1Palestine

When people demand Palestinian right of return we are told Arab Jews are denied the right to return to their former countries Is this true or Zionist propaganda ?

Zionists mob report and collapse my answer, again to hide the truth.

This argument was concocted to deflect the discussion from one of the core issues of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict (the collective dispossession and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people). It should be noted that the "Jewish state" and Zionism were created in response to the rise of anti Semitism in Europe and not in the Middle East. Ironically, Jewish historians still associate Jewish Golden Age not in Europe, not in the United States of America, but in Arab ruled Spain (Andalusia) and Muslim Turkey:

1- It is a known fact that most, if not all, of the Arab Jews were under the direct and indirect control of the British and French occupations, who were (and still are) very sympathetic to the Zionist cause. So even if it was "true" that Arab Jews were "expelled" from their countries, this could have been easily stopped by the friendly colonial powers.

2- Very little evidence exists that Arab populations or Arab authorities, in the various Arab nations, were involved in 'expelling' their Arab Jewish minorities. The Arab Jewish minority may had been a victim of sporadic revenge attacks (in response to Zionist atrocities perpetrated against Palestinians during the 1948 war), however, there is no proof whatsoever that this violence was organized by any group (state or non-state) whatsoever.

3- Arab Jewish immigration has occurred in stages as the "Jewish state" was able to absorb them. First priority was given to the Western/Ashkenazi Jews, whom according to Moshe Sharitt (first Israeli Foreign Minister) are considered the "....salt of the earth..."(1949, The First Israelis, p. 173), and when many preferred to go to America, they turned to Arab Jews to populate Palestine in the early 1950s and 1960s, and when that was not enough the Jewish Agency turned to the Falashas (Ethiopian Black Jews) and Russian Jews. Therefore, it should not be a surprise that early on Ben-Gurion(the first Israeli Prime Minister) made sure that the priorities of the newly founded "Jewish state" should be 'Alyah (or immigration in Hebrew) rather than peace with its Arab neighbors (Righteous Victims, p. 263).

4- It should be noted that the vast majority of the vibrant and assimilated Turkish Jewish community immigrated to Israel despite Turkey's early recognition of the "Jewish state" in 1949. So the immigration of Jews from a friendly Muslim and Arab countries (not only from a non-Arab nation like Turkey, but also from Morocco, Tunisia, and even the Persian majority nation of Iran under the Shah before the Islamic Revolution of 1979) was being encouraged by the Jewish Agency.

5- Ironically, the policy that encouraged Arab Jews to immigrate to Israel is still being used towards French, Argentinean, Russian, Central Asian, and American Jews. In a nutshell, this policy is governed by absorption capacity for the "Jewish state", which has always preferred Western Jews over Jews from Arab and Muslim countries.

6- The Jewish Agency facilitated the transportation of the Arab Jews to Israel by bribing many of the local Arab and Muslim (as in the case of Iran) officials. For example, many of the Iraqi Jews were transported to the "Jewish state" via Iraqi Airways after bribing Nuri al-Said (the Iraqi PM at the time) and his wife (al Nakba wa al-Firdous al Mafqoud by 'Aref al-'Aref). Similarly, the Yemeni Jews were transported to Israel via friendly airlines. Ironically, the Falashas (Ethiopian Jews) were forgotten next door as their Yemeni brothers were being flown from Aden; they were picked up thirty years later (via Sudan's airports) after bribing President Numari of Sudan! Additionally there was Secret operation Yakhin that was conducted by the Mossad between November 1961 and spring 1964. About 97,000 left for Israel by plane and ship from Casablanca and Tangier via France and Italy. An economic arrangement was agreed between Israel and Morocco, with the agreement of Israeli Prime Minister David Ben Gurion and King Hassan II of Morocco, whereby $500,000 would be paid as a downpayment, plus $100 per emigrant for the first 50,000 Moroccan Jews, and then, $250 per emigrant thereafter.

7- Among Egypt's relatively small Jewish community, an even smaller number were Ashkenazi (mostly from Alsace and Russia) who arrived since the 1880s. The larger community consisted of Sephardi Jews who arrived during the same period from Turkey, Iraq and Syria, in addition to the tiny community of Karaite Jews. All in all, they numbered fewer than 70,000 people, half of whom did not hold Egyptian nationality.

