Lyn Julius
What is the Nakba?
Lyn Julius - What is the Nakba?
- Well, good afternoon from London, and thank you to Lockdown University for inviting me back once again. So my subject today is a rather controversial one. It is, what is the Nakba? What is it? Is it the Palestinian Nakba we’re talking about? I think we are. Is there a Jewish Nakba? And why don’t we hear about that? And can awareness of both Nakbas lead us to peace and reconciliation? As most of you know, this year is the 75th anniversary of the founding of the state of Israel. It was on the 14th of May, 1948, that David Ben-Gurion made his famous declaration in Independence Hall in Tel Aviv. Hardly was the ink dry on the Declaration of Independence than five Arab League states, Syria, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, and Lebanon, and two more states, Yemen and Saudi Arabia sent expeditionary forces. They all declared war on the new state. In the last 75 years, Egypt and Jordan have signed peace treaties, and Morocco, the UAE, Sudan, and Bahrain have signed the Abraham Accords. But others such as Iraq, Libya, and Syria are still at war with Israel. And the Palestinians have not discussed peace with Israel for about 10 years now. Indeed, this year, pro-Palestinians have made determined efforts to push an alternative narrative that of the Nakba. So the UN committee on the exercise of the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people assisted by the Division for Palestinian Rights, commemorated the 75th Nakba at the UN headquarters in New York on the 15th of May, 2023. That’s the day after Israel was declared a state.
For the first time in its history, the UN passed a resolution in November, 2022, UN General Assembly Resolution 7723 to commemorate the Nakba officially. On Nakba day, the General Assembly was convened, the Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas made a speech and a cultural event featuring Palestinian musicians was held. So what is the Nakba? Nakba means catastrophe in Arabic. There are two explanations for the nature of the catastrophe. The most recent is the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Arabs from their homes. So how many are we talking about? Estimates range from 350,000 to 711,000 according to UN figures, and some estimates put the figures even higher. Palestinians suffered an unquestionable human tragedy in 1948. Men, women, and children lost their homes. Two thirds remained within the borders of Palestine. They were dispersed to the Jordanian occupied West Bank, the Egyptian occupied Gaza Strip. They also fled to neighbouring Arab countries. So 90% of the original refugees have since passed away, but official figures for Palestinian refugees have ballooned to over 5 million even though 90% were not born or have never seen Palestine. Uniquely, Palestinians are the only refugees who can pass on their refugee status from generation to generation. So four or five generations later, Palestinians are still designated as refugees under the care of an exclusive UN agency, UNRWA. Except in Jordan, they’re not allowed to become citizens of their host Arab countries. In fact, the Arab League passed a Resolution 1457 in 1959 forbidding Arab states from granting the refugees citizenship.
The refugees are not allowed to resettle. They suffer from other restrictions. For instance, they are not allowed to do certain jobs, or cannot own property, particularly in Lebanon. So how many were expelled and how many fled of their own accord or because their leaders told them to, is a matter of dispute. There were instances of expulsion, for instance, from Lydda and Ramle. But the refugees ultimately were fleeing a war zone. But it is often pointed out, had the Arabs accepted the partition plan of 1947, there would’ve been no violence and no displacement. In fact, it is said, there would not have been a single Arab refugee and the Palestinians would’ve been marking the 75th anniversary of the founding of their own state. It’s important to realise that where expulsion took place, it was not because they were Arabs, but because they were hostile. Some 160,000 Arabs remained in Israel. Abu Ghosh, which is an Arab village near Jerusalem, is an example where Arabs fought alongside Jews in the War of Independence. They have excellent relations with their Jewish neighbours and have been able to flourish. The fact that 160,000 Arabs remained suggests that there was no deliberate Zionist policy of ethnic cleansing contrast with what you tell the Jews. Not a single Jew was allowed to remain in areas conquered by the Jordanian Arab Legion. Every last Jew was expelled, and Jews in Arab countries were also forced to leave. More about them later. To quote Abba Eban, who made a speech at the UN in 1958. “The problem of the Arab refugees had been a direct consequence of the launching of a war for the purpose of overthrowing by force the General Assembly’s November 1947 Resolution on Partition.
