Israel marks exodus of Jews from Arab countries

Discussion in 'Middle East' started by mikejones, Nov 30, 2015.

  1. Ronstar

    Ronstar Well-Known Member Past Donor

    Joined:
    Jun 19, 2013
    Messages:
    93,464
    Likes Received:
    14,677
    Trophy Points:
    113
    many of the jews were expelled.
     
  2. Papastox

    Papastox Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jul 11, 2014
    Messages:
    10,296
    Likes Received:
    2,731
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Well, thank you for being so protective of the US, but we can manage on our own. How many Jews are there in comparison to the number of Muslims in the world? You love to denigrate Jews and call them "grubby" and a "grease spot", yet they are not the ones who just blew up the Brussels airport or France or may be coming to a town near you next from what I hear. No, not the Jews, but your "chosen people" who REALLY live in a grease spot and are grubby and are, right now, trying to turn Europe into the same thing! Why do you love Muslims so much?
     
  3. Margot2

    Margot2 Banned

    Joined:
    Sep 9, 2013
    Messages:
    73,644
    Likes Received:
    13,766
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Most were not expelled.. but, every time the Zionists in Israel pulled off some stunt like the Lavon Affair or the six day war tensions increased and more Arab Jews left their homes.

    Its easy to prove.. Look at the Jewish population before and after the Suez Crisis and again after the Lavon Affair.. after the 6 day war.

    Look at the Jewish population of Libya up until 1973.. You can do the same with the Jews of Iran and Iraq.

    You are blaming Arabs for the back lash against what European Jews have done.
     
  4. Ronstar

    Ronstar Well-Known Member Past Donor

    Joined:
    Jun 19, 2013
    Messages:
    93,464
    Likes Received:
    14,677
    Trophy Points:
    113
    around half of the 700,000 Jews that fled Muslim lands to Israel, were expelled or had their citizenship revoked, which is as bad as expulsion
     
  5. HBendor

    HBendor New Member

    Joined:
    Oct 24, 2009
    Messages:
    12,043
    Likes Received:
    60
    Trophy Points:
    0
    What I knew theoretically about Poland is now confirmed by the Algemeiner
    Please readers this is an opportunity like we had never had before, the description is too graphic, factual and pales in comparison with all the data and documents I read about the Holocaust.



    http://www.algemeiner.com/2016/03/25/polands-very-short-memory-on-jews-and-the-holocaust/#

    Poland’s Very Short Memory on Jews and the Holocaust
    MARCH 25, 2016 7:38 AM 26 COMMENTSAuthor:

    ~Judith Bergman
    Share this Article

    The gates of Auschwitz. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

    The Polish national anthem, in a glass-half-full kind of way, solemnly declares, “Poland is not yet lost.” These optimistic words, which do not actually sound very cheerful, especially when performed to the anthem’s depressing tune, were written by Jozef Wybicki in 1797, two years after the third and last partition of Poland between the great powers of the day: czarist Russia, Prussia, and Austria.

    Poland, once an empire in its own right, never recovered. It did not become an independent state again until 1918, and then enjoyed independence only briefly, until Nazi Germany invaded it on Sept. 1, 1939, and proceeded to occupy and destroy it, aided by the Soviet Union. After the war, Poland, which had been reduced to rubble by the Germans, was once again devoured, when the Soviet Union occupied it and made it a satellite state, cut off from the non-communist world by the Iron Curtain. Only after the end of the Cold War did Poland re-emerge as a self-determining state.

    As reported by Israel Hayom, the governing Law and Justice party in Poland has embarked on a strategy to promote certain glamorous episodes in Poland’s history, such as the anti-communist resistance after World War II, while aiming to suppress the discussion and research into less convenient topics, particularly how Poles helped massacre their Jewish compatriots during the Nazi occupation. The current nationalist government’s revisionist historical policies should be viewed in the light of the above history, which has informed how Poles have seen themselves and others throughout the centuries.

    One obvious aspect of Polish history, which cannot be emphasized enough, is the prevalence of a virulent anti Semitism that continues to haunt the country today. After World War II, the few Jews who had been left alive out of a pre-war Jewish population of over 3 million were met by Poles who had moved into their houses and overtaken their valuable possessions — many of which have not been repatriated to their rightful owners to this day, since communist Poland subsequently expropriated many of them. On top of all that, the Poles rained fresh pogroms on the heads of the Jewish concentration camp survivors, such as the terrible pogrom in Kielce in 1946.

    Jan Tomasz Gross, the historian who more than anyone has revealed the extent of Polish war crimes against Jewish neighbors during the Nazi occupation, is being demonized by the current Polish government, with the president even threatening to strip him of a national honor bestowed upon him 20 years ago. The truth hurts, no doubt, but Gross has not relented, claiming that Poles killed more Jews than they killed Germans during the war, which is not an unreasonable claim at all, given the speed and ease with which Germany occupied Poland and the zest with which Poles threw themselves into killing Polish Jews, as documented by Gross in his book, Neighbors.

    Antisemitism flared up again after the 1967 Six-Day War, when Poland decided to take the Soviet dissatisfaction with Israel out on the country’s remaining Jews — around 13,000 of them — by firing them from jobs, denying them the right to study at university, and various other forms of harassment. Consequently, nearly all the remaining Polish Jews left Poland between 1968 and 1972.

    Yet, even in a country largely bereft of Jews — albeit with a burgeoning Jewish cultural industry, which profits from the country’s wealth of Jewish history — anti Semitism persists like a plague for which there is no cure. In November 2015, a protest against taking in Muslim refugees at the western city of Wroclaw ended with the burning of an effigy of an ultra-Orthodox Jew holding the flag of the European Union. Anti Semitic graffiti is not uncommon and even the Polish language has traces of it with some Poles using the expression “to Jew” as a way to communicate all things unsavory.

    Polish society is very formal, and communication is always polite, with men being addressed as “sir” and women as “madam.” Not that long ago, it was still common for men in polite society to greet women with a symbolic kiss on the hand in the old-fashioned French way, from where Polish culture has traditionally taken many of its cues. So much more disturbing is the primitive undercurrent of anti Semitism, which exists just under the polished veneer, as it has indeed done throughout history in all European societies.

    Before embarking further upon the jingoistic course of historical enhancement, the Polish government might want to reflect on the tremendous debt it owes to the Polish Jews, for everything they brought into Polish culture and for the murderous way in which the Poles ultimately repaid them. They ought also to ask themselves if Poland itself is served well by glossing over the crimes that were committed in order to communicate a picture post card to the younger Polish generations. Viewed from Israel, the question that inevitably comes to mind is this: How dare they?

