Unknown, unmentioned refugees. The Palestinians aren't the only refugees

[ManchesterFolk]

Most of the world is ignoring the real catastrophe of the past recent era: the brutal expulsion of some 867,000 Jews from Arab countries, and the seizure, by the Arab governments, of over $13-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 160,000 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 90,000 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 35,000 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.

Iraq
The Jews of Iraq, with roots dating back to ancient Babylonia, numbered about 190,000 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.

Libya
The 2,000 year-old Jewish community of Libya, which numbered almost 60,000 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 40,000 Libyan Jews had emigrated.

Morocco
In 1948, there were about 350,000 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, pogromists massacred 39 Jews in the town of Djerada and 4 more in Oujda. Over 50,000 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 17,000 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 7,000 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 5,000 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.



Following is the statistics on the number of Jews in the Arab countries in 1988 as reported by Israeli newspaper "Vesti" (in Russian) 1/4/99.

Algeria less than 100
Egypt less than 100
Iraq 60
Libya less than 100
Morocco 7,000
Syria 100

"This is hardly the place to describe how the Jews of the Arab States were driven out of the countries in which they lived for hundreds of years, then how they were shamefully deported to Israel after their property had been confiscated or taken over at the lowest possible price.

"It is plain that Israel will air this issue in the course of any serious negotiations that might be undertaken one day in regard to the rights on the Palestinians.

"Israel's claims are these: It may perhaps be the case that we Israelis were the cause of the expulsion of some Palestinians, whose number is estimated at 700,000, from their homes during the 1948 War, and afterwards took over their properties. Against this, since 1948, you Arabs have caused the expulsion of just as many Jews from the Arab States, most of whom settled in Israel after their properties had been taken over in one way or another. Actually, therefore, what happened was only a kind of "population and property exchange," and each party must bear the consequences. Israel is absorbing the Jews of Arab States; the Arab States, for their part, must settle the Palestinians in their own midst and solve their problems. There is no doubt that, at the first serious discussion of the Palestinian problem in an international forum, Israel will put these claims forward."

- Sabri Jiryis, a well known Palestinian Arab researcher in the Institute for Palestinian Studies in Beirut, published in Al-Nahar, Beirut, on May 15, 1975

Some of the communities in more depth:

Egypt:

Approximately 75,000 Jews lived in Egypt in 1948, a community whose origins date back to the Babylonian captivity some 2700 years prior. In the preceding decade, Muslim elements, believing that Hitler would be successful in completing the 'Final Solution' in Europe, carried out almost continuous pogroms against Jewish communities, killing and injuring thousands. The Egyptian Company Law of July 1947 introduced prohibitive quotas against employing Jews, precluded them from most areas of employment, and confiscated many Jewish-owned businesses, properties and other assets. Then, in the days after the passage of the Partition Plan, Muslims in Cairo and Alexandria went on a rampage, murdering, looting houses and burning synagogues. In one seven-day period in 1948, an eyewitness counted 150 Jewish bodies littering the streets.

During the War of Independence, Egyptian Jews were barred from travelling abroad. In August 1949, Egypt lifted the ban and 20,000 Jews fled the country, many going to Israel. Conditions for Jews improved somewhat under General Naguib, but when General Abdul Nasser rose to power in Egypt, he ordered mass arrests of Jews and confiscated huge quantities of Jewish property, personal and commercial. Nasser issued deportation orders to thousands of Jews, concurrently confiscating all their property and assets. Most of the deportees were limited to one suitcase apiece. In 1964, Nasser boldly declared, in an interview with a German publication, that Egypt still adhered to the Nazi cause: 'Our sympathy,' he said, 'was with the Germans.' With the outbreak of the 1967 Six-Day War, Jews were arrested en masse and sent to concentration camps, where they were tortured, denied water for days and forced to chant anti-Israel slogans. By 1970, Egypt's Jewish population numbered in the mere hundreds.