No great movements of population would’ve occurred if the Arab world would’ve joined with Israel in an attempt to give peaceful implementation to that resolution.” But the original explanation for the word Nakba is the catastrophic defeat of the Arab side. As a result of the failed genocide of Jews by Arabs in 1948, in which 1% of the Jewish population of Israel died. Let’s not forget that Arab leaders made their intentions clear. On the 14th of May, 1948, the secretary of the Arab League Abdul Rahman Hassan Azzam announced the Declaration of War against Israel. This war will be a war of annihilation and a massacre not spoken of since the massacres of the Mongols and the Crusades. The respected Israeli writer and commentator, Yossi Klein Halevi was asked to take part in a discussion about the Nakba called, “Can Zionists speak about the Nakba?” And he puts it this way. “And so when you ask me where does the word Nakba hit me? My instinctive reaction is the very word Catastrophe, means the catastrophe of the Arab world’s failure to destroy Israel. That’s the real catastrophe that they’re mourning. And there’s actually historic evidence for that. If you go back and see how the word Nakba was first used by the first Arab journalists responding to 1948, it was the catastrophe of the Arab world’s defeat, their military defeat, even before they even spoke about the refugee issue.” The 1948 Nakba was followed by the lesser known “Naksa”, the disappointment or setback. And this is the name given to the defeat of the Arab countries by Israel in the Six-Day War.
But historically, the word Nakba was coined by a Syrian Christian historian and journalist called Constantine Zuraik. Zuraik taught at the American University of Beirut. Writing in his 1948 book, “The Meaning of the Disaster”, Zuraik said, “The defeat of the Arabs in Palestine is not a small downfall, a Naksa, it is a catastrophe, Nakba, in every sense of the word.” Zuraik also wrote, “Seven Arab countries declare war on Zionism in Palestine, seven countries go to war to abolish the partition and to defeat Zionism and quickly leave the battle. After losing much of the land of Palestine, and even the part that was given to the Arabs in the Partition Plan.” He concluded, “We must admit our mistakes and recognise the extent of our responsibility for the disaster that is our lot.” Zuraik saw the Nakba as a pan Arab catastrophe. Over time, it has morphed into an exclusively Palestinian catastrophe for which only Israel is to blame. But Zuraik is not the first person to have used the word Nakba. In fact, it goes back to the 1920s when the Ottoman empire collapsed and Britain and France divided the spoils between them. Britain got Palestine and France got Syria. But Palestinian Arabs saw themselves as Syrians. They were enraged that the Southern Syrians were being hived off from the Northern Syrian homeland. That was a Nakba. In 1920, both sets of Syrian Arabs, those in Syria and those in Palestine rioted violently. The riots were instigated and led by the man who would later become known as the father of Palestinian nationalism. The Grand Mufti, Haj Amin al-Husseini. The Arab historian George Antonius, described these riots in his book, “The Arab Awakening”.
Zuraik revived the term in 1948. As we have said, in the 1950s, more writers used the word Nakba to ascribe all blame to the Israelis for what was a consequence of a war instigated by the Arab side against Israel. In the 1980s, the Nakba narrative was given a boost by the Israeli new historians. This group of Israeli scholars challenged the traditional Zionist accounts of the events of 1948. They tended to portray the Israelis as aggressors and the Palestinian Arabs as victims. However, in 2008, Benny Morris, considered to be the dean of the “new historians” decried the fact that his work was being used to prop up the Nakba narrative. In a letter to “The Irish Times”, Morris claimed that the events of 1948 were much more nuanced and complex. The Nakba would be catapulted to the fore by none other than the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Arafat declared the first Nakba Day in 1988, and this coincided with Israel celebrating the 50th anniversary of its independence. And this was several years after he had signed the Oslo Accords promising to work towards the “two-state solution”. However, he interpreted two states as an Arab state on the West Bank in Gaza and a second Arab state in place of Israel. Two Arab states. The conflict was thus doomed to continue in perpetuity as long as Israel did not consent to its own self-destruction. And if you look at the text of what Arafat said on the first Nakba Day, you’ll see how he is sort of imitating the terminology used by Zionists. He talks about a diaspora, he talks about returning to the land to build a state on our land, our land like other people’s.
