Tuesday, March 19th | 9 Adar II 5784

Subscribe
March 25, 2019 10:33 am
0

Palestinians Share Responsibility for Jewish Refugees, Too

× [contact-form-7 404 "Not Found"]

avatar by Lyn Julius / JNS.org

Opinion

A Jewish truck that was attacked by Arab irregulars on the main road to Jerusalem, 1948. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

JNS.org Not long ago, I heard emeritus professor of Tel Aviv University Asher Susser give a talk on the Israel-Palestinian conflict. He came to the following conclusion: The conflict is insoluble because the Palestinians and Israelis have two irreconcilable narratives. And the Palestinians will never give up their so-called ”right of return.”

Yet as I pointed out to him, two sets of refugees arose out of the conflict: one Arab and one Jewish.

The Jewish refugee issue has been solved, but there was an incontrovertible (and irrevocable) exchange of roughly equal refugee populations between what is now Israel and the Arab world. Such exchanges happened in the India-Pakistan conflict, and between Greek and Turkish Cyprus.

End of story.

Professor Susser acknowledged that Israel would never accept five million Arab refugees (this number, uniquely among all other refugees in the world, includes the descendants of the original refugees). The responsibility, he said, should be shared with the Palestinians and the other Arab states.

Maybe the professor was playing Devil’s advocate, but his reply is one I have heard from Arab sources: What have the Palestinians got to do with Jewish refugees?

When I replied that the Mufti of Jerusalem embodied Palestinian antisemitism, inciting the 1941 Farhud massacre of the Jews in Iraq, the professor countered by saying the Mufti was just one man, and there were other causal factors behind the Farhud.

Yes, the Palestinian Mufti was just one man. But he was the de facto leader of the Arab world, where popular opinion was overwhelmingly pro-Nazi. He aligned himself with pro-Nazi nationalists to overthrow the Iraqi government. He took refuge in Berlin with 60 other influential Arabs, and broadcast virulent anti-Jewish propaganda over Radio Berlin with a view to facilitating the extermination of the Jews not just in Palestine, but across the Arab world. Palestinian and Syrian pro-Nazi nationalists had taken control of levers of power in Iraq, and they too bore responsibility for inciting anti-Jewish hatred.

The Palestinians, therefore, helped lay the groundwork for the forced exodus and dispossession, under cover of law, of the peaceful, non-combatant Jews from the Arab world — branded by Arab League states “the Jewish minority of Palestine.” Seven Arab League states, egged on by the Palestinian leadership, made the fateful decision to wage a war of annihilation against Israel. They must bear responsibility for creating both refugee problems.

Israel took responsibility for resettling 650,000 people over the years — the majority of Jewish refugees. But by Professor Susser’s logic, responsibility for causing the Jewish refugees should also be shared with the Palestinians and Arab states.

The “right of return” is possibly the single greatest obstacle to peace. It is quite clear that the Palestinians, supported by their exclusive agency UNRWA, will never give it up. But this is a fictitious right in international law, a ruse to reverse Israel’s victory in the 1948 war by demographic means.

And why has the international community indulged this destructive fantasy? Of the 135 million refugees produced through conflict in the 20th century, only the Palestinian refugees, their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren have not been absorbed 70 years on — even those who are under Palestinian control in the West Bank and Gaza.

If it really wants to encourage peace, the international community needs to show some tough love, by telling the Palestinians: Get real and stop trying to reverse history. You can choose your own narrative, but you can’t choose your own facts.

Lyn Julius is the author of Uprooted: How 3,000 years of Jewish Civilization in the Arab World Vanished Overnight (Vallentine Mitchell, 2018).

The opinions presented by Algemeiner bloggers are solely theirs and do not represent those of The Algemeiner, its publishers or editors. If you would like to share your views with a blog post on The Algemeiner, please be in touch through our Contact page.

Share this Story: Share On Facebook Share On Twitter

Let your voice be heard!

Join the Algemeiner

Algemeiner.com

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.