# Does Israel need the Golan Heights? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 14, 2004, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-israel-need-the-golan-heights/255116 "2004-07-14T18:32:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Noone\_Special](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/noone_special/32/2863_2.png) [@Noone\_Special](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Noone_Special)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2004, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-israel-need-the-golan-heights/255116/61 "2004-07-17T20:17:12Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > It is important to note that in **both** cases, “fled” effectively means “were driven.” Actually, I think this is **not** an exact characterization. Sure, cases of expulsion existed, and on both sides - I have never claimed that Israel is some kind of lily-white country of angels; we’ve committed our wrongs. But quite a bit - I’d hazard to say more than half - **was** pre-emptive flight, on both sides. And, in the case of Arab Jews, quite a bit was “post-emptive” in a sense, that is, while not actually forcibly expelled, they left the Arab countries between 1948 and 1952 (and later) because their Arab neighbors made life extremely hard for them. In contrast, there was effectively **zero** Arab emmigration from Israel following 1948, and for several reasons: a) While they were not at first treated as well as Jews, they **did** immediately receive full voting rights, there were no “let’s kill all the filthy Arabs!” riots throughout the country, and they have gradually been growing into their full civil rights as well. b) They most likely saw what happened to those that had fled (i.e., stuck in refugee camps, in conditions far worse than their own), and c) The Arab countries pretty much closed their doors on any further emmigration from what was now Israel, by declaring that any Israeli Arabs coming over **would not** receive any kind of citizenship. Sort of what might have happened had India refused to accept Pakistani non-muslims during the partition of the Indian Subcontinent (which incidentally happened in almost exactly the same time-frame as the Middle-eastern partition), and settled those who did cross over in refugee camps near the Pakistani border - born and bred to hate Pakistan forever. Things would have been even uglier there than they are already. I suppose everyone who supports keeping the Palestinian refugees in camps, as showcases of misery and as hotbeds of hate, also thinks India should have done the same with the refugees from Pakistan - right? :rolleyes: Dani ---
**Author:** ![Alien](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/57b2e6/32.png) [@Alien](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alien)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2004, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-israel-need-the-golan-heights/255116/62 "2004-07-17T22:32:56Z")
> [@BoringDad](#): > > Perhaps I am a little unfair given the nature of the world. But while the US does many things wrong, we have accepted many refugees from around the world, integrated them into our society, and granted their children citizenship: Palestinians, Vietnamese, Hmong, Cuban, and many more. That is the background I am comparing this to I guess. Yes, we are a larger country and perhaps could absorb these people better. > But my understanding is that the Arab nations encouraged the refugees to leave during the wars to start with, so I feel I that they should have more responsibility towards the refugees than towards a random famine induced refugee crisis or something. . > > I think that I speak for the majority of America when I say that I hate the thought of all those people in hopeless limbo and would like nothing better than the whole situation to just go away. Now where did I leave my magic wand? If I understood you correctly, your argument is that the Arab countries should strive to conclusively absorb refugees of Arab heritage (including those of Golan) instead of leaving them in limbo, and that their reluctance to do so has to do with leverage against Israel. It’s not that I disagree with the first part of your argument (sorry if it came off that way). I just wanted to point out that the Arab countries have given the refugees more rights than they normally would have had, and that the “right of return” issue they have with Israel has not resulted in worse treatment of the refugees (no matter what some people claim). It’s not like the refugees are dying of hunger. A majority holds jobs, and apparently less than 10% are registered as [special hardship cases](http://www.un.org/unrwa/programmes/rss/specialhardship.html). We should keep in mind that the principle of “a day of return” is not an exception, it’s the core of refugee treatment almost everywhere, including in my homecountry (where refugees are normally given residency and not citizenship). Hence, there’s a difference between _refugee immigration_ and _refugee residency_. Further, the argument that Arab countries should absorb Arab refugees because of shared heritage is based on an erroneous assumption that all Arabs are alike. Across the map they don’t share as much as we think they do, some share much less than we do across the Western world. But it’s pretty obvious, IMO, that the vast majority of these refugees, many who are already assimilated, never will be able to return to their former homes, and that the host states therefore should take the final steps to integrate them. America is quite special in this respect, it’s a nation built on immigration and it’s still _America_. Few places are like that. If you find your magic wand, please let me know, I might have some useful spells. > [@BoringDad](#): > > The Palestinians who remained in Israel, to my understanding were granted citizenship and are treated fairly well The Palestinians who live inside Israel proper (about 1 million) are Israeli citizens and have _almost_ the same rights as other Israelis. The Palestinians in the occupied territories are listed as “foreign residents” in the Israeli census, ---
