17 August 2011

A tragedy shrouded in silence: a must read

Why has it taken so long for Israel to raise the issue of Jewish refugees from Arab countries? There are pragmatic as well as ideological reasons, but looking back, Israel's failure appears a monumental error of judgement. In an important new article for Azure magazine, Adi Schwartz has lifted the veil shrouding the tragedy of silence surrounding Jews from the Arab world and charted the twists and turns in Israel's policy on the refugee issue. Read the whole thing!

16 comments:

Katie said...

I guess that Israel was too busy absorbing these refugees into their society and nation than to play cry baby to the world.

SnoopyTheGoon said...

Well, that's only a part of the explanation. The article has more.

Pisa said...

The biggest losers in an almost jews-free muslim world are the christians. The new target for angry muslim mobs. The tragedy is theirs now.

I wonder what will angry muslim mobs do when there'll be no christians left as well.

SnoopyTheGoon said...

They never suffered lack of targets. Don't forget their own internal divisions.

Pisa said...

Thank you Azure for publishing it (and Snoopy for spreading the word). It puts the "bad zionists expelled helpless palestinians" narrative in a whole new perspective.

Interesting though that the arabs/muslims are imitating jewish history to achieve their goal of annihilating the jewish state. From the "poor refugees who lost everything they had to the jews" through "Jesus was a palestinian" and the finishing touch "Gaza the biggest concentration camp". Someone should tell them that their rhetoric only proves that the zionists are in the right, since everything they claim happens to them has happened already to jews.

SnoopyTheGoon said...

There is a name for that phenomenon: Holocaust envy syndrome.

jams o donnell said...

It makes fo grim reading Snoppy

SnoopyTheGoon said...

It's not a story with a happy end indeed.

Noga said...

What I find most disturbing is the betrayal by the Left of the Jews who had fled from Arab countries and found themselves at the bottom of the Israeli pecking order for years and years afterwards, to these days. Somehow the hearts and minds and pockets and moral energy of these great humanitarians are exclusively invested in the plight of Palestinians.  And what about the poor in your own cities, schmucks? They do not deserve your sympathy and tireless work to improve their lot, to get their justice?  They are not as sexy and fashionable victims as Palestinians, right?

Where are your friends on Engage on this topic, Snoopy, BTW?

Pisa said...

But poor white people deserve their fate, don't you know that? They're white!

<span>"What I find most disturbing is the betrayal by the Left of the Jews who had fled from Arab countries"</span>
<span></span>
<span>What Arab countries? The jews are blue-eyed european colonizers, everybody knows that. Noga, if I had a dollar for each "blue-eyed jews" comment I've ever read, I'd be filthy rich. </span>

SnoopyTheGoon said...

Er... here is another dollar, Pisa: my eyes are blue.

SnoopyTheGoon said...

I would say, Noga, that it's difficult to expect or demand from Engage (to take one example) attention to the plight of Mizrahi Jews when our own government cannot make up its collective mind on the subject for nigh 60 years. Shame indeed.

Noga said...

My complaint was against the Israeli left which presents itself as concerned with justice, but only when it comes to Palestinians. Engage are very supportive of the Israeli left's anti-government activism when it comes to the plight of poor Palestinians. Your response is simply an evasion.

Anyway, I don't really care much about Engage's priorities. I do care about the Israeli Left that seems to want to join bandwagons rather than try to act on the behalf of those who really need their support in Israeli society and where such focus would be likely to yield some good results.

SnoopyTheGoon said...

Well, lefties are frequently into all that's fashionable. After all, the Girush from Arab world was lots of years ago...

David All said...

Have not yet had the time to read the whole article, but, until I have the time to, believe that two key reasons that the Israeli govt. and Zionist organizations, at least in the first 25 years of statehood,(1948-1973) did not talk much about the Mizrahi Jews forced out of the Arab countries were:

1). It did not fit into the mainstream Zionist narrative which relied heavily on the idea of European Jews who had survived the Holocaust coming to Israel and creating a modern western democracy in the desert. This played very well on Western guilt for hundreds of years of anti-Semitism that had climaxed horribly with the Holocaust. (Leon Uris novel Exodus and its movie version is a fine example of this) 
2). Descrimination against Mizrahi Jews who ere frequently given second class treatment in regards to housing, education and jobs, compared to European Jews.

Realize that the article might totally blow what I have said out of the water, but in my family we never let not having gotten all the facts, stand in the way of expressing our opinion!   

SnoopyTheGoon said...

These two are too part of the whole parcel. As it is argued in the article, another part of it is that the issue was planned to be raised at some future "final settlement", when the financial side will be hammered out. As if the issue is only financial...