    This article was originally published by Israel Hayom.
     
  6. notme

    notme Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Nov 16, 2013
    Messages:
    42,019
    Likes Received:
    5,395
    Trophy Points:
    113
    That's probably the group of Jews who refused to sign a piece of paper denouncing they are Zionist and willing to join their army and fight Israel. You can't be having people in your country who admit they commit high treason.

    What this is about. Is that a bunch of Jews who openly sided with other side during a time of war, and so rightfully got their citizenship revoked, using that as an excuse to ethnic cleanse Arabs in return and go thieve their property.
     
  7. HBendor

    HBendor New Member

    Joined:
    Oct 24, 2009
    Messages:
    12,043
    Likes Received:
    60
    Trophy Points:
    0
    ARAB REFUGEES & JEWISH REFUGEES

    ARAB REFUGEES

    Few problems on the international political scene have been debated as often and as fruitlessly as that of the Arab refugees. For the past two decades, the basically humanitarian problem of homeless, uprooted people has been thrust aside by considerations of political interests and national pride. Fear and deliberate deceit have also played their roles.

    To be a Refugee is not a new phenomenon in human history. Over the past fifty years, 150 million people have been uprooted unwillingly from their homes and cast into the role of refugees. In the post World War II period alone, many millions of refugees have been produced by territorial partition and re-division. the establishment of the States of India and Pakistan resulted in 15 million refugees; 400,000 Karelians were absorbed by
    Finland; more than 3 million Sudetan Germans, who fled Czechoslovakia, have been absorbed; West Germany has conferred citizenship on 9 million refugees from the other side of the Wall; Turkey, Greece, Korea and Austria have all absorbed large influxes. In many of these, countries--few of them affluent--the refugees have settled and integrated without outside aid.

    Not all the solutions have been entirely satisfactory and the volume of human suffering entailed cannot be minimized, but those involved have been given, at least, the opportunity of starting a new life however difficult the conditions.

    Only in the case of the Palestine Arab refugees has no progress of any consequence been achieved despite the relatively small number involved. With a view to understanding the present position, and its possible resolution, it is worth briefly recounting some of the background and attempting to unravel some of the tangled history -of the past twenty years.

    BACKGROUND

    On 29 November 1947, the General Assembly of the UN adopted a resolution declaring the partition of Mandated Palestine into an Arab and a Jewish State.

    The following morning the Arab League announced its plan for "the occupation of Palestine by the armies of the League's member States and the forcible prevention of the establishment of the Jewish State" (New York Times, November 30, 1947.)

    On 10 April 1948, the UN Palestine Commission reported to the Security Council "armed Arab bands from neighboring Arab States have infiltrated into the territory of Palestine and together with local Arab forces are defeating the purpose of the Partition by acts of violence".

    The responsibility for the launching of hostilities has never been denied by the Arab States. Mr. Jamal Husseini, in charge of the Palestine Arab Higher Committee, told the Security Council on 23 April, "we have never concealed the fact that we began the fighting".

    Local skirmishes were followed on 15 May 1948 by a full-scale invasion of Israel by the regular forces of Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq, with contingents from Saudi Arabia and Yemen. The same day the Egyptian Foreign Minister cabled the Security Council: " The Royal Egyptian Government declared that . . . the Egyptian armed forces have started to enter Palestine' , .

    Thus was set in motion the events that subsequently created the Arab Refugee problem.

    WHY THEY FLED

    The exodus of hundreds of thousands of Arabs which began with the passing of the UN resolution in November, assumed larger proportions with the launching of the invasion in May.

    The simple fear of being caught in a battlefield was probably as important a motivation as any-particularly as they believed that -the exodus would be of short duration and would be followed by a return in the van of the victorious Arab Armies.

    They were also no doubt susceptible to declarations, such as that of Azzam Pasha, Secretary General of the Arab League who, on May 14, announced the Arab intention "to conduct a war of extermination and momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades". Given their own code of ethics, it is hardly surprising that they expected similar treatment at the hand of the Israelis.

    From the record there is no question that the exodus was encouraged by the Arab leadership.

    On September 6, 1948, the Beirut Telegraph carried an interview with Mr. Emile Ghoury, Secretary of the Palestine Arab Higher Committee, in which he said: "The fact that there are these refugees is the direct consequence of the -3ct of the Arab States in opposing partition and the Jewish State".

    More directly, the Jordan daily Falastin, wrote on February 19, 1949: "The Arab States which had encouraged the Palestine Arabs to leave their homes temporarily in order to be out of the way of the Arab invasion armies, have failed to keep their promises to help these refugees".

    As late as October 12, 1963, the Cairo daily Akhbar el Yom, recalled: "l5 May 1948 arrived. - on that very day the Mufti of Jerusalem ' appealed to the Arabs of Palestine to leave the country, because the Arab armies were about to enter and fight in their stead…

    Efforts of the Jewish authorities to prevent the flight are attested to by a British police report to Jerusalem Headquarters on 26 April 1948: "Every effort is being made by the Jews to persuade the Arab population to stay and carry on with their normal lives .... of

    In Haifa, on 27 April, the Arab National Committee refused to sign a truce reporting in a memorandum to the Arab League Governments: "when the delegation entered the conference room it proudly refused to sign the truce and asked that the evacuation of the Arab population and their transfer to neighboring Arab countries be facilitated ... The military and civil authorities and the Jewish representatives expressed their profound regret. The
    mayor of Haifa (Mr. Shabtai Levi) adjourned the meeting with a passionate appeal to the Arab population to reconsider its decision


    HOW MANY REFUGEES?

    The estimate of refugees involved have varied from half a million to 1,300,000, depending on who compiled the statistics. Precise figures have never been ascertainable, since attempts at a census or survey have always been blocked b the Arab Governments.

    From the outset, UNRWA have proved unable to distinguish between genuine displaced refugees and those who wished to benefit from relief operations. For this there was no shortage- of candidates-local unemployed, poverty stricken indigenous population and nomadic Bedouin. According to the UNRWA Review series (September 1062) 'Relief agencies were confronted; with the problem of false and duplicate registrations from the very inception of
    their, operations".

    In June 1966, giving the figure as 1,317,749, UNRWA emphasized "the above statistics are based on the Agency's registration records do not necessarily reflect the actual refugee population owing to factors such as the high rate of unreported deaths and undetected false registration".

    The statistical discrepancy is further pointed up by UNRWA which estimated that the proportion of ineligible drawing rations may be as high as one-third to one-half in some host countries (89th Hearing Foreign Assistance Act of 1965, page 192).

