Nice try. But you have the countries and religions mixed up..
siliconinvestor.com
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Between 1948 and 1953, Israel integrated and absorbed close to 500,000 Jewish refugees – half from the destruction wrought by the Holocaust and the remainder expelled from Arab countries. A similar number poured in over the next three years. As a result, the new State’s population doubled by 1953 and tripled by 1956. No one has ever suggested that these Jewish refugees have a “right of return” to their former homes in their Arab countries of origin. In fact, none of these Jewish refugees were even granted monetary compensation – another “inalienable right” claimed for the Palestinians.
Nor are these isolated events in human history for, objectively speaking, refugees are the inevitable and unfortunate by-product of human conflict. So why then, are the Palestinians demanding a “right” for their refugees that is enjoyed by virtually no other refugees in history? The answer lies in a circumstance that is also virtually unique to the Palestinians. Unlike most of history’s refugees, the countries to which the Palestinians fled refused to absorb them – preferring to leave them for half a century in squalid refugee camps for the sake of encouraging anti-Israel and anti-Western sentiment.
The Moslems who fled India became full-fledged citizens of a Pakistani homeland. The Sudeten Germans were fully absorbed into German society. The Vietnamese boat people are now productive citizens of the United States. Jewish refugees from the Arab world have now been fully integrated into Israel. Yet the Palestinians – whose Arab hosts bear direct responsibility for their plight as a result of their decision to declare war on Israel rather than accepting the UN Partition Plan in 1947 – still languish in refugee camps after 55 years.
Jordan, at least, granted its Palestinian refugees citizenship, but has made no effort to get them out of those camps. That’s why refugee camps were still flourishing when Israel conquered the West Bank in 1967, after 19 years of Jordanian rule. Nevertheless, the Palestinian refugees who fled to Jordanian-controlled territory were lucky by comparison. Those who went to Lebanon not only were not made citizens, but were also deprived of their basic civil rights such as the right to work in over 70 different professions.
Ironically, the only country that did try to improve the plight of the Palestinian refugees was Israel. In Gaza, some 36,000 refugees had been moved into better housing facilities by 1973 before international pressure and PLO threats against the refugees themselves put an end to the project. Incredible, but true!
The most astonishing element in this tale of neglect, however, is the role of the Palestinians themselves. Most of the refugees have been under autonomous Palestinian rule for the past five years, yet, the Palestinian Authority has not spent one cent of the millions of dollars that it received in foreign aid to improve their living conditions. It does, however, have sufficient funds to purchase a sea of weapons from Iran……..but that’s another ‘dog that don’t hunt’. The short of it is that these refugees have been living in misery for the last 55 years and there is absolutely no excuse for it.
The only just and rational solution to the Palestinian refugee problem is for the Arab world, and particularly the Palestinian State-to-be, to integrate and absorb them – just as Israel has integrated and absorbed Jewish refugees throughout the world ever since 1948.….which leads to the central issue…….that an end to the Palestinians’ circle of misery will come only when Palestinian leadership ceases to focus its attention on returning Palestinian refugees to their former homes in Israel proper (which Israel interprets as the first step in its eventual destruction) and begins to focus on returning, integrating and absorbing Palestinian refugees into a democratic, stable and economically viable Palestinian homeland (Palestine) adjacent to, and living in peace with (rather than in substitution for) Israel.
jfednepa.org
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A review of the behavior of the various Arab countries toward their Jewish minorities reveals some difference.
1. Iraq
Less than a year after Israeli independence was declared in 1948, repressive measures were taken in Iraq. Thousands of Jews were imprisoned or taken into "protective custody" on charges of "Zionism". Jews applied in large numbers for exit permits to Israel, but legislation was quickly passed freezing Jewish bank accounts and forbidding Jews to dispose of their property without special permission. Jewish emigrants who succeeded in obtaining exit visas were allowed to take only fifty kilograms of luggage per person. Soon after, a decree was issued blocking the property of all Iraqi Jews who, by leaving the country, "had relinquished their nationality" and Jewish property was sold at public auction. A year later, laws were passed, restricting the movements of Jews, barring them from schools, hospitals and other public institutions, and refusing them import and export licenses to carry on their businesses. The program was so effective, that by the middle of July 1950 more than 110,000 Iraqi Jews had registered for emigration.
