Do the descendants of Jews who fled the Arab and Muslim world in 1948 want to “go home?” That’s the odd question asked today by Foreign Policy magazine in introducing a photo essay featuring images of the remnants of Jewish life in places like Libya, Iraq and Iran. But while the photos are interesting, the idea that “the uncertain revolutions of the past year may present the best chance for long-exiled Jewish communities across the Middle East to return home” is probably the most bizarre as well as misleading statements published on the topic in some time. Not only are Jews not longing to return to the Arab world, the so-called Arab Spring has unleashed forces of Islamism that makes such an unlikely occurrence even less inviting for anyone foolish enough to believe that Jews are welcome there.
For decades one of the most appalling gaps in knowledge of the modern history of the Middle East is the way even supposedly educated people ignore the fact that what happened in 1948 was an exchange of populations. While hundreds of thousands of Arabs fled the area that would become the State of Israel, hundreds of thousands of Jews were fled, usually for fear of the lives, from Arab countries where Jews had lived for more than a millennium. The difference between the two sets of refugees is that while the Jews were resettled in Israel and the West, the Arabs were left refused homes elsewhere in the Middle East and kept in camps where they were told to wait until the Jewish state was destroyed.
The descendants of those Arab refugees, whose numbers we are amount to several millions, are still waiting and their demands for a “return” continues to serve as a standing impediment to the otherwise dim hopes for peace. Meanwhile the descendants of the Jews of the Arab and Muslim world have been successfully integrated into Israeli life. They rightly insist that any compensation to the descendants of the original Arab refugees should be matched by payments to the Jews for the property they left behind. These demands are routinely ignored, as is the entire narrative of Jewish dispossession.
Rather than the Arab Spring helping to create a situation where amends might be made for the Jews who were expelled from countries like Egypt, the rise of Islamist parties there has made the status of religious minorities even more uncertain. While Jews once thrived in the Muslim world, albeit under the intermittent threat of persecution and pogroms, the notion that Jews would be free to live there while expressing their identity is farcical.
In the first picture in the essay, the magazine notes the example of David Gerbi who returned to Libya after the fall of Qaddafi hoping to begin the reclaim a lost synagogue. But they fail to note that he was arrested and threaten with violence for doing so. In the next photo, they put forward the claim that Jews live freely in Iran and are not put out by the anti-Semitic invective that flows from its government. Here again, the caption fails to note that Iranian Jews are the subject of frequent persecution and are virtual hostages living under threat of punishment for speaking freely about their situation. The magazine’s portrayal is reminiscent of Roger Cohen’s infamous whitewash of Iran on this subject.
There are some bright spots Foreign Policy can actually point to. One is Iraq where Hebrew studies have been encouraged. But this is more the work of the long American presence in the country than any popular sentiment to welcome home those who were victimized by pogroms in the 1940s. In Iraqi Kurdistan, there is the chance for good relations with Israel and the Jews but that only demonstrates the Kurds’ determination to reject the Islamism that dominates Iran and some parties in Iraq.
However, the magazine altogether misses the one example of a successful Jewish community in the Arab world that predates the Arab spring: Tunisia where the Jews of Djerba have never left. Unfortunately, the rise of Islamist parties in post-authoritarian Tunisia makes their stay a bit more precarious.
But the main point to be understood here is that the Jews of the Arab world are already home. The vast majority of them returned to their people’s ancient homeland in Israel and have no intention of trading it for life as Dhimmi — tolerated minorities subject to persecution — in a Muslim world that is more dominated than ever by the forces of intolerance that were unleashed in last year’s revolutions.
The prospect of Jewish citizens of Israel sitting around a table toasting "next year in Cairo" sounds like a great idea for a Saturday Night Live skit! "Yes, you too can return to precarious, second-class status in a politically unstable third-world economy." Wouldn't even need a comedian to write that script.
Content, excellent. Proofreading – atrocious.
I noticed the same thing! n nI would like to forward this article to others, but I won't because of all the typos. pretty embarrassing from commentary.
Same here.
Asking the Sephardic Jews if they want to return home to the Arab countries is a new mantra of the left. This is because of the push by Danny Ayalon and hte Sephardic Jewish community to demand compensation and recognition of how the Arab world expelled them in the wake of Israel's creation. It is supposed to be a quid-pro-quo that the Palestinians get to return to Israel and the Arab-Jews would go back to the hell holes they came from. n nThe State department spokesperson started this nonsense months ago. This is just one more way that the anti-Israel crowd disavows the antisemitism of the Arab world and Israel's existence as a haven for the persecuted world Jewry. it is also the leftist-elitest refusal to acknowledge the virulent antisemitism of the Arab world predates Israel, Zionism and 1948. Thinking that everything bad in the Middle East occurred simply becasue Israel came into existence.
It's an idiotic idea, or an evil insane one. Make all the Jews defenseless, to be massacred. Here's an idea instead – – why doesn't the Arab make some progress out of the Medieval Period? Why not get them to take some steps towards the Renaissance, dare we say, the Enlightenment first?
Samuel Clemens, Mark Twain was in Israel in the 1920's, before the Balfour Treaty, BEFORE there was any issue IMAGINED of Israeli return. He said you could travel all day long and NOT SEE ANOTHER HUMAN BEING OR LIVING CREATURE anywhere in the region. He said that Jerusalem was rubble like ancient ruins, no inhabitants. nHe had no conceivable reason to lie about the lack of ANY population in the region. nThe Turks had taken the LAST REMAINING thing of ANY value in Israel before turning it over to the British as a RELIEF to be rid of it. they took the DEAD TREE TRUNKS to use for railroad ties. n nHow bad is a land when the DEAD TREE TRUNKS are the last salvageable value the land has!!! n nAny arabs in the region by the 1940's were those nomads of the surrounding nations, most of whom belonged in a loose confederation of Robber Dens of which Yasser Arafat was an EGYPTIAN ROBBER BARON and leader of those nomads who moved to Israel for a pre-arranged contract with the Arab nations to hinder the Jews' return. So any arabs who "FLED" in 1948 were NOT generational inhabitants.
Dear ROSE n nSamuel Clemens died in 1910 and visited Palestine in 1867. Here's an idea: BEFORE you get up on your high horse and started shouting in caps to the heavens, use the computer for all of ten seconds to make sure you have your facts straight. That will make you sound like you KNOW what your are SHOUTING about rather than appearing more like someone who is simply on bizarre rant. Claude
It wouldn't be the people who left who'd be returning, since presumably most of them are really old or dead. So the idea would be that the descendants of those who resettled in Israel and other places are eager to hop on the first flight out of Tel Aviv or NYC or wherever to try and scratch out a living in some third world dump where most of them have probably never been. But then I'm an American and I barely know where my ancestors come from (England? France?) so I probably can't understand this properly.
Jonathan, it should be made clearly that dhimmi status did not mean only toleration with the fear of recurrent persecution but legislated permanent inferior status for all non-Muslims. The dhimmis were exploited by special taxes only on them [viewed as tribute paid by conquered peoples], by humiliation, inferiority, oppression, discrimination, etc. For example, a dhimmi's testimony in court was worth half that of a Muslim.