Algeria:

Like other Muslim nations, Algeria possesses a long history of anti-Semitism, legal and popular. The colonization of Algeria by the French in 1830, though, liberated the 2500-year-old Jewish community from much of the humiliation and persecution it had sustained under Islamic rule. But the rise of the Nazi Party in Germany augured a reversion to anti-Semitic activities. In 1934, twenty-five Jews were massacred in Constantine. During the subsequent trial by French authorities, evidence revealed the attack was organized by the city's leading Muslim authorities. When the French Vichy government took power in 1940, it immediately stripped Jews of their French citizenry, banned them from schools and declared them 'pariahs.' Only the Allied landing soon thereafter saved the Jews from mass deportation to European death camps. With the fall of the Vichy regime, more than 148,000 Jews enjoyed the full benefits and affluence of French society. A civil war erupted in Algeria, and as it intensified, thousands of Jews fled the country, mostly for France.

Algeria achieved independence in 1962, by which time more than 75,000 Jews had departed. State-sanctioned persecution began the following year with the passage of the 1963 Nationality Code, limiting citizenship to those residents whose father and paternal grandfather were Muslim. The new state confiscated or destroyed Jewish private, commercial and communal property and ordered most of the nation's synagogues converted into mosques. Following a flood of anti-Semitic violence in 1965, the majority of the remaining Jewish community of 65,000 departed. Today, the once vigorous Algerian Jewish community numbers a paltry 300.

Libya:

Today, no Jews are known to live in the north African nation of Libya. Like Egypt and Algeria, massive pogroms decimated the once-thriving Jewish communities in the 1940s. From 1941-1942, great waves of persecution washed over Libya. Jewish property in Benghazi was pillaged and 2,600 were sent into the desert to a forced labor camp, where 500 perished. On November 5, 1945, a horrendous bloodbath ensued in the Libyan capital of Tripoli. According to New York Times reporter Clifton Daniels: 'Babies were beaten to death with iron bars. Old men were hacked to pieces where they fell. Expectant mothers were disembowelled. Whole families were burned alive in their houses.' Several hundred Jews died in the attack.

After the approval of the Partition Plan, another 130 Jews were murdered in anti-Semitic rioting. The following year saw another Tripoli-like massacre. In 1948, Libya's Jewish population was 38,000; by 1951 only 8,000 remained. After the Six-Day War, another pogrom erupted, driving all but 400 from the country. On July 21, 1967 Libyan strongman Colonel Qadhafi nationalized all Jewish property, and soon thereafter, all remaining Jews left the country.

Syria:

The Syrian Jewish community in 1948 dated to the First Century destruction of Jerusalem, approximately 1900 year earlier. Under Islamic rule, Jews were routinely subject to cruel and inhumane treatment, including forced conversions, routine pogroms and severe commercial and personal restrictions. By early 1947, only 13,000 Jews lived in Syria; 20,000 had fled throughout the course of the previous decade, as Nazi zeal permeated the region and made their lives especially difficult. Immediately after Syria gained independence from France in 1945, vitriolic anti-Semitic propaganda was broadcast on television and radio, inciting the Arab masses to violence. In December 1947, one month after the Partition Plan's acceptance, a pogrom erupted in the Syrian town of Aleppo, torching numerous Jewish properties, including synagogues, schools, orphanages and businesses. Eyewitnesses to the violence noted Syrian firemen and police dispatched to the scene actively participated in the rioting.

A flurry of anti-Semitic legislation passed in 1948 restricted, among other things, Jewish travel outside of government-approved ghettos, selling private property, acquiring land or changing their place of residence. A decree in 1949 went a step further, seizing all Jewish bank accounts. Under threats of execution, long prison sentences and torture, 10,000 Jews were able to depart between 1948 and 1962. A report published in 1981 indicated Syrian Jews were subject to "the Mukhabarat, the [Syrian] secret police, [who] conduct a reign of terror and intimidation, including searches without warrant, detention without trial, torture and summary execution." Due mainly to US influence in the context of the Madrid peace process, all but about 800 of the Jewish community have fled, most settling in the United States. Syria has confiscated all Jewish property aside from those who remain.