Since then, the Nakba narrative has moved from the sidelines to the mainstream. It has been promoted by a number of NGOs who have received funding from the EU or churches. For instance, the Arab Youth Association, Baladna, which means “our motherland”. Al Alda, “the return”, the Coalition of Women for Peace, Gush Shalom, the Alternative Information Centre, Adalah, Mosava, Mada al-Carmel, the Israeli far-left NGO Zochrot, which means “remembering”, was established. In 2014, Zochrot organised a conference to prepare for the day when Arabs would reclaim their property inside Israel. This was actually held at Tel Aviv University, which was supposedly built on the site of an Arab village. And the conference really set out a dystopian scenario that would likely end in a blood bath with Arabs coming back to reclaim their property, which is obviously occupied now by Jews. And Zochrot also released a smartphone application, which provides a map and photos of depopulated Arab villages. Now the objective of all these groups is the Palestinian right of return. If a million Arab refugees… Sorry, if millions of Arab refugees and their descendants are allowed to return to Israel, they would overwhelm Israel demographically, soon it would become yet another Arab state. And of course its first act would be to abrogate Israel’s right of return for Jews. And so you can see how a terrible defeat of the Arabs has morphed into something else.
The existence of Israel itself is the injustice. Israel is responsible for the uprooting, dispossession, and exile of the Palestinian people from their homeland. And it follows that, only by dismantling the state of Israel can justice be done. So before long Palestinians were able to count on the support of the International Leftist Coalition in street demonstrations and on college campuses, activists chant the slogan that sums up the final goal of the Nakba narrative, “From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will Be Free.” In 2007, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon conveyed his empathy to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on the occasion of Nakba Day. More recently, Rashida Tlaib, a member of the pro-Palestinian squad in the Democratic Party in Congress requested that the US Congress mark Nakba Day. What has been the Israeli reaction? Well, most Israelis have never heard of the Nakba. But in 2007, Israeli minister of education, Yuli Tamir of the Labour Party allowed for a textbook that featured the Nakba to be included in the curriculum for Arab-Israeli elementary students. Tamir was perhaps typical of Jewish liberals who think Jews should understand the others’ narrative, even if it means national suicide. All too many perfectly sensible people, including quite a few liberal Israelis seem willing to ignore the deadly implications of the Nakba narrative for fear of being accused of insensitivity to another people suffering. So Jews have called for the Palestinian narrative to be taught in Jewish schools. However, the Knesset, the Israeli parliament has pushed back passing the so-called “Nakba Law”, which allows the government to reduce funding to any organisation commemorating Israel’s independence as a day of mourning.
And so we come back to this year’s Nakba Day commemoration. Incidentally, 45 states boycotted the event, including the US. Speaker after speaker referred to the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people. independence, self-determination, and return of the refugees in accordance with UN General Assembly Resolution 194. Journalists detected a notable shift in Abbas’s speech, a hardening of his position, and he represents the moderate Palestinians. In New York, Abbas sported a little key on his lapel, which I hope you can just see there, to signify the Palestinian demand for a right of return. He was walking back an earlier statement that he no longer wanted to return to his native suffered. “I am a Palestinian refugee, I want to return to my land,” he told the General Assembly. “I once suffered,” he specified to warm applause. The editor of “Times of Israel”, David Horowitz commented that Abbas’s speech makes peace less likely than ever, yet Abbas’s change of stance barely registered in the reporting of the Nakba event. So Abbas called for UN General Assembly Resolution 194 of the 11th of December, 1948 to be implemented. Article 11 of the Resolution resolves that “Refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return. And for loss or damage to property, which under principles of international law or equity, should be made good by the governments or authorities responsible.”
At the time, the Arab states who were members of the UN, rejected Resolution 194 because they thought it would entail recognising Israel and the status quo. Subsequently, the Arab states changed their tune and insisted on implementation of Resolution 194, which they interpreted as permitting unconditional return of the refugees. Article 11 has become the cornerstone of their strategy. Of course, the Resolution does not have any legal standing. It is a General Assembly resolution, not a Security Council resolution. It does not say that the refugees must be permitted to return. It says, “Should be permitted.” And crucially, it says, “Those wishing to live at peace with their neighbours may be permitted to return.” In the insisting on unconditional return, the Arab side leaves out the bit about living in peace. As we know over the last 75 years, hostilities have not ceased between Israel and the Palestinians. In the book, “The War of Return”, which I highly recommend, Einat Wilf and Adi Schwartz say that, “Return has always been the Palestinian objective, but no one in the West has taken it seriously. The West has indulged this fantasy, throwing money at the Palestinians. It has provided over $940 million, including 730 million in humanitarian assistance for Palestinian refugees.” Wilf says, “The Palestinians have worked to maintain their intergenerational refugee status for one reason only, to keep the war of 1948 alive and avoid accepting its outcome in the form of the existence of a Jewish state in any part of the land.” Wilf and Schwartz blame the Middle East UN mediator, Count Folke Bernadotte for giving UN approval to the Arab ambition to eliminate Israel. He was the first to make the refugees the international community’s responsibility.