**Author:** ![Alien](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/57b2e6/32.png) [@Alien](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alien)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2004, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-israel-need-the-golan-heights/255116/63 "2004-07-17T22:53:03Z")
> [@Captain Amazing](#): > > Syria and the other countries keep the Palestinians in camps as a weapon to use against Israel. The Syrians figure they can use the Palestinians to destabilize Israel, but to do that, they need to do two things. First, they need to keep the Palestinians marginalized and poor. If they let the Palestinians fully acculturate and become part of Syrian life, they won’t be radicalized. You are reading the _thread_, aren’t you? If you had you would have read that “70 percent of the Palestinian refugees are self-settled, meaning they have moved out of the camps and have settled on their own elsewhere in Syria”. You are free to dispute this of course. Egypt doesn’t have refugee camps for Palestinian refugees. And in countries where these camps exist they are usually run by organizations as UNRWA, _not_ by governments. ---
**Author:** ![Alien](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/57b2e6/32.png) [@Alien](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alien)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2004, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-israel-need-the-golan-heights/255116/64 "2004-07-18T01:40:41Z")
> [@Noone Special](#): > > Much as we could have let the 1948-1952 refugees from the Arab world rot in refugee camps for two generations. But we chose to put our money - such as existed - where our mouth was, and do everything possible to absorb them. > [@Noone Special](#): > > Well, those Arabs did happen to be Jewish… but essentially, yes - after 1948, the muslim Arabs in most Arab countries kicked the sorry asses of the Jewish Arabs out (so much for no connection between anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish…) > > We took them in. > [@Noone Special](#): > > What happened is that an effective partition took place around 1950 in the Mid-east. Arabs from Israel fled to the neighboring countries; Jews from the neighboring countries feld to Israel. I would have to take issue with this claim which is nothing less than populist revisionism. It’s not supported by the people (the socalled Arab Jewish “refugees”) you’re talking about, nor Israeli historians. So let’s go through this, shall we? First you’re referring to the emigration of Arab Jews (I call them that) from Arab countries to Israel. This is of course entirely correct. The Jewish population of several Arab countries emigrated almost in its entirety to Israel. I really have not much time to hunt for cites right now, so I’ll just point **anyone interested** to the Department for Jewish Zionist Education - [Aliyah and Absorption](http://www.jafi.org.il/education/100/concepts/aliyah4.html). So far so good. Then you claim that: a) these emigrants were refugees b) the muslim Arabs kicked the sorry asses of the Jewish Arabs out c) Israel “took them in”, but could have let them “rot in refugee camps for two generations” Which is totally bullshit. Mind you, I’m not disputing that _some_ of them were refugees. There were certainly many Arab Jews who experienced arbitrary arrests, confiscation of their belongings and high public tension, even death. Many found their property confiscated after their departure. But to claim that several hundred thousand Arab Jews were refugees who had to flee to find their way to the newfound state of Israel is just plain wrong. On the contrary, the vast majority of these immigrants came to Israel as part of an organized immigration plan administered by the Israeli government. Without time to spare for cite hunting, (including cites to balance the incidents in Bagdad, you know what I’m talking about), I’ll just refer to [this article](http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=329736) in Haaretz, written by Yehouda Shenhav, a professor at Tel Aviv University. I’m quoting from parts of it: First he explains the motive behind this story: > [@](#): > > An intensive campaign … has tried to create an analogy between Palestinian refugees and Mizrahi Jews, whose origins are in Middle Eastern countries - depicting both groups as victims of the 1948 War of Independence. The campaign’s proponents hope their efforts will prevent conferral of what is called a “right of return” on Palestinians, and reduce the size of the compensation Israel is liable to be asked to pay in exchange for Palestinian property appropriated by the state guardian of “lost” assets. Then he explains the background: > [@](#): > > The World Organization of Jews from Arab Countries (WOJAC) was founded in the 1970s. … WOJAC was not formed to assist Mizrahi Jews; it was invented as a deterrent to block claims harbored by the Palestinian national movement, particularly claims related to compensation and the right of return. > > The WOJAC figure who came up with the idea of “Jewish refugees” was Yaakov Meron, head of the Justice Ministry’s Arab legal affairs department. Meron propounded the most radical thesis ever devised concerning the history of Jews in Arab lands. _He claimed Jews were expelled from Arab countries under policies enacted in concert with Palestinian leaders - and he termed these policies “ethnic cleansing.”_ Vehemently opposing the dramatic Zionist narrative, Meron claimed that Zionism had relied on romantic, borrowed phrases (“Magic Carpet,” “Operation Ezra and Nehemiah”) in the description of Mizrahi immigration waves to conceal the “fact” that Jewish migration was the result of “Arab expulsion policy.” In a bid to complete the analogy drawn between Palestinians and Mizrahi Jews, _WOJAC publicists claimed that the Mizrahi immigrants lived in refugee camps in Israel during the 1950s (i.e., ma’abarot or transit camps), just like the Palestinian refugees._ Then he gives multiple examples of how these claims have been refudiated, even by the socalled “Arab refugees” themselves: > [@](#): > > The organization’s claims infuriated many Mizrahi Israelis who defined themselves as Zionists. As early as 1975, at the time of WOJAC’s formation, 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.” > > 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.” > > The opposition was so vociferous that Ora Schweitzer, chair of WOJAC’s political department, asked