Many/most Jews from Arab countries don't describe themselves as refugees. In fact, most are offended by this relatively recent description of how and why they came to Israel.
Shlomo Hillel, a government minister and an active Zionist in Iraq, adamantly opposed the analogy: "I don't regard the departure of Jews from Arab lands as that of refugees. They came here because they wanted to, as Zionists."
In a Knesset hearing, Ran Cohen stated emphatically: "I have this to say: I am not a refugee." He added: "I came at the behest of Zionism, due to the pull that this land exerts, and due to the idea of redemption. Nobody is going to define me as a refugee."
The opposition was so vociferous that Ora Schweitzer, chair of WOJAC's political department, asked the organization's secretariat to end its campaign. She reported that members of Strasburg's Jewish community were so offended that they threatened to boycott organization meetings should the topic of "Sephardi Jews as refugees" ever come up again.
Hitching a ride on the magic carpet - Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News
Most Arab Jews moved to Palestine/Israel for the same reason that Canadian and American Jews moved to Israel. Most Arab Jews are just as much refugees as Canadian Jews who also moved to Israel during the same period.
Certainly many Arab Jews have reasonable claims for compensation for loss of property as a consequence of property expropriation, but few Arab Jews fled to Israel because they feared for their lives. No doubt Arab Jews during the 1950's faced increasing discrimination and rising antisemitism. But that was a direct consequence of Zionist atrocities that started a decade earlier and an ongoing war. Most Arabs considered support for Israel and raising money for Zionism as treason. At the time most Arab Jews moved to Palestine/Israel, their countries were fighting a war with Zionists/Israel. Fellow citizens and their governments viewed their actions about as favorably as how Canada and Canadians would view Canadian Muslims who sympathize, donate money or volunteer to fight with the Taliban against Canadian soldiers. Support for terrorist organizations is a criminal offense.
Should Canadian Muslims who renounce their Canadian citizenship to fight with the Taliban against Canada receive compensation for any harsh treatment by the Canadian government or property loss?
Would these Canadian Muslims be traitors or refugees?
Compare that with the Palestinians who by no fault of their own found themselves in the middle of an ethnic cleansing war. This interview of Israeli historian Benny Morris describes the Palestinian experience during this period:
Q:
Benny Morris, in the month ahead the new version of your book on the birth of the
Palestinian refugee problem is due to be published. Who will be less pleased with the book -
the Israelis or the Palestinians?
Morris: The revised book is a double-edged sword. It is based on many
documents that were not available to me when I wrote the original book,
most of them from the Israel Defense Forces Archives. What the new
material shows is that there were far more Israeli acts of massacre than I had
previously thought. To my surprise, there were also many cases of rape. In
the months of April-May 1948, units of the Haganah [the pre-state defense
force that was the precursor of the IDF] were given operational orders that
stated explicitly that they were to uproot the villagers, expel them and destroy
the villages themselves.
At the same time, it turns out that there was a series of orders issued by the
Arab Higher Committee and by the Palestinian intermediate levels to remove
children, women and the elderly from the villages. So that on the one hand,
the book reinforces the accusation against the Zionist side, but on the other
hand it also proves that many of those who left the villages did so with the
encouragement of the Palestinian leadership itself.
According to your new findings, how many cases of Israeli rape were there in 1948?
About a dozen. In Acre four soldiers raped a girl and murdered her and her
father. In Jaffa, soldiers of the Kiryati Brigade raped one girl and tried to rape
several more. At Hunin, which is in the Galilee, two girls were raped and
then murdered. There were one or two cases of rape at Tantura, south of
Haifa. There was one case of rape at Qula, in the center of the country. At
the village of Abu Shusha, near Kibbutz Gezer [in the Ramle area] there were
four female prisoners, one of whom was raped a number of times. And there
were other cases. Usually more than one soldier was involved. Usually there
were one or two Palestinian girls. In a large proportion of the cases the event
ended with murder. Because neither the victims nor the rapists liked to
report these events, we have to assume that the dozen cases of rape that were
reported, which I found, are not the whole story. They are just the tip of the
iceberg.
According to your findings, how many acts of Israeli massacre were perpetrated in 1948?
Twenty-four. In some cases four or five people were executed, in others the
numbers were 70, 80, 100. There was also a great deal of arbitrary killing.
Two old men are spotted walking in a field - they are shot. A woman is
found in an abandoned village - she is shot. There are cases such as the
village of Dawayima [in the Hebron region], in which a column entered the
village with all guns blazing and killed anything that moved.
The worst cases were Saliha (70-80 killed), Deir Yassin (100-110), Lod (250),
Dawayima (hundreds) and perhaps Abu Shusha (70). There is no unequivocal
proof of a large-scale massacre at Tantura, but war crimes were perpetrated
there. At Jaffa there was a massacre about which nothing had been known
until now. The same at Arab al Muwassi, in the north. About half of the acts
of massacre were part of Operation Hiram [in the north, in October 1948]: at
Safsaf, Saliha, Jish, Eilaboun, Arab al Muwasi, Deir al Asad, Majdal Krum,
Sasa. In Operation Hiram there was a unusually high concentration of
executions of people against a wall or next to a well in an orderly fashion.
That can’t be chance. It’s a pattern. Apparently, various officers who took
part in the operation understood that the expulsion order they received
permitted them to do these deeds in order to encourage the population to
take to the roads. The fact is that no one was punished for these acts of
murder. Ben-Gurion silenced the matter. He covered up for the officers who
did the massacres.
What you are telling me here, as though by the way, is that in Operation Hiram there was
a comprehensive and explicit expulsion order. Is that right?
Yes. One of the revelations in the book is that on October 31, 1948, the
commander of the Northern Front, Moshe Carmel, issued an order in
writing to his units to expedite the removal of the Arab population. Carmel
took this action immediately after a visit by Ben-Gurion to the Northern
Command in Nazareth. There is no doubt in my mind that this order
originated with Ben-Gurion. Just as the expulsion order for the city of Lod,
which was signed by Yitzhak Rabin, was issued immediately after Ben-
Gurion visited the headquarters of Operation Dani [July 1948].
http://www.logosjournal.com/morris.pdf
Benny Morris (
Hebrew: born 8 December 1948
[1] in
Ein HaHoresh,
Israel) is professor of
History in the Middle East Studies department of
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in the city of
Be'er Sheva,
Israel.
Suffice to say, Benny Morris is an expert and his research has been peer reviewed by other historians and scholars. Clearly Palestinian civilians in harms way left because it was the prudent thing to do. When the Arab authorities gave the order to evacuate, most civilians left in the same way that people leave when authorities give an evacuation order to civilians in the path of a hurricane. You could claim that civilians in the path of a hurricane left voluntarily. They could choose to stay and risk the hurricane, just like the women Benny Morris describes in an abandoned village:
Morris: A woman is found in an abandoned village - she is shot.
Maybe she should have listened to authorities. But then she probably would have lived out the rest of her life in a refugee camp without hope because she "voluntarily" left. Maybe being shot in your home is a better fate.