Yemen:

The Yemenite Jewish community existed in what historian S.D. Goitein described as the "worst aspect" of the Arab mistreatment of the Jew. Jewish life in Yemen, up to the time of Israel's modern evacuation of the community, contained the harshest elements imaginable under dhimmitude status. Jews could not testify in court, and were regularly murdered, limited to employment in the most demeaning of positions and forced to relinquish their property on demand, to name a very few deprivations. An "age-old" custom of stoning Jews, permissible by Muslim law, was still regularly practiced up to the time the Jews fled Yemen. Conditions for the community were exacerbated by Israel's victory over Arab armies in 1948, making the swift extraction of the community a matter of rescue or extinction. Arab mobs swarmed through Tsan'a and other towns, burning, murdering, raping and looting in the city's Jewish quarters. The region's imam - or religious authority - permitted the Jewish community to leave Yemen, provided they forfeit all property to the state. Israel launched Operation Magic Carpet in 1949, and over the course of one year, successfully airlifted some 50,000 Yemenite Jews - almost the entire ancient community - to Israel.

Iraq:

The 135,000 strong Iraqi Jewish community in 1948 traced their origins to the pre-exilic Jewish community of Babylon, 2700 years previous. Anti-Semitic legislation in 1948, declared "Zionism" - a crime accorded to Jews automatically - an offence punishable by a seven-year jail term. Additional legislation barred Jews from government, medicine and education, denied merchants import licenses and closed Jewish banks. The Jewish community faced economic ruin. During Israel's War of Independence, immigration to Israel was declared a capital offense while public Law No. 1, passed in 1950, stripped Jews of their Iraqi nationality. In 1950, Israel launched Operation Ali Baba to extricate the destitute remnant. Iraq, intrigued at the prospect of inheriting large quantities of abandoned Jewish property, allowed the Jews to leave, reassuring emigrants they would receive fair compensation for property and other assets they were forced to abandon. The airlift spirited 123,000 Jews out of the country, with 110,000 choosing to remain in Israel. Despite it's promise, the Iraqi government announced on March 10, 1951 - the day after the deadline for exit registration - that emigrant's property, businesses and bank accounts were forfeit. That same year, Law No. 5 was expanded to include all Jewish holdings in Iraqi banks. By itself, this extension looted $200 million in Jewish assets. By January 1952, as Iraq again closed the doors to Jewish emigration, only 6,000 remained. All remaining Jewish communal property was confiscated in 1958. Today, only 200 Jews remain in Iraq, forced to reside in a Baghdad ghetto.

source: Middle East Digest - November/December 1999

[north_malaysian]

... and Jews are not the only refugees too..... but at least Israel welcomes them...

[Obi-Wan]

Morocco
In 1948, there were about 350,000 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, pogromists massacred 39 Jews in the town of Djerada and 4 more in Oujda. Over 50,000 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.

I can't check out all the infomation in the opening post. But this is what I have found out about Morocco on a previous occasion.

How long did it take for Jews to leave Morocco?
stats

Year Number
1948/49 18,000
1950 4,980
1951 7,770
1952 5,031
1953 2,996
1954 8,171
1955 24,994
1956 36,301
1957 8,578
1958 1,803
1959 3,325
1960 4,108
1961 11,476
1962 35,748
1963 36,874

Total 210,347

page 3

Israel’s Six-Day War in 1967 and Muslim solidarity with Arabs panicked many Moroccan Jews. By this time, the remaining Moroccan Jews had adequate resources to emigrate to Canada, Europe, Latin America and the US. They emigrated despite their inability to take most of their savings and assets with them.

There were 52 deaths in Oujda and Djerrada in June 1948. Regret was voiced by the Moroccan authorities. The Pacha of Oujda met with the family of every victim.