the organization’s secretariat to end its campaign. She reported that members of Strasburg’s Jewish community were so offended that they threatened to boycott organization meetings should the topic of “Sephardi Jews as refugees” ever come up again. The Israeli government even tried to “close” this organization down: > [@](#): > > The foreign minister deemed WOJAC a Phalangist, zealous group, and asked that it cease operating as a “state within a state.” In the end, the ministry closed the tap on the modest flow of funds it had transferred to WOJAC. Then justice minister Yossi Beilin fired Yaakov Meron from the Arab legal affairs department. The punchline: > [@](#): > > Today, no serious researcher in Israel or overseas embraces WOJAC’s extreme claims. But the tale lives on: > [@](#): > > The World Jewish Congress and other Jewish rganizations learned nothing from this woeful legacy. Hungry for a magic solution to the refugee question, they have adopted the refugee analogy and are lobbying for it all over the world. Finally, he sums it up beautifully: > [@](#): > > Any reasonable person, Zionist or non-Zionist, must acknowledge that the analogy drawn between Palestinians and Mizrahi Jews is unfounded. Palestinian refugees did not want to leave Palestine. Many Palestinian communities were destroyed in 1948, and some 700,000 Palestinians were expelled, or fled, from the borders of historic Palestine. Those who left did not do so of their own volition. > > In contrast, Jews from Arab lands came to this country under the initiative of the State of Israel and Jewish organizations. Some came of their own free will; others arrived against their will. Some lived comfortably and securely in Arab lands; others suffered from fear and oppression. ---
**Author:** ![Noone\_Special](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/noone_special/32/2863_2.png) [@Noone\_Special](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Noone_Special)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2004, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-israel-need-the-golan-heights/255116/65 "2004-07-18T05:25:06Z")
> [@Alien](#): > > Mind you, I’m not disputing that _some_ of them were refugees. There were certainly many Arab Jews who experienced arbitrary arrests, confiscation of their belongings and high public tension, even death. Many found their property confiscated after their departure. > > But to claim that several hundred thousand Arab Jews were refugees who had to flee to find their way to the newfound state of Israel is just plain wrong. On the contrary, the vast majority of these immigrants came to Israel as part of an organized immigration plan administered by the Israeli government. And, of course, **all** the Palestinian Arabs who left Israel during the 1948 war were driven out by the Jews… the stories about Arab leaders asking them to “temporarily leave until Victory is ours” are **all** lies… :rolleyes: Dani ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2004, 7:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-israel-need-the-golan-heights/255116/66 "2004-07-18T07:11:04Z")
**Alien** , you’ve just proved our point. The fledgeling Israeli govenment helped the Jews out of the Arab countries _before_ they could become victims, and did everything possible to ease there way and integrate them into society. Because of that, you cannot sympathise with them. If Israel had failed to help them until they truly had to flee for their lives, they would be victims and you’d feel sorry for them. Perhaps Israel made a mistake in flying the Mizrachi Jews to Israel - leaving them to suffer would have had great PR value. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2004, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-israel-need-the-golan-heights/255116/67 "2004-07-18T12:20:09Z")
> [@Alien](#): > > Egypt doesn’t have refugee camps for Palestinian refugees. And in countries where these camps exist they are usually run by organizations as UNRWA, _not_ by governments. First, if 70% of the Palestinians in Syria are self settled, that means that 30% are not, which is still a pretty large number. And Egypt did have refugee camps for Palestinian refugees, in Gaza, back when it was under Egyptian ownership. There were Rafah, and Maghazi. ---
**Author:** ![Alien](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/57b2e6/32.png) [@Alien](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alien)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2004, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-israel-need-the-golan-heights/255116/68 "2004-07-18T15:57:32Z")
> [@Noone Special](#): > > And, of course, **all** the Palestinian Arabs who left Israel during the 1948 war were driven out by the Jews… the stories about Arab leaders asking them to “temporarily leave until Victory is ours” are **all** lies… :rolleyes: > > Dani You’re trying to draw an analogy between the refugees coming from a _warzone_ and the Arab Jews who _immigrated_ to Israel in an organized manner even though many of them lived comfortably and securely in Arab lands. The vast majority of Arab Jews who immigrated to Israel did so because _they dreamed of living in the Holy Land_. You claimed that they were refugees who Israel could have left rotting in refugee camps. That’s what you tried to do, and I called you on it. ---
**Author:** ![Alien](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/57b2e6/32.png) [@Alien](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alien)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2004, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-israel-need-the-golan-heights/255116/69 "2004-07-18T16:02:58Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > **Alien** , you’ve just proved our point. The fledgeling Israeli govenment helped the Jews out of the Arab countries _before_ they could become victims, and did everything possible to ease there way and integrate them into society. Because of that, you cannot sympathise with them. If Israel had failed to help them until they truly had to flee for their lives, they would be victims and you’d feel sorry for them. > > Perhaps Israel made a mistake in flying the Mizrachi Jews to Israel - leaving them to suffer would have had great PR value. See mye response to **Noone Special** above. Most