Guardian: Radical Israeli in u-turn on Palestinians (on Benny Morris) by Ian Katz 9:30am Fri Oct 4 '02 The radical Israeli historian who did more than any other to force his country to face up to its responsibility for the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in the 1948 war now believes the Middle East might be at peace if David Ben-Gurion had expelled all the Palestinians. print article Radical Israeli in u-turn on Palestinians Ian Katz Thursday October 3, 2002 The Guardian The radical Israeli historian who did more than any other to force his country to face up to its responsibility for the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in the 1948 war now believes the Middle East might be at peace if David Ben-Gurion had expelled all the Palestinians. In an about-turn that will horrify his former Iiberal allies, Benny Morris argues in the Guardian that "perhaps, had [Ben-Gurion] gone the whole hog, today's Middle East would be a healthier, less violent place, with a Jewish state between Jordan and the Mediterranean and a Palestinian Arab state in Transjordan". He adds: "Perhaps it was the very indecisiveness of the geographic and demographic outcome of 1948 that underlies the persisting tragedy of Palestine." Mr Morris's remarks will be highly controversial, both because of his stature as one of Israel's leading so-called "new historians" and because the idea of "transfer" - expelling all Palestinians - has recently gained currency among Israeli rightwingers. Mr Morris, who once went to jail rather than serve in the Israeli military, shocked many in February when he declared in the Guardian that he no longer believed that a two-state solution could bring peace to the region. During the 1948 war, initiated by the Jewish state's Arab neighbours, more than 700,000 Palestinians abandoned their homes, many of them driven out by Israeli forces. Around 150,000 remained within Israel's 1948 borders, a population which has now swelled to around one million Israel's total population of six million. During the late 1980s Mr Morris, who now teaches history at Ben-Gurion University, and a handful of other revisionist scholars used archive material to challenge Israel's prevailing "patriotic history", according to which the Palestinians had left of their own free will. They were bitterly criticised by many on the Israeli right who accused them of offering intellectual aid to the enemy. Last night Professor Avi Shlaim, another eminent Israeli historian who challenged the orthodoxy, said: "What Israel carried out in 1948 was ethnic cleansing and what Benny is telling us now is that Ben-Gurion should have been more thorough and comprehensive in his policy of ethnic cleansing. Benny seems to have lost his moral bearings." Prof Shlaim added: "It is very ironic that Benny Morris, who has done more than any other scholar to reveal the full extent of Israel's expulsion of the Palestinians in 1948 has come full circle and is today suggesting that Israel did not expel enough Palestinians in 1948. "What this boils down to is that Benny Morris seems to have joined the ranks of the Israeli right. The Israeli right has no other solution to the conflict except transfer and Benny seems to be endorsing that policy. " In his article, Mr Morris says he wonders what Ben-Gurion, Israel's first leader, would have made of Palestinian suicide bombings and "the tone of rejectionism that characterises much Palestinian rhetoric" and he concludes: "Perhaps he would now regret his restraint." www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0... add your comments

Letters to the editor by The Guardian 9:41am Fri Oct 4 '02 Palestine and population transfer Friday October 4, 2002 The Guardian As a Palestinian academic, born and brought up in Israel, I have debated the issue of "transfer" in Zionism with Benny Morris many times. In Morris's book on the Palestinian refugees there are only a couple of pages on the "idea of transfer in Zionism". Only after the publication of my book, Expulsion of the Palestinians, in 1992 (based on Hebrew archives) did Morris begin to accept that "the idea of transfer is as old as modern Zionism and has accompanied its evolution and praxis during the past century" (Could this happen again, G2, October 3). But, contrary to the headline on your news story, (Radical Israeli in u-turn on Palestinians), I have always detected in Morris a deeply rooted, though subtle, streak of justification for the actual expulsion of the Palestinians that took place in 1948. This is not about a one-man conversion to the cause of the Israeli extreme right. The repackaging of "demographic racism" by Morris into scholarship is an alarming symptom of a wider phenomenon in Israel. This phenomenon involves the brutalisation of mainstream Israeli culture, which is unable to think beyond the two racist options it currently offers the Palestinians: institutionalised inequality and racist apartheid, or ethnic cleansing and a new Palestinian holocaust. Dr Nur Masalha University of Surrey · In your news story you cite the historian Avi Shlaim as saying that "Benny [Morris] seems to be endorsing that [transfer] policy". In his G2 article, Morris speculates on what the Middle East may have been like today had Ben Gurion acted differently. He also speculates on the effect of an Arab victory in the 1948 war. It is a truism to say that had Jews and Arabs been separated in 1948, the problems of the Middle East today would not exist (in their current form). But Morris doesn't comment on the morality of the early 20th-century idea of transferring Arab and Jewish populations, and there is certainly nothing in his article in support of the Israeli right's agenda of transfer. Perhaps Morris should be consulted on what his views are concerning current proposals for the transfer of the Arab population, rather than putting words into his mouth. Syd Kaminsky Manchester www.guardian.co.uk/letters/story/0,3604,... add your comments