    In 1949 the Economic Survey Mission set up by the Conciliation Commission of the UN put the figure at 726,000. Other estimates were 500,000 and 600,000.

    Dr. Walter Pinner, of Birmingham, in his new book "The Legend of the Arab Refugees" shows that refugees, according to the official UN definition, currently number no more than 50,000 in Lebanon, 75,000 in Samaria, Judea and Transjordan, 125,000 in Gaza and 2,000 in Syria. The difference between these figures- and UNRWA statistics is explained by 484,000 self-appointed refugees, 15,000 villagers from the vicinity of the now defunct
    Israel-Jordan Armistice Lines, 117,000 unrecorded deaths, 109,000 ex-refugees resettled in 1948, 225,000 ex-refugees who have become self-supporting since 1948.

    ROLE OF UNRWA

    The inflation of refugee figures was obviously to the benefit of the Arab Governments. Apart 'from exploitation for political and propaganda purposes, refugees have also provided 7 a source of considerable revenue: UNRWA's annual budget exceeds $35 million and to date over $530 million of UN money has been spent on relief.

    In the early stages some attempts were made by UNRWA to organize permanent settlement of refugees. In 1950 they started, moving refugees from Gaza to Libya where 150,000 could have been absorbed, but this was blocked by the Egyptian Government. In 1951 the Egyptians agreed with UNRWA to move 70,000 refugees from Gaza for resettlement in Sinai, but they withdrew from the agreement. In 1952-54, UNRWA negotiated with the Syrian Government,
    settlement possibilities for 85,000 (to be paid for by international funds) but in the final stages the Syrians refused to cooperate.

    In 1955 UNRWA reported that owing to obstruction and lack of cooperation by the Arab Governments, its rehabilitation fund of $200 million, set aside in 1952 to provide homes and jobs, was still intact. The 1959 plan of Dag Hammarskjold (and that of President Eisenhower which was based on it) were also rejected by the Arabs, although these envisaged using the refugees as valuable human resources in the development of the area.

    For two decades now UNRWA has functioned, primarily as a relief agency with some attempts at rehabilitation in the form of vocational training. It has never become a tool for resettlement or for contributing to any radical solution of the problem.
     
  8. HBendor

    HBendor New Member

    Joined:
    Oct 24, 2009
    Messages:
    12,043
    Likes Received:
    60
    Trophy Points:
    0
    ADDENDA

    1967 REFUGEES

    The war of June 1967 precipitated a further exodus including that -of refugees.

    From the West Bank of the Suez Canal the Egyptian Government chose to evacuate 350,600 Egyptian civilians. The Syrians, who retreated with the Syrian Army from the Golan Heights, were mainly soldiers and their families who had been settled there.

    Those who can justifiably be called refugees, fled from the West Bank although the major exodus did not take place during the three days of fighting but in the following months.

    The reasons for the flight were many and varied. The majority of those who crossed the Jordan came from the refugee camps and no doubt felt that they could depend on continuing UNRWA aid on the other side whereas they would lose it if they remained-a fear which proved groundless in fact.

    Some who fled wished to remain under Jordanian rule and to live in an Arab country. They were joined by former Jordanian soldiers, government officials, civil servants and those who held jobs in firms with headquarters in Amman. A basic factor was certainly economic: thousand of West Bank citizens (including many refugees) depends on monthly remittances from relatives living and working in Kuwait and other Arab Countries amounting to over
    $50 million per year. In view of the Arab boycott, transfers could not
    be effected to Israel.

    This movement of population from the West to the East Bank was no new phenomenon, although vastly accelerated by the war. The latest census shows that one third of the West Bank families and one quarter of those in Gaza, have children living outside the country, mostly in Kuwait and Transjordan.

    In this context it is perhaps possible to understand why only 14,000 refugees have re-crossed to the West Bank although 21,00 applications (70% of those submitted) for return have been approved by the Israel Government. At present a policy is in operation which permits their return on compassionate grounds or on the basis of family reunions

    ADMINISTRATION IN NEW AREAS

    The pre-June situation on the West Bank differed radically from that in Gaza. The refugees on the West Bank had been given Jordanian citizenship (the only Arab Government to do this), many had received vocational training in UNRWA schools and most had found work in the towns. Only one-third remained in camps and even in these cases, many received remittances from members of their families abroad.

    In Gaza, half the refugees remained in camps. Refused Egyptian citizenship and faced with a chronic unemployment situation, many found the only regular source of income as members of the Palestine Liberation Army.

    At the end of the June war efforts were made to "normalize" the life of the refugees and displaced "non-refugees". UNRWA stores were reopened and their feeding programs taken over by the Israeli authorities, Medical supplies, clothing, tents and blankets were issued and are being issued, at a cost of about IL9 million per year. 1,200 housing units are under construction by the Israel Government. IL1,000,000 has been donated to UNRWA's
    emergency fund and further allocations are being decided upon, for its
    vocational training program.

    The long-term integration of refugees presents a more fundamental problem. As far as the West Bank in concerned it is felt that no special settlement projects are necessary as all breadwinners are fully or partly employed (the unemployment level is at the pre-war figure of 8%.of the labor force). Some IL 25 million has been allocated to projects such as road building, soil reclamation, afforestation, creating jobs and intensifying the
    general economic activity which, in turn, will help facilitate the complete absorption of the refugee problem.

    The situation in Gaza is different and more difficult. The Gaza Strip is incapable of sustaining a population of its present size on the basis of an agricultural economy. To move the refugees elsewhere-outside of Israel's pre-war territory involves a host of political and social problems. According to the Israel authorities it may be that the establishment of appropriate industries will provide the eventual solution.

    Under Jordanian rule, industrial development had been concentrated on the East Bank of the Jordan, while the West Bank was relegated to agriculture. Soon after the war, West Bank farmers were permitted to cross the river to sell their produce in their traditional markets in Amman and the East Bank. By the summer of 1968 the value of these exports is expected to reach $17 million. All citizens of the West Bank refugees and others-are
    permitted to travel freely to Amman, whether to visit relatives or carry on business. Since June, 100,000 have made the two-way trip. The same is true for the residents of Gaza who are now free to travel to the East Bank, the West Bank or Israel itself both to visit family and to seek employment. Under the Egyptian occupation, travel outside the Strip was not permitted.

    THE FUTURE

    Any discussion of the ultimate solution of the refugee problem must take into account the exchange of population that has already taken place. Although the plight of the Arab refugees has been a major international issue for decades, little has been heard of the more than half a million Jewish refugees from Arab countries.