of the Arab Jews immigrated to Israel _because they wanted to live in the Holy Land_, as is evident from the personal testimonies of those who left. Portraying these events _in the hindsight of later wars_ is plain revisionism. They left with the intent of fulfilling a dream, not in fear of war or unrest. Note: That don’t diminish the fact that _some_ Arab Jews did suffer in Arab lands, and did leave because of oppression. And as for sympathy, anyone who has the courage the leave everything behind to start over deserves our outmost respect. ---
**Author:** ![BoringDad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ad7895/32.png) [@BoringDad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BoringDad)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2004, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-israel-need-the-golan-heights/255116/70 "2004-07-18T20:59:59Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > \*The USA resettle 70 000 refugees/ year on its territory. That’s roughly 0.025% of the US population. There are 360 000 Palestianian refugees in Lebanon, for a population of roughly 4 millions. If Lebanon resettled these refuges at the same rate the US does, hence would aply the […] US standarts, it would allow in _1000_ refugees/ year, hence it would take 360 years to resettle them all. And that without even considering the fact that Lebanon is much poorer. So, are you telling me that you’re not asking Lebanon to do _way more_ than the US, […], is doing? \* > > - proportionnally, [it] would mean for the US to resettle 25 millions people, 350 times more than it does. \* Sorry, but this analogy is bunk. It is bunk because it compares direct refugees to the US with descendants of refugees in Arab lands. If the US had put Hmong refugees in camps for 25 years (instead of granting them permanent residency and citizenship for some including all new children), hoping for an overthrown government so that we could send them home, instead of 90k refugees, we would have camps with hundreds of thousands. In addition, your 70k number is likely low. Immigration to the US is currently almost 800k per year. Obviously these are not all refugees, but it shows the number of immigrants the US allows, and many of these are relatives of previous refugees, who would be refugees themselves if the relative did not give them access. This is combined with, as mentioned by others, that the arab nations asked the Palestinians to become refugees. And unless someone can bring up a cite about Israelis razing villages during the wars, **Alien** ’s point about Palestine being a war zone doesn’t carry much weight. ---
**Author:** ![BoringDad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ad7895/32.png) [@BoringDad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BoringDad)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2004, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-israel-need-the-golan-heights/255116/71 "2004-07-18T21:13:56Z")
> [@Alien](#): > > We should keep in mind that the principle of “a day of return” is not an exception, it’s the core of refugee treatment almost everywhere, including in my homecountry (where refugees are normally given residency and not citizenship). Hence, there’s a difference between _refugee immigration_ and _refugee residency_. Further, the argument that Arab countries should absorb Arab refugees because of shared heritage is based on an erroneous assumption that all Arabs are alike. Across the map they don’t share as much as we think they do, some share much less than we do across the Western world. I understand that the US is the exception in this regard. I have always been dissapointed that Europe does not do the same. Tales of guest workers living in countries for generations and never granted citizenship seems wrong to my mind. I have never argued that Arabs should absorb the Palestinians due to shared heritage, but rather due to simple humanitarianism to the people stranded in their country, peopel who the leaders of the Arab countries told to come there. ---
**Author:** ![Noone\_Special](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/noone_special/32/2863_2.png) [@Noone\_Special](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Noone_Special)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2004, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-israel-need-the-golan-heights/255116/72 "2004-07-18T21:44:05Z")
**Alien** : I seem not to be the only one holding the view that a **population exchange** took place, and that the Jews arriving from Arab countries were, essentially, **refugees** : [http://www.palestinefacts.org/pf\_independence\_refugees\_jews\_why.php](http://www.palestinefacts.org/pf_independence_refugees_jews_why.php) (OK, this site definitely has a pro-Israeli agenda…) > [@](#): > > In Iraq, new laws made Zionism punishable by death. In Aleppo, Syria, 300 Jewish homes and 11 synagogues were burned to the ground, and half of the city’s 4,000 Jews fled elsewhere. In Aden, 82 Jews were killed. Pogroms accompanied by confiscation of Jewish property and belongings was the norm in Arab countries. From 1948 on, Jewish communities that had survived in Arab countries since antiquity dwindled to a few families or became extinct. > > Aproximately 600,000 Jews **sought refuge** in the State of Israel. **Since their belongings were confiscated as the price of leaving, they arrived in Israel pennyless** , but they were welcomed and quickly absorbed into Israeli society. In reality, **an exchange of populations** took place between Jews leaving Arab countries and Arabs leaving Jewish Palestine. (bolding mine) [http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/objects/pages/PrintArticleEn.jhtml?itemNo=296107](http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/objects/pages/PrintArticleEn.jhtml?itemNo=296107) This is from _Ha’Aretz_, an Israeli left-wing newspaper, often critical of the Israeli givernment and generally accepted as practicing Good Journalism: > [@](#): > > Landy said the conference also served as a platform for former refugees to give harrowing eyewitness accounts of the murder, torture, abductions, pogroms and intimidation which forced an estimated 900,000 Jews to flee their homes in Egypt, Libya, Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon, Syria