Jewish exodus from Morocco

During 1947 and 1948, France banned emigration to Israel. In mid-1948, the Israeli Hagana organized a secret emigration network through Algeria and Marseilles. After the reputed French-instigated June 1948 riots against Jews in Eastern Morocco, the Jewish Agency and the French Government agreed to create a transit camp on the Atlantic Coast.

[...] After 1951, a variety of Zionist and non-Zionist movements turned their attention to Moroccan Jews, providing assistance, Hebrew education and training that facilitated emigration. Kibbutzim, moshavim, a variety of Israeli political parties, Israeli governmental departments, the Jewish Agency, the Jewish scouts of France, and American Jewish organizations including the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, Ozar Hatorah, and the Lubavitch all established themselves in Morocco.

In the early 1950’s, Israel was very selective of its immigrants from Morocco, despite the interest of Moroccan Jewish leaders in encouraging emigration. The elderly and the mentally disturbed were left off the lists in favor of those who were healthy and in their working years.

[...]To pick up the pace, Zionist recruiters prevailed on the Marrakesh Jewish leaders to deliver the required number of emigrants. The Jewish leaders in Marrakesh called for the mass evacuation of Jews throughout the South, regardless of the actual economic, social and political conditions in their communities. While they believed that the residents of these communities should emigrate to Israel, they themselves waited until the 1970’s and 80’s to emigrate to France or Canada.

While most Zionist recruiters were inspired by the ideals of creating a Jewish homeland, some of them felt it was necessary to provoke communities into fleeing by creating a climate of fear and spreading rumors about anti-Semitic incidents. Rumors were spread about unconfirmed cases of rape, kidnapping and forced conversions of Jewish children. Such actions may have been inspired by Israeli President Ben Gurion, who called immigrants from Arab countries "human dust lacking language, education, roots, tradition or national dreams." (Quoted in T. Herzl, L’Etat des juifs, Paris, la Decouverte, 1990, p. 42.)

Most of those who left Morocco sound like emigrants rather than refugees. They were helped and encouraged out by Zionist organisations.

How much of the rest of the opening post is inaccurate?

[Obi-Wan]

My source seems to be down at the moment.

But google confirms it exists. google for rickgold link

And here is the google cache for the stats page:
stats

Hey there! Looks like you're enjoying the discussion, but you're not signed up for an account.

When you create an account, you can participate in the discussions and share your thoughts. You also get notifications, here and via email, whenever new posts are made. And you can like posts and make new friends.
Sign Up

[Obi-Wan]

Don't know what happened there...
The original links are working now!

I suppose it was some sort of update.

[therebbe]

Libya
The 2,000 year-old Jewish community of Libya, which numbered almost 60,000 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 40,000 Libyan Jews had emigrated.

That is pretty sad. I never knew Jews lived in Libya.

Most of those who left Morocco sound like emigrants rather than refugees. They were helped and encouraged out by Zionist organisations.

Why on earth would Moroccan Jews leave? I mean, everything is fine now right? The violence against Jews is long history, and the Jews who stayed are fine right????

Your source:
The May 16 attacks on the Jewish community sowed fear throughout Morocco. In September 2003, two Jewish men were killed in separate incidents in three days. Nothing like these incidents have occurred in Morocco for many years. While Government and Jewish leaders have done their best to calm the situation, some Moroccan Jews are quietly making plans to emigrate. Here are some links to articles on these incidents:
Slaying of Jewish merchant shocks Muslim Morocco's Small Jewish Community
Slaying of Jewish merchant shocks Muslim Morocco
Associated Press Worldstream

Islamists target Morocco's Jews
http://www.guardian.co.uk/alqaida/story/0,12469,1042072,00.html
The Guardian

Moroccan Jew killed, terror pattern doubted
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L1364600.htm
Alert Net (Reuters)

King reassures Moroccan Jews after two Jews are killed in kingdom
http://www.jta.org/page_view_story.asp?intarticleid=13197&intcategory id=2
Jewish Telegraph Agency


Second Moroccan Jew ''murdered'' within 48 hours
http://www.albawaba.com/headlines/TheNews.php3?action=story&sid=258404&lang=e&dir=Ne ws
Albawaba

Elderly Jewish Man Stabbed to Death in Northern Morocco
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/339744.html
Haaretz Daily

[lavikor201]

So much intolerance towards another people!!!! :rant:

[MGA]

Obi-Wan is right. Manchester, from where did you copy ans paste your inaccurate post?