    In 1948, 1956 and 1967, in the wake of the armed conflicts with Israel, the Jewish citizens in all Arab countries were subjected to persecution and physical violence. About 850,000 Jews who fled the terror, arrived in Israel in a state of utter destitution, stripped of all personal possessions, to be settled without the aid of any international body.

    There has as yet been no suggestion that the funds they were compelled to leave should be returned to them, although Israel had released all the bank accounts of Arabs who left Palestine. These were paid abroad in foreign currency.

    Taking this into account, there is no rational reason why the refugee problem should continue to be intractable. All the necessary prerequisites are there, or can be made available -only the determination is missing. it would seem obvious that an ultimate solution can only be evolved within the context of peace in the area, for then - and only then - can there be a development of political relations, regional co-operation and the utilization
    of natural resources, essential for any permanent solution.

    That Israel will readmit all the refugees of the past twenty years is beyond the realm of credibility, in view of the security situation. As the New York Times wrote on May 14th, 1967:

    "No nation, regardless of past rights and wrongs, could contemplate taking in a fifth column of such a size. And fifth column it would be - people nurtured, for 10 years (now twenty) in hatred of Israel and totally dedicated to its destruction. The readmission of the refugees would be equivalent to the admission to the U.S. of nearly 71,000,000 sworn enemies of the nation."


    As a constructive measure Israel has emphasized its willingness to take part in talks with the Arab States and those nations who contribute to refugee relief, to discuss a practical solution. They have proposed that a five-year Plan be initiated for the rehabilitation of the refugees and their absorption into the regional economy. Israel would contribute towards a fund which would provide the means for housing, vocational training
    resettlement, economic integration and compensation for abandoned property. Such consultations and the implementation of the five-year Plan for refugees could be the first stage in negotiations for a final peace settlement in the Middle East.

    ISRAEL AND THE ARAB REFUGEES
    SOME ACTUAL QUOTATIONS

    It will be unjust if we do not take account of this aspiration of the Jews to a state of their own and if we deny to the Jews the right to realize this aspiration. The denial of this right to the Jewish people cannot be justified, especially if we take into account everything that the Jewish people underwent during the Second World War. (Andrei Gromiko) Soviet Delegate to the UN General Assembly 1947

    Every effort is being made by the Jews to persuade the Arab population to stay and carry on with their normal lives. BRITISH POLICE REPORT TO JERUSALEM HEADQUARTERS 26th April 1948.

    When the Arab delegation entered the conference room, it proudly refused to sign the truce and asked that the evacuation of the Arab population and their transfer to neighboring Arab countries be facilitated. The Jewish Representatives expressed their profound regret. The Mayor of Haifa adjourned the meeting with a passionate appeal to the Arab Population to reconsider its decision ....
    MEMORANDUM BY THE ARAB NATIONAL COMMITTEE TO THE ARAB LEAGUE GOVERNMENTS ON THEIR REFUSAL TO SIGN A TRUCE. 27th April 1948.

    The Arabs intend to conduct a war of extermination and momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades. AZZAM PASHA, (Secretary General of the Arab League. 14th May 1948)

    The Arab states which had encouraged the Palestine Arabs to leave their homes temporarily in order to be out of the way of the Arab invasion armies, have failed to keep their promise to help these refugees.
    JORDAN DAILY NEWSPAPER "FALASTIN". 19th February 1949

    May 15th 1948 arrived; on that very day the Mufti of Jerusalem appealed to the Arabs of Palestine to leave the country because the Arab armies were about to enter and fight in their stead.
    CAIRO DAILY NEWSPAPER AKHBAR EL-YOM. 12th October 1963

    Every people enjoy the right to establish an independent national state of its own . . . It is on this basis that we formulated our attitude to Israel as a state. (ALEXEI KOSYGIN Soviet Prime Minister. June 1967)
     
  9. Margot2

    Margot2 Banned

    Joined:
    Sep 9, 2013
    Messages:
    73,644
    Likes Received:
    13,766
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Funny that they were still living in Yemen, Libya, Iran and Iraq in 1973.
     
  10. notme

    notme Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Nov 16, 2013
    Messages:
    42,019
    Likes Received:
    5,395
    Trophy Points:
    113
    The only problem for the Jews is that they demand that Arabs help out to ethnic cleanse their Palestinians, and those Arabs rightfully refuse that and demand that those Palestinians return to their houses and that Jews give back what they thieved. While the Jews themselves left their homeland to go thieve around in Israel, Golan, West Bank and Jerusalem.


    The Jews established that the amount of people who fled because of this is exceptionally small, while the bulk of the Palestinians who left was due to widespread Jewish terror. And Israel decorated those terrorist and gave them nice positions while legally banning Palestinians from going back to their house because they aint part of the Jew race. And than the apartheid state of the Jew thieved all the properties of the people who they banned from returning home.

    Yup. But the Jews never asked the Palestinians who lived there about it. Instead the Jew went massacring and ethnic cleansing them to build their apartheid state on war crimes. And no Jew got such a right. With that they agreed to be persecuted out of other properties they squat in.
     
  11. klipkap

    klipkap Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Nov 7, 2006
    Messages:
    5,448
    Likes Received:
    74
    Trophy Points:
    48
    Interesting, Fallen. Nothing like what those references were meant to show. As Erskine Childers advised in 1961 - "Always check Zionist claims as to the facts".

    It is interesting to note how almost invariably the Zionist apologists describe the departure of Jews from Arab countries as "expulsion". Take the case of the Jews of Algeria. Members such as mikejones and MGB Roadster make out that they were expelled as some sort of equivalence to what happened to the Palestinians in 1948. But this turns out to be as hollow as a soap bubble when one bothers to examine the REAL facts:

    1) Most of the Palestinians had been ethnically cleansed from Israel by mid-1948. In Algeria the big exodus only occurred in 1961.
    2) During the 1961 exodus, there was nothing special about the Jewish departure, just as in the 1954 hostilities. They were just a sector of the "pied noirs"; they were French. And in 1962 they formed part of the French exodus, and they went, not dominantly to Israel, but to France. Michael Laskier, the expert on Algerian Jews, writes: "It was agreed that in light of the deteriorating conditions of the North African Jewish populations, especially in Algeria where a bloody civil war against French rule victimized the Jews as it did the Muslims and European settlers ...."
    3) Remember that before that, Algerian Muslims had protected the Jews during the WW2 Vichy regime. Not exactly what the "Jews were expelled" protagonists want to hear .... so, of course, they never mention it. It is called "cherry picking", a very low form of debate.
    4) All of the above is confirmed 100% by Heim F. Giuzeli in his "The Jewish Community of Oran, Algeria"

    But it is Sarah Abrevaya Stein, in her "Algeria’s Jewish Past-Present" - Sep 11 2014, who most clinically refutes the "Palestinian refugees from Israel equate to Jewish refugees from Arab lands" hasbara, especially regarding Algeria, when she writes:

    "As the Algerian war unfolded, Israel encouraged Algerian Jews in the belief that their true home was Israel. In this use of history Israel largely failed, as the vast majority of Jews left Algeria for France, a choice some in Israel received as betrayal. This history renders it all the more ironic that the Algerian Jewish diaspora is held accountable for Israel’s excesses [i.e. that it justifies the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians]. And yet the leitmotif endures: in Algeria, as elsewhere, the North African Jewish past is buffeted by the opposing tides of local, national, and global politics, all of which push and pull this history to their own symbolic ends."