Zionist activism among the small community of Ashkenazi Jews in Egypt led some to go to Palestine before 1948. However, it was after the establishment of Israel that many of Egypt's upper-class Jews began to leave to France, not Israel. Nonetheless, the community remained essentially intact until Israel intervened in 1954, recruiting Egyptian Jews for an Israeli terrorist cell that placed bombs in Egyptian cinemas, the Cairo train station as well as American and British educational institutions and libraries.

The Israelis hoped that by targeting western interests in Egypt, they could sour the then-friendly relations between Egypt's president and the Americans.

Egyptian intelligence uncovered the Israeli terrorist ring and tried the accused in open court. The Israelis mounted an international campaign against Egypt and president Gamal Abdel Nasser, who was dubbed "Hitler on the Nile" by the Israeli and western press, while Israeli agents shot at the Egyptian consulate in New York, according to David Hirst's book The Gun and the Olive Branch and other sources.

Combined with the new socialist and nationalist campaign of Egyptianising investments in the country, many rich businessmen began to sell their businesses and leave.

By the time nationalisation began in the late 1950s and early 1960s, most of the nationalised businesses were in fact owned by Egyptian Muslims and Christians, not Jews. It was in this context, and in the context of public rage against Israel, that many Egyptian Jews got scared and left after 1954 to the US and France, while the poor ended up in Israel (as recounted in Joel Beinin's Dispersion of Egyptian Jewry).

When Israel joined the British-French conspiracy to invade Egypt in 1956, and after its military occupation of the Sinai Peninsula, public rage ensued against the settler-colony. The Egyptian government detained about 1,000 Jews, half of whom were Egyptian citizens, according to Beinin, and Egypt's small Jewish community began to leave in droves. On the eve of Israel's second invasion of Egypt in 1967, only 7,000 Jews remained in the country.

8- When Arab Jews were hesitant to leave, Zionist gangs resorted to intimidating them by throwing bombs into their synagogues, as it was the case with the Iraqi Jews . Iraq’s Jewish community (110,000 people in 1948) was well-implanted in the country.The chief Rabbi of Iraq, Khedouri Sassoon had declared:

"The Jews and Arabs have enjoyed the same rights and privileges for a thousand years and do not consider themselves as separate elements in this nation."

Then began the Israeli terrorist acts in Baghdad in 1950. Confronted by the reticence of the Iraqi Jews to register on the immigration lists for Israel, the Israeli secret services did not hesitate to throw bombs at them to convince them they were indanger...The attack on the Shem-Tov synagogue killed three people and injured dozens more. It was the start of the exodus baptized "Operation Ali Baba". Source: Ha'olam hazeh. April 20th and June 1st 1966, and "Yediot Aharonoth", November 8th 1977.

9- As it has been the case with Moroccan, Iraqi, and Tunisian Jews, Arab Jews who left their counties can return back and reclaim their citizenships and properties; that is their basic human right.

10- It is a fact that the Iraqi Government issued a plea on December 11, 1975 to its Jewish citizens living abroad to come back to Iraq after they fled their country Iraq after the breakout of the 1948 war.

On December 11, 1975, the Government of Iraq ran full page advertisements in the New York Times, the Toronto Star, and Paris newspaper Le Monde calling for the return of Iraqi Jews who had fled after the breakout of the 1948 war. The idea behind these ads, and several other statements issued by the governments of Syria, Egypt, and the Sudan, among others, was to neutralize the Israeli claim that hundreds of thousands of Jews settling in the new state were refugees on par with the Palestinians who had fled to Arab countries. This claim was (and still is) a key part of the argument against the Palestinian demand for right of return.

It should be noted that the piece is almost entirely accurate from a historical perspective: despite widespread rioting, there was little government pressure forcing the Jews to leave.

The text of the ad, obtained from ProQuest Historical Newspaper Service (note that grammatical errors, and there are quite a few, were retained):

IRAQI JEWS INVITED TO RETURN TO IRAQ

The Revolution Command Council (RCC) adopted on November 26, 1975 an important resolution which entitles all Iraqi Jews who left Iraq since 1948 to return home and enjoy equal rights with all Iraqi citizens. The resolution also stipulates that the Iraqi Government shall guarantee to the returning Jews full constitutional rights, equality and secure living without any discrimination.