And he was the first to enshrine the demand to return as a right. Bernadotte was assassinated by Lehi in September, 1948. There is no such thing as “a right of return,” and it was then against international norms. Although Israel has allowed small numbers of Arabs to return, there have been cases in other conflicts where refugees have been allowed to return. Some 600,000 Poles returned to Poland after World War II, some 200,000 Algerians returned to Algeria after it gained independence from France, some 10 million Bengalis came back to Bangladesh in 1972. But return has always occurred when the returning refugees belonged to the majority community and there was no conflict between them and the receiving country. As I have said, return here is intended as a political weapon to subvert and destroy Israel as a Jewish state. It is to create an endless series of events that are in effect, “mini Nakbas,” so as to keep their cause alive and fueled by rage at Israel’s ability to survive and thrive. Take the latest skirmish in Jenin, when the Israeli army went in to fight terrorists. The media have willingly fueled the Nakba narrative by talking of the Jenin refugee camp. When in reality, it is a collection of buildings that’s actually part of the city of Jenin. There isn’t a tent in sight. We saw images on our TV screens of Palestinians trudging down the street, yet again forced to flee their homes. In his Nakba Day speech, Mahmoud Abbas compared the Israelis and the Nazis. Let’s go back to him in a minute. Two weeks later, Mahmoud Abbas signed a presidential decree making it a criminal offence to deny the Nakba. If found guilty of denying the Nakba, you could face up to two years in jail. It defines Nakba as a crime against humanity carried out by the… Excuse me, by the Zionist gangs. If this sounds like Abbas was mimicking the law enforcing some European countries against Holocaust denial, it is no accident.
The Palestinian propaganda machine has been pursuing a strategy to compare the Holocaust with the Nakba as if the two events were on a par. In other words, the Nakba is the Palestinian Holocaust. Even worse, Abbas publicly declared in 2022 in Germany of all places, that the Palestinians had suffered the equivalent of 50 holocausts at the hands of the Jews. Underlying the comparison is the suggestion that the Palestinians were innocent bystanders who paid the price for European crimes against the Jews. But as we know, there’s plenty of evidence that the Palestinians collaborated with the Nazis. And had the Nazis been victorious in World War II, the mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini would’ve managed the extermination of the Jews in his sphere of influence. So, was the Nakba an exceptional injustice? Well, those who wage a war to eliminate and other people cannot complain that they suffered an exceptional injustice, nor was what happened to the Palestinian refugees. Tragic though, it was, not exceptional because population transfers were common in the 20th century. They were an accepted way of resolving territorial disputes. And 135 million people were displaced in conflicts. For instance, 10 million ethnic Germans, over a million Greeks from Turkey who exchanged places with half a million Muslims from Greece, 7 million Hindus swapped places with 14 million Muslims in Indian subcontinent. None ever went back to their home countries. All these are victims of what has euphemistically been called “ethnic simplification,” a consequence of 20th century nationalism and the creation of monolithic nation states, especially in the third world.
But there is another set of refugees who were displaced by the very same Arab-Israeli conflict as the Palestinian refugees, Jewish refugees. So let’s call this “the Jewish Nakba.” Although a lot of people don’t like the term, I’m using it really for convenience. As many as 870,000 Jews were driven from or fled the Arab world at around the same time as the Palestinian refugees, abandoning billions of dollars worth of property. Outraged that nobody was mentioning what has become known as the “forgotten exodus,” an organisation called Americans for Peace and Tolerance arranged on Nakba Day for vans to drive around US cities advertising the Jewish Nakba. In 1948, a million Jews lived in the region, and barely 4,000 remained there today. And there were actually more Jewish refugees than Palestinian refugees. Today you can count the numbers in these countries on the fingers of one or two hands. And some have no Jews at all, as you can see in the chart. And incidentally, these are very old communities. And when the Jews left these countries, they lost more than just their property. They lost their heritage, they lost their history. So on the 16th of May, 1948, just as the Arab League declared war on Israel, “The New York Times” reported that Arab states were about to declare a second war against their own Jewish citizens, branded the Jewish minority of Palestine. Jews in the Middle East and North Africa, now we know them as Mizrahim, were conflated with Israelis. And this is a crucial difference. The Palestinians were fleeing a war zone. The Jews in Arab countries were non-combatants, sometimes thousands of miles away from the theatre of battle.
