Why Not Treat Suffering at Par?

On 27 March of this year, the Palestinian Observer to the UN rejected a two-state solution, while spewing hate-speech courtesy of his UN platform at the UN Human Rights Council.

You should watch the video, below.

So, let us answer his question: "Why the Israeli-inflicted suffering of the Palestinian people is not treated at par as Jews have suffered in Europe? (sic)"

Actually, it would be a better question to ask, why not treat the suffering of Jews and Palestinians at a par? It's more of an apples-to-apples comparison, right?

After all, just as there were Arab refugees in 1948, were there not Jewish refugees? Indeed, the number of Jews fleeing Arab countries for Israel in the years following Israel's independence was nearly double the number of Arabs leaving Palestine. Nor was this a voluntary return, as many Jews were allowed to take little more than the shirts on their backs, leaving behind homes, businesses, bank accounts...

Even before independence, during the 1947 UN debates, Arab leaders threatened the Jews. For example, Egypt's delegate told the General Assembly: "The lives of one million Jews in Muslim countries would be jeopardized by partition."

So why don't we ever hear about them? In part it is because they did not remain refugees. Between 1948 and 1972, there were 820,000 Jewish refugees. 586,000 were resettled in Israel at great expense, and without any offer of compensation from the Arab governments who confiscated their possessions.

No more than 650,000 Palestinian Arabs could have become refugees. Forget the numbers you hear in the media, which loves to repeat the fat round number "1 million Arab refugees". In 1947, a total of 809,100 Arabs lived in the area which would become Israel the following year. How could there be a million refugees from 809 thousand? A 1949 Government of Israel census counted 160,000 Arabs living in the country after the war of Independence, so a maximum number would be 650 thousand.

On September 18, 1948, the UN Mediator found that only 472,000 Arabs became refugees in 1947, and calculated that only about 360,000 Arab refugees required aid.

Another estimated 100,000 were displaced by the Six Day War in 1967.

The refugees left for various reasons, however, it must be noted that many of the Arabs living in the Land of Israel left their homes voluntarily, goaded on by Arab promises that they would come back as victors and be able to displace the Jews. On the other hand the Jews in Arab countries were generally expelled amidst violence, threats, and confiscation of their property.

In fact, Israel's Jews tried to convince the Arabs to stay as neighbors and fellow citizens. The Assembly of Palestine Jewry issued this appeal on October 2, 1947:

We will do everything in our power to maintain peace, and establish a cooperation gainful to both [Jews and Arabs]. It is now, here and now, from Jerusalem itself, that a call must go out to the Arab nations to join forces with Jewry and the destined Jewish State and work shoulder to shoulder for our common good, for the peace and progress of sovereign equals.

Israel's Proclamation of Independence, issued May 14, 1948, also invited the Palestinians to remain in their homes and become equal citizens in the new state:

In the midst of wanton aggression, we yet call upon the Arab inhabitants of the State of Israel to preserve the ways of peace and play their part in the development of the State, on the basis of full and equal citizenship and due representation in all its bodies and institutions... We extend our hand in peace and neighborliness to all the neighboring states and their peoples, and invite them to cooperate with the independent Jewish nation for the common good of all.

Meanwhile, a leader of the Arab National Committee in Haifa, Hajj Nimer el-Khatib, said Arab soldiers in Jaffa were mistreating the residents.

They robbed individuals and homes. Life was of little value, and the honor of women was defiled. This state of affairs led many [Arab] residents to leave the city under the protection of British tanks.

Haifa, the major port city of the land, was within the boundaries of the Jewish State under the UN partition scheme and was fought for by Jews and Arabs alike. In early April, 1948, an estimated 25,000 Arabs left the Haifa area following an offensive by the Arab irregular forces led by Fawzi al-Qawukji, and rumors that Arab air forces would soon bomb the Jewish areas around Mt. Carmel. The fled Arab violence.