This decision by the Revolution Command Council (RCC) stems from the adherence, by the Iraqi Government, to the principles of the UN charter and to the universal declaration of rights.

This decision of the Revolution Command Council (RCC) constitutes concerete evidence that Iraqis and Arabs never harboured malice or vindictiveness against Jews. In fact Jews have lived among Arabs since medieval ages and throughout the ages there was mutual trust, respect, and happy co-existence between them.History is full of examples of Arab-Jewish cooperation. Judaism, Christianity and Islam do not preach hate and the concept of exclusivity. On the contrary, they preach love and brotherhood. As long as these basic fundamental tenets were adhered to, there blossomed understanding, mutual respect and cooperation. But as soon as these principles were abandoned, cooperation was replaced by confrontation.

The Jews, as long as they adhered to the true principles of Judaism, lived in peace among Christians and Moslems everywhere. But when the Zionist Jews began to propagate the myth of "A Chosen People", when they converted Judaism into Zionism--which is a racist movement and when they began to turn religion into a nationality and when all led to the expulsion of Arab Palestinians from their homeland, the Zionists committed a sin against the very tenets of Judaism. They excluded themselves by erroneously regarding themselves as belonging to some mythical "superior race". This racist claim therefore, rightly earned the Zionist, condemnation universally.

It should be noted that the Arabs have always distinguished between Judaism and Zionism. The former is a religion which the Arabs, like all others, respect.The latter, however, is a racist movement directed particularly against the Palestinian Arabs and, consequently, vehemently opposed by Arabs and justice minded people the world over.

The Arabs, have no quarrel with Jews--provided that they are not Zionists. And in keeping with this, Iraq now calls upon all Iraqi Jews who left the country since 1948 to return and enjoy all rights accorded to Iraqi citizens.

It should be known that the Iraqi Jews who left the country after 1948 left on their own. No one was expelled. In addition to that Iraqi Jews enjoyed a prosperous life in Iraq before they unilaterally decided- under Zionist instigation and terror-to leave the country.

Given the economic crisis gripping the Jews in the Zionist entity, it goes without saying that Iraqi Jews returning home are assured of a much better standard of life.

The resolution, signed by President Ahmed Hassan Al Bakr in his capacity as the Revolution Command Council Chairman, is as follows:

"Pursuant to the provisions of para A, Article 42 of the interim constitution, in keeping with the Iraqi Government's belief in human rights, and by virtue of Iraq's adherence to the principles and rights provided for in the UN charter and in the declaration of human rights.

The Revolutionary Command Council sitting on November 26, 1975, resolved as follows:

Iraqi Jews who left iraqi since 1948 are hereby entitled to return home.
All Iraqi Jews returning to Iraq under this resolution shall enjoy all lawful rights of Iraqi citizens under law.
The Iraqi Government shall guarantee to the returning Jews full constitutional rights enjoyed by Iraqi citizens. This will include equality and secure living without any discrimination.
This resolution shall by published in the official Gazette and shall be enforced by the Ministers concerned."

The Government of the Republic of Iraq

Embassy of Iraq

1801 P Street, N.W.

Washington, D.C. 20036

11- Many Arab authorities blocked the immigration of their Jewish citizens to Israel, the Jewish Agency and many Western embassies protested, as in the case of Syria.

12- When so-called 'population exchanges" happen, it occurs as an agreement between two or more sovereign nations, such as in the Greek/Turkish 'exchange' agreement of 1923. On the other hand there was not and is no alleged "population exchange" agreement in the case of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. In a nutshell, to ethnically cleanse (illegal, violent compulsory population transfer) the people of a whole nation and to replace them with settlers from another group of people cannot be called a 'population exchange', but rather a war crime.

13- It should be noted that in the case of the Palestinian people there is a UNGA resolution 194 that calls for their return plus compensation (which has been reaffirmed by the world body over 150 times since Sept. 17th, 1948). On the other hand, there is no such resolution for Arab Jews since it is not needed to begin with because there is no Arab country that blocks the return of its Jewish citizens. Furthermore, the Palestinian people always demanded their return at all levels (individually and collectively) since 1948; and Arab Jews never call for their right of return but mostly they demand compensation. In other words, the Palestinian people demand to return even under Israeli rule, but until this date there is no organized body in the Arab Jewish community in Israel calling for their own return to their respective Arab countries.