The member states of the Arab League drafted laws reminiscent of the Nuremberg Laws. Jews were stripped off their rights, dispossessed of their property. And you can see here in this extract at the top, they will be considered as members of the “Jewish minority of the state of Palestine.” Zionism became a crime. And this meant you could be arrested, jailed, tried, and executed on the flimsiest of pretexts. Billions were extorted or stolen from Jews in property and assets and Jewish land seized in Arab countries amounts to four or five times the land area of Israel itself. And there was also a backdrop of violence, and hundreds of Jews were killed in bombings and riots. Jews were hostages to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Eventually, Israel mounted dramatic rescue missions, and the majority, 650,000, mostly destitute refugees fled to Israel, doubling the Jewish population overnight. 200,000 resettled in the West. Now this is not a suffering Olympics between Arabs and Jews, but if we mention the Arab Nakba, we are compelled as a matter of law and equity to talk about the Jewish Nakba. Both were caused by the Arab League. And those who say that if Israel had never been established, the Jews would’ve continued to live in safety in Arab countries are mistaken. Antisemitism predates the creation of Israel in the Muslim world, and all minorities have been victimised as a result of Arab nationalism and Islamism, even those with no Israel of their own. I’m thinking of Yazidis, Cobs, Assyrian Christians. The response to the Jewish Nakba has been denial. Denial that there were ever Jews in the Middle East. Jews came from Europe, as we know.
Denial that they were refugees. They left as Zionists. And you often hear pro-Palestinians repeat this argument, the Jews were Zionists. They came to Israel of their own free will. And here you see Jews who actually were put in refugee camps or Ma'abarot in terrible conditions when they arrived in Israel. The story remains forgotten or ignored. And here are some of the reasons the Jewish refugees were never on the international peace agenda. They were absorbed into Israel. The Palestinian refugees were not integrated into Arab states, but were deliberately left as a standing reproach to Israel. The UN established 10 agencies to care for Palestinian refugees. There were 172 General Assembly resolutions mentioning Palestinian refugees, none mentions Jewish refugees. The Security Council passed 10 resolutions, none mentions Jewish refugees. Then there was Arab denial. Denial that the Jews were forced out of their countries, and acknowledging the Jewish exodus would imply recognising their responsibility for it. Then there’s Jewish denial. A lot of Jews do not want to be reminded that they were refugees, and they did not remain refugees for long. In other words, the problem was solved, although the human rights abuses and dispossession, resolved injustices. Then there was Israel denial. Israel did not see them as refugees, but as Zionists returning to their ancestral homeland, it wanted to forge a new Israeli citizen speaking Hebrew.
And to some extent, this melting pot policy has worked. But in terms of public diplomacy, Israel’s failure to raise awareness of the Jewish refugees has been a disaster. And interfaith and coexistence initiatives almost always skirt around difficult subjects and never mention the exodus of Jews from Arab countries. Social justice warriors are more concerned with Arab rights than Mizrahi rights. The left frequently considers the Jewish refugee issue an obstacle to peace. Even institutions like Yad Vashem are willing to distort history for political reasons. For example, by minimising the wartime muftis collaboration with Nazism. So to conclude, over 50% of Israelis are themselves refugees from Arab and Muslim countries, or their descendants. In the words of Matti Friedman, the writer, “They are in Israel not because of the Nazis, but because of the Arabs.” And the lasting peace agreement, which does not take account of the Jewish refugees, will not be based on truth. So linkage between the two sets of refugees opens up a window of opportunity for a political accommodation. Now, a right of return for one set of refugees is untenable. Giving Jews from the Arab world a right of return to countries that spat them out is like asking a prisoner who has tasted freedom to go back to jail. So what I would recommend is that, neither set of refugees returns to its countries of origin. One might argue that no comparison between the two groups of refugees is possible after one problem has been resolved while the other has not.