On April 23, the Haganah finally captured Haifa. A British police report from Haifa, dated April 26, explained that "every effort is being made by the Jews to persuade the Arab populace to stay and carry on with their normal lives, to get their shops and businesses open and to be assured that their lives and interests will be safe." David Ben-Gurion actually sent Golda Meir to Haifa to try to persuade the Arabs to stay, but she was unable to convince them because of their fear of being judged traitors to the Arab cause. They were still fleeing Arab violence.

The Haganah issued orders that none of the Arabs' possessions should be touched, and warned that anyone who violated the orders would be severely punished. Despite these efforts, all but about 5,000 or 6,000 Arabs evacuated Haifa, many leaving with the assistance of British military transports. By the end of the battle, more than 50,000 Palestinians had left.

They were not fleeing from Jewish armies, violence, or looting. They were not even fleeing because they did not want to live with the Jews. They were fleeing Arab violence.

This is not the story we hear over and over again. All we hear is the lie of how the Jews expelled a million suffering Arabs.

A major reason we hear very little about the Jewish refugees is that the Jews tend to take it for granted that the world will give them nothing, while the Arabs act as though the world owes them everything.

Although some 15% of UN General Assembly resolutions on the Middle East conflict referred directly to Palestinian refugees, not one mentioned Jewish refugees.

The U.S. House of Representatives last week recognized for the first time the rights of Jews who became refugees as a result of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Resolution 185 expressed "the sense of the House of Representatives regarding the creation of refugee populations."

A major reason we hear very little about the Jewish refugees is that the Jews tend to take it for granted that the world will give them nothing, while the Arabs act as though the world owes them everything.

Now Sidney Zabludoff, an economist who worked for the White House, CIA, and Treasury Department for more than thirty years, has published a fascinating study which demonstrates that the sixty-year-old Palestinian refugee issue has little connection with reality. It has become solely a bargaining chip used by Arabs and Palestinians in peace talks with Israel and, as such, is a distraction from the real issues of terrorism and boundaries.

In The Palestinian Refugee Issue: Rhetoric vs. Reality, a paper published by The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Zabludoff demonstrates that the Jewish refugees' losses outweigh the Arabs'.

Zabludoff shows that many more Jews were forcibly displaced or expelled from their homes around the world than Arabs, that they lost significantly more property, and were helped over the years to a much smaller extent.

The Jews, most of whom lived in cities, lost $700 million in lost and stolen property - worth some $6 billion in today's dollars. The Arabs of 1948 and 1967, on the other hand, lost an estimated total of $450 million, or $3.9 billion in today's money.

UNRWA, the United Nations Relief Works Agency, has poured $13.7 billion dollars into the Arab refugee centers, more than was originally lost by both sides. However, for 60 years, UNRWA and other nations, including Israel, have paid out to the Arab refugees, while not a dime was given to the Jews by anyone but Israel.

Further, Israel has returned more than 90% of blocked Arab bank accounts and most of the contents of safe deposit boxes, Zabludoff notes, while there have been only "a few cases where Jewish property was restored."

As of March 31, 2006, UNRWA recognized 4,375,050 Arab refugees, of which 1,306,191 lived in concentration camps administered by UNRWA.

Zabludoff writes:

Since 1920, all other major refugee crises involving the exchange of religious or ethnic populations, while creating hardships, were dealt with in a single generation. Meanwhile, issues such as the "right of return" and compensation never were adequately resolved and were largely forgotten. The same pattern evolved for Jews who fled Middle Eastern and North African countries, even though their number was some 50 percent larger than Palestinian refugees and the difference in individual assets lost was even greater.

So, why do we not treat the refugee populations at a par?

Because to treat the situation at a par would require the Arab nations to take care of the Arabs. To treat the situation at a par would force the Palestinians to take responsibility for their own lives and actions. To treat the situation at a par would put one of the world's largest bureaucracies - the UNRWA - out of business. To treat the situation at a par would demand that Jimmy Carter and his ilk admit that Israel may be the least like an Apartheid state of any in the Middle East.

To treat the situation at a par would be to recognize that Israel is not the bad guy. And the world has no room for that.