    So Algeria was a big FAIL in mikejones and MGB Roadster's 'symbolic' attempt to equate the fate of the Algerian Jews with that of the Palestinians.

    Thank you for that synthesis
     
  12. Margot2

    Margot2 Banned

    Joined:
    Sep 9, 2013
    Messages:
    73,644
    Likes Received:
    13,766
    Trophy Points:
    113
    The Jews were damaged by horrible treatment in Europe even before Hitler... They sought sanctuary in Palestine and mistreated the people who already lived there. The abused became the abuser..

    As originally published in
    The Atlantic Monthly
    July 1920

    Zionist Aspirations in Palestine

    by Anstruther Mackay

    http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/unbound/bookauth/zionism/mackay.htm

    You should be ashamed.
     
  13. RiaRaeb

    RiaRaeb Well-Known Member Past Donor

    Joined:
    Feb 18, 2014
    Messages:
    10,698
    Likes Received:
    2,469
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Correct how dare Zionist's create a Jewish State ignoring the rights of the people living there, and as usual an attack on the poster not the post.
     
  14. Margot2

    Margot2 Banned

    Joined:
    Sep 9, 2013
    Messages:
    73,644
    Likes Received:
    13,766
    Trophy Points:
    113
    1920

    http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/unbound/bookauth/zionism/mackay.htm

    But the Syrian province of Palestine, about one hundred and fifty miles long and fifty miles broad, largely mountainous and sterile, contains at present a population of more than 650,000, divided as follows: Mohammedan Arabs, 515,000; Jews, 63,000; Christian Arabs, 62,000; nomadic Bedouins, 50,000; unclassified, 5000.

    Of these the Mohammedans and Christians are to a man bitterly opposed to any Zionist claims, whether made by would-be rulers or by settlers. It may not be generally known, but a goodly number of the Jewish dwellers in the land are not anxious to see a large immigration into the country.

    This is partly due to the fear that the result of such immigration would be an overcrowding of the industrial and agricultural market; but a number of the more respectable older settlers have been disgusted by the recent arrivals in Palestine of their coreligionists, unhappy individuals from Russia and Roumania brought in under the auspices of the Zionist Commission from the cities of Southeastern Europe, and neither able nor willing to work at agriculture or fruit-farming.
     
  15. Pisa

    Pisa Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Mar 22, 2016
    Messages:
    4,248
    Likes Received:
    1,935
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Female
    Your interpretation of Stein's words is wrong. She's talking about attacks on the French Jews in 2014, during the war in Gaza.

    Oh, and you completely forgot the pogrom of Constantine and anti-Jewish riots in other parts of Algeria in 1934.
     
  16. Pisa

    Pisa Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Mar 22, 2016
    Messages:
    4,248
    Likes Received:
    1,935
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Female
    And I have to believe what the author of this article wrote because...?

    Oh, I know. Must be because his prediction of a Bolshevik Jewish state in Palestine proved to be...err...wrong.
     
  17. klipkap

    klipkap Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Nov 7, 2006
    Messages:
    5,448
    Likes Received:
    74
    Trophy Points:
    48
    Irrelevant. In 1962 they left along with the Christians to go to France. They were not thrown out by the Arabs, but evacuated because of Algerian-France history. So we have one very firm case where their departure was nothing like that of the Palestinians. And THAT disproves the Jewish exodus = Palestinian exodus thesis of this thread.
    Irrelevant to forced exodus comparison to Palestinians.
    Oh, and you completely forgot the pogrom of Constantine and anti-Jewish riots in other parts of Algeria in 1934.[/QUOTE]

    It is now time to move onto Morocco, and to show how the exodus of the Moroccan Jews was equally utterly unlike the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians?
    Syria?
    Tunisia?
     
  18. klipkap

    klipkap Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Nov 7, 2006
    Messages:
    5,448
    Likes Received:
    74
    Trophy Points:
    48
    Any real verifiable evidence for that statement of faith.
    I am sincerely interested in assembling scholarly articles on the matter.
     
  19. AboveAlpha

    AboveAlpha Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jun 20, 2013
    Messages:
    30,284
    Likes Received:
    612
    Trophy Points:
    83
    Good luck with that.

    There are simply too many people taking sides on this issue and it makes it difficult to determine the reality.

    Idiots.

    AA
     
  20. klipkap

    klipkap Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Nov 7, 2006
    Messages:
    5,448
    Likes Received:
    74
    Trophy Points:
    48
    Was that a serious question, and was he just making 'innocent' fun of the Mizrahi dedication to the new Israeli state? Oh ... wait ... perhaps he means that they had no right to end their diaspora.
     
  21. HBendor

    HBendor New Member

    Joined:
    Oct 24, 2009
    Messages:
    12,043
    Likes Received:
    60
    Trophy Points:
    0
    Chew on this one as an appetizer before the main course...