and elsewhere in the aftermath of Israel’s 1948 War of Independence > > … > > hundreds of thousands of Jews were stripped of their property and expelled from countries which they had lived in for generations throughout the Arab world [http://www.time.com/time/europe/magazine/2000/0814/refugees.html](http://www.time.com/time/europe/magazine/2000/0814/refugees.html) from _Time_ magazine > [@](#): > > The last time Munira Mussafe saw her elegant house on the banks of the Tigris, it was through her tears. She and her family had to flee Iraq in 1951 > … > Jews all over the Arab world faced persecution, fear and anti-Semitic attacks after the establishment of Israel in 1948. Communities that were 2,000 years old packed up en masse in the following few years and moved to Israel. Some of the expulsions were accompanied by government seizures of property, from the Iraqi regime in 1951 to Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya in 1972 So, to summarize yoiu position: Make sure any refugees that come in to your borders are interred in squalid camps, the better to show off to the world - good. Makes sense to me :rolleyes: Absorb refugees you recognize as related to you, even help them make it from where they are fleeing - bad. Dani ---
**Author:** ![Noone\_Special](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/noone_special/32/2863_2.png) [@Noone\_Special](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Noone_Special)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2004, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-israel-need-the-golan-heights/255116/73 "2004-07-18T21:53:23Z")
Aaaargh! That’s what I get for staying up and posting at 1:00 AM! The last bit should have been So, to summarize your position: Make sure any refugees that come in to your borders are incarcerated in squalid camps, the better to show off to the world - good. Absorb refugees you recognize as related to you, even help them make it from where they are fleeing - bad. Makes sense to me :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Alien](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/57b2e6/32.png) [@Alien](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alien)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2004, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-israel-need-the-golan-heights/255116/74 "2004-07-19T01:16:38Z")
> [@Noone Special](#): > > **Alien** : I seem not to be the only one holding the view that a **population exchange** took place, and that the Jews arriving from Arab countries were, essentially, **refugees** : > > … > > So, to summarize yoiu position: > > Make sure any refugees that come in to your borders are interred in squalid camps, the better to show off to the world - good. > Makes sense to me :rolleyes: > Absorb refugees you recognize as related to you, even help them make it from where they are fleeing - bad. **Noone Special** , I have one thing and one thing only to say first that you should bear in mind: Read the testimonies and accounts by those who left in 1948-52. They are available on the net. These immigrants say they moved to Israel because they wanted to live in the hold land. Take their word over the opinions of people today who wasn’t even born then. The well-known Shlomo Hillel, born in Bagdad, a former Speaker of the Knesset and a Cabinet Minister, said the following: “I don’t regard the departure of Jews from Arab lands as that of refugees. They came here because they wanted to, as Zionists” So who is Shlomo Hillel? He was not only an Iraqi immigrant, he was _the prime mover of the historic operation Ezra and Nehemia in 1950-51_ by which most of the Jews of Iraq made the Aliyah to Israel I will in short address your cites, but only because they are clearly biased or represents WOJAC, the organization I wrote about earlier. Cite 1: This is a clearly biased cite full of factual errors and fallacies. I have read the whole thing, but there are too many errrors to list so I’ll just concentrate on some of the errors in the part you quoted: _In Iraq, new laws made Zionism punishable by death_ Unknown to me, and I find that hard to believe since there have been a small Jewish community in Iraq all the time since WWII. However, there was one Jew who was accused of being a spy, sentenced to death and hanged around 1950 in a clearly hate-based trial. I would like to say that the whole Iraqi incident is worthy of a thread of its own. It was not only Iraqi against Jews, it was also Jews against Jews and Jews against Iraqis , and it was the sum of it all which caused the Iraqi events. _From 1948 on, Jewish communities that had survived in Arab countries since antiquity dwindled to a few families or became extinct._ This is a variant of the favorite argument by the proponents of the Arab Jew refugees analogy: that there are so few Jews living in Arab countries today. “It’s only 250 jews in Syria”, they would say. Yes, there are only 250 Jews in Syria, but the _balanced_ thruth is that of the world’s 200 countries, over 100 has a Jewish population of less than 1 000. Only 35 countries has a Jewish population of 10 000 or more. Contrary to your cite’s claim, there are still jewish communities in several Arab countries. The biggest are in Tunisia (2 000) and Morocco (7 500), as well as Iran (25 000), though strictly speaking Iran is not Arab. My homecountry, Norway, has 1 500, according to a cite. _Since their belongings were confiscated as the price of leaving, they arrived in Israel pennyless_ Wrong. Confiscation of Jewish property, when it occurred, took place after emigration (usually), when the houses were left empty. I should probably provide a cite here, but it’s damn late. \*Aproximately 600,000 Jews sought refuge in the State of Israel … but they were welcomed \* Of course they were welcomed in Israel. The Arab Jews were not only invited by the State of Israel, the Israeli government had even organized the whole trip for them. Hardly refugees seeking protection, I would say. And those proponents should really meet and get their “total number” straighten out. _In reality, an exchange of populations took place_ Ah, the fallacy angle: We have the fact that the palestinians run from a warzone and that most of the Arab Jews left by invitation to live in the Holy Land, so yes, it can be labelled “an exchange