But it’s hard to justify a position that defends the non-resettlement of Palestinian refugees. So the biggest obstacle to their absorption is really the existence of UNRWA. And it precludes and humanitarians solution to the refugees plight that all other refugees in the world are looked after by the UNHCR, and their mission is to absorb or integrate or resettle refugees. So refugee resettlement is the answer. Palestinian refugees need to be given full citizenship either in Palestine or in the host Arab nations. And I would say that both sets of refugees do deserve compensation. So how likely is a solution? Well, not very, I’d say, as long as people are unaware or in denial of the Jewish refugee problem. I think that’s why Gilad Erdan, Israel’s UN Ambassador was holding up this sign. So I think we are more likely to end the conflict if more people are aware of the Jewish Nakba. In case you find all this very depressing, I want to end on a lighter note by telling you about another Nakba. A Jewish man called Victor Nakba, who runs a satirical Twitter page collecting items about the Arab Nakba. “I love Nakba stories,” he says. So with that, thank you very much for listening, and I’m very happy to answer any questions if you have any.
Q&A and Comments:
Oh, good. It’s nice to know. It’s very sunny in Manchester. In the UN website, the Jewish militia attack the Palestinian villages. This is not true. It’s amazing that they say that. There’s an awful lot of revisionism going on, Evan, I would say. There’s a lot of revisionism going on. I was looking up the UN Secretary of General’s declaration about the, you know, the massacre not spoken of since the Mongolian massacres. And someone who wrote the Wikipedia entry tried to imply that his declaration was taken out of context. And even worse, he was talking about a massacre of Palestinians, not of Jews. So why do the Palestinians retain refugee status? Well, I would say, it is a political weapon against Israel. Is it possible to get the notes that I’m reading from? Well, hopefully, there’ll be a recording of this and you’ll be able to see it. A prejudicial photo of Arafat. Oh, its a terrible photo. Yeah, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Maybe I could have found a better one.
Q - [Host] Get to it. So whose version of the Nakba is told in the school books?
A - Well, I think the version that is most recent is told in the school books. And that is that Israel is a terrible injustice and we need to remove it. Let the Palestinians return and justice will be done.
Q - [Host] Okay, the next question is, what are the solutions? Certainly not the present government in Israel. We are all doomed if the Haredim become the majority.
A - Well, I don’t want to get into Israeli internal politics there. I think what’s been missing has been any willingness on the part of the Palestinians to make peace. I mean, for about 10 years now, they haven’t negotiated peace. And, you know, irrespective of who’s in power in Israel, I think there is just no will to make peace at the moment. You know, I mean, things can change overnight. Look what happened when Sadat decided to get on a plane and come to Jerusalem. And suddenly, you know, there was peace between Egypt and Israel. So the same thing could happen if there was willingness on the Arab side, on the Palestinian side to make peace.
Q - [Host] Okay, if the Palestinians have a right to compensation for property in Israel, has there been an effort for Jewish refugees from Arab countries to claim compensation too? I would’ve thought that would have been reason for the Arab countries to reject the act at the UN.
A - Right, well, the situation is as follows. The Arab refugees who are still within Israel’s boundaries can actually claim compensation for any property that they lost. Those who are outside Israel cannot, because their property has been frozen. It comes under the jurisdiction of the Israeli custodian for Arab property. Now, there’s an equivalent arrangement for Jewish property that was lost on the West Bank, for instance, or in Jerusalem. No, not in Jerusalem, but on the West Bank. Anyone who’s lost property, say, in Hebron, or anywhere on the West Bank, cannot claim back their property and cannot claim compensation because until a peace agreement is signed, the property remains frozen, if you like. So no arrangement actually has been agreed to compensate those who lost property. As for Jews from Arab countries, there is absolutely no prospect of compensation even with countries that have signed a peace treaty with Israel. For instance, Egypt. I think there’s only one case of restitution, the Cecil Hotel, that was restituted to a Jewish family. There are cases of Egyptian Jews who have sued in the courts. Sometimes they have been awarded compensation, but usually, it is in Egyptian Piastres, and the currency is so weak that it’s hardly amounts to anything at all. You know, these cases are actually few and far between. So I’m afraid there’s absolutely no prospect of compensation until an agreement is reached with the Arab countries. And the thinking now is that, there should be an international fund to compensate individual refugees on both sides. So Palestinians as well as Jews who lost property. And that fund was actually mentioned by Clinton in 2010 at Camp David. Excuse me. Nothing has actually been done to set it up.
