[They]
speak treachery, with tongues of deceit in their mouths.
–
Micah 6:12
They conceive mischief and bring
forth evil and their heart prepares deceit.
-- Job 15:35
"Tongues of Deceit – Part I" took up the question of history, population,
territory, so-called "occupation" and other topics widely misrepresented
and misunderstood. Part II now takes up the topic of the Arab refugees.
Here,
the basic deceits are that:
-- The Arabs who left
Israel are the original population of the land and its rightful owners.
-- The Jews forced them
to leave.
-- Arab politicians are
driven by solicitude for them.
-- They have a "right
of return" to the nation they are trained to loath and lust to destroy.
The motif of displaced persons and
refugees runs through history. In the Twentieth Century alone, there has
been massive displacements and/or exchanges of populations. Greeks in Turkish
territory resettled in Greece, Turks in Greek territory resettled in Turkey.
In 1947 the Indian subcontinent was divided into India and Pakistan, and
millions of Muslims left India for Pakistan while millions of Hindus left
Pakistan for India. After Word War II, a German community that had lived
in Czechoslovakia for generations was expelled and returned to Germany. The
Vietnamese "boat people" have become productive citizens in the countries
that gave them refuge. The common principle is that they found some place
willing to take them in and let them go on with their lives.
No people have been refugees more often than the
Jews, who for 2,000 years have been driven first from their own homeland
and then from one city or state after another. They, too, usually found new
homes elsewhere, and rebuilt their lives and their communities.
Never in these millennia were Jews in more desperate
straits than in the years before and during the Holocaust – 1933-45. They
were caught in the death trap because they had no place to go. The British
in violation of the terms of the Mandate for Palestine slammed shut the gates
of the Jewish National Home, for the avowed purpose of appeasing the Arabs
set on usurping it.
Some refugees, including survivors of concentration
camps, crowded on unseaworthy craft did reach or come close to the shores
of the Promised Land. In what Winston Churchill called a "squalid little
war" against these survivors, the British authorities turned them back to
Europe, or incarcerated them on the island of Mauritius or simply left them
to drown.
The ship The Saint Louis carried hundreds
of European Jews, highly-educated men and women of value to any society,
who had entry visas for the United States. When it arrived in the New World
it was refused entry there or anywhere else. When it sailed past the shores
of Florida, the Coast Guard was ordered to keep watch lest anyone try to swim
ashore. The ship returned to Europe, where most of the passengers ended their
lives in the concentration camps.
Switzerland's border guards seized fleeing Jews
and turned them over to the Nazis. MacKenzie King, Prime Minister of the
vast and under-populated Canada, when asked how many Jewish refugees Canada
might accept, replied "None is too many".
The 2,000-year-long "Jewish refugee problem" was
solved in 1948. Under Israel's Law of Return, all descendants by blood or
adoption of the exiles of Judea have hereditary citizenship. It embraced
the survivors of the Holocaust – each of them "a brand plucked from the
burning". In Iraq, the government expelled the Jewish community that
had been there for 2,600 years, long before any Arabs or Muslims. Israel
brought in entire communities by airlifts from Yemen, from Ethiopia, from
Albania and elsewhere.
The survivors from Europe were destitute and often
broken in health. Immigrants from Arab countries were forced to leave their
property and assets behind. A newly-reborn and very small nation, always
under threat of destruction, managed to care for them. Financial assistance
came from world Jewry and from the United States, but not from any international
body. It was used to help the immigrants rebuild their lives in independence
and dignity and take part in rebuilding their country.
The version most
widely disseminated, incessantly repeated, widely believed, and totally false
is: The Arabs in what is now Israel were the original population, since ancient
times. Foreign Jews intruded into their homeland and violently evicted them.
At the start of Jewish resettlement around 1870,
the entire population west of the Jordan River was barely 140,000. By 1948,
there were some 700,000 Arabs just in the restricted area that became the
State of Israel. The bulk of them were new or recent arrivals, who came from
other regions and other countries because Jewish development here offered
a chance for a better living and better living conditions than they could
hope for in their original homes.
When Israel became an independent state in 1948,
approximately 500,000-550,000 left, for reasons that will be discussed below.
These became the "Arab Refugees" that the PLO and other Arab sources now
count at 3,500,000. (Simultaneously, it is said that they are "victims of
genocide". How victims of genocide increase their numbers by 700 percent
in 50 years would baffle Malthus or any other demographer.)
