that forment (and their backers, the Soviet Union loved it of course) in the middle east to redirect the attention to outside problems from the internal problems they have never faced noe resolved.
Do you realize that the middle east conflict was kept alive by the Soviets just to keep the west's source of oil in constant peril? When Israel was formed, a great proportion of its population and ideology was left wing and actually leaning toward the the Soviets, this because our state department, which was (and might still be) controlled or at least heavily influenced by "big oil" interests. Truman was on the verge of witholding recognition of the new state because of pressures from State, when he did, the recognition was "De Facto", while the Soviets' recognition was "De Jure". Now the Soviets, did not particularly like old Ben Gurion, mind you, but they saw an opportunity of creating instability in the middle east and seized on it. They even provided the first few shipments of arms (through Czechoslovakia) Israel needed to withstand the organized onslaught from the Arab countries (and the Jordan Legion led by British commanders).
Emile, go and learn a little history before you comment on this difficult problem. My dubiety of your sincerety is increasing as I read more of your misleading posts.
Zeev |