BENNY MORRIS JUSTIFIES ETHNIC CLEANSING by Nizar Sakhnini 1:42pm Sat Oct 5 '02 print comment BENNY MORRIS JUSTIFIES ETHNIC CLEANSING Nizar Sakhnini, 4 October 2002 When Benny Morris published his two books about the Arab-Israeli conflict (The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947 – 1949. Cambridge, 1987 and 1948 and After: Israel and the Palestinians. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1990), many people considered him as an honest and courageous historian whose aim was to depict the truth by presenting an objective and factual narrative. In hindsight, Morris was after giving a justification to what happened rather than depicting the truth. The facts presented in his books had already been a public knowledge through the British, American, Israeli and UN archives that became accessible as of the mid-eighties. These facts became also publicly known through credible authors. (For an example see: Readings in Zionism and Palestine Problem until 1948 that was edited with an introduction by Walid Khalidi, in From Haven to Conquest: Readings in Zionism and the Palestine Problem until 1948, published in 1971 and Michael Palumbo's: The Palestinian Catastrophe: The 1948 Expulsion of a People from their Homeland, published in 1987). Ignoring the facts presented in his books that clearly pointed out the systematic and pre-meditated plans aiming at ethnic cleansing, Morris had the audacity to conclude that the Palestinian Refugees problem was an unfortunate outcome of the war and not part of a pre-meditated and pre-planned strategy for ethnic cleansing. In a similar subjective manner, Morris is trying to justify a new wave of mass expulsions that Sharon is planning to bring about under the cover of the War against Iraq in order to complete the job that Ben-Gurion started and was unable to finish in 1948. A new article by Benny Morris gives another evidence of his efforts to justify the war crimes committed against the Palestinian people. (The article, "Two Years of the Intifada: A New Exodus for the Middle East?" was published in the Guardian on 3 October 2002 and is available online at: http://search.guardian.co.uk/search97cgi/s97networkr_cgi?QueryText=Benny+Morris&Action=Search&Collection=archive_artifact&ResultTemplate=Archive_Artifact.hts&SortSpec=VdkPublicationDate+Desc ) In this article, Morris argues, "The Middle East might now be at peace if Israel's first leader [Ben-Gurion] had driven out all the Palestinians in 1948." The new war on "terrorism" that the American-Israeli strategic alliance launched after 9/11 is used to justify the ethnic cleansing plans that had been in place all along and way before 9/11. According to Benny Morris, "The Palestinian Arab strategy of suicide bombings and the tone of rejectionism that characterises much Palestinian rhetoric, from Arafat and the Palestinian Authority radio and TV stations downwards during the past two years fuels such thinking. Israel's extreme right, which wants the 'whole Land of Israel' for the Jews, ultimately posits transfer as a counterweight to this mainstream rejectionism - which, in effect, endorses a transfer of the Jews out of Palestine, or 'throwing the Jews into the sea', as the phrase goes…" Commenting on the article, Dr Nur Masalha, University of Surrey, the Palestinian academic, who was born and brought up in Israel, stated," I have debated the issue of 'transfer' in Zionism with Benny Morris many times. In Morris's book on the Palestinian refugees there are only a couple of pages on the 'idea of transfer in Zionism'. Only after the publication of my book, Expulsion of the Palestinians, in 1992 (based on Hebrew archives) did Morris begin to accept that 'the idea of transfer is as old as modern Zionism and has accompanied its evolution and praxis during the past century' (Could this happen again, G2, October 3). But, contrary to the headline on your news story, (Radical Israeli in u-turn on Palestinians), I have always detected in Morris a deeply rooted, though subtle, streak of justification for the actual expulsion of the Palestinians that took place in 1948. This is not about a one-man conversion to the cause of the Israeli extreme right. The repackaging of 'demographic racism' by Morris into scholarship is an alarming symptom of a wider phenomenon in Israel. This phenomenon involves the brutalisation of mainstream Israeli culture, which is unable to think beyond the two racist options it currently offers the Palestinians: institutionalised inequality and racist apartheid, or ethnic cleansing and a new Palestinian holocaust." (Masalha's comment was also published in the Guardian) add your comments

