Following the creation of the state of Israel in 1948, an urgent refugee problem emerged in the Middle East. Prior events had set the stage for an incipient disaster—one which reverberates to this day—of which the refugee issue forms a crucial facet.
The majority of the territory from the original British Mandatory Palestine had been given in 1921 to form the Arab Emirate of Transjordan, where Jews were banned. The United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine in 1947 proposed that the remaining land, now about one-quarter of the original Mandate, be divided between a Jewish state and a second Arab state—but Arab leaders rejected this. Israel, however, accepted the plan and declared its independence. It immediately was attacked by seven Arab armies. It is from this tumultuous point that a refugee wave grew—not just in the region of Israel, but from the far corners of the Middle East.
Out of the area that had been British Mandatory Palestine (after the excision of Transjordan), 726,000 Arab Palestinians became refugees; out of the Arab lands of the Middle East, 850,000 Jews became refugees. The former of those groups has dominated world news ever since, holding onto refugee status, growing in number; the latter group has received virtually no attention, then or later, and was absorbed within a few decades.
World's Longest Standing Refugee Problem: Arab Palestinians
The world''s media, governments, and humanitarian organizations have maintained, even increased, their involvement in the Arab Palestinian refugee problem during the intervening years. For example, long after the millions of other refugees from the 1940s have disappeared, these are still receiving media coverage; the United Kingdom is heavily committed to ongoing financial aid, as are many other countries; and organizations, such as Christian Aid, maintain a sometimes-biased advocacy.
The United Nations acted quickly in 1949 to create an agency devoted solely to these refugees, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNWRA). The Arab Palestinian refugee is the only refugee in the world so treated. The continued existence of these refugees, now numbering around five million, as an identifiable population group in Gaza, Judea and Samaria, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Jordan, bears witness to the perpetuation of the Arab Palestinian refugee problem—the world’s longest-standing refugee problem.
Jewish Refugees from the Middle East
However, because of the same event which produced the Arab Palestinian refugees, Jewish refugees were created too. Although deteriorating conditions for Jews throughout the early part of the 20th century had already prompted many to migrate to Palestine, the situation became worse with the formation in 1945 of the Arab League, in Cairo, Egypt. The League fomented anti-Zionist incitement and anti-Jewish violence throughout the Arab world (Gilbert).
With ominous foreshadowing, Azzam Pasha, Secretary General of the Arab League in October 1947, prior to the formation of the Jewish state, deliberated on the oncoming conflict. American writer, Joan Peters, recounts in From Time Immemorial: the Origins of the Arab-Jewish Conflict over Palestine, how Pasha described "three characteristics of the future war: the belief in glorious death as a road to paradise, the opportunities of lust and the Bedouin love of slaughter for its own sake." On the day on which Israel was founded, May 15, 1948, Pasha's vitriol soared: "This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre ... like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades." (Peters, Notes, p. 444)
Pasha's influence spread beyond just Cairo: the member states of the Arab League acted in apparent concert in persecuting their Jewish citizens. As historian Martin Gilbert describes in In Ishmael's House: a History of Jews in Muslim Lands, the Muslim Brotherhood too played a major role in inciting violence against Jews, and called for a return of the Dhimmi laws—placing Jews and other non-Muslims in a subservient position, which had been repealed a century earlier. (Gilbert, p.213)
This was the political climate of the Middle East at the time of Israel's formation: it was not only the new Jewish state which was in danger—all Jews who lived in Muslim lands were now even more vulnerable to persecution.
Arabs Inflamed by Jewish Nationalism
Thus, when Israel was established in 1948, the already-bad situation became critical. As Peters points out, the land allotted for the Jewish state in that year was only "a fraction of an already truncated Palestine, a Palestine of which about seventy-five percent had already been delivered to Arab control—in violation of international mandate" (Peters, p 243). The Arab region of Transjordan, later the state of Jordan, occupied the bulk of the land of Palestine. Nonetheless, the idea of even a small Jewish state there inflamed the Arabs.