    JEWISH REFUGEES FROM ARAB COUNTRIES
    From the times of the Assyrian and Babylonian exiles in the eight-century BCE until the present day Jews have lived continuously in the Mediterranean countries. Since the rise of Islam in the seventh century BCE, however, the Jews in those countries conquered by the Moslem armies have been subject to the perpetual discrimination and persecution. The period of Moslem-Arab rule in Spain, during which the Jews enjoyed a wide range of civil rights and were allowed to contribute to the national culture in various areas (711-1146), were the exception that proved the rule. In most countries and during most periods the Jews were not considered equal citizens and were forced to live in ghettoes, with the choice of either conversion or payment of the "jiziya" - a degrading tax of protection.
    From the beginning of Moslem rule, laws and regulations were passed against minorities, or "Dhimmi". These laws, collected apparently from the beginning of the eighth century BCE in the "Covenant of Omar", were applied to the Jewish communities in various periods according to the degree of ill will of the local rulers. The various formulations of this covenant vary in extremity, but all of them single out the Jewish minority in the Moslem world as inferior and lacking basic rights. According to these laws and regulations the Jews were forbidden to build new synagogues and their houses had to be lower than those of their Moslem neighbors. They were forbidden to carry arms for self-defense or ride horses or mules - only donkeys, but without saddles. They were obligated to dress in a less elegant fashion than the Moslems. They had to honor every strange Moslem by rising in his presence and to care for the needs of every Moslem wayfarer. Jews were not allowed to do governmental work or hold any position which would involve supervision of Moslems. Jewish property, after the death of the owner, was not passed on to the natural heirs but confiscated by the state. These strictures were sometimes considerably tightened. The authorities would ignore violent Moslem mob attacks against local Jews, and there were instances of government-sponsored pogroms as well.
    The condition of the Jewish communities worsened as a result of the rise of Arab nationalism after World War II, and a peak of persecution came with the outbreak of the War of Independence in Israel, when the Jews became hostages of the Arab leaders fighting the infant Jewish state. During 1947 and 1948 persecution intensified in Yemen, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and other Arab states: in some communities (Aleppo, Syria, in December 1947; Cairo, Alexandria and Port-Said Egypt, in June 1948) pogroms were organized against the Jews. Thousands of Egyptian Jews were arrested put in concentration camps and most were deprived of Egyptian citizenship. Hundreds of Libyan Jews were arrested and all their property was confiscated. Violent riots broke out in Iraq and Jewish communal institutions were closed; the extensive Jewish property, both communal and private, was nationalized. The situation was similar in Syria and in several other Arab countries. In a mass attack on the Moroccan Jewish community in June 1948 over forty were killed. In December 1947 dozens of Yemenite Jews were killed in violent riots that lasted three continuous days. Most Jews of these countries had no choice but to abandon all their property and flee for their lives.
    It was in those years that the great Aliyah of Jews from Arab countries began to organize itself. Some 650,000 Jewish refugees who fled from a hostile Arab world found shelter in the State of Israel, and some 200,000 in Europe and North and South America. Of the 300,000 Jews who lived in Morocco in 1948 less than 30,000 remain today; in Tunisia a few thousands out of 20,000, and in Algeria 900 out of 150,000 Jews. In Libya only a few remained from a community of 40,000; in Egypt some seven elderly families out of a population of 95,000 in 1948. An estimated 4,000 Jews live in Syria today, of a community that numbered 50,000; in Iraq 300 of a population of 130,000, and in Yemen practically no Jews remained of the 75,000 who lived there before the establishment of the State. In 1945 some 900,000 Jews lived in Arab countries, many in communities over two hundred years old - virtually the oldest Jewish communities in the world. The Jews of Egypt, North Africa, and Yemen had been there for at least 2,500 years - in Babylon and Egypt since the destruction of the First Temple and in North Africa possibly from the days of the First Temple. The Jews had lived in all those countries for at least one thousand years before the Arabs and the sword of Islam reached them. While there is an estimate for the value of the property the Arab refugees left in Israel, there is no such authoritative assessment of the property left behind by Jewish refugees from Arab countries, whose value is undoubtedly much higher - some estimate between 5 to 7 Billion dollars today.
    Jewish refugees from Arab countries account for forty five percent of the Jewish population of Israel today. Despite the difficulties the State of Israel faced during its initial years, they enjoyed a secure refuge, social absorption, and economic rehabilitation. They received no financial support from the international community; their absorption was financed entirely by the Israeli taxpayer and the Jews of the Diaspora. Unlike the many Arab refugees who fled the War of Independence in 1948, the Jewish refugees from Arab countries were never exploited politically, and for many years [and probably for this reason] the international community did not even recognize the existence of this problem. This changed somewhat after the Six-Day War. The 1967 UN Security Council Resolution 242, adopted as a basis for the solution of the Middle East conflict, includes the call for "a just settlement of the refugee problem." This general designation, "the refugee problem," and not "the problem of the Arab refugees” as the Arabs had requested, were considered recognition of the existence of Jewish refugees from Arab countries as well. Article 4 of the 5 October 1977, US-Israel agreement calls for a discussion of the problem of the Arab refugees and the Jewish refugees. With the announcement of this agreement President Carter, at a 27 October 1977 news conference, acknowledged the Palestinians' rights as well as the existence of Jewish refugees and their rights
    This recognition of the rights of Jewish refugees from Arab countries obligated the Arab leaders to alter their anti-Israel propaganda policy in this area. Formerly, the demand to return the refugees to the homes from which they had been expelled" was frequently stressed.
    After the adoption of Resolution 242 Arab leaders began instead to spotlight the "rights of the Palestinian people" or the "legitimate rights of the Palestinian people" as a political claim. Since then the Arab demand to change the text of the resolution to include a reference to those rights instead of to "the refugee problem" has continued. Israel has more than once announced her recognition of the necessity for a resolution to the problem of both Jewish and Arab refugees. Also has expressed her willingness to help achieve a resolution if the compensation claim for Jewish Property abandoned in the Arab countries would be raised at the negotiating table.
    Bibliography: -
    Martin Gilbert (The Jews of the Arab Lands)
    Terrence Prittie & Bernard Dineen (The double exodus)
     
  22. HBendor

    HBendor New Member

    Joined:
    Oct 24, 2009
    Messages:
    12,043
    Likes Received:
    60
    Trophy Points:
    0
    My take on the Jewish catastrophe (Jews of the Arab countries)...

    JEWISH REFUGEES FROM ARAB COUNTRIES

    Another Refugee problem was created when the Jews of the Arab Countries where thrown out of their respective Arab country and residence… This is not an isolated case; this is the destruction of an heritage of a whole community that lived in the Arab Countries long before the upsurge of Islam in the Seventh Century CE… These Jews of the Arab Countries were there long before Mohammed and his hordes arrived and upset the serenity of the original inhabitants of countries considered by them as "infidels".

    The fact that Jews were thrown out of the Arab Countries with only their shirts on their backs and their Bank Account, property and wealth confiscated is reminiscent of the Nazi era where Jews were stripped of their belongings for the ONLY reason of being Jews!

    The Jews of the Arab Countries are entitled to be compensated exactly like the Arabs of Palestine...
    This should be considered an exchange of Population i.e. Germany Vs Poland, Greece Vs Turkey and India Vs Pakistan…
    HBendor
     
  23. HBendor

    HBendor New Member

    Joined:
    Oct 24, 2009
    Messages:
    12,043
    Likes Received:
    60
    Trophy Points:
    0
    JEWS OF THE Arab Countries

    The Forgotten Catastrophe: 951,000 Jews Expelled From Arab Countries
    A ZOA Special Report
    May 15, 1998

    Introduction

    Arab propagandists are commemorating May 15, 1999, as the 51st anniversary of what they call "the Palestinian catastrophe," the emigration of several hundred thousand Palestinian Arabs from newborn Israel during the Arab-Israeli war of 1948. The moral responsibility for the Arab emigration rests entirely with the Arab regimes, whose invasion and attempted annihilation of the Jewish State resulted in the Palestinian Arab emigration. Had there been no Arab invasion, there would have been no Palestinian Arab emigration.

