I was reading in a NY Times story how the Israel was trying to negotiate thru third parties to relocate the remaining Jewish population of Syria. The article goes on to say “Syria, like most other Arab countries restricts Jewish emmigration.”
After looking around I see other websites say the same.
Why? The websites about Syria I looked at say the remaining Jews are looked up on by locals as traitors (potential or otherwise) and they are relegated to the slum areas so I doubt there would be a brain drain.
Israel is always desparately outnumbered by it’s enemies armies. Always.
The very high quality of Israeli troops makes up for this, but the Arab states quickly realized that every Jew that left their countries, became an Israeli soldier soon enough.
So, they turn their own countries into prison camps.
All because the existance of Israel offends them. :rolleyes:
Evidently the concern from Syria is that the Jews will move to Israel, from which they will work against Damascus. For decades they have been prevented from leaving Syria at all or even moving within the country, and have been closely watched by Syrian intelligence. Nearly all Jews have escaped Syria by now, such that there are only several dozen left – all of whom choose to stay despite their treatment and legalized deprivation.
Without defending Syria’s retrograde habits in this, as in many areas, I would note for the record that the above cited website has a rather clear agenda when addressing Arab-Jewish relations and I have found in the past has a spin to facts that is not supportable by objective readings.
For all that, Syria has one nasty, if clever, government.
Bosda’s characterization on the other hand is something of a paranoid one: Syrians have restricted Jewish emmigration for fear of spying etc. – the Syrian government is actually quite paranoid about everyone except perhaps the Alaouites – not for the manpower Syrian Jews might add. Given other immigration into Israel, keeping some hundreds or dozens of Jews in-country is fairly trivial.
By the way, my dear Bosda, you over generalize. All the Arab world is not Syria (nor Saudi) E.g. the North African Jewish communities are hardly in “prison camps” and largely emmigrate to France for economic reasons. Brain drain.