Letter: Tale of Two Refugee Populations

Dear editor:

Stephen Flatow is absolutely correct. (Opinion: After War with Iran, Countries Call for a Palestinian State boulderjewishnews.org July 9, 2025) Palestinian leaders have done nothing to build the Palestinian state they claim to want. In fact, they have clearly indicated that their chief aim is destroying the nation-state of the Jews.

Consider the fates of two refugee populations created in the 1940’s when Arab countries went to war instead of helping the Arabs of Palestine prepare for the autonomy offered them by the 1947 UN Proposal for the Partition of Palestine.

Between 400,000 and 700,000 Arabs left Palestine or were expelled during the Arab-initiated fighting. Although we often hear that Israel stole land from the Palestinians, the truth is that the Arab population in Palestine increased significantly as a result of Zionist activity that raised the area’s living standards. While some Arabs were certainly displaced from Palestine in war time, it has also been stated that many left Palestine without ever hearing a shot fired or seeing a Jewish soldier.

https://www.danielpipes.org/1110/from-time-immemorial

After 1948, over 1,000,000 Mizrachi Jews were driven out of their homes in the Muslim countries of the Middle East and North Africa, as Arab leaders were shamed by their armies’ failure to prevent the Zionists from declaring the rebirth of a Jewish state in the Jews’ ancestral homeland.  Some of the displaced Jews emigrated to France or the U.S., but tiny Israel immediately began to fulfill its promise — to be the place that would not refuse safe haven to any Jew who needed a home. Thus, while rehabilitating Holocaust survivors, rationing food to its growing population, and dealing with terrorist infiltration from areas occupied by Jordan and Egypt until 1967, Israel absorbed 800,000 of the Mizrachi Jews whose descendants now comprise the majority of Israel’s Jewish citizenry. Every position in Israel’s governance, except Prime Minister, has been filled, at one time or another, by someone with roots in the Mizrachi communities.

In contrast, the Arab League told its member nations to deny citizenship to the Arabs who’d left or had been displaced from Palestine and to their descendants. No more than 30,000 of the Arabs who were in Palestine in the 1940’s are still alive. But their children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren,…now number 6,000,000 Palestine refugees on the rolls of UNRWA (the UN agency devoted to “caring for” the “refugees” which has not resettled a single “refugee” or provided any “refugee” with a job). Arab leaders insist that the “Palestine refugees” have a right of return to Israel, despite the “refugees” having been raised in societies that honor and reward Palestinians for killing Jews. The leaders’ intentions are clear — they are trying to turn Israel into a Muslim majority state where no Jew would be safe.

Expose the Palestinian ‘Refugee’ Scam – WSJ

Instead of prematurely recognizing a Palestinian state when such an entity does not exist, nations seeking peace should work together to keep Iran from funding its proxies (which then attack Israel and the U.S.) and also encourage Arab states to join in the Abraham Accords. Arab nations could work with Israel on diversifying their economies (so they will not be adversely affected when the US returns to producing and selling oil) and on developing standards for good governance. It is unacceptable for Palestinian leaders to enrich themselves by embezzling monies donated for their people’s benefit and to still be in office in when their nominal four year term has long since expired.

https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/palestinian-leaders-are-billionaires-why-is-the-west-still-paying

Members of the Abraham Accords and Western democracies will also need to work on security issues with the Palestinians. Even a demilitarized state needs a police force (Arab tribes often fight one another) and first responders to deal with natural disasters and criminal actions.

Toby F. Block
Atlanta, GA