14- Beside the previous point, often Arab Jews react negatively when called refugees. For example, Knesset speaker Yisrael Yeshayahu declared: "We are not refugees. [Some of us] came to this country before the state was born. We had messianic aspirations." Similarly Shlomo Hillel, a government minister and an active Zionist in Iraq, adamantly opposed the analogy: "I don't regard the departure of Jews from Arab lands as that of refugees. They came here because they wanted to, as Zionists." In a Knesset hearing, Ran Cohen stated emphatically: "I have this to say: I am not a refugee." He added: "I came at the behest of Zionism, due to the pull that this land exerts, and due to the idea of redemption. Nobody is going to define me as a refugee."

15- The "Jewish state" was founded by Zionists in response to European anti-Semitism, not Arab anti- Semitism. It should be emphasized that if it was not for European anti-Semitism, Jews and Palestinians would have stayed in their original home towns or countries as it had been the case for thousands of years. In other words, the "Jewish state" was founded to "save" European Jews; not the Arab Jews.

16- According to Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the UN on 10 December 1948 any person has the right to leave his/her home town and has the full right to come back to it. Such a right does not diminish over time. This is one of the basics of human rights. So any Arab Jews still have this basic inherent right.

17- For decades, the Arab Jewish population in Israel were heavily discriminated against by the Ashkenazi Jews, who kept them in refugee camps (Ma'baruts) living in tents for a very long time. For many, it was much easier to hire Israeli Palestinians than the Arab Jews living in Israel. It should be noted that the case of hundreds of kidnapped Yemeni kids (who were later adopted by Ashkenazi families) have not been closed to this date.

Racist Zionist quotes below were not only confined to the dealings with Muslim and Christian Arabs, but also have spread to the oriental Jews, who are Arabs in culture, language, and descent. What is dangerous about these Zionists is that many of their quotes became institutionalized policies into the structure and society of the “Jewish state”, for example, contemplate Ben-Gurion’s description of the North African Arab Jews:

“Even the immigrant of North Africa, who looks like a savage, who has never read a book in his life, not even a religious one, and doesn’t even know how to say his prayers, either wittingly or unwittingly has behind him a spiritual heritage of thousands of years. . . .” (1949, The First Israelis, p.157.).

Ben-Gurion stated that Zionism was largely a movement of Western Jews, specifically from Europe and America. In his opinion, the Jews of Europe were:

“The leading candidates for citizenship in the State of Israel. Hitler, more than he hurt the Jewish people, whom he knew and detested, hurt the Jewish State, whose coming he did not foresee. He destroyed the substance, the main and essential building force of the [Jewish] state. The state arose and did not find the nation which had waited for it.” In the absence of the European Jews, the state of Israel had to bring in Jews from Arab countries. Ben Gurion compared them with the Africans who were brought in as slaves to America.(1949,The First Israelis,p.157)

In one session of the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, Ben-Gurion referred to the Moroccan Jews as “savages,” but hastily added that they were no different from other Jews as the Polish ones. He said:

“They tell me that there are thieves among them. I am a Polish Jew, and I doubt if there is any Jewish community which has more thieves among them. I am doubtful if there is any Jewish community which has more thieves in it than the Polish ones.”

A few years later Ben Gurion wrote to Justice Moshe Estzioni:

“An Ashkenazi gangster, thief, pimp, or murderer will not gain the sympathy of the Ashkenazi community (if there is such a thing), nor will he expect it. But in such a primitive community as the Moroccans‘—such a thing is possible. . . “(1949,The First Israelis, p.157)

In 1949, Ben-Gurion was not free of ambivalence in his attitude towards the Yemenite Jewish immigrants. In a letter to Yigael Yadin, the first Israeli Chief of Staff, Ben Gurion wrote:

“This tribe is in some ways more easily absorbed, both culturally and economically, than any other. It is hardworking, it is not attracted by city life, it has—or at least, the male part has– a good grounding in Hebrew and the Jewish heritage. Yet in other ways it may be the most problematic of all. It is two thousands years behind us[European cultured Jews], perhaps even more. It lacks the most basic primary concepts of civilization (as distinct from culture). Its attitude toward women and children is primitive. Its physical condition poor. Its bodily strength is depleted and it does not have the minimal notions of hygiene. For thousands of years it lived in one of the most benighted and impoverished lands, under a rule even more backward than an ordinary feudal and theocratic regime.The passage from there to Israel has been profound human revolution, not a superficial, political one. All its human values need to changed from the ground.”(1949,The First Israelis,p.186-187)

It is worth noting how Ben Gurion referred to the Yemenite Jews by “it”.