Let me extend Benny Morris's logic by Baruch Kimmerling 9:24pm Sat Oct 5 '02 address: Hebrew University, Jerusalem print comment Let me extend Benny Morris's logic (Guardian, October 3) in arguing that if the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians in 1948 had been complete, there might have been peace today in the Middle East. If the Nazi programme for the final solution of the Jewish problem had been complete, for sure there would be peace today in Palestine. www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,8... add your comments

False Logic by Baruch Kimmerling 9:27pm Sat Oct 5 '02 address: Hebrew University, Jerusalem print comment Let me extend Benny Morris's logic (Guardian, October 3) in arguing that if the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians in 1948 had been complete, there might have been peace today in the Middle East. If the Nazi programme for the final solution of the Jewish problem had been complete, for sure there would be peace today in Palestine. www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,8... add your comments

Baruch Kimmerling the communist liar by Dov 12:35am Tue Oct 22 '02 print comment Baruch, you are totally correct. If the Nazis would have defeated the British in the Mideast, Hajj Amin Al Husseini would have led the Palestinians to exterminate the Jews. Did you know Dieter Visllzni, who was Eichmann's assistant, said at the Nuremberg Trials, Hajj Amin Al Husseini the Palestinian leader of WW2, had a part in the decision to liquidate the Jews of Europe." The Mufti had repeatedly suggested to Hitler, Himmler and Eichman, that the extermination of European Jewry was the best way to help the Arabs. Vislizni said, according to the 5 May 1946 written deposition of engineer Andrי Steiner from Bratislava, submitted to the Nuremberg Tribunal after having been read and confirmed by Vislizni himself: "The Mufti was one of the initiators of the systematic extermination of European Jewry and had been a collaborator and advisor of Eichmann and Himmler in the execution of this plan. He was one of Eichmann's best friends and had constantly incited him to accelerate the extermination measures. Vislizni's July 26 1946 Nuremberg testimony says, accompanied by Eichmann, Husseini had visited the gas chambers of Auschwitz." Vislizni's said, Husseini made very clear, all the Jews must be exterminated. On March 1 1944, Husseini said in a broadcast from Berlin: "Arabs Rise as one and fight for your sacred rights. Kill the Jews wherever you find them. This pleases God, history, and religion. This saves your honor. Husseini also set up a Bosnian SS Army in Yugoslavia, whose goal was to kill as many Serbs and Jews as Possible. His Muslim SS Legions participated in massacring tens of thousands of Serbs, Jews and Gypsies. add your comments

Truth by Truth 12:42am Tue Oct 22 '02 print comment The full story of the ethnic cleasing of Jews in the Arab countries. JEWS IN IRAQ PRIOR TO 1948 The Iraqi Jews took pride in their distinguished Jewish community, with it's history of scholarship and dignity. Jews had prospered in what was then Babylonia for 1200 years before the Muslim conquest in AD 634; it was not until the 9th century that Dhimmi laws such as the yellow patch, heavy head tax, and residence restriction enforced. Capricious and extreme oppression under some Arab caliphs and Momlukes brought taxation amounting to expropriation in AD 1000, and 1333 the persecution culminated in pillage and destruction of the Bagdad Sanctuary. in 1776, there was a slaughter of Jews at Bosra, and in bitterness of anti Jewish measures taken by Turkish Muslim rulers in the 18th century caused many Jews to flea. The Iraqi Jewish community is one of the oldest in the world and has a great history of learning and scholarship. Abraham, the first Jew and the father of the Jewish people, was born in Ur of the Chaldees, in southern Iraq, around 2,000 A.D. The community traces its history back to 6th century A.D, when Nebuchadnezzar conquered Judea and sent most of the population into exile in Babylonia. The community also maintained strong ties with the Land of Israel and, with the aid of rabbis from Israel, succeeded in establishing many prominent rabbinical academies. By the 3rd century, Babylonia became the center of Jewish scholarship, as is attested to by the community's most influential creation, the Babylonian Talmud. Under Muslim rule, beginning in the 7th century, the situation of the community fluctuated. Many Jews held high positions in government or prospered in commerce and trade. At the same time, Jews were subjected to special taxes, restrictions on their professional activity, and anti- Jewish incitement among the masses. Under British rule, which began in 1917, Jews fared well economically, and many were elected to government posts. This traditionally observant community was also allowed to found Zionist organizations and to pursue Hebrew studies. All of this progress ended when Iraq gained independence in 1932. In 1941, after Rashid Ali overthrow the Iraqi goverment in 1941 with the help of Hajj Amin Al Husseini. They installed a Nazi puppet goverment. The first thing Rashid Ali and Husseini did, was order a pogram of Jews, where 187 Jews were massacred. This is exactly what would have happened, if the Arabs would have won