Sir, – Raymond Deane (Letters, September 17th) contrasted the situation of Jewish refugees from Arab lands in the 20th century with that of Palestinians from Israel. The Jews, he says, left “voluntarily” to settle in the State of Israel, unlike the “expulsion” of Palestinians from the new state.
He needs to research more widely around this subject before he makes such assured statements. He could start with Lyn Julius’s book Uprooted, which charts the story of the many thousands of Jews forced to flee their homes in Arab lands. Yes, many Jews, as Zionists, wished to settle in a new homeland. But far more were pushed out, having been made unwelcome in their Arab homes. They were always subject to anti-Jewish riots, deprivations, punishments, denials of citizenship and expulsions. Jews were forever at the beck and call of whatever regime was in power, welcome when governments were looking for money, unwelcome when the unpredictable tide turned.
Thousands arrived in Israel with only the clothes on their backs.
The surrounding Arab countries did little or nothing to absorb the Palestinians.
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Julius summarises with the words, “3000 years of Jewish civilisation in the Arab World vanished overnight”.
When Ran Cohen, an Iraqi-born politician, says, (as Mr Deane quotes), “Nobody is going to define me as a refugee”, he means he does not see himself as a victim. This does not mean that Iraq was a warm and welcoming place for his family, or that the Jews who started to trickle, and then to flood from Iraq, were willing emigrants. – Yours, etc,
HEATHER ABRAHAMSON,
Dublin 14.