The Jewish community in Iraq had been one of the oldest and largest in the Arab world, and in 1948 it numbered 135,000. Over 77,000 lived in Baghdad alone, comprising a fourth of the capital's population. The community was wealthy and prestigious, and before World War II, Jews held a dominant place in the import trade and occupied high government positions.
The overwhelming majority of the population was relocated to Israel, as a result of intensified anti-Jewish actions which started with the UN resolution on the partition of Palestine in 1947 and continued till after the cease fire with Israel in 1949. Hundreds were killed and imprisoned during several anti-Jewish riots. Jewish property was confiscated and Zionism, the wish to return to the Land of Zion, became a capital crime. Jews were thus forced to flee and to leave all of their belongings behind. Between 1949 and 1952, 123,371 Iraqi Jews were airlifted directly to Israel in what became to be known as "Operation Ezra and Nehemia".
Few Jews remain in Iraq and those who do, mainly because they have not succeeded to escape, are continuously threatened with harassment by local officials or put on forced shows in their own synagogues by the Saddam Hussein regime.
Yemen
Jews had begun to leave Yemen in the 1880s, when some 2,500 had made their way to Jerusalem and Jaffa. But it was after World War I, when Yemen became independent, that anti-Jewish feeling in that country made emigration imperative. Anti-Semitic laws, which had lain dormant for years were revived, as for example: Jews were not ermitted to walk on pavements - or to ride horses. In court, a Jew's evidence was not accepted against that of a Moslem. Jewish orphans had to be converted to Islam, and anyone who helped such children to escape did so on pain of death. When a Jew immigrated, he had to leave all his property. In spite of this, between 1923 and 1945 a total of 17,000 Yemenite Jews left and immigrated to Palestine 7.
After the Second World War, thousands of more Yemenite Jews wanted to come to Palestine, but the British Mandate's White Paper was still in force and those who left Yemen ended up in crowded slums in Aden, where serious riots broke out in 1947 after the United Nations decided on partition. Many Yews were killed, and the Jewish quarter was burned to the ground. It was not until September 1948 that the British authorities in Aden allowed the refugees to proceed to Israel. The Egyptians had closed the Suez Canal and the Strait of Tiran to Israeli vessels, so the immigrants had to be airlifted to the new nation. By March 1949, most of the Yemenite refugees in Aden had been brought to Israel, through "Operation Magic Carpet" the dramatic airlift, which brought 48,818 Yemenite Jews to Israel. It is another example of the displacement of an entire Jewish community from its ancient roots in the Arab countries. It is estimated, there are about 1,000 Jews in Yemen today. They are held as hostages, and are kept in dire conditions and not allowed to leave.
Aden
The history of modern anti-Jewish persecutions in Aden is a bitter and long one. On December 2, 1947, the Arabs proclaimed a solidarity strike against the UN resolution on the partition of Palestine. More than a hundred Jews were murdered, the Grand Synagogue was burned, Jewish property was rampaged, looted and destroyed. Riots of similar intensity destroyed Jewish property again in 1958, 1965 and 1967.
The Jewish community of Aden, numbering 8,000 in 1948, was forced to flee. By 1959 over 3,000 arrived in Israel. Many fled to the U.S.A. and England. Today there are no Jews left in Aden.
Egypt
The 1947 Egyptian census reported 65,639 Jewish residents of that country, many of them in finances and liberal professions: engineers, lawyers, doctors and teachers. However, Jewish estimates ran as high as 100,000. Today there are only about 200 Jewish residents left in Egypt. When Egypt joined the 1948 invasion of Israel, it also promulgated anti-Jewish decrees, taking severe measures against those suspected of "Zionist" activities, including imprisonment in concentration camps in Huckstep and in El Tor in the Sinai desert. Jewish property was confiscated and hundreds of Jewish families were banished and dispossessed. Homes were bombed and many Jews were killed or wounded. A mob attacked the Jewish quarter of Cairo, killing a great number of Jews and looting their houses and shops. By November 1950, more than half the Jews had left the country; and most of them made new lives in Israel. Like the Iraqi and Syrian Jews, the Jews of Egypt had been a prosperous and rich community with assets in millions of dollars. When they were forced to uproot themselves, they lost everything.