Although Jewish presence in the Middle East predated Muslim presence, the Jew had always been subservient, a Dhimmi, under Muslim rule. This new situation of a sovereign Jewish state was anathema to many Muslims: “The Muslim world, inspired by Arab nationalism but inflamed by Jewish nationalism, still considered Palestine as an Arab country and part of the Muslim patrimony, in which Jews could live only as a subject people” (Gilbert, p. 201).
Muslim anger at Israel was often directed at the nearest Jew, intensified with the formation of Israel, and continued for the years following, forcing most to flee, until in many Muslim lands there were virtually no Jews left. However, in the lands of the Palestinian Mandate the Muslim populations that migrated due to the new Jewish state's birth, did so almost immediately—and for a variety of reasons: "Thousands of wealthy Arabs left in anticipation of a war, thousands more responded to Arab leaders' calls to get out of the way of the advancing armies, a handful were expelled, but most simply fled to avoid being caught in the cross fire of a battle" (Bard).
Jews Fled Ancestral Homes in Iraq, Egypt, Libya, Yemen,
The expulsion of Jews from Muslim lands followed a longer course than the migration of Arab Palestinians from Israel. In a time period extending mainly from the mid-1940s,through the 1950s and 1960s, Jewish refugees fled from Muslim lands—often in great danger, escaping from imprisonment, torture, and murder, their families torn apart, property confiscated, and businesses and livelihood destroyed. The Jews had often prospered in these lands where their ancestors had lived for centuries, even milennia, contributing greatly to the fields of medicine, science, art, and business. However, persistent or recurring persecution and discrimination also had often been their lot.
In the Muslim-dominated lands where they lived, Jewish populations varied in numbers, in relative levels of prosperity, and in ethnic origins. However, the methods used by their native lands to harass them and force them to flee generally followed similar, usually violent, means. In this way, the Jew in a Muslim land was forced to become a refugee.
Middle Eastern Refugees: More Jews than Arab Palestinians
The new state of Israel absorbed hundreds of thousands of these Jewish refugees from Muslim lands. As Gilbert points out, "Immigration to Israel reached its peak in the second year after the country's establishment. In 1949 a total of 239,076 immigrants arrived in Israel, the majority from Muslim lands." This influx led to severe shortages in housing, food, and services for the new immigrants, 20 percent of whom were unable to work because of age or health. Whatever the difficulties faced by Israel, a newly-formed country which had just survived a violent beginning, the integration of the newcomers—whether they had fled from European or Muslim lands— was given high importance.
"Transfer of populations" is an apt descriptor for the mass migrations of Arab Palestinians from Israel and Jews from Muslim lands which took place due to the formation of Israel, although it is a dry term, not conveying the urgency, the pain, and chaotic nature of the actual phenomenon. The transfer was made up of populations close in numbers, although there were more Jews displaced in the upheaval. This larger group, the Jews, has been absorbed against all odds, now virtually forgotten by history. The other, the Arab Palestinians, has endured and expanded, the focus of intense international attention.
Jewish Refugees Seek Redress
Recently many Jews from Muslim lands have begun to tell their story, to garner international attention to the injustices done to them. Movements have sprung up calling for recognition and restitution and even for the "right of return" for Jewish refugees. Whereas the Arab Palestinian refugees have been visible on the world's stage, with their status renewed annually by the UN, Gilbert states, "The Jews from Muslim lands, despite having been legally recognized as refugees historically, were not perceived as refugees in recent decades, having been integrated into society ...: "
Today, however, the Jewish refugee from Muslim lands seeks equivalence with the Arab Palestinian refugee, with the same rights to redress. As Canada's former Justice Minister Irwin Cotler told the United Stages Congress in 2007, "The time has come to rectify this historical injustice."
Sources:
Bard, Mitchell, "The Palestinian Refugees" Jewish Virtual Library.
Foreign Policy, "White House:Jewish 'refugees' right of return should be on the table".
Gilbert, Martin, In Ishmael's House: a History of Jews in Muslim Lands. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart Ltd., 2010.
Peters, Joan, From Time Immemorial: the Origins of the Arab-Jewish Conflict Over Palestine. New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1984.
The Vancouver Sun "Cotler urges recognition of Jewish refugees" Canada.com.
Jen L. Jones - Based in Canada, Jones writes on human rights, history,and the natural world. She focuses also on Turkish and Scottish travel and ...
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