THE ANTI NAKBA; JEWISH REFUGEES FROM ARAB & MUSLIM LANDS
On May 15th 1948, after 2000 years of forced exile, the Jewish state was reborn. The fledgling state was immediately set upon from without and within by local Arabs as well as invading armies from the surrounding Arab states. The Jewish state won and the Arabs lost.
Beit Lid Immigration Camp 1949
But 1948 was not only a year of loss and upheaval for the Palestinian Arabs, for in that same year a lesser known but equally vast refugee crisis was inflicted almost universally upon the Jews of the Arab world. Marked by pogroms, arson, looting and murder on a horrific scale, the Jews of the Arab world fled for their lives and with what they could carry on their backs. Within a year much of the Arab world had expelled their ancient Jewish communities, some dating back over 1500 years. According to the advocacy organization Justice for Jews from Arab Countries; following the 1948 war over 850,000 Jews were uprooted from the lands where they and their ancestors had lived for generations.
As with all wars there are winners and losers, but it is rare for the losers to create an annual day to commemorate their loss. May 15th is the day that Palestinians have designated to remember their defeat in a war to eliminate the newborn Jewish state. Not content to mourn their self inflicted “Nakba” or tragedy in private shame, they have transformed it into a traveling road show of anger, self righteousness and victimhood. With the exception of Yeshiva University, there is hardly a campus in the United States not infected with the annual anti-Israel hate-fest commonly billed as Israel Apartheid week.
The ancestors of the 1948 Arab refugees remain imprisoned in fetid camps, condemned to a life of poverty and statelessness by their Arab brothers. In stark contrast the vast Israeli camps, once teeming with masses of destitute Jewish refugees, were quickly dismantled. There are no 1948 Jewish refugees in Israel, all were given a home.
Mattie Friedman of The Times of Israel writes eloquently of one particular ancient Jewish community uprooted during that pivotal year. Read the entire article HERE. Lyn Julius condems the “progressive world” for choosing the wrong side in the never ending struggle for human dignity and justice in her Times of Israel article on “the other Nakba” HERE.
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