Interesting fact

I bet you didn't know that more Jews sought refuge from Arab nations in 1948 (the year Israel was founded) than the number of Palestinians to left Israeli territory in 1948 and 1949. Indeed, many more Jews than Palestinians became refugees in that year. According to the United Nations, 856,000 Jews left Arab nations in 1948, while 710,000 Palestinians what became Israel.

In citing these figures I do not mean to suggest that there should was a simple population exchange, that after 60 years people should be satisfied and that all the claims back and forth be silenced. Some of those Jewish refugees went to nations other than Israel, but those who did go to the new state were going to a Jewish homeland, which most Jews had dreamt of for decades, even centuries. The Palestinians, on the other hand, left their homes and their homeland (although the notion of such a homeland seems to have developed later).

Then, too, the policies of the countries to which the refugees moved were vastly different. Israel welcomed the influx of Jews; faced with hostile Arab nations on all sides, the task of absorbing the new arrivals strained resources, but they provided valuable reinforcements. The Arab nations around Israel--principally Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt--preferred to keep the Palestinians separate, and offered virtually no chance to become part of the local social fabric. That is why there are still Palestinian "refugee camps" six decades after Israel's founding. That policy victimized the Palestinians, but it also allowed the Arab nations to cultivate irredentist fantasies which masked many of their failures of governance.

What does all this mean for the Middle East today? I don't know. On the other hand, the more we know about the past, the better chance we have for the future.