{"id":8375,"date":"2024-01-06T10:53:32","date_gmt":"2024-01-05T21:53:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/israelinstitute.nz\/?p=8375"},"modified":"2024-01-06T10:57:12","modified_gmt":"2024-01-05T21:57:12","slug":"graeme-carle-on-palestinian-refugees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/israelinstitute.nz\/2024\/01\/graeme-carle-on-palestinian-refugees\/","title":{"rendered":"Graeme Carl\u00e9 on Palestinian Refugees"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Solving the Problem<\/strong>
\nAnyone with a heart has to be sickened by news reports and videos of brutalised Palestinian civilians in Gaza today, abandoned by<\/i> every nation<\/i> to depend on the charity of United Nations\u2019 relief funds<\/span>1<\/sup><\/span>\u00a0<\/span>with no end in sight. Their elected leaders of Hamas have led them into a war which they can never win and which will surely result in many more dead Palestinian babies, women, and elders.<\/p>\n

What on earth can be done? How did they get into this truly horrifying situation but, more importantly, how can they get out?<\/p>\n

There is an answer but you\u2019ll never hear it even discussed, let alone actioned. Why? Because, when the 711,000<\/span>2<\/sup><\/span> Palestinian refugees first fled their land in 1948, the Arab nations could have immediately solved the problem of their resettlement but they refused. They could have solved it anytime in the last 75 years \u2013 they can solve it today, they still refuse, and they will never change.<\/p>\n

My Credentials
\n<\/b>I\u2019ve been accused by my critics of being ahistorical, i.e. \u2018unconcerned with or ignorant of history. Lacking historical perspective or context\u2019,<\/span>3<\/sup><\/span> and lacking a Ph D. What I offer, nevertheless, is the fruit of five decades of studying Israel and the Palestinians.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve read the eloquent and gracious writings of Edward Said, Naim Ateek, Alex Awad, and Elias Chacour as well as the polemics of Western journalists Robert Fisk, John Pilger, and Gywnne Dyer, Israeli historian Benny Morris, and world-renowned Jewish intellectual Noam Chomsky. In 2011, I wrote Dancing in the Dragon\u2019s Jaws <\/i>which contains three appendices<\/span>4<\/sup><\/a><\/span> documenting the plight of the Palestinians from every angle, including the massacres of Deir Yassin, Black September, and Chatila and Sabra.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I have visited Israel twice, talking with Palestinians at every opportunity and leading a tour group to hear Arab Christians at Bethlehem Bible College and Musalaha, an organisation devoted to reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians.<\/span>5<\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m also accused of using the term Arab as if the people comprise a monolithic entity. I do indeed use it in its usual English meaning (\u2018A member of a Semitic people originally from the Arabian Peninsula and surrounding territories who speaks Arabic and who inhabits much of the Middle East and northern Africa\u2019<\/span>6<\/sup><\/span>) but also by accepting the self-identification of the Arab League of 22 nations. Of course, this includes many tribal and ethnic differences, just as \u2018British\u2019 includes the English, Scottish, Irish, and Welsh people groups. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m happy to have my data, reasoning, and conclusions challenged by anyone \u2013 if I\u2019m wrong, I want to be corrected because my conclusions are bleak and one day I will have to give an account for \u2018every careless word\u2019 that I\u2019ve uttered.<\/span>7<\/sup><\/span>All I ask is that my critics come with facts and respectful reasoning instead of lofty dismissals. If I\u2019m proven wrong in any points or conclusions, I will gladly retract and correct my errors.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

How?
\n<\/b>How did the Palestinians get into Gaza? On May 15 every year, they lament the Nakba<\/i>, Arabic for catastrophe, or as Al Jazeera describes it:<\/p>\n

the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948\u2026[when] Zionist military forces expelled at least 750,000 Palestinians from their homes and lands and captured 78 percent of historic Palestine. The remaining 22 percent was divided into what are now the occupied West Bank and the besieged Gaza Strip.<\/span>8<\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n

So they believe that in 1948 the Jews \u201ccaptured 78% of historic Palestine\u201d \u2013 consider what actually happened. In 1922, the British gave the Arabs<\/i> 77% of the Palestinian Mandate (see map on left) which they then renamed the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan (see centre map). In 1948, therefore, there was just 23% of Palestine left to be divided up again between Jews and Arabs, meaning the Jews would get just 13% of the Mandate (see blue area, map on right). Let that sink in \u2013 the Arabs would have received 87%<\/em> of the Mandate!<\/p>\n

