Did Zionist False Flag Attacks Make Jews Flee to Israel?

I'm currently reading Ben-Gurion's Scandals: How the Haganah and the Mossad Eliminated Jews and a few books about the transfer agreement between Nazi Germany and world Zionism, so this article from the Forward, and especially the comment from "Shai" struck me as very interesting.  At question (though you don't learn this from the article) is how much of a role Zionists played in creating the animosity against Jews in Arab countries including through false flag attacks (9/11 relevance note!) in order to entice them to move to Israel, where they were used by European Jews as cheap labor--a kind of "instant lower-class".  This also jibes with Mordechai Vanunu's (Israeli nuclear whistleblower) account of his own family's experience in immigrating to Israel, that I think I've posted something about before... will link to if i find it...

Jews Displaced From Arab Lands Finally Recognized

By Nathan Jeffay

Jerusalem — For the first time since they came to Israel, all 10 Jewish communities displaced from Arab countries have agreed on a course of action to address their grievances — and triumphed in the political arena.

The plight of the estimated 856,000 Jews who were forced to leave Arab countries after the establishment of the State of Israel has played a minimal role so far in negotiations for Middle East peace. But on February 22, the Knesset adopted a law under which any Israeli government entering into peace talks must use those talks to advance a compensation claim for those who became Israeli citizens.

The impact on the Middle East peace process is unclear. But according to the law’s supporters, its implications for Jews from Arab countries is substantial.

“This is a historic decision that will make peace in the Middle East about justice for everyone,” said Isaac Devash, the lobbyist who brought the various communities together around the legislative proposal and then took it to the Knesset. Devash, a Tel Aviv businessman and child of Libyan Jews, is a volunteer with the New York-based group Justice for Jews From Arab Countries.

Supporters of the new law say that its passage also shows that Israel today is more accepting of Sephardic discourse than it has been in the past. It illustrates “that we suffered as well as the Jews from Europe, and this is important,” Nachum Gilboa, a leader of the representative council for Libyan Jewry, told the Forward.

The United Nations estimates that, upon the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, 726,000 Palestinians became refugees. JJAC estimates that at the same time, Arab states displaced 856,000 Jewish citizens, in many cases seizing their personal and communal assets. Around two-thirds settled in Israel, and the rest went elsewhere, mostly to France, the United States and Canada. There is no agreed-upon estimate of the assets these Jews lost, though Sidney Zabludoff, a former CIA and Treasury Department official, used data on Palestinian losses to extrapolate some $6 billion in lost Jewish assets.

Until the new law passed, members of the displaced communities had more success in the Diaspora political arena than in Israel. In April 2008, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a nonbinding resolution urging that every reference to Palestinian refugees raised in international forums be matched by a similarly explicit reference to the uprooting of Jewish communities from Arab countries.

Some Israelis have voiced reservations about efforts to advance the cause of displaced Jews from Arab countries. On the right, critics argued that talking about them as refugees undercut the Zionist case that those who settled in Israel were in fact returning to their own homeland. On the left, there has been concern that Israeli-Palestinian negotiations are complicated enough without factoring in a situation for which Palestinians themselves are not responsible, and that doing so could hold back the chances of peace.

Some critics have warned that Palestinians could use the issue to demand quid pro quo compensation of their own.

Gadi Baltiansky, an expert on the peace process, said that the law created an “artificial” connection between the Palestine refugee problem and that of Jews from Arab lands. The issue of Jews from Arab lands should “not be part of the Israeli-Palestinian process,” which must be bilateral, said Baltiansky, director general of the Geneva Initiative, which produces detailed proposals for an Israeli-Palestinian agreement.

But Devash managed to secure broad consensus for the law in the Knesset. The proposal’s sponsor was lawmaker Nissim Ze’ev of the right-wing and Hareidi-oriented Shas party, whose main followers are Jews from Arab countries and their descendents. All Zionist parties, including Labor and Meretz on the left, supported the measure.

Still, the law’s diverse backers seem to have different views on the outcome of the process. Ze’ev has said that he is open to the idea of the displacement of Palestinians and Jews being classified retroactively as a “population exchange.” Mor Bitan, spokeswoman for Meretz leader Haim Oron, said that her party opposes this course but believes it’s a moral imperative that Jews from Arab lands have their grievances addressed. Meretz “does not think that it will be a barrier to the peace process,” Bitan said.

