Israel Independence Day: On May 8th we celebrate Yom Ha'atzmaut, Israel Independence Day. This year is the 60th anniversary of the founding of the modern State of Israel. It is preceded by Yom Hazikaron, Memorial Day for the Fallen Soldiers, a reminder that Israel owes its independence and existence to the many soldiers who sacrificed their lives. For nearly 2000 years the idea of the re-establishment of the Jewish State was barely a dream. Efforts to re-establish Israel took hold with the First Zionist Congress, called by Theodore Herzl, on August 29, 1897 in Basle, Switzerland. Herzl wrote in his diary after the congress, “In Basle I founded the Jewish state . . . Maybe in five years, certainly in fifty, everyone will realize it.”
Fifty years and 9 months later, on May 14, 1948, approximately six months after the UN General Assembly voted in favor of the plan for the partition of Palestine, just a few years after 6 million Jews were murdered by the Nazis and European Jewry looked down the shaft of extinction, and while Egyptian fighter-bombers flew overhead, David Ben Gurion proclaimed the independence of the State of Israel. One day later the armies of Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon invaded the Jewish state. Thousands of Jewish soldiers died defending their reborn country. For a summary of the events leading up to and after independence, titled Israel's War of Independence, visit http://isracast.com/articles/548.aspx.
During the war approximately 600,000 Palestinian Arabs fled their homes. Only Jordan offered them citizenship. Refugee camps for the Palestinians were set up and maintained, and are still maintained today, primarily by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which is dedicated entirely to the welfare of this one group. Not the Holocaust before nor subsequent genocides or ongoing world strife since have warranted the creation of another relief agency dedicated to the continuous maintenance of a single people as refugees. They are still denied citizenship and basic rights by their hosts including the right to work.
In 1944 there were over 1 million Jews in ten Arab countries and Iran. Today there are approximately 27,000. In reaction to the establishment of Israel, these Jews whose communities existed in the Middle East, North Africa and the Gulf region for more than 2,500 years were expelled from their homes by Arab countries. Approximately 600,000 of these refugees sought refuge in Israel, including more than 100,000 Iraqi Jews who emigrated in 1951 in a dramatic airlift. The Jewish refugees were forced to abandon virtually all of their property, especially as they fled from the most hostile countries of Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and Libya. (See http://tinyurl.com/2ukwe7 and www.justiceforjews.com/jjac.pdf.) They were gradually absorbed and integrated into Israeli society without any assistance from the United Nations. Since 1947 the U.N. General Assembly has adopted over 680 resolutions on the Middle East conflict, including over 100 resolutions on Palestinian refugees. During that same time period, there were no U.N. resolutions, nor any recognition or assistance from the international community for Jewish and other refugees from Arab countries. (See http://tinyurl.com/2gpoz5, http://tinyurl.com/2ofl9v and http://tinyurl.com/2vz2b6.) Today efforts are underway to catalogue the loss of their communal and individual assets and document the mass human rights violations committed against them (www.wojac.com and www.justiceforjews.com).
The story of these people is told in a film titled The Forgotten Refugees. After the showing of the film at a Jewish film festival a few years ago, there was a discussion with two of these refugees. One gentleman told the story of his family, how they secretly traveled from Syria, hid in Lebanon, lived under threats against their lives and of their desperation to leave. He was unable to contain his emotions as he told how his family learned on Passover that they had received permission to enter Mexico, living their own personal Exodus. You can learn more about this film and the Forgotten Refugees at www.theforgottenrefugees.com. It is currently available on DVD.
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