    Meanwhile, most of the world is ignoring the real catastrophe of that era: the brutal expulsion of some 951,000 Jews from Arab countries, and the seizure, by the Arab governments, of over $100-billion worth of Jewish property and assets.

    Algeria

    During the war for Algerian independence from France in the 1950s and early 1960s, Algerian nationalists carried out violent attacks on Algerian Jews. After the French left, the Algerian authorities issued a variety of anti-Jewish decrees, including the imposition of heavy taxes on the Jewish community. Nearly all of Algeria's 140,000 Jews fled the country. All but one of Algeria's synagogues were seized and turned into mosques.

    Egypt

    The ancient Jewish community of Egypt numbered over 100,000 by the 1940s. Riots by Egyptian nationalists in 1945 claimed many Jewish lives, and synagogues and Jewish buildings were burned down. A new wave of discrimination and violence was unleashed in 1948. Over 250 Jews were killed or injured, Jewish shops were looted, and Jewish assets were frozen. Some 25,000 Jews left Egypt by 1950. Gamal Abdel Nasser, who seized power in 1954, arrested thousands of Jews and confiscated their property. Emigration reduced Egyptian Jewry to just 8,000 by 1957, and 300 or less today.

    Iraq

    The Jews of Iraq, with roots dating back to ancient Babylonia, numbered about 150,000 in 1947. When Israel was established, Jewish emigration was forbidden, and hundreds of Jews were jailed. Those convicted of "Zionism" --a criminal offense-- were sentenced to internal exile or fines of up to $40,000 each. Tens of thousands of Jews slipped out of the country. Then, in 1950, the government legalized emigration and pressured the Jews to leave; by 1952, only 6,000 remained. Jewish emigrants were permitted to take with them only $140 per adult; all of their remaining assets and property were confiscated by the Iraqi government. There are 400 or less Jews in Iraq today.

    Libya

    The 2,000 year-old Jewish community of Libya, which numbered almost 40,000 by the 1940s, was the target of mass anti-Jewish violence in November 1945. In Tripoli alone, 120 Jews were massacred, over 500 wounded, 2,000 were made homeless, and synagogues were torched. There were more pogroms in January 1946, with 75 Jews massacred in Zanzur, and more than 100 murdered in other towns. By the early 1950s, more than 35,000 Libyan Jews had emigrated. There are less than 100 today

    Morocco

    In 1948, there were about 300,000 Jews living in Morocco, a community with ancient roots going back to the time of the destruction of the First Temple (586 BCE). In June 1948, progromists massacred 39 Jews in the town of Djerada and 4 more in Oujda. Over 30,000 Jews fled Morocco in terror. During the 1950s, there was violence against Jews in Oujda, Rabat, and Casablanca. Most of Moroccan Jewry emigrated during the years to follow.

    Syria

    There were 40,000 Jews in Syria in 1948, a community dating back to biblical times. Anti-Jewish pogroms erupted in the Syrian town of Aleppo in 1947. All of the local synagogues were destroyed, and 6,000 of the town's 10,000 Jews fled in terror. The government then enacted legislation to freeze Jewish bank accounts and confiscate Jewish property. By the 1950s, just 4,000 Jews remained in Syria, subjected to harsh decrees; they were banned from emigrating, selling their property, or working in government offices, and were compelled to carry special cards identifying them as Jews.
     
  24. HBendor

    HBendor New Member

    Joined:
    Oct 24, 2009
    Messages:
    12,043
    Likes Received:
    60
    Trophy Points:
    0
    PERSECUTION AND EXPULSION OF JEWS FROM ARAB LANDS

    On September 22, 1967 the World Islamic Congress convened in Amman [Jordan].
    One of the Resolutions adopted by this gathering speaks, among other things, of “the Moslems’ good treatment and protection (of Jews) over the centuries.”
    Looking back at these centuries admittedly one will find that, in some Moslem countries,
    some of the time, there were tolerably good relations between the Jews and the Moslem authorities. But this was not the general picture. For hundreds of years, the fact, the Jews
    living in Arab countries have been treated as second-class citizens, subject to various forms of discrimination Their lives and property were assured to them only on the payment of a poll-tax (Jizyah), and in the less advanced Arab countries such as Yemen their status was one of marked inferiority. A Jew was not permitted to walk on the pavement or ride a horse. In court, his evidence was not accepted against that of a Moslem. Jewish orphans were compulsorily converted to Islam; anyone who helped such children to escape did so at the risk of his life.
    The emergence of Arab nationalism in the present century, side by side with the regeneration of Jewish nationalism and, subsequently, the rebirth of the State of Israel, produced new forms of intolerance and oppression. Through the denial of licenses and Government financing, and restrictions on travel, the Jews were gradually driven out of their trades and professions and were unable to find employment in other walks of life. In Iraq, for example, Government posts were closed to Jews; State-controlled enterprises, too, employed only Moslems. The Jews were issued no passports. In the secondary schools and universities, an unofficial <numerus clausus> operated <a g a i n s t> them; again, Government schools and universities admitted no Jews at all. There, as in other Moslem lands, the Jews became an ever-present target of administrative and social discrimination and, in times of political tension, of physical attack.
    Arab leaders have frequently emphasized, in recent decades, that their opposition was directed only against Zionism and not against Jews generally, but the anti-Jewish riots which erupted during periods of internal political unrest in these countries and the economic and social disabilities imposed on the Jews-as Jews-by the Arab Governments make a mockery of these pleas.
    The reconstitution of the State of Israel in its ancestral Jewish homeland in 1948 led to two developments: (1) in its wake came a worsening of the situation of the Jews in the Arab countries; and (2) it galvanized hundreds of thousands of these Jews into action to alleviate their lot. With their belief in their own human dignity suddenly restored and a new hope kindled in their breasts for a better kind of life, less than a million Jews who had been living in Arab lands some ever since the original expulsion of Jews from ancient Israel-left, with little more than the shirts on their backs, and came to start life all over again in Israel. Together with their children, these Jewish refugees (actually, they have long since ceased to be refugees, in name and in fact) today number nearly a million souls.
    In the years that followed, the situation of the thousands of Jews who remained in the Arab countries continued to be precarious, as they were virtually held hostage by the Arab Governments in their war against the State of Israel. Once again, these Jews were made to suffer for the failure of the Arab States' attempt to destroy Israel in May and June 1967: a new wave of murders, arbitrary arrests, torture and imprisonment, discriminatory legislation and sundry restrictions and acts of debasement swept the Moslem countries of the Middle East.
    I will take the liberty to post Jewish testimony, letters, official statements and other documentation&#8217;s of incarcerated, imprisoned, beaten, demeaned, debased, hanged and summarily PERSECUTED AND EX PULSED Jews to illustrate the latest chapter of a long and shameful story of supposedly Arab good record vis a vis the Jews of the Arab Lands..
     