[Obi-Wan]

therebbe,
your article
http://www.guardian.co.uk/alqaida/st...042072,00.html

Serge Berdugo, general secretary of Morocco's Jewish association, said: "These are all acts of terrorism aimed against us, and through us against all Morocco."

I think he says it better than I could.

And if we're digging up attacks, we can both play the game.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eden_Natan_Zada

Eden Natan-Zada (c. 1985 – August 4, 2005) was an AWOL Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldier who opened fire in a bus in the northern Israeli town of Shfar'am on August 4, 2005, killing two Christian and two Muslim Israeli Arab civilians and wounding twenty-two others. He was restrained, disarmed and cuffed when he tried to reload to prepare for another round of shooting [1]. A video released later shows him being beaten to death by the crowd [2][3] immediately after, while he was still on the bus. The shooting appeared to be in protest of the Israeli government's disengagement plan based on the orange ribbon attached to his pocket. (Orange is the color of anti-disengagement activists).

And Sharon made pretty much the same observation as the Moroccan I quoted above. The attack was an attack upon all Israelis.

http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3?id=26313

"This was a reprehensible act by a bloodthirsty Jewish terrorist who sought to attack innocent Israeli citizens. This terrorist event was a deliberate attempt to harm the fabric of relations among all Israeli citizens.

[lavikor201]

Nowhere in the post does it say the pogroms and massacres are state sponsered like in some other countries. Yet, just because the government of Morroco was not sponsering these acts of hate, I do not blame Jews for leaving an area that is hostile, and does not accept them.

[ManchesterFolk]

Nowhere in the post does it say the pogroms and massacres are state sponsered like in some other countries. Yet, just because the government of Morroco was not sponsering these acts of hate, I do not blame Jews for leaving an area that is hostile, and does not accept them.

Exactly. I was waiting for someone to point that out.

[Vishnu]

The 135,000 strong Iraqi Jewish community in 1948 traced their origins to the pre-exilic Jewish community of Babylon, 2700 years previous. Anti-Semitic legislation in 1948, declared "Zionism" - a crime accorded to Jews automatically - an offence punishable by a seven-year jail term. Additional legislation barred Jews from government, medicine and education, denied merchants import licenses and closed Jewish banks. The Jewish community faced economic ruin. During Israel's War of Independence, immigration to Israel was declared a capital offense while public Law No. 1, passed in 1950, stripped Jews of their Iraqi nationality. In 1950, Israel launched Operation Ali Baba to extricate the destitute remnant. Iraq, intrigued at the prospect of inheriting large quantities of abandoned Jewish property, allowed the Jews to leave, reassuring emigrants they would receive fair compensation for property and other assets they were forced to abandon. The airlift spirited 123,000 Jews out of the country, with 110,000 choosing to remain in Israel. Despite it's promise, the Iraqi government announced on March 10, 1951 - the day after the deadline for exit registration - that emigrant's property, businesses and bank accounts were forfeit. That same year, Law No. 5 was expanded to include all Jewish holdings in Iraqi banks. By itself, this extension looted $200 million in Jewish assets. By January 1952, as Iraq again closed the doors to Jewish emigration, only 6,000 remained. All remaining Jewish communal property was confiscated in 1958. Today, only 200 Jews remain in Iraq, forced to reside in a Baghdad ghetto.

There were 135,000 Jews in Iraq? Amd after these massacres only 200 remain.