When the United Nations took on responsibility
for these refugees, it set the standard that any Arab who had been in that
sector of Palestine for two years qualified for refugee status and
benefits. The United Nations and the Red Cross also added an uncalculated
number of persons to the registry of "refugees" who had never been in Palestine
at all, but needed the shelter, food, medical care and education provided
by the United Nations.
Now, Arabs make up at least 17 percent of the population
of Israel. In contrast, Jordan – also part of Mandate Palestine – forbids
any Jewish residence, and when it controlled Judea and Samaria in the years
1948-1967 they were also Judenrein.
.
. . Many Palestinians are descendants of Egyptian, Sudanese, Syrian and Lebanese
migrants, who settled in the current boundaries of Israel during 1830-1945.
. . . . Migrant workers were imported by the Ottomans and (since 1919) by
the British authorities . . . . Illegal Arab laborers were also attracted
by the relative boom, stimulated by Jewish immigration, which expanded labor-intensive
enterprises (construction, agriculture, etc.).
. . . . The (1831-1840)
conquest, by Egypt's Mohammed Ali, was solidified by thousands of Egyptians
settling empty spaces between Gaza and Tul-Karem up to the Hula Valley. .
. . 30,000-36,000 Syrian migrants (Huranis) entered Palestine (in 1934) Syrian
rulers have always considered the area as a southern province of Greater
Syria. Az-ed-Din el-Qassam, the role-model of Hamas terrorism, who terrorized
Jews in British Mandate Palestine, was a Syrian, as were Said el-A'az, a
leader of the 1936-38 anti-Jewish pogroms and Kaukji, the commander-in-chief
of the Arab mercenaries terrorizing Jews in the thirties and forties.
[Western
travelers] identified over 15 Arab nationalities who settled in Jaffa. Libyan migrants and refugees settled in Gedera, south
of Tel Aviv. Algerian refugees (Mugrabis), escaping the French conquest of
1830, settled in Safed, Tiberias and other parts of the Galilee. Circassian
refugees, fleeing Russian oppression (1878), Moslems from Bosnia, Turkomans,
Yemenite Arabs (1908) and Bedouin tribes from Jordan (escaping wars and famine)
diversified Arab demography there."
Why Did They Leave?
"The most potent of
the factors were announcements made by the Palestinian-Arab
Higher Committee, urging all Haifa Arabs to quit, intimating that those remaining
would be regarded as renegades."
-- London Economist, October 1948
"The Jews haven't attacked
any Arab village, unless attacked first."
-- Ismayil Safwat, Commander of Palestinian Operations
March 1948
"We brought destruction
upon the refugees, by calling on them to leave their homes."
-- Khaled al-Azam, Prime Minister of Syria, 1949
"The Arab States . .
. encouraged the Palestinians to leave their homes temporarily, in order
to be out of the way of the invading Arab armies."
-- Filastin (Jordanian newspaper), February 1949
More from "Who Were the 1948 Refugees?"
In 1948, Azzam Pasha, the former Secretary General
(of the Arab League), assured Arabs that the occupation of Palestine, including
Tel Aviv, would be as simple as a military promenade . . . . Brotherly advice
was given to the Arabs of Palestine to leave their land . . . .
Jamal Al-Husseini, acting Chairman of the Arab
Higher Committee threatened on November 24, 1947 that "Palestine shall be
consumed with fire and blood," if the Jews get any part of it. The November
29, 1947 Partition Plan was violently rejected by the Palestinians and the
Arabs as they did with the partition proposals of 1921 and 1937. . . .
"Most 1948 Palestinian refugees were from the coastal
plain and the valleys of Israel . . . . their roots were tenuous, being descendants
of Egyptian, Syrian, Lebanese and Sudanese migrants, who arrived to the area
during 1830-1944 Many felt more secure in their countries of origin. Most
Palestinian political and financial leaders left, accelerating the refugee
phenomenon.
This history has
been transformed into the fabrication that the Jews drove out the Arabs.
* * * * * * *
An example of the contrast between
events and fabrications is found in a study of what happened in the city
of Haifa. This is examined in detail by Efraim Karsh, in "Were the Palestinians
Expelled?", Commentary, May 2001.
In this article, Karsh quotes the plaint of Fawaz
Turki, who was born in Haifa:
"You [Israelis] owe me. And you owe
me big. You robbed me of my city and my property. You owe me reparations
(which I know that you, or your children, will one day have to pay, and under
duress if need be) for all the pain and unspeakable suffering you have put
me, my family, and my fellow exiles through."
Karsh's research in original documentation of events
in Haifa 1947-48 reveals that Mr. Turki is sending his bill to the wrong
address.