Soon after the arrival of Chaim Weizmann to Jerusalem in late 1918, he described the ultra orthodox neighborhoods of the city to his wife as the following:

“There’s nothing more humiliating than ‘our’ Jerusalem. Anything that could be done to desecrate ,to defile the sacred has been done. It is impossible to imagine so much falsehood, blasphemy, greed, so many lies. It’s such an accursed city, there’s nothing there, no creature comforts. . . [It] hasn’t a single clean and comfortable apartment.”(One Palestine Complete, p.71)

While speaking to the Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister Vishinsky in the early 1950s, Moshe Sharett expressed interest in receiving Eastern European Jewish immigrants rather than Moroccan Arab Jews. In his opinion “the Jews of Eastern Europe are the salt of the earth” who should take precedence over other Jews in immigrating to the “Jewish state”, he said:

“There are countries—and I was referring to North Africa–from which not all Jews need to emigrate. It is not so much of quantity as of quality. Our role in Israel is a pioneering one, and we need people with certain strength of fiber.We are very anxious to bring the Jews of Morocco over and we are doing all we can to achieve this. But we cannot count on the Jews of Morocco alone to build the country, because they have not been educated for this. We don’t know what may yet happen to us, what military and political defeats we may yet have to face. So we need people who will remain steadfast in any hardship and who have a high degree of resistance. For the purpose of building up our country, I would say that the Jews of Eastern Europe are the salt of the earth. . . . ” (1949,The First Israelis,p.173)

This shows that specific Zionist Jews who share the values of Zionism as its racist colonial pioneers were the subject of interest, Zionism didn’t care about saving the Jewish people, It cared about establishing a Jewish state and used specific Jews deemed beneficial for their project to achieve that purpose.

According to Ze’ev Jabotinsky, European Jews have little in common with the “Orient”:

“We Jews have nothing in common with what is called the ‘Orient,’thank God. To the extent that our uneducated masses have ancient spiritual traditions and laws that call the Orient, they must be weaned away from them, and this is in fact what we are doing in every decent school, what life itself is doing with great success. We are going in Palestine, first for our national convenience,[second] to sweep out thoroughly all traces of the ‘Oriental soul.’ As for the [Palestinians] Arabs in Palestine, what they do is their business; but if we can do them a favor, it is to help them liberate themselves from the Orient.'” (One Palestine Complete, p.151)

It should be noted that the renaissance of Judaism was among the Muslim Arabs in Andalusia in southern Spain.

Under Zionism, Jews from Mena went through a complete process of de-arabization, and the whole racist ideology wanted to remove the Palestinian Arabic identity , and still trying to until this day. Ze’ev Jabotinsky stated in a letter to one of his Revisionist colleagues in the United States dated November 1939:

“We Jews, thank God, have nothing to do with the East. . . . The Islamic soul must be broomed out of Eretz-Yisrael. . . [Muslims are] yelling rabble dressed up in gaudy, savage rags.”(Expulsion Of The Palestinians,p.29)

In 1949 Yosef Weitz described his dismay of the increasing number of the Oriental Jews, he stated:

“You know that we do not have a common language with them. Our culture level is not theirs. Their way of life is medieval. . . . While I was talking to Yosef Shprintsak, he expressed anxiety about preserving our cultural standards given the massive immigration from the Orient. There are indeed grounds for anxiety, but what’s the use? Can we stop it?” Yaakov Zrubavel, head of the Middle East Department of the Jewish Agency, concurred. “Perhaps these are not the Jews we would like to see coming here [Jewish state], but we can hardly tell them not to come. . . .” (1949,The First Israelis, p.156)

Dr. Y. Meir (who was the General Director of the Ministry of Health in 1949) was “horrified” to learn that the “black Jews” (Falashas of Ethiopia) could immigrate to the “Jewish state,” he said:

“I hope that this report is unfounded.”