of populations”. But it doesn’t make the Arab Jews _refugees_, as you claimed. Nor does it justify the fate of the Palestinian refugees. Enough with cite 1, on to cite 2 (I’ll be brief from now on) Cite two is written in 2003 and is a story about Keith Landy reporting on the symposium “Jews from Arab Lands: The Forgotten Exodus”, an event spondered by WJC. Since you haven’t paid attention, WJC is one of the organizations who are now pushing the ideas of WOJAC. WOJAC is the organization who was virtually thrown out by the Israeli government because of their lies about this stuff, ref. my previous post. Cite 3 is an Time article, well-written as usual, but once again we see the fingers of WOJAC. I’m quoting: ““We struggled to convince the world that there is another side to the refugee coin in this region,” says Oved Ben-Ozair, chairman of the _World Organization of Jews from Arab Countries_ [WOJAC]”. I agree with the article that some groups of Arab Jews had their property confiscated, and that they should be compensated for that. To sum up **Noone Special** , none of your cites supports you claim. They don’t even bring us any additional information. Can’t you provide us with a cite that explains the background for the emigration from each Arab country and which is based on historical documents? A final note: You cannot compare the treatment of Arab Jews upon arrival in Israel with Palestinian refugees. The Arab Jews had a right to come Israel and become Israeli citizens based on the Law of Return Act, - and they did. They were invited and the Israeli government paid for their trip. The Palestinian refugees ran from a warzone, and none of the neighboring Arab states had invited them or had any obligation, by law, to take care of them. ---
**Author:** ![Noone\_Special](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/noone_special/32/2863_2.png) [@Noone\_Special](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Noone_Special)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2004, 11:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-israel-need-the-golan-heights/255116/75 "2004-07-19T11:50:55Z")
> [@Alien](#): > > **Noone Special** , I have one thing and one thing only to say first that you should bear in mind: Read the testimonies and accounts by those who left in 1948-52. They are available on the net. These immigrants say they moved to Israel because they wanted to live in the hold land. Take their word over the opinions of people today who wasn’t even born then. Actually, I’d rather trust some of my friends’ parents - who never had any political reason to do or say anything - who definitely said they ran away… but you’d wan’t a cite on that, wouldn’t you? [snip your commentary on my cites] I’m snipping your comments, because I think you’re missing the point - which I will get to presently. Just one thing, though: If you get to discredit WOJAC and anyone quoting them, do I get to discredit any cite originating from, related to or quoting a certain **Arab** organization that was created specifically as an organ to popularize the Palestinian refugees’ plight and to attempt to destroy Israel as a means of repopulating them? I am refering, of course, to the organization known as the **Palestine Liberation organization** , created in 1965 (that is - **before** the existence of the “occupied territories” problem!) in Egypt by a certain Mr. Y. Arafat. > [@](#): > > A final note: You cannot compare the treatment of Arab Jews upon arrival in Israel with Palestinian refugees. The Arab Jews had a right to come Israel and become Israeli citizens based on the Law of Return Act, - and they did. They were invited and the Israeli government paid for their trip. The Palestinian refugees ran from a warzone, and none of the neighboring Arab states had invited them or had any obligation, by law, to take care of them. I think that this is the point that you are missing. Israel and the rest of the Jewish world **saw what was bound to happen** in Arab countries following 1948, and **pre-empted** a full-blown refugee crisis by offering future refugees a way out before the fact. And even so, many arrived in Israel with the shirts on their backs. And there **were** “refugee camps” in Israel for most of the 1950’s (the infamous _ma’abarot_), but Israel did everrything to get people out of them as soon as economic conditions permitted it. So - because of our pre-emptive dedication to avoiding a refugee crisis to begin with, we have few terrible stories to tell, no refugees still in camps, etc… so we lose in the Public Relations race… The Arab countries, on the other hand, chose to perpetuate the Arab refugees’ plight, including leaving their descendents in the same refugee camps, at least partly in order to gain a Public Relations advantage. And you, among many others, have fallen for this tactic hook, line and sinker. Regardless of how the population exchange was instigated on either end, it certainly occurred. The Jews who came here from Arab countries, whether they left willingly, knowing that conditions on arrival will be better than where they were (else why leave), or not, arrived here as _penniless_ as their Arab counterparts arrived in the neighboring Arab countries. Israel prefered the humane route, of accepting them and integrating them into itself - so no refugees remain. The Arabs chose to showcase and perpetuate the refugees. End result - PR victory for the Arab world, by dint of preferring political gain over humanitarian treatment of people. That is all we are talking about - that and the fact that 600-900K Jews **did** leave the Arab world under unfavorable economic conditions, and had to be resettled, just as a comparable number of Arabs left Isarel, and were never resettled. YMMV Dani ---