Points based on
this research:
1] Arab flight from Haifa began before the U.N.
partition resolution and before the start of any hostilities in Haifa. In
October 1947 British Intelligence reported that "leading Arab personalities
. . . already evacuated their families to neighboring Arab countries".
By November, many Arabs of Haifa were
leaving, and moving their financial assets abroad.
2] In April 1948, the leaders of the Arabs still
in Haifa asked General Stockwell, the British military commander, to arrange
a meeting to obtain a truce with the Jews. Arab and Jewish leaders did work
out terms of a truce, and the Jews even modified them to suit the local Arabs.
When the Arabs made a telephone call to the Arab High Command in Beirut,
they were ordered to reject the truce and evacuate Haifa, and told that within
a few days there would be an Arab military assault on Haifa, and the Arab
residents must leave to avoid casualties. [This conversation was recorded
by the Haganah.]
The leaders of the Haifa Arabs then said they would
not sign the truce and asked for British help in evacuating the Arabs from
Haifa. Stockwell told them: "You have made a foolish decision.
Think it over, as you’ll regret it afterward. You must accept the conditions
of the Jews. They are fair enough. . . . . After all, it was you who began
the fighting, and the Jews have won."
3] British and American witnesses attested the
efforts of the Jews of Haifa, the Jewish mayor and of the Haganah to persuade
the Arabs to stay. The Haganah, in both a radio broadcast and a leaflet,
urged the fleeing Arabs to return to their homes, promising them freedom
and security. The British District Superintendent of Police reported that
"every effort is
being made by the Jews to persuade the Arab populace to stay and carry on
with their normal lives". The Haifa
rabbinate even gave special permission to Jewish bakers to bake bread during
Passover, to distribute to the Arabs.
4] The Arab Emergency Committee drove the Arabs
out of Haifa with threats that the Jews would kill them all, and/or threats
that if they did not leave they would be treated as traitors by the Arab
command. They were offered transportation to a safe haven, free lodging, food
and clothes. The U.S. Consulate reported that the Arab Higher Committee had
ordered all Arabs to leave the city. The British High Commissioner for Palestine
reported that the evacuation was urged from "higher Arab quarters". British
Intelligence attributed the flight of the Haifa Arabs to "incitement and
scaremongering" by their leaders.
The United Nations Relief and Works Administration
(UNRWA) set up camps in the neighboring Arab countries of Jordan, Syria and
Lebanon, as well as Judea and Samaria that were then under Jordanian occupation.
These were at first meant to be temporary shelters, that have grown into
villages and towns where several generations have now been consigned. Only
Jordan has granted them citizenship. Lebanon has not, and has even restricted
their rights and banned them from many trades and professions. Kuwait gave
good jobs to the better qualified, but expelled them after the Gulf War.
Not UNWRA, not any host state, not any other Arab
state has given them the chance to find new homes and start new lives. Even
those states that cannot develop their territory and resources because of
a dearth of population do not receive them. The deliberate choice has been
to keep them for more than half a century in wretchedness and squalor. Even
the most affluent of the Arab states and rulers have not been generous to
them.
After the Six-Day War of 1967, when Jordan lost
Judea and Samaria and Egypt lost Gaza, Israel for the first time became the
administrative authority in regions that housed some of these refugee camps
or towns. Israel made efforts to provide decent housing and healthier living
conditions but the Arabs governments protested so vociferously that the United
Nations intervened to prevent any improvements. It actually passed a resolution
accusing Israel of violating the rule that the prospective inhabitants of
the new housing must be kept only in "temporary refugee shelters". The houses
that had already been built remain empty, and UNRWA guards them to prevent
any Arab refugee from moving in.
The
Arabs, with the support of the United Nations, strive not to improve life
for their kinsmen, but to prevent any alleviation of their misery. The greater
their misery, the more sympathy they attract for the Arab cause, and the
more blame can be heaped on Israel. Well-meaning but uninformed and gullible
people around the world fall into this trap.
The
plight of the people so long confined to such sordid surroundings and denied the chance to improve their lot, evokes compassion.
When compassion is perverted to unjust anger against Israel, then those who
calculatedly created and perpetuated it find the gambit works well for them,
and so prolong the misery. A more sensible concern for displaced would be
to seek their release from such exploitation.
"The
Arab states do not want to solve the refugee problem. They want to keep it
as an open sore, as an affront to the United Nations, and as a weapon against
Israel. Arab leaders do not give a damn whether Arab refugees live or die."