However, they wanted more. In 1948, when the Jews proclaimed the new nation of Israel, the Arabs, now renamed as Jordanians, crossed the Jordan River and annexed the West Bank. With\u00a0 <\/span>the Egyptians grabbing Gaza, the Palestinians had no territory at all<\/i>. Israel didn\u2019t capture the West Bank and Gaza from Jordan and Egypt until the Six Day War of 1967 so \u00a0why didn\u2019t the Jordanians and Egyptians create Palestine for the Palestinians when they could? Don\u2019t take my word for any of this \u2013 look it up for yourself.\"\"<\/p>\n

But what of the 711,000 Palestinian refugees and their apolitical, deeply personal Nakba when they lost their homes and lands? They ended up in refugee camps in the West Bank and Gaza and the Arab nations of Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria where only Jordan would allow them to become citizens (in fact, until 1988 the Jordanians claimed that \u201cJordan is Palestine and Palestine is Jordan\u201d). They have since grown to 5.9 million refugees and 58 official refugee camps and 10 unofficial camps, although only a third live in the camps.<\/span>9<\/sup><\/span> This is truly appalling, isn\u2019t it.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s Missing\u2026
\n<\/b>Now for what you may not have heard, either from our superficial media or academic \u2018experts\u2019.\u00a0At the same time as the Palestinian Nakba in 1948, there was a Jewish<\/i> Nakba. There were 856,000 Jewish<\/i> refugees who had to leave their homes and livelihoods in Morocco (265,000), Iraq (135,000), Algeria (140,000), Tunisia (105,000), Egypt (75,000), Yemen (55,000), Libya (38,000), Syria (30,000), Lebanon (5,000), and Aden (8,000), as well as 17,000 from the Arab areas of Palestine.<\/span>10<\/sup><\/span> The UN finally acknowledged their existence sixty years later in 2008!<\/p>\n

Official decrees and legislation enacted by Arab regimes denied human and civil rights to Jews and other minorities; expropriated their property; stripped them of their citizenship; and other means of livelihood. Jews were often victims of murder; arbitrary arrest and detention; torture; and expulsions.<\/span>11<\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n

Was that not catastrophic for them too? Was this not ethnic cleansing by Al Jazeera\u2019s definition?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Why don\u2019t we hear about these Jewish refugees today? Why haven\u2019t they also grown to 6 million today, living in 68 refugee camps?\u00a0I\u2019m not engaging in \u201cwhat-about-ism\u201d \u2013 I\u2019m simply pointing out what actually worked for them!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

There\u2019s a simple but unpublicised answer. In 1948 there were 630,000 Jews living in Palestine but their numbers doubled because 620,000 Jewish refugees from the Arab states were absorbed into the Jewish state, the last Jewish refugee camp there closing down in 1958! The other 236,000 Jews fled to the Europe and the Americas.<\/span>12<\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n

In other words, Israel absorbed their share of 1948\u2019s population transfer of 620,000 Jewish refugees while retaining 160,000 Arabs. Of the twenty-one Arab nations,<\/span>13<\/sup><\/span> only Jordan absorbed a share of the Arab refugees, leaving them instead to be supported by UNWRA\u2019s annual budget of US$1.1 billion, half of which is funded by the USA and Germany!<\/span>14<\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n

Now Where?
\n<\/b>This is how the Palestinians ended up in Gaza. How can they get out of their dire situation?<\/p>\n

Firstly, and this seems a no-brainer, they have to reject Hamas and their aim to annihilate the Jews or the Jewish state of Israel. The slogan beloved and chanted today even by our uneducated university students of \u201cFrom the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free!\u201d means the extinction of Israel by genocidal ethnic cleansing. Stop being blatantly hateful and murderous.<\/p>\n

Secondly, the international community has to stop abandoning the Palestinians to their fate and demand, even shame, the Arab nations to accept and shoulder their share of the twin refugee problems of 1948, just as Israel did. Why should Israel have to resolve everyone else\u2019s problems as well as their own? Some of the Arab nations are fabulously and ostentatiously wealthy due to their oil resources and well able to afford any solution for the Palestinians.<\/p>\n

How Feasible is This?
\n<\/b>This exchange of population is the only possible solution.<\/p>\n

In 1947, India was facing an even more dire situation than existed in Palestine. Muslims wanted Muslim rule and Sharia Law while the Hindus didn\u2019t, so amid appalling atrocities and an estimated 1 million dead, 7,226,600 Muslims left India for the newly created Pakistan and 7,295,870 Hindus and Sikhs left Pakistan for India. In Palestine in 1947, there was less than a tenth of these numbers.<\/p>\n