Devash views the law as the missing link in the peace process. Back in 2000, President Clinton mooted the idea of establishing an international fund to compensate both Palestinian and Jewish refugees. Devash wants to see such a fund established, and wants Israel, Arab countries and international donors such as the United States to contribute to it.

“It creates in Israel a huge pool of stakeholders in the peace process,” he said. “Now you have 2 million to 3 million Israelis who are going to be stakeholders in the process and 4.5 million Palestinian refugees who are also stakeholders.”

Devash wants to see Israel adopt the Saudi Initiative, produced by Saudi Arabia and agreed to unanimously by other Arab League members in 2007. The plan would normalize relations between Israel and the Arab world in return for a withdrawal by Israel to pre-1967 borders and a “just settlement” for Palestinian refugees. Devash’s hope is that the new law will lead to Israel demanding the international fund. This would “help make the Saudi Initiative an initiative that can be accepted by the population of Israel,” he said.

Ada Aharoni, another child of uprooted Jews, considered this hope farfetched. Aharoni, a former Haifa University academic and author of several books on Jews from Arab Lands, said that given the poor economic situation in many Arab countries, any demand for compensation would be “like taking money from a beggar.” But she believed that simply raising the profile of what happened will become a “tool for peace” as Palestinians realize that Jews also suffered in 1948.

Contact Nathan Jeffay at jeffay@forward.com

Marty J · 1 day ago

Hurrah! At last...Euivocating the two bodies of displaced persons were certainly overdue! However, being a supporter of Peace Now. It may seem contradictory, but we must look at both sides of the coin to make a fair and just conclusion..

This observation comes from one who is indeed proud of the many accomplishments of the State of Israel and conscious of negative as well

norman · 1 day ago

What is most needed at these time is a new "Marshal Plan" for both of the populations. The Palestinians refugees and the Jews from Arab lands have suffered too much and they are the key for a sustainable and lasting peace.

Shai · 1 day ago

Indeed the grievances of the Jews from Arab lands must be accounted for. But it should also be noted that
the Jewish Agency sought to bring these Jews to Israel so as to people the land and create facts on the ground.
Jewish immigrants have told me that the Jewish Agency told them not to bring any of their possessions. That Israel would provide just about everything. The first intro to Israeli life was a spray of DDT and accomodations in the maa'borot (city of tents). Plus they had to put up with being called 'schvartzeh' by their Ashkenasi compatriots. Some still call them this pejorative term to this day.

lamerkhav 4p · 1 day ago

For 30 year Israel asserted, that Jews from Arabs countries made Alya because they were Zionists. Now they came out as displaced people. When they said the truth?

noemi · 1 day ago

The same question should be addressed to the European Jews that arrived to Israel after 1945. About 1.5 million came to Israel after the Holocoust? Were they Zionist too? Or refugees of another wave of hatress?

lamerkhav 4p · 1 day ago

Please, don't touch the Holocaust! You take the Holocaust in vain. If You trivialize the terrible tragedy of Holocaust, insult the memory of 6 millions Jewish victims of Shoa, of my grandparents.

For 40 years there was one myth about Zionism of Mizrahim, fierce rejection of the tags like 'displaced people' or 'refugee', and now we got a new myths. And this discredits all the issue.

noemi · 1 day ago

The simple fact is that the state of Israel served the only viable refuge place for the displaced Jews of the world, that were "created" due to the horrific events of the 20th century. This does not exclude Zionism, nor does it exclude the fact that others come to Israel because of religious motives. However, the narrative of Israel as refuge place is closer to reality, as compared to the narrative that ALL Jews came to Israel due to Zionism.

lamerkhav 4p · 1 day ago

Changing the narrative, israel creates distrust and infrigement of Mizrakhim.
And why a Knesset recognition of the Arab Jews? Why not the Soviet Jews or Polish Jews from Gomulka's alyah? Why not the Persian or Romanian Jews?
Seem like political manipulation, that insults the honor and pride of Mizrahim, insults the Zionism legacy.

noemi · 22 hours ago

I respectfully disagree. I don't think that the 10 Jewish communities that supported the law want to create distrust or infrigment of Mizrakim. They are Mizrakim and give them the credit that they know how to progress their self inteterst....Also, the law is based on historical facts and not on an any attempt to change any narrative. If all Jews were Zionistics, than we should have seen all the 6 million jews living in the US moving to Israel. Why aren't they coming? How come there are only 10,000 Jews left in the whole of North Africa and the Middle East? and BTW the law includes the Jews of Iran.