-- Ralph Galloway, former UNWRA director,
1958
"Let it be known and appreciated
that, in demanding the restoration of the refugees to Palestine, the Arabs
intend that they shall return as the masters of the homeland, and not as
slaves. More explicitly, they intend to annihilate
the state of Israel."
-- Muhammad Salah ed-Din, Foreign Minister of Egypt, 1951
"Since
1948, Arab leaders . . . . have used the Palestine people for selfish political
purposes. This is ridiculous and, I could say, even criminal."
-- King Hussein of Jordan, 1960
* * * * * * *
The Right Of Return
This
formula has not been altered in the past half-century.
Several generations have now been born and bred
in the camps, deliberately denied any hope of normal development or a chance
for a normal life. They have been relentlessly indoctrinated with the belief
that they will one day "return" and drive the Jews into the sea. (In some
version of the return, Jews whose fathers dwelt in Palestine before 1917
may be permitted to remain as subjects of the Arab rulers. There is no cut-off
date for Arabs whose fathers came to Palestine later than 1917.)
In the wake of the Oslo Accords, some refugee towns
came under the control of the PLO, which could thus intensify its program
of mind-control under the auspices of UNRWA. Every thing is done to inculcate
the belief in spurious grievances and ferocious hatred for those who allegedly
caused them. The intent and the effect is to convert human beings into living
weapons.
When the PLO demands "the right of return" as a
condition for "peace" it is demanding the right to flood Israel with these
human weapons. Acquiescence to this demand would be acquiescence to the destruction
of Israel. When governments and officials and prominent individuals abroad
advocate the "right of return" they are supporting the master plan for the
destruction of Israel and the slaughter or expulsion of the Jews. Some
advocates know this and approve of the goal, though they camouflage their
approval with a pseudo-humanitarian gloss. Others may not understand the
reality. If so, they are bereft of the knowledge and perception that should
be required for their positions.
The
Role Of UNRWA:
The Jerusalem Times (Arab weekly), 7 September 2001, reports that UNRWA
employees have offered to have two percent deducted from their salaries to
go to bereaved Palestinian families. This presumably includes the families
of suicide bombers.
Over
the decades, the personnel of UNRWA have developed a vested interest in perpetuating
the problem, and have become accomplices in the degradation of their charges.
Some
of this is explicated in excerpts from "What You Need to Know About UNRWA,
by David Bedein, Israel
Resource Review:
By the mid-1990s, the UNRWA camps operated on a
$320 million annual budget, providing services as incentives for Palestinian
Arabs to remain in the camps -- free education, free health services, free
housing, free electricity and free water. . . . . UN Resolution 194 that
established UNRWA was written in both contexts: to help Palestinian Arab
refugees and to keep them there as refugees. No clause allowed for any permanent
solution except for repatriation. These two tenets of 194, re-enacted every
two years, remain very much alive.
[. . . . ] When Israel tried to improve conditions]
UNRWA officials issued weekly memos to the refugee residents that the Israeli
government was making plans to "exile them once again". [The intifada riots
of 1987 were] openly organized on UNRWA premises [.
. . .] Israeli security reports issued in 1989 and 1990 accused UNRWA personnel
of using UNRWA vehicles to facilitate violence, by blocking roads, providing
surveillance of IDF facilities, and actually instigating riots. Palestine
Authority officials today openly acknowledge that the intifada leadership
was made up almost entirely of UNRWA personnel.
Indeed, it was [UN committees] who organized the
Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine to take over
the UNRWA workers union that comprises more than 18,000 employees of UNRWA.
It is therefore no surprise that UNRWA schools are decorated with Hamas and
PFLP graffitti along with pictures of machine guns spread over a full map
of Palestine."
Education UNRWA Style:
Children in the UNRWA schools are taught with textbooks
issued by the Jordanians and then by the PLO, that would have been most gratifying
to Goebbels. [On the contents, see Issue No. 5]
These schoolbooks are underwritten by the European
Union. When a German member of the European Parliament questioned the propriety
of teaching murderous hatred of all Jews, Peter Hansen, UNRWA Commissioner,
made this irrelevant response: "That [would be] a bit much
tolerance, We cannot expect a people under occupation fighting everyday to
have textbooks which idealize, praise and express love for their occupiers."
What the textbooks do indeed teach is that
Israelis and all Jews are subhuman, the embodiment and source of all evil,
and fit only to be slaughtered – preferably by the children themselves. These
are the doctrines that are being subsidized by the United Nations and the
European Union.