And where do today\u2019s 6 million registered Palestinian refugees live? Over a third live in Gaza (1.5 million) and the West Bank (850,000), another third live in Jordan (2.3 million); the rest live in Syria (560,000), Lebanon (480,000), Israel (350,000), Egypt (50,000), and Iraq (11,500).<\/span>15<\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n

Even if the other Arab nations keep rejecting them, why don\u2019t they settle down where they are now, ignore genocidal leaders, and stop attacking Israel and each other?<\/p>\n

[1] Iraq used to have 34,000 but drove most of them out. www.thenewhumanitarian.org\/report\/89571\/middle-east-palestinian-refugee-numberswhereabouts, 17 Oct, 2023. Also wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Palestinian_refugee_camps<\/p>\n

Will any of this happen? No possibility. The Arab and Muslim nations will never back down. We\u2019re heading for Armageddon when \u201call the nations\u201d will join in their cause to take Jerusalem from the Jews in the tiny, tiny little nation of Israel.\"\"<\/p>\n

Do not just believe me or superficial media reports or academic spin \u2013 check it out for yourself.<\/p>\n

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Republished with permission from Graeme Carl\u00e9<\/em><\/a><\/h5>\n

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By \u0628\u0644\u0627\u0644 \u0627\u0644\u062f\u0648\u064a\u0643 \u2013 Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/w\/index.php?curid=97515029<\/span><\/h5>\n
By Zero0000A\/RES\/181(II) \u2013 m0103_1b.gif on PLAN OF PARTITION is from UNGA Resolution 181 (27 Nov 1947). Overdrawn UNSCOP boundary is from United Nations Special Committee on Palestine, Report to the General Assembly, 3 Sep 1947, Volume II, A\/364, Add. 1., Public Domain, https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/w\/index.php?curid=27649381<\/span><\/h5>\n
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  1. <\/span>Via UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. <\/span>UN figures in 1950. Population data, however, shows that before the Nakba, there were 1.2 million Arabs in the land. Afterwards, there 450,000-500,000 in the West Bank and Gaza and 160,000 continued to live in the new nation of Israel, meaning between 540,000 and 590,000 became refugees. The UN funding seems to have boosted numbers.<\/span><\/li>\n
  3. <\/span>The American Heritage\u00ae Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition on-line.<\/span><\/li>\n
  4. <\/span>Dancing in the Dragon\u2019s Jaws,<\/i> pp. 194-214.<\/span><\/li>\n
  5. <\/span>https:\/\/musalaha.org, 14 Oct, 2023.<\/span><\/li>\n
  6. <\/span>The Century Dictionary.<\/em><\/span><\/li>\n
  7. <\/span>Matt 12:36<\/span><\/li>\n
  8. <\/span>www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2022\/5\/15\/nakba-mapping-palestinian-villages-destroyed-by-israel-in-1948, 14 Oct, 2023.<\/span><\/li>\n
  9. <\/span>www.unrwa.org\/palestine-refugees, 17 Oct, 2023<\/span><\/li>\n
  10. <\/span>www.justiceforjews.com\/main_facts.html<\/span><\/li>\n
  11. <\/span>www.justiceforjews.com\/faq2013.pdf, 14 Oct, 2023.<\/span><\/li>\n
  12. <\/span>Ibid<\/span><\/li>\n
  13. <\/span>Palestine is to be number twenty-two<\/span><\/li>\n
  14. <\/span>UNWRA is the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East.\u00a0 <\/span>\u2018How is UNRWA Funded?\u2019 www.unrwa.org\/who-we-are\/frequently-asked-questions, 14 Oct, 2023.<\/span><\/li>\n
  15. <\/span>Iraq used to have 34,000 but drove most of them out (www.thenewhumanitarian.org\/report\/89571\/middle-east-palestinian-refugee-numberswhereabouts, 17 Oct, 2023. Also wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Palestinian_refugee_camps)<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Solving the Problem Anyone with a heart has to be sickened by news reports and videos of brutalised Palestinian civilians in Gaza today, abandoned by every nation to depend on the charity of United Nations\u2019 relief funds1\u00a0with no end in sight. Their elected leaders of Hamas have led them into a war which they can […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":1414,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[449,450,446,451],"tags":[994],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/israelinstitute.nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8375"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/israelinstitute.nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/israelinstitute.nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/israelinstitute.nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/israelinstitute.nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8375"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/israelinstitute.nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8375\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8380,"href":"https:\/\/israelinstitute.nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8375\/revisions\/8380"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/israelinstitute.nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/israelinstitute.nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/israelinstitute.nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/israelinstitute.nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}