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I can't get up the references for it at this time, but there was no ethnic cleansing of Jews from Arab countries in the Middle East and North Africa after 1948, except in one country, either Iraq or Yemen, not certain. In contrast to the myth of a Jewish ethnic cleansing in response to the Palestinian ethnic cleansing is largely false. Jews from Arab countries largely emigrated voluntarily to Israel and were not forced out. There was an increase in antiSemitici incidents in some of these countries, but by and large, it was induced by incentives from Israel, and in some cases, through allegedly antiSemitic incidents propagated by Israeli agents. This emigration lasted from 1948 until about 1968.

In 1948, Israel had enthnically cleansed about two thirds of the Palestinian population, roughtly 800,000, but there were still about one third, or 400,000 Palestinians living within the confines of the newly born state of Israel. At that time there were only roughly 550,000 Jews in Israel. It created the first demographic threat to Israel's being a Jewish majority state. Increasing the Jewish population was first line business, and it did so by encouraging Jews from all over the world to emigrate, including of course Jews in Arab majority countries.

The myth of the Jewish Nakba or ethnic cleansing is just that, a myth, given the proviso that life became difficult in some countries. Forced emmigration was limited to one country as stated above, and may in fact occurred during or after the 1967 war.

by shergald on Tue Sep 2nd, 2008 at 02:45:45 PM EST
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