[therebbe]

Amd after these massacres only 200 remain

Not only that, but they have no freedoms and are given little oppurtunity because of regulations on what jobs they can hold.

[Curaezipirid]

Alaikumassalam,

Truly not all refugees are Palestinian, that is a readily calculable fact, neither is any one group any more or less represented except that group of persons whom will accept their full individual account alone with God. Jews and Muslims and Christians whom are experiencing becoming refugees or exiles are mainly in this category. In that even to identify themselves as a refugee they tend to be those persons most able to conceptualise their individual responsibliy of Hajj to the land that sustains their Faith in Allah.

Consider this: in the dentention centres for refugees in Australia; within which there has been successful legal action taken against the Australian Goverment's security, for exposing children to what is evidenced as psychological abuse; it is that many of the refugees have been persons whose Faith is sustained within the long now sustained teaching tradition of John the Baptist. Surely these persons are categorised best as Jews, yet also Christian, and also Muslim, and that they are of a belief structure which could be enabled to impart Islam successfully to the indigenous population of Australia, is in part why they have been detained and have found it more difficult to be accepted by the Australian Government as refugees.

There is no point in identifying yourselves with the oppression of others of your own Religion, no person gains ever from the oppression of those with whom they Pray!

In God as is taught in Hebrew as well as in Arabic, we are taught that the most difficult of all sacrifices is to sacrifice our own suffering. Let it be to the dignity of all refugees whom have not cried out that they counted not upon being acquitted in reparations for their suffering.

Wasalam.

[therebbe]

which could be enabled to impart Islam successfully to the indigenous population of Australia, is in part why they have been detained and have found it more difficult to be accepted by the Australian Government as refugees.

Have any proof to back this claim up, like statistics to back your claims, not an Imam's opinion.

[Curaezipirid]

Assalamalaikum,

Well, yes, I have, now. There is also the fact that any self decent Imam is ever careful not to express opinion, and rely only upon fact. In that line of work the necessity is of essence undeniable.

But let me just relate a story: it was told to be by a person with the same exact regard for what I have reported as is expressed in opinion.

There was a statistician whom was diagnosed with a rare disease. Upon looking the disease up in the internet he found that there is a 100% fatality rate. Eventually he was cured, but not until after curing himself of believing in statistics.

However there is a mass of empirical evidence that includes that portion of evidence about the extent to which the evidence is being hidden from the popular veiw. For example that any psychiatrist who wants insurance can not let a patient manifest both an Aboriginal identity and a Muslim identity; that is within legal documents. The usually, in fact, on a strictly one to one basis, commend such belief as well managed sanity. In Imam, Wasalam.

[therebbe]

Well, yes, I have, now. There is also the fact that any self decent Imam is ever careful not to express opinion, and rely only upon fact. In that line of work the necessity is of essence undeniable.

Well then I would like to see the Imam's proof.

[ManchesterFolk]

Syria:

The Syrian Jewish community in 1948 dated to the First Century destruction of Jerusalem, approximately 1900 year earlier. Under Islamic rule, Jews were routinely subject to cruel and inhumane treatment, including forced conversions, routine pogroms and severe commercial and personal restrictions. By early 1947, only 13,000 Jews lived in Syria; 20,000 had fled throughout the course of the previous decade, as Nazi zeal permeated the region and made their lives especially difficult. Immediately after Syria gained independence from France in 1945, vitriolic anti-Semitic propaganda was broadcast on television and radio, inciting the Arab masses to violence. In December 1947, one month after the Partition Plan's acceptance, a pogrom erupted in the Syrian town of Aleppo, torching numerous Jewish properties, including synagogues, schools, orphanages and businesses. Eyewitnesses to the violence noted Syrian firemen and police dispatched to the scene actively participated in the rioting.