In 1956 the Egyptians undertook ruthless economic and political measures aimed specifically at the Jews in their midst. Many leaders of the large Egyptian-Jewish community were arrested, led through the streets of Cairo and Alexandria, and some were stoned. Jewish families who had resided in Egypt for generations but had not been granted citizenship, were evicted. Only 5% of the Jews of Egypt had been allowed to become Egyptian citizens, the others were "Apatride" - with no citizenship at all, in the land of their birth. A government order was read in the mosques that Jews were to be regarded as "enemies". (In 1967, 600 Jews were imprisoned, beaten and held for long periods without food or water.) We hear that such slogans are again used in mosques today, all over the Middle East, even in Israel.
Bank accounts were blocked, private and commercial property was confiscated, business firms were liquidated, and Jewish employees were discharged. Jewish department stores, bank and other businesses were confiscated and taken over, as were the Jewish schools, youth movements, old age homes, welfare institutions, hospitals and synagogues. Jewish judges and lawyers were expelled from the bar, and Jewish engineers, doctors and teachers were denied the right to practice. The Egyptian Medical Association instructed the population not to consult Jewish physicians and surgeons. These ruthless measures brought the end of one of the oldest and most prosperous Jewish communities in the Middle East. It comprised the uprooting of Jews from the whole of Egypt, and especially from Cairo; Alexandria and Port Said, that had been flourishing centers of a tolerant and rich Jewish life. Half of the Egyptian Jews emigrated to Israel, through France or Italy, and the other half are dispersed all over the world, like the Palestinians. Families were broken up and many hitherto prosperous people died of heart attacks when they realized, that all their wealth and property was confiscated by the (Egyptian) government, and that they had become paupers overnight.
Libya
The Jews of Libya had greatly suffered during the war years, for the country had been under Axis control and many Jews died in the concentration camps at Giado and at Auschwitz.
In November 1945, when anti-Jewish riots broke out in neighboring Egypt, a pogrom took place in Tripoli in which 130 Jews were murdered. In the wake of this violence, more than 31,000 Jews departed for Israel. The Libyan Jewish community, which numbered 38,000 in 1948, is an example of a community, which disappeared entirely.
With the outbreak of anti-Jewish riots again in 1948, the Jewish community witnessed a wave of cruel pogroms resulting in the loss of many lives and vast property. In 1951 upon Libya's independence and membership in the Arab league, conditions worsened, and it brought much suffering to the Jews of Libya who had always been law-abiding, industrious and faithful citizens as the rest of the Jews from the Arab countries.
After the establishment of the State of Israel, Jews were forced to leave en masse. The overwhelming majority, 35,612, immigrated to Israel, as many as 30,000 arriving by 1951. Illegal emigration through Italy started in 1949. Entire communities were forced to uproot themselves. The whole community of Zliten, numbering 604, arrived in Israel in July of 1949. Similarly, entire communities from the province of Tripolitania, including the ancient cities of Garian-Tigrina and Jefren (approximately 15,000 people), arrived in Israel during 1950.
In the '60's only a few hundred Jews remained in Libya. With the increased hostilities resulting from the Six-Day War, they too were forced to flee, and as with the other Arab countries, were forced to leave all their possessions behind. Today, Libya is "Judenrein" - "free of Jews".
Syria
In 1943, the Jewish community of Syria had 30,000 members. This population was mainly distributed between Aleppo, where 17,000 Jews lived and Damascus, which had a Jewish population of 11,000.
Anti-Jewish riots, which broke out as early as 1945 and 1947, prompted the denial of basic rights to Jews. In 1945, the government restricted emigration to Israel, and Jewish property was burned and looted. In 1949, banks were instructed to freeze the accounts of Jews and all their assets were expropriated.
This situation caused 15,000 Jews to leave Syria by 1948, 10,000 emigrated to the U.S.A. and another 5,000 to Israel. Today, 4,350 Jews remain in Syria: and they are held as hostages in dire conditions. 3,000 live in Damascus, another 1,000 in Aleppo and 350 in Kamishli. The remaining Jews in Syria are denied free movement or any contact with the outside world. Those who have family in Israel are always in danger of persecution by local officials, and several Jewish leaders and youths were tortured and hanged over the years.