Eighteen months later the Jewish Agency’s representative in Aden, Shlomo Schmidt reported:

“My investigation shows that the problem of the Falashas is not at all simple, because these people’s ways are not much different from those of the Abyssinians, and that intermarriage is natural among them. There is also among them a large number of people with venereal diseases. . . ” (1949,The First Israelis, p.144-145)

It is worth noting that these “BLACK JEWS” could not immigrate to the “Jewish state” despite their hardship in their country, until the Likud came to power in the late 1970s, which was done mostly for political reasonssince“oriental Jews” historically voted with the Likud. Prior to the arrival of the Arab North African Jews to the “Jewish state,” Ha’aretz newspaper published the following report:

“. . . . this is a race unlike any we have seen before. They say there are differences between people of the Tripoltania, Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria, but I can’t say I have learned what those differences are, if they do, in fact, exist. The say, for example, that the Tripolitanians and Tunisians are better than the Moroccans, and Algerians, but it’s the same problem with them all (Incidentally, none of these immigrants will admit that he is (North) African – Je suis francais!—They are all Frenchmen from Paris and almost all were captains in the Maquis.)”(1949,The First Israelis, p.159-160)

During a political consultation with Ben-Gurion in 1949, David Horowitz (then General Director of the Ministry of Finance and subsequently the President of the Bank of Israel) expressed his opinion of the North African Jews status in the “Jewish state,” he stated:

“The [North African Jewish] population in [transit] camps is becoming a sort of a second nation, a rebellions nation which views us as plutocrats. This is incendiary material, eminently useful to Herut [later evolved into Likud] and the Communists. It’s dynamite. . . . The immigrants are in some ways taking the place of the [Palestinian] Arabs.There is also special attitude emerging on our part toward them, we are beginning to harbor an attitude of superiority.”(1949,The First Israelis, p.161)

A report sent by a Jewish Agency emissary, H. Tzvilie, in Libya described the Jews he met there as if he were trading horses, he wrote:

“They are handsome as far as their physique and outward appearance are concerned, but I found it very difficult to tell them from the good Arab type.”(1949,The First Israelis, p.170)

Often the Arab Jews were looked at for cheap labor “human material” in the “Jewish state,” who would eventually replace the Palestinian workers who were ethnically cleansed . A secret record,Berl Locker (Chairman of the Jewish Agency Executive) wrote the American Jewish politician, Henry Morgenthau, in October 1948:

“In our opinion the Sephradi and Yemenite Jews will play a considerable part in the building of the country. We have to bring them over in order to save them, but also to obtain the human material needed for building the country.”(1949,The First Israelis, p.172)

In July 1949, the Israeli Knesset was debating whether to bring the Yemenite Arab Jews or not, and in that regards MK Itzhak Greenbaum asked:

“Why do we have to put an end to the Yemen Diaspora and bring over people who are more harm than use? By bringing Yemenites, 70% of whom are sick, we are doing no good to anybody. We are harming them by bringing them into an alien environment where they will degenerate. Can we withstand an immigration of which 70% are sick?”(1949,The First Israelis, p.185)

A month after the Nazi pogrom against Germany’s Jews, famously known as Kristallnacht, Ben-Gurion provided an interesting mathematical formula for saving German Jewish kids. He stated in December 1938:

“If I knew it was possible to save all [Jewish] children of Germany by their transfer to England and only half of them by transferring them to Eretz Yisrael, I would choose the later—-because we are faced not only with the accounting of these [Jewish] children but also with the historical accounting of the Jewish People.” (Righteous Victims, p. 162).

Regarding anti-semites, Theodor Herzl explained how they could benefit the Zionist enterprise, he wrote in his diary:

“The antisemites will become our most loyal friends, the antisemite nations will become our allies.” (One Palestine Complete, p.47)

If all of the previous factual points had no value whatsoever, what does the Palestinian people have to do with what happened in MENA countries ? How is this comparable?

Ironically, Zionists ethnically cleansed Palestinians and contributed to all of this, yet Zionists still wish to change history, project and throw the blame on someone else.