The 90`s

"In Perspective" 

Note: Written by Howard Barbanel, Published April 27, 1995

 In these, the weeks after the Israelites Exodus from Egypt, as they wandered into the desert until arriving at Sinai, provides the perfect time to ponder the fate of wandering Jews.  The twentieth century has seen the most dramatic movements of Jewish populations since the expulsion from Spain and the defeat by Rome.

While we exult and rejoice over the ingathering of the exiles from what our holy books call "the four corners of the earth," we must remember just how and why they've been ingathered, especially when the place in question is Israel.

Most Jews have arrived in Israel not so much as a matter of choice but under duress or fleeting persecution.  We all know about the Soviet Jews, the survivors of the Holocaust and so on, but we seldom discuss that silent segment -- Jews from Arab countries -- Jews who today comprise half of Israel's total population. 

Over the past two months there have been meetings in Amman, Jordan between Israel, the PLO, Jordan and Egypt  on the subject of refugees.  

With much ballyhoo and fanfare, the Arabs trumpeted their claims to millions of Palestinian refugees and unabashedly demanded "repatriation" for at least a cool million of them post haste if the Israel-PLO deal is to work-out.  The PLO also wants millions more after a deal is signed.

The Israeli government, while publicly scoffing at the million-person request and stating that the Arab's refugee figures are dubious, has not been forcefully articulating the Jewish claim vis-a-vis refugees.  Moreover, reliable Knesset sources indicate that the Israeli government is seriously considering acceding to 200,000 to 300,000 Arab "returnees." Soon.

From 1948 to 1955 some 850,000 Jews from places like Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, Morocco, et. al. were forcefully ejected from their homes, often at a moment's notice.  The personal and business property of these Jews was seized, Nuremberg-like, never to be retrieved again. Billions in assets, homes, shops, factories. Most of these Jews arrived penniless and toughed it out in the flimsy immigrant ma'abarot and eventually became Israelis.  World Jewry came to the rescue and due to Jewish philanthropy there are no Jewish refugees anywhere in the world today.

The Arabs on the other hand, cynically, for over four decades have imprisoned their own people in squalid, fetid camps -- breading-ground for hatred and misery and have registered any and all attempts to ease the lives of these people or integrate them into greater Arab society.

Moroccan-born David Levy, the former Foreign Minister, maintains that a population exchange has taken place in the region, much as occurred between India and Pakistan, Germany and Poland and so forth.  The PLO's demand for one million "1967 refugees" goes to the heart of their anti-Israel intrinsic ideology. First, by sticking to the canard of victimization (they were driven from their homes) they paint us as the villains.  Second, by pressing for admission of hundred of thousands, they seek to swap the Land of ISrael with a human tidal wave designed to alter the population balance in their favor and kill-off Jewish settlement in the territories.

By striving for parity between Israel's Law of Return and their own desires, they hope to whittle-away at Israel's legitimacy in general.  Knesset Member and Ariel Mayor Ron Nachman asserts these Arabs won't be living in the steaming-hot Jordan Valley. "They will climb over the mountains and settle right along the pre-1967 borders.  Why? Because the climate is better, there is water and its close to jobs in Israel. We will see big, new Arab settlements teaming with people." 

Without strongly asserting that a population exchange has taken place -- that the 850,000 Jewish refugees from Arab countries and their descendants (now over two million) are entitled themselves to reparations -- that Jewish immigration and settlement rights have precedence and primary legitimacy -- that Israel is a Jewish land, we will find ourselves with our backs to the sea in short order and a Palestinian state bristling in our faces.  

Immigration.  The PLO will be one stage closer in their phased plan to destroy Israel.  Combin this with a possible legal foothold in Jerusalem (their desire is to wrest Mount Zion from the Zionists and the government has the status of city up for negotiation) we will be worse-off than in 1948, with more hostile Arabs in our midst with more dangerous weapons at their disposal and more Jews living in harm's way.  "Next Year in Jerusalem" isn't just jingoism for Arafat's boys, it's gospel. Unless we get serious real quick on immigration and Jerusalem we may be reading from Lamentations sooner than we think.