**Author:** ![Alien](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/57b2e6/32.png) [@Alien](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alien)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2004, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-israel-need-the-golan-heights/255116/76 "2004-07-19T16:49:01Z")
> [@BoringDad](#): > > This is combined with, as mentioned by others, that the arab nations asked the Palestinians to become refugees. And unless someone can bring up a cite about Israelis razing villages during the wars, **Alien** ’s point about Palestine being a war zone doesn’t carry much weight. I’m sorry **BoringDad** , I didn’t see your comment before now. To me the discussion on whether the Palestinans left because they wanted to escape the fighting (fled), or were driven out (evicted), or were asked to leave (tricked) is not very interesting, because I see each scenario as a _product of war_. But here we go: Unlike the claim that surfaced in the 1970s, that the Arab Jews were refugees evicted from Arab land, Israel has not only stood by the explaination that the Palestinians left voluntarily, it has been the official Israeli interpretation of the events in 1948. This interpretation has always been rejected by Palestinians, who claim Israel drove them out to confiscate their land and houses. No evidence has surfaced that an executive [political) expulsion order, a “Master Plan”, to cleanse the area of Palestinians ever existed. But there is evidence of a plan in the military leadership, of the hands of General Yigael Yadin, Head of the Operations Branch of the Israeli unified armed forces. Written in the spring of 1948, it stated: > [@](#): > > The aim of this plan [war plan] is the control of the area of the Jewish State and the defense of its borders and the clusters of [Jewish] settlements outside the boundaries, against regular and irregular enemy forces operating from bases outside and inside the Jewish State. > … > Actions against enemy settlements located in our, or near our, defense systems with the aim of preventing their use as bases for active armed forces. These actions should be divided into the following types: The destruction of villages (by fire, blowing up and mining) - especially of those villages over which we cannot gain [permanent] control. Gaining of control will be accomplished in accordance with the following instructions: The encircling of the village and the search of it. In the event of resistance - the destruction of the resisting forces _and the expulsion of the population beyond the boundaries of the State_. Several Israeli historians has claimed that the Arab Higher Committee issued an order to remove children, women and the elderly from the villages. That may be true, it’s not illogical to think that they wanted to evacuate non-combatants. But Benny Morris, a famous and controversial figure because he claimed that the history of Israel’s birth was based on myths (who never the less regards the Palestinians as the, quote: “barbarians who want to take our lives”), wrote in 1990: > [@](#): > > Had such a blanket order (or series of orders) been given, it would have found an echo in the thousands of documents produced by the Haganah’s Intelligence Service, the IDF Intelligence Service, the Jewish Agency’s Political Department Arab Division, the Foreign Ministry Middle East Affairs Department; or in the memoranda and dispatches of the various British and American diplomatic posts in the area (in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa, Amman, Beirut, Damascus, and Cairo); or in the various radio monitoring services (such as the BBC’s). Any or all of these would have produced reports, memoranda, or correspondence referring to the Arab order and quoting from it. > > But no such reference to or quotation from such an order or series of orders exists in the contemporary documentation. This documentation, it should be noted, includes daily, almost hourly, monitoring of Arab radio broadcasts, the Arab press inside and outside Palestine, and statements by the Arab and Palestinian Arab leaders. (Tikkun, Jan/Feb 1990, p80) \* [Benny Morris's Shocking Interview | History News Network](http://hnn.us/articles/3166.html) (History News Network / George Mason University) In my opinion the question of what exactly took place in 1948 remains unanswered. But it’s worth nothing that there _were_ expulsions of some large groups of Palestinians. Rabin himself, the former PM who was shot and killed after the Oslo Acoords, wrote in his memoirs about the expulsion of 50 000 inhabitants in the two Palestinian cities Lydda and Ramla in July 1948: > [@](#): > > What would they do with the 50,000 civilians in the two cities … Not even Ben-Gurion could offer a solution, and during the discussion at operation headquarters, he remained silent, as was his habit in such situations. Clearly, we could not leave [Lydda’s] hostile and armed populace in our rear, where it could endanger the supply route [to the troops who were] advancing eastward. … Allon repeated the question: What is to be done with the population? Ben-Gurion waved his hand in a gesture which said: Drive them out! … ‘Driving out’ is a term with a harsh ring … Psychologically, this was one of the most difficult actions we undertook. The population of [Lydda] did not leave willingly. There was no way of avoiding the use of force and warning shots in order to make the inhabitants march the 10 to 15 miles to the point where they met up with the legion. (Soldier of Peace, p. 140-141) ---
**Author:** ![Alien](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/57b2e6/32.png) [@Alien](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alien)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2004, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-israel-need-the-golan-heights/255116/77 "2004-07-19T18:36:01Z")
> [@Noone Special](#): > > Actually, I’d rather trust some of my friends’ parents - who never had any political reason to do or say anything - who definitely said they ran away… but you’d wan’t a cite on that, wouldn’t you? Depends on your answer to this question: Did any of your friend’s parents immigrate from Arab land, or were any of them involved on the political or operative level in any of the projects aimed at emigrating Arab Jews? Or is their view simply based on what they have learned in school or by mouth, as an echo of the official Israeli interpretation of the events? > [@Noone Special](#): > > If you get to discredit WOJAC and anyone quoting them, do I get to discredit any cite originating from, related to or quoting a certain **Arab** organization that was created specifically as an organ to popularize the Palestinian refugees’ plight and to attempt to destroy Israel as a means of repopulating them? Absolutely. You _should_ disregard biased sources, generally. I don’t read (or cite) those second hand accounts from clearly pro-Palestinian organizations (like PLO), nor pro-Israeli. Picking sources is difficult, a biased source should only be cited if it’s a) well-documented, or b) clearly logical with overwhelming arguments. Or not at all. The problem with your three cites was: [ul] [li]cite 1: Very biased with lots of factual errors. No reference at all to historical documents.