Q - [Host] We have Arlene Goldberg who said, “How can one deny the Holocaust and yet blame the Israelis for behaving like Nazis?”
A - Good question. Indeed, I agree.
[Host] Okay, the next…
Yeah, it is an abuse of… You know, it is trying to turn Israelis into the new Nazis, trying to turn them into the epitome of evil. Yeah.
Q - [Host] The next question is from Shelly, “How many Christian Arabs left Israel?”
A - I don’t actually have the figures, but there were still quite a few who remained, and some who fled were actually allowed to return. I’m thinking of the present Israeli ambassador to Azerbaijan, who is actually a Christian Arab called George Deek. And his story is that his father fled in 1948, but was actually allowed to return to Jaffa where he was from. And George Deek made a career in the Israeli Foreign Office, and he is now an ambassador.
Q - [Host] The next question from Harvey is, how can Israel improve its PR? It appears almost non-existent from here in the UK and the diaspora seems to be doing most of the heavy lifting.
A - I’m not sure if the diaspora is doing most of the heavy lifting. Certainly, I don’t know if we’ve made that much headway at all. I do believe that if the Jewish Nakba, for want of a better term was better known, it would help, you know, sort of rebalance the way the conflict is understood. You know, to show that there were two sides to this story. You know, that there were victims on both sides. It’s lot more complex than people imagine.
Q - [Host] Please do forgive my pronunciation, but Monty asked what is the status of Hezbollah in Lebanon? Are they not Palestinians?
A - No, Hezbollah are not Palestinians. They are Shia-militia supported by Iran. But there is a very big population of Palestinians in Lebanon. Some of them still living in refugee camps and they have very, very few rights. There were also Palestinian refugees in Syria, and they have suffered quite a bit during the Civil War. But of course, when Palestinians get killed in Syria, nobody bats an eyelid. It’s only when they get killed at the hands of Israel. That’s people take notice.
Q - [Host] The next question from Sandra is, are Palestinian refugees being resettled or is their UN agency a joke?
Is the UN agency?
[Host] A joke.
A - A joke? Well, that’s the whole point of UNRWA, is not to resettle them. And that’s why they’re deprived of civil rights in most Arab countries except Jordan, which had such a small population to start with. They really needed Palestinians to be citizens of Jordan. And in fact, Palestinians are now a majority in Jordan, ruled by a Bedouin regime, if you like. So the only country where they do have rights is Jordan. But I think Adi Schwartz and Einat Wilf are right in their book, “The War of Return”, to try to persuade the international community to dismantle UNRWA because it is the major obstacle to absorbing these refugees as full citizens. You know, it’s a complete nonsense that 75 years on these Palestinian in Jenin or anywhere else in Palestine if you like, are still considered refugees. You know, they were not born in Israel and they never knew Israel. Why do they have this status? It’s a nonsense.
Q - [Host] The next question is from Yoland, and I believe it’s talking about the compensation you’re referring to. What about if you lost your profitable business but not real estate?
A - Well, I think that comes under the same heading, Yoland, real estate. There was no compensation for either real estate or businesses. Sorry about this. Must be Amazon. Yeah.
Q - [Host] Mirna asked, wouldn’t you say Jordan is actually Palestine?
A - Well, I don’t really want to be drawn on a discussion of whether Jordan is Palestine. I think there’s a good case to be made for Jordan to be Palestine. The problem is, it’s actually an asset the way it is now, ruled by the Hashemites. It’s quite a stable, moderate country, and it is on Israel’s borders. There is a sort of an understanding between Israel and Jordan to keep the peace. So, you know, if the Jordanian monarchy disappeared tomorrow, you know, I dread to think what would happen. That’s not to say that there are a lot of Palestinians who perhaps are dissatisfied with the status quo and would like to get rid of the Jordanian monarchy, but I think at the moment its possibly the best situation to have as far as Israel’s concerned anyway.
Thank you very much Karina for your help and thank you all for listening.