A flurry of anti-Semitic legislation passed in 1948 restricted, among other things, Jewish travel outside of government-approved ghettos, selling private property, acquiring land or changing their place of residence. A decree in 1949 went a step further, seizing all Jewish bank accounts. Under threats of execution, long prison sentences and torture, 10,000 Jews were able to depart between 1948 and 1962. A report published in 1981 indicated Syrian Jews were subject to "the Mukhabarat, the [Syrian] secret police, [who] conduct a reign of terror and intimidation, including searches without warrant, detention without trial, torture and summary execution." Due mainly to US influence in the context of the Madrid peace process, all but about 800 of the Jewish community have fled, most settling in the United States. Syria has confiscated all Jewish property aside from those who remain.

Absolutly disgusting. Yet they have the nerve to be so hypocritical to even mention another countries refugees, when they created such problems in their own country.

[Obi-Wan]

MFolk
Your source was wrong regarding Morocco. I doubt your sources on other nations, too. At least until you address the points I raised regarding Morocco.

[Curaezipirid]

Alaikumassalam,

well, in general, is it not the the situation of any refugee is only ever able to be a little prickly for those whom must accomodate unless they are aware of the pillar of Faith of need to give Alms . . .

. . . wasalam

[ManchesterFolk]

MFolk
Your source was wrong regarding Morocco. I doubt your sources on other nations, too. At least until you address the points I raised regarding Morocco.

Wait, so you claim my source is wrong regarding moracco because your source says something different? What makes your source an authority on what happned?

[Curaezipirid]

Alaikumassalam,

but really aren't we just taking ourselves here a little too seriously, I mean, its one thing to defend the rights of any refugee to live in their homeland, or another safer place; but surely it is another thing altogether if we find ourselves having begun to identify with the oppression of other persons

for one thing we rob them of their own realised experiences;
and for another if we are not careful the same could happen to us;
there is no point in clamouring to substantiate who has been most oppressed because oppression is not what defines being meek

wasalam

[Woodrow]

I am personaly having a little difficulty with the credability of the original post.

Just for example:

Syria:

The Syrian Jewish community in 1948 dated to the First Century destruction of Jerusalem, approximately 1900 year earlier. Under Islamic rule, Jews were routinely subject to cruel and inhumane treatment, including forced conversions, routine pogroms and severe commercial and personal restrictions. By early 1947, only 13,000 Jews lived in Syria; 20,000 had fled throughout the course of the previous decade, as Nazi zeal permeated the region and made their lives especially difficult. Immediately after Syria gained independence from France in 1945, vitriolic anti-Semitic propaganda was broadcast on television and radio, inciting the Arab masses to violence. In December 1947, one month after the Partition Plan's acceptance, a pogrom erupted in the Syrian town of Aleppo, torching numerous Jewish properties, including synagogues, schools, orphanages and businesses. Eyewitnesses to the violence noted Syrian firemen and police dispatched to the scene actively participated in the rioting.

I know this is just nit-picking. But the first TV networks did not appear until 1949.(source: http://inventors.about.com/library/i...munication.htm) World wide TV especialy in the Arab world was not available until years later. In 1945 TV was simply a rich-mans toy and very limited in use. It was not a mass media or news device in 1945

This error makes me doubt that the information came from sources knowledgable of the era.

[ManchesterFolk]

Were there not TV's during 1945 in Syria that could have picked up anti-semetic propoganda? There is no need for TV networks. All one needs is a radical cleric, a camera, and a country that has TV's to show it to.

It wasn't like they were live on the site.

[Obi-Wan]

MFolk,
Woodrow's point is: Your source seems to have made a historical error when it talks about TV transmissions in Syria 1945. So how much of an authority can it be?

Wait, so you claim my source is wrong regarding moracco because your source says something different? What makes your source an authority on what happned?

Again, from Rick Gold:
stats on emigration of Jews from Morocco

Year Number
1948/49 18,000
1950 4,980
1951 7,770
1952 5,031
1953 2,996
1954 8,171
1955 24,994
1956 36,301
1957 8,578
1958 1,803
1959 3,325
1960 4,108
1961 11,476
1962 35,748
1963 36,874

Total 210,347


Let's compare that with what can be found on this page from the Jewish Agency:

Independent Israel - Aliyah and Absorption

-- Between 1955 and 1957, more than 70,000 Moroccan Jews arrived.

