Serving the Double Standard
An issue is festering in the road map process that cannot be overlooked and certainly should not be honored. It is the insistence of the Palestinians and their Arab mentors that millions of “refugees” be allowed into Israel proper to claim property deserted during and after the 1948 War of Independence.
Palestinians were encouraged by their leaders to flee their homes until after invading Arab armies destroyed Israel. So roughly 500,000 went into self-imposed exile in Jordan, Lebanon, and points West. However, Arab forces did not destroy Israel, and the hapless Palestinians were forced to look to their Arab brothers for a solution to their homelessness.
At the same time, approximately 650,000 Jewish people were compelled to leave Arab countries where some had lived for two thousand years. They left with little more than the clothes on their backs, having been forced to forfeit citizenship, relinquish land holdings, and leave bank accounts behind.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of uprooted Palestinians were never assimilated into their new countries. They were stuffed into squalid refugee camps where they would live for decades. Their Arab “hosts,” of course, had a reason for this. It was to keep the cause against Israel alive until the opportunity came to exploit the issue for their benefit. That day has now come.
Tiny, oil-poor Israel, on the other hand, assimilated every Jewish refugee who arrived from any nation. These refugees became full citizens, were taught Hebrew, and received assistance that gave them a start in their new land.
The difference between Israel and its adversaries is that Israel did the right thing. Yet few, if any, in the international community consider the gigantic proportions of this massive absorption of Jewish refugees.
Meanwhile the Arabs, who callously and deliberately segregated and deprived their own kinsmen, now cry for redress and have their “refugee” issue on the table. And, incomprehensibly, Israel is being pressured by her allies to succumb to this Arab tactic of war by sacrificing its national integrity and, potentially, its very identity as a Jewish state.
