There is a large population of dispossessed people from Arab countries that have received little, if any, attention in today's discourse. Some 850,000 individuals suffered systematic persecutions and confiscation of property in lands that they or their families had lived in for more than two millennia. In the 1940s and 1950s, 99 percent of these people fled from countries such as Iraq, Yemen, Egypt, Libya, Syria and others. These unfortunate people are the indigenous Jews of the Middle East and North Africa.
Jewish communities in this region date back since the Jews were kicked out of their original homeland (what is now Israel), and long before the Islamic conquest of the seventh century. Once Muslim rule took hold, Jews (and Christians) were considered ahl al dhimma, or \People of the Book."" Because of this special status, these non-Muslims were spared their lives and allowed to worship as they chose, yet were delegated to second-class citizenry and subject to discriminatory civil laws. The Jews held this status for some time, and although there were periods of peaceful coexistence, the advent of Arab nationalism coupled with the import of European-style anti-Semitism led to increased hostility towards these indigenous people.
By the 1920s, Arab nationalists and the Arab press began referencing the anti-Semitic forgery, ""The Protocols of the Elders of Zion"" (last month an Egyptian television series was based on this forgery). In addition, Hitler's ""Mein Kampf,"" with the anti-Arab text often excluded, became available throughout Arab lands. In British Palestine, Hajj Amin al-Husayani, the Mufti of Jerusalem, advocated a systematic campaign of expulsion of Jews. Fearing increased Jewish immigration, he engineered bloody riots against Jewish neighborhoods from 1929 to 1936. He also mobilized support for Germany among Muslims, and in 1941 met with Adolph Hitler and Heinrich Himmler to persuade them to extend the Nazi campaign to Arab lands. As World War II came to a close, anti-Jewish sentiment was at an all-time high in the Arab world. Violent riots were orchestrated, movement was restricted, bank accounts were frozen and property valued in the millions of dollars was confiscated. Jews became hostages in their own lands and soon became refugees.
In 1948, there were 135,000 Jews in Iraq; 63,000 in Yemen and Aden; 30,000 in Syria; 5,000 in Lebanon; 75,000 in Egypt; 40,000 in Libya; 140,000 in Algeria; 105,000 in Tunisia; and 265,000 in Morocco. A few decades later, these numbers have dwindled to the mere thousands, and today, Jewish communities in Arab lands are practically nonexistent. Soon after the Arab League rejected the 1947 U.N. Partition Plan--a plan the Jews accepted--some 600,000 of these Jewish refugees returned to their original homeland and were integrated into the newly formed State of Israel. The remaining 300,000 found refuge, and yet another new homeland, in Europe and the Americas.
The Middle East's forgotten refugees are finally finding a voice in the context of an enormous propaganda campaign waged by the Arab world against Israel. Any discussion of reparations for Palestinian refugees must also address the injustices done by Arab countries to their Jewish populations. People forget that it was not only the Jews of Europe who were nearly annihilated, but that the long-standing Jewish communities of the Middle East and North Africa were virtually eliminated as well.
U.N. Resolution 242 calls for a ""just solution to the refugee problem."" Shortly after Israel declared its independence in 1948, there were more Jewish refugees from Arab countries than there were Arab refugees from British Palestine. I wonder to which ""refugee problem"" the drafters were referring.
Today, as world leaders work with Israeli and Palestinian politicians to negotiate a just peace between Israel and a newly formed Palestinian state, one must question the world's selective memory. We know it is one that continually focuses on Arab refugees, yet systematically neglects Jewish refugees from Arab lands.
Why is that? The forces that led to the expulsion of indigenous Jews from the Middle East and North Africa are the same ones that contribute to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict today: Arab nationalism, Islamic fundamentalism and a virulent strain of anti-Semitism. This is not to suggest that Israel is blameless in perpetuating the current conflict, but if Palestinian nationhood is a real and legitimate demand, then Israel's Arab neighbors must not only acknowledge the injustices done to their Jewish populations, but they must also stop using the Palestinian refugees as pawns in their unrelenting fight against Israel. Only then will the international community be able to solve ""the refugee problem.""