-- After the 1958-1960 regression, immigration swelled again from 1961-1964, when a total of 215,056 immigrants arrived. More than 80,000 Jewish immigrants came from Morocco and some 80,000 from Rumania. From 1965 to 1967 there was a decline in the rate of aliyah.

Which matches with the stats from Rick Gold's Website. That's one reason to believe the source.


Israel actively encourages Jews to "return" to Israel -- from all over the world. Again from the Jewish Agency:

Timeline of Jewish History

1949-51. MASS IMMIGRATION FROM THE ARAB WORLD.

One of the first results of independence was the decision to encourage mass Aliyah. it was needed from a practical point of view - the young state had only a very small population - and from an ideological point of view, the struggle against the British had been carried out in the name of the need for unlimited immigration. Following independence Jews started to pour in from all over the wrld. Many hundreds of thousands came from destroyed Jewish Eu and the British refugee Camps, and hundreds of thousands of others would come from the Jewish communities in the Arab world. Large scale operations brought in huge numbers of Jews from the Arab countries. Primary among these operations were Operation Magic Carpet to bring the Jews of Yemen and Operation Ezra and Nehemiah which brought more than a hundred thousand Jews from Iraq.

"...encourage mass Aliyah", [...] "from an ideological point of view, the struggle against the British had been carried out in the name of the need for unlimited immigration"

The whole point of Israel was immigration. Israel encouraged and organised mass emigration from Iraq and Yemen and other countries.


Now,
What does your source say on Morocco, MFolk?

Morocco
In 1948, there were about 350,000 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, pogromists massacred 39 Jews in the town of Djerada and 4 more in Oujda. Over 50,000 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.

It says (or implies very strongly) that 50,000 Jews fled Morocco, in terror, in June 1948 after Djerada and Oujda.

But only 18,000 Jews left in 1948/9 according to Rick Gold.The Jewish agency says, here, that 45,400 left Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria in 1948-51.


So your source is confrimed as a liar, MFolk. What other data have they misrepresented or made up?

And I have given data which backs up Rick Gold from the Jewish Agency, which worked (and still works) in encouraging and facilitating immigration into Israel.

[ManchesterFolk]

You treat your source as if it is compleltly fact.

Yours might very well be the liar.

[Curaezipirid]

Alaikumassalam

now that is truly a weird statment:

treat your source as though it is complete fact
because your source could be a lie

:(

Now in my culture we rarely call a lie a lie, but only because those who tell the truth need not be told that a lie is a lie; while those who lie are less difficult if they are not informed that those whom speak true know that they lie. We are all expected to eventually confess to any lie, and in fact all are so dependent upon such that we fear delaying ourselves from confessing of lying.

Yet in my culture it is also that we NEVER TRUST ANY SOURCE WITHOUT UNEQUIVOCAL EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE THAT IS OBTAINED INDEPENDENTLY OF THE SOURCE

Truly none of us are in truth ever even making any accusation against any person by only withholding belief until we obtain such evidence.

wasalam

[Obi-Wan]

MFolk,
I went to the trouble of checking (and quoting, above) the Jewish Agency -- which is very, very pro-Israel. Perhaps you should check out their mission statement. And maybe their history ("de facto government of (Israel)" etc).

The high/low points they give for immigration match with Rick Gold's. They say that Aliyah (immigration) was encouraged. Their numbers for 1948-51 disagree with your source.

Why would they lie about these things? If they were going to lie, surely it would be towards your side of the argument.

I don't know what more I can do.
Of course I believe my sources -- I wouldn't use them otherwise. I've tried giving you a very pro-Israel source. But that doesn't seem to be enough.

btw,
Have you given us the site from which you copied and pasted your opening post? I would like to know.

Googling a few phrases turns up too many options.