[/li][li]cite 2: Besides the WOJAC-connection, this article is not about historical events, it’s an article _about a person and his work_ on historical events. As in "Keith Landy said today that … ", you get the picture.[/li][li]cite 3: Besides the WOJAC-connection, this story is about _some single incidents_. The fact that something happened to 1 person doesn’t prove it happended 10 000 persons. What I’m looking for is cites which can tell us what happened to those people _as a group_.[/li][/ul] > [@Noone Special](#): > > I think that this is the point that you are missing. Israel and the rest of the Jewish world **saw what was bound to happen** in Arab countries following 1948, and **pre-empted** a full-blown refugee crisis by offering future refugees a way out before the fact. And even so, many arrived in Israel with the shirts on their backs. And there **were** “refugee camps” in Israel for most of the 1950’s (the infamous _ma’abarot_), but Israel did everrything to get people out of them as soon as economic conditions permitted it. Now you are talking. These are all good arguments. So, may I ask, cites? Any documents, interviews, anything at all published pre-war (before 1955)? Or do you know of any recent research, interviews or memoirs from someone who were involved in this issue? Any cites at all to support your claim? > [@Noone Special](#): > > So - because of our pre-emptive dedication to avoiding a refugee crisis to begin with, we have few terrible stories to tell, no refugees still in camps, etc… so we lose in the Public Relations race… I think that any trouble Israel have on the PR front is based on the Israeli governments treatment of the population in the Occupied Territories, not the Palestinian refugees. I know of very few who support the claim that the refugees should be allowed to their former homes in Israel, and neither do I. Whether a future Palestinian State (if ever) will allow any returnees inside their borders is up to them and not Israel, IMO. > [@Noone Special](#): > > The Arab countries, on the other hand, chose to perpetuate the Arab refugees’ plight, including leaving their descendents in the same refugee camps, at least partly in order to gain a Public Relations advantage. Again? Haven’t you read anthing in this thread? [shakes head] Lissen, the refugee camps are mainly run by UNRWA, not by Arab governments. The Palestinian refugees are free to move and work whereever they want. Two thirds (70% for Syria) are not living in camps. And my cites were from the ones administering the camps! > [@Noone Special](#): > > And you, among many others, have fallen for this tactic hook, line and sinker. Regardless of how the population exchange was instigated on either end, it certainly occurred. The Jews who came here from Arab countries, whether they left willingly, knowing that conditions on arrival will be better than where they were (else why leave), or not, arrived here as _penniless_ as their Arab counterparts arrived in the neighboring Arab countries. Israel prefered the humane route, of accepting them and integrating them into itself - so no refugees remain. The Arabs chose to showcase and perpetuate the refugees. > > End result - PR victory for the Arab world, by dint of preferring political gain over humanitarian treatment of people. That is all we are talking about - that and the fact that 600-900K Jews **did** leave the Arab world under unfavorable economic conditions, and had to be resettled, just as a comparable number of Arabs left Isarel, and were never resettled. The big fallacy in your argument, that Israel is unjustly viewed because they integrated Arab Jews as citizens, while the Arab states did not integrated the Palestinian refugees, is that the Arab Jews left voluntary (some in fear, some in hope) for Israel and _don’t_ want to return, while the Palestinians left involuntary and _do_ want to return. Just because Israel has a law that mandates that every Jew worldwide has a right to become citizen of Israel, that doesn’t mean that Israel can govern as Arab states shall pass a similiar law for Arabs. Sovereign nations and all that, you know. Don’t forget that some Palestinian refugees _have_ become citizens of Arab countries, just not the majority, the majority still wants to return. ---
**Author:** ![BoringDad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ad7895/32.png) [@BoringDad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BoringDad)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2004, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-israel-need-the-golan-heights/255116/78 "2004-07-19T18:58:26Z")
> [@Alien](#): > > Rabin himself, the former PM who was shot and killed after the Oslo Acoords, wrote in his memoirs about the expulsion of 50 000 inhabitants in the two Palestinian cities Lydda and Ramla in July 1948: OK, I will then grant that Israel had a bigger part in the refugee problem than I had thought. Thanks for the cites! But I suppose that this is far off the OP of Israel needing Golan for defense, which I think has been refuted with no rebuttal. ---
**Author:** ![Alien](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/57b2e6/32.png) [@Alien](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alien)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2004, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-israel-need-the-golan-heights/255116/79 "2004-07-21T02:54:06Z")
There’s an excellent map of [refugee camps per 2001](http://www.passia.org/palestine_facts/MAPS/Refugees-UNWRA-2001.html) available (includes both UNRWA camps and other camps). (I also posted in another thread a map of Israeli [settlements per 1996](http://domino.un.org/unispal.nsf/cf02d057b04d356385256ddb006dc02f/96fd41bb37e40f8685256b98006ec72a!OpenDocument), other maps available from [the UN](http://domino.un.org/unispal.nsf/vMaps)) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-israel-need-the-golan-heights/255116.md?page=3)