Israel marks exodus of Jews from Arab countries

THE MIDDLE EAST: EXODUS
If the Jews from Arab Countries were really “Arab Jews” why did they leave?
Newsweek, 27 November 1967:

In the North African cities of Tunis and Tripoli, thousands of Arab rioters went swarming through the narrow alleyways of the local Jewish ghettos ransacking shops and homes, gutting synagogues and attacking any Jews they could find. In Damascus, Syrian authorities cordoned off the Jewish quarter to prevent Arab rioters from getting in and the Jews from getting out. In Baghdad, the Iraqi state radio fanned public anger by broadcasting anti-Jewish quotes from the Koran. And in Cairo and Alexandria, Egyptian authorities arrested nearly every Jewish male over the age of 20.

For the small Jewish minority living in Arab nations, these harassments were no new turn of events. Though some of their communities date back more than three millennia, Jewish life in the Moslem world has frequently been precarious. And while Arab spokesmen claim their fight is with Zionism, not Jews, the Jewish minority has always provided a convenient scapegoat for Arab humiliation in the chronic wars with Israel.
As a result, hundreds of thousands of Jews have fled their native Arab lands, and, since 1948, a once-thriving community of more than 800,000 has dwindled to about 100,000. Many of the Jews who remain there were forbidden to leave by the authorities for fear they would emigrate to Israel. Indeed, more than half a million Jews of Arab countries have emigrated to Israel, and Israeli officials often argue that they represent a fair exchange for the Palestine Arab refugees...
In Syria, the fanatic Ba'athist regime has set up a 2.4-mile radius beyond which the Jews of the Damascus ghetto may not venture. The Jews' telephones are tapped, their mail censored, and they dare not communicate even with relatives in nearby Beirut...
Egypt's 2,500 Jews fare no better. Though President Gamal Abdel Nasser cabled them his greetings during the recent Jewish New Year, the recipients considered it a rather poor joke. Within the first hours of the June war, 500-including the chief rabbi of Alexandria-had been rounded up and crammed into tiny white-walled cells in the Abu Za'abal prison near Ismailia and the El Barga prison near Alexandria. Many detainees were beaten and tortured. Subsequently, all Jewish property in Egypt was confiscated by the state. Some of the prisoners have been released, but the majority is still in jail ...

While Iraq's 3,000 Jews have long been subject to government restrictions, their situation has deteriorated harshly since the end of the war. Some 100 Jewish leaders are being held by Baghdad police, and the rest of the community is under virtual house arrest. Under instructions from the Iraqi Government, licenses to Jewish shop owners have been withdrawn; commercial firms have been ordered to fire all Jewish employees. The Jewish community’s assets were frozen, and all Jews have been strictly forbidden to leave Iraq.

Though North African governments sought to protect their Jewish communities, they were unable to prevent Arab mob passion from exploding into cruel persecutions in Libya, Morocco and Tunisia...

New York Post, 23 July 1968:
THANT ADOPTS AN ARAB POSITION
By Michael J. Berlin

UN Secretary General U Thant has come down on the Arab side in a dispute over treatment of civilians involved in the Middle East war of 1967, the New York Post learned today.
Since early this year, Arab representatives have been pressuring the Secretary General to open a new investigation of conditions of Arab civilians in Israeli-occupied areas.

Thant was authorized to investigate this "humanitarian question" by resolutions of the Security Council and General Assembly, adopted in June and July 1967.
Israel has been equally concerned over the treatment of Jewish communities in Egypt, Syria and Iraq, and has taken the position that any UN investigation must look into these communities as well.
Thant (unable to win acquiescence to such a two-pronged investigation) plans to issue a progress report later this week on the secret negotiations over his proposal to send a special "humanitarian" representative to the area, a UN spokesman said today. The report will contain Thant's letters to the various ambassadors involved.
According to one diplomat privy to Thant's letters, the report will include the Secretary General's interpretation -based on an opinion from the UN legal division-that the Council and Assembly resolutions were not intended to cover the Jewish communities in Arab lands.
This apparently is a turnabout from Thant's public position, taken less than a year ago, when UN envoy Nils Gussing was sent to look into the Middle East civilian situation.
At that time, Thant said that tile resolutions "might properly be interpreted as having application to the treatment ... of both Arab and Jewish persons in the states directly concerned because of their participation in the war."
Gussing, in fact, had asked the Arab governments for their cooperation, and even was able to take a brief tour through Jewish shops in Damascus with Syrian government cooperation, just before his return to the UN last summer.
Now Syria has rejected UN inspection of the conditions of its Jewish citizens. And Egypt and Iraq, both combatants in 1967, have withheld any positive response.
Israel, informed of Thant's apparent change of mind, has made no formal reply, but one is expected soon.
Israel's position is known to be that the Secretariat is submitting to Arab pressure and using legalistic arguments as an excuse to justify, after the fact, a one-sided political decision.
A UN spokesman had no comment on this contention ...

11 Giornale d'italia, Rome, 1-2 October 1968:
CURFEW AND JAIL FOR JEWS IN EGYPT, SYRIA AND IRAQ


The Security Council of the United Nations has decided to send a Commission to Israel to investigate the conditions of the Arabs in occupied zones. Nothing to object, naturally, if the decision has a humanitarian character. The nomination of this Commission could at the most be considered superfluous, as there are no prohibited zones in Israel. Every part of Israel as well as every part of the occupied territories may be visited by anyone, including tourists. It would have been logical if, at the same time, the Security Council took a similar decision with regard to Jews living in Arab countries, who cannot be approached by anyone.
Regrettably, news regarding the conditions under which Jews live in the Middle East is very disturbing. In Egypt there remain about 1,300 Jews: from among those, 200 heads of families have been locked up in the maximum security prison of Al-Tura, without having ever stood trial. The banking account of the Jewish community is blocked. Jews are not permitted to work or perform any remunerative activity. They are obliged to live on desultory donations.
In Syria, there are about 5,000 Jews: 3,000 in Damascus, 1,500 in Aleppo and about 300 in Kemishli. All Jewish employees and teachers have been dismissed. A shameful nightly curfew has been imposed on all members of the Jewish community from 10 p.m.
Even more alarming appears the situation in Iraq, where discriminatory

laws have been promulgated; a special act authorizes the confiscation of Jewish property. Here, too, there is a curfew from 10 p.m. No Jew may sell his property or withdraw from his bank more than 100 dinars a month.
Sad messages, denouncing this situation and calling for a humanitarian intervention, have been dispatched to the President of the Security Council and the Secretary General of the UN, U Thant, by the Union of the Italian Jewish Communities and by the National Association of Deportees and Refugees from Egypt.
It is to be hoped that the international organs show themselves to be sensitive to the new drama through which Jewish communities in Arab countries live-a drama which recalls to mind the persecutions which we hoped would by now have been banished for ever.