Lebanon
The emigration of Jews from Lebanon followed a somewhat different pattern as compared to the Jews of other Arab countries, primarily as a result of the Christian-Arab rule which characterized the political structure of this country and which conducted a policy of relative tolerance towards its Jewish population.
Despite the basically positive circumstances enjoyed by Lebanese Jews, they too felt insecure and decided to emigrate. The majority left for France, Israel, Italy, England and South America, and some more for Israel in 1967.
In 1974, 1,800 Jews remained in Lebanon, the majority concentrated in Beirut. Today, during the civil war in Lebanon, its size has dwindled to an estimated 150 Jews.
Morocco
The Jewish community of Morocco dates back to the destruction of the First Temple in the year 586 BCE. By 1948, this ancient community, the largest in North Africa, numbered 265,000. Composed primarily of businessmen, moneychangers, artisans and traders, the Jewish population was 73% urban and constituted 9% of the total urban population of Morocco. In 1947 a large Jewish community existed in Casablanca, with over 86,000 inhabitants 8. Other cities, which had large Jewish populations, were Marrakesh, Fez, Meknes and Rabat, each comprising a population of more than 15,000 Jews in 1947 9.
Immigration to Israel started upon the initiative of small groups who arrived at the time of Israel's independence. However, the waves of mass immigration, which brought a total of more than 250,000 Moroccan Jews to Israel, were prompted by anti-Jewish measures carried out in response to the establishment of the State of Israel. On June 4, 1949, riots broke out in northern Morocco killing and injuring dozens of Jews. Shortly afterwards, the Jews began to leave.
During the two-year period between 1955 and 1957 alone, over 70,000 Moroccan Jews arrived in Israel. In 1956 emigration to Israel was banned and by 1959 Zionist activities became illegal in Morocco. During these years more than 30,000 Jews left for France and the Americas. In 1963, the ban on emigration to Israel was lifted bringing another 100,000 to her shores.
Today, the Jewish community of Morocco has dwindled to less than 10% of its original size. Of the 17,000 Jews that remain, two-thirds live in Casablanca. Since 1964, 30 Jewish courts have been closed down, including the High Rabbinical Court. Jewish schools still exist, but many are under Muslim administration. There has been no Jewish press in Morocco since 1966 10.
Generally speaking, the Jews who remain in Morocco have a reasonably stable existence, however, occasional outbursts of anti-Israel sentiments make daily life for Jews insecure. Some representatives of the Israeli Knesset have lately been invited for peace talks in Rabat, by King Hassan and were well received.
Algeria
In 1948 there were 140,000 Jews in Algeria. Before 1962 there were 60 Jewish communities, each maintaining at least one synagogue, one Rabbi and its own educational services. During the three months between May and July of 1962 almost all the Jewish of Algeria left the country, following the Evian Agreement, which granted independence to Algeria 10. Today, there remain merely 300 Jews.
During the struggle for independence, pressure was placed upon Jews to endorse the nationalistic cause. A spokesman for the Liberation Party indicated in 1960: "Jews will endure the consequences of their hesitant attitude when Algeria will come into being". In addition, the existing government also harassed them. Consequently, 14,000 Jews emigrated to Israel and another 125,000 to France, leaving behind only a tiny fraction of what used to be one of North Africa's largest Jewish communities 10.
Today, the few Jews that remain in Algeria no longer maintain any independent form of communal organization. They are under the supervision of the French Secretariat of the World Jewish Congress. In Algiers, for a community that numbered 30,000 in 1960, and had 12 synagogues, only one synagogue remains.
Tunisia
Similar to the conditions for Jews in Algeria, the rise of Tunisian nationalism led to anti-Jewish legislation and in 1961 caused Jews to leave in great numbers. In 1948, the Tunisian Jewish community had numbered 105,000, with 65,000 living in Tunis alone. By 1961, the total Jewish population had declined to 70,000 and in 1968 there were only 12,000 Jews left in Tunisia. Heightened anti-Jewish persecutions during the Six-Day-War, influenced even more to leave. In that year 7,000 emigrated to France.
The Jews of Tunisia constituted a wealthy, prestigious community, including at one time, a Member of Parliament. The change that occurred in government policy generated fear and insecurity for the Jews which eventually caused most of them to leave. Over 50,00 emigrated to Israel. In 1958, the Jewish Community Council was abolished. Today only 2,000 Jews remain in Tunisia.
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