  25. HBendor

    HBendor New Member

    Joined:
    Oct 24, 2009
    Messages:
    12,043
    Likes Received:
    60
    Trophy Points:
    0
    Jews of EGYPT:- IT BEGAN IN MAY 1967
    In Egypt, all Jews regardless of nationality, were required to register at the end of May 1967.
    Obviously, for Nasser-who had closed the Straits of Tiran to Israel shipping a few days earlier and was massing a formidable armored force on Israel's southern border-the war was on, and he wanted to be ready to swoop down on the country's Jewish population at a moment's notice.
    And, indeed, when full-scale fighting broke out on 5 June, the Egyptian Police struck: nearly all able-bodied Jewish men between 20 and 50 were arrested and incarcerated in crowded cells, under inhuman conditions.
    (From Newsletter published by American Jewish Committee, Institute of Human Relations, December 1967)

    TESTIMONY OF AN EGYPTIAN JEWISH REFUGEE
    The following is the testimony of a Jew, one of those expelled from Egypt, on the hardships that he suffered from the time of his arrest on 5 June 1967 until he left Egypt. (In this as in the testimonies that follow, full personal details have been withheld, to protect members of the family still residing in Egypt, Iraq and Syria, respectively.)
    Name: Saliman K.
    Age: 55
    Occupation: Owner of a cosmetics firm in Alexandria
    Present place of residence: BatYam, Israel
    On 5 June 1967, at 8 o'clock in the morning, about seven officers and police pounded on the door of my apartment and asked me to accompany them for "five minutes". As an experienced person, I already knew what it was all about, and I managed to take a sum of money with me.
    Together with other Jews, I was transported to the "Sharif" Police Station in Alexandria and 22 of us were placed in a small detention cell. Among us were boys aged 16-17, and there were also three old men of 80 and over. In the cell with us was also the Chief Rabbi of the Alexandria Jewish Community, Haham Nafusi. We stayed in that small cell about three days, without any sanitary arrangements and without food. At first they did not bring us even water, and when I applied to one of the prison officers about this, he answered very clearly: "It is better that you die like this than by gas.,,
    On the second day of detention, the condition of one of the old men became grave, because of the lack of water, and he actually appeared to be dying. Our shouts did not move the warders from their hard-heartedness. I therefore used the proven method of "bakshish". I took a ball-point pen apart and put a five-pound note into its tube. In a whisper I called to the warder who
    was standing guard alongside the cell door and I passed the tube to him through the hole of the lock. I whispered: "Water, water!" At first the man appeared to be at a loss and was perplexed; then he disappeared for a minute and returned with his mouth full of water; he placed the pen tube in his mouth and again, through the hole of the lock, spurted the water inside. On the other side, we held the fainting old man with his mouth to the hole and the water was poured into his throat.
    Only early on the third day of detention, after we had sent off a letter to the Police Commander in the Rabbi's name, in which he adjured him by Allah, did one of the warders appear and place a bucket of water in the middle of the cell. We drank from the bucket like horses. On the same day, we shouted, demanding food. Once, when I shouted, armed police burst into the cell. We pretended to be sleeping. They went from one to the other of us, demanding that he say something so as to identify the shouter by his voice. When they reached me, they recognized my voice, and I admitted that I had shouted. They immediately attacked me and wanted to carry out an act of sodomy on me, but the terrible screams of my cell companions frightened them off and they left me.

    Abu-Za'abal
    After three days of detention, I was put onto a truck together with 22 other Jews, and we were taken to Abu Za'abal Prison, near Cairo. Here there were 600 Jews, among them old men and young boys, and also among us were men suffering from diabetes and various heart ailments.
    In the prison we were placed in cells measuring 5 by 8 meters. Seventy men were put into one cell. Here the prison warders abused us incessantly. They would hit us on the back and on the soles of our feet. They enjoyed seeing us racked with pain. Each day they forced us to shout in chorus: "Long live Abdul Nasser!" "Down with the Anglo-American imperialists!", "Palestine for the Arabs!" Whoever did not shout with all his might was placed by the warders in front of the rest and they would beat him until blood flowed.
    They forced Rabbi Nafusi to climb up to the iron bars, to hang there and declare with the rest, "Long live Abdul Nasser!" If he did not shout with all his might, he was struck. After two days, he was released from the prison and returned to Alexandria.
    For 25 days I stayed in the prison until, as a national of a foreign State, I was given attention; I was then transferred from the prison, with 11 Jews of Greek and Spanish nationality, to a Russian ship anchored in Alexandria port. The ship brought us to Cyprus. From Nicosia I succeeded in contacting my wife and three children in Alexandria. I instructed them to apply to the Consulate of the State of which I am a citizen to handle their departure from Alexandria. After a fortnight, my wife and children left Egypt and came to me.

    Broken in Body and Spirit
    Afterwards I went with my family to Naples. While I was in Naples I used to visit the port from time to time to see whether, among those arriving from Egypt, there were relatives and friends of mine. The scenes that I witnessed in Naples were terrible. Each day Jewish refugees from Egypt arrived at the port and the same suffering and torture could be seen in their faces and on their bodies. Most of them had been imprisoned in the "Ezbekia" Police Station in Cairo. They arrived with shaven heads and broken limbs. Some were without teeth, on others there were signs of cigarette burns on their faces. A boy aged 16 arrived with all the fingers of his hands cut off!
    All the Jews expelled from Egypt were foreign nationals. Jews of Egyptian nationality were transferred at the beginning of the year to the El-Toura prison near Cairo. Since then, not one Jew has been released from that prison, and, according to what is told by the prisoners' relatives who reach Naples, those detained are suffering from nervous breakdowns; some of them tried to commit suicide, and others are known to have died in the prison.
    The unfortunate situation of these Jews who are left in Egypt is well known to me as a person who lived there. In the name of humanity, I declare that everything must be done to help these people and to assist them to get out of the hell in which they are now.
     

Share This Page