the 48 war. This is what Israel's army prevented in 48. On June 1st and June 2nd of 1941, hundreds of Iraqi Arabs brutally attacked Iraqi Jews in the towns of Al Rusafa and Abu Sifyan. Jews were killed randomly, women and children were raped in front of their relatives, babies crushed, houses set on fire, looting was everywhere. On June 2,1941: Policemen, soldiers and slum dwellers from Al Karkh entered the scene, and participated in the killing and the looting everywhere. Reports vary official Iraqi reports mention 187 killed, JEWS IN IRAQ AFTER 1948 In 1950, Iraqi Jews were permitted to leave the country within a year provided they forfeited their citizenship. A year later, however, the property of Jews who emigrated was frozen and economic restrictions were placed on Jews who chose to remain in the country. From 1949 to 1951, 104,000 Jews were evacuated from Iraq in Operations Ezra and Nehemiah; another 20,000 were smuggled out through Iran. In 1952, Iraq's government barred Jews from emigrating and publicly hanged two Jews after falsely charging them with hurling a bomb at the Baghdad office of the U.S. Information Agency. With the rise of competing Ba'ath factions in 1963, additional restrictions were placed on the remaining Iraqi Jews. The sale of property was forbidden and all Jews were forced to carry yellow identity cards. After the Six-Day War, more repressive measures were imposed: Jewish property was expropriated; Jewish bank accounts were frozen; Jews were dismissed from public posts; businesses were shut; trading permits were cancelled; telephones were disconnected. Jews were placed under house arrest for long periods of time or restricted to the cities. Persecution was at its worst at the end of 1968. Scores were jailed upon the discovery of a local "spy ring" composed of Jewish businessmen. Fourteen men-eleven of them Jews-were sentenced to death in staged trials and hanged in the public squares of Baghdad; others died of torture. On January 27, 1969, Baghdad Radio called upon Iraqis to "come and enjoy the feast." Some 500,000 men, women and children paraded and danced past the scaffolds where the bodies of the hanged Jews swung; the mob rhythmically chanted "Death to Israel" and "Death to all traitors." This display brought a world-wide public outcry that Radio Baghdad dismissed by declaring: "We hanged spies, but the Jews crucified Christ." (Judith Miller and Laurie Mylroie, Saddam Hussein and the Crisis in the Gulf, p. 34). Jews remained under constant surveillance by the Iraqi government. Max Sawadayee, in "All Waiting to be Hanged" writes a testimony of an Iraqi Jew (who later escaped): "The dehumanization of the Jewish personality resulting from continuous humiliation and torment...have dragged us down to the lowest level of our physical and mental faculties, and deprived us of the power to recover.". In response to international pressure, the Baghdad government quietly allowed most of the remaining Jews to emigrate in the early 1970's, even while leaving other restrictions in force. Most of Iraq's remaining Jews are now too old to leave. They have been pressured by the government to turn over title, without compensation, to more than $200 million worth of Jewish community property. (New York Times, February 18, 1973). JEWS IN LIBYA PRIOR TO 1948 The Jewish community of Libya traces its origin back to the 3rd century B.C Under Roman rule, Jews prospered. In 73 A.D, a zealot from Israel, Jonathan the Weaver, incited the poor of the community in Cyrene to revolt. The Romans reacted with swift vengeance, murdering him and his followers and executing other wealthy Jews in the community. This revolt foreshadowed that of 115 A.D, which broke out not only in Cyrene, but in Egypt and Cyprus as well. In 1785, where Ali Burzi Pasha murdered hundreds of Jews. With the Italian occupation of Libya in 1911, the situation remained good and the Jews made great strides in education. At that time, there were about 21,000 Jews in the country, the majority in Tripoli. In the late 1930s, Fascist anti-Jewish laws were gradually enforced, and Jews were subject to terrible repression. Still, by 1941, the Jews accounted for a quarter of the population of Tripoli and maintained 44 synagogues. In 1942 the Germans occupied the Jewish quarter of Benghazi, plundered shops, and deported more than 2,000 Jews across the desert, where more than one-fifth of them perished. Many Jews from Tripoli were also sent to forced labor camps. Conditions did not greatly improve following the liberation. During the British occupation, there was a series of pogroms, the worst of which, in 1945, resulted in the deaths of more than 100 Jews in Tripoli and other towns and the destruction of five synagogues. A savage pogrom in Tripoli on November 5, 1945 were more than 140 Jews were massacred and almost every synagogue looted. (Howard Sachar, A History of Israel). In June 1948, rioters murdered another 12 Jews and destroyed 280 Jewish homes. Thousands of Jews fled the country after Libya was granted independence and membership in the Arab League in 1951. (Norman Stillman, The Jews of Arab Lands in Modern Times). After the Six-Day War, the Jewish population of 7,000 was again subjected to pogroms in which 18 were killed, and many more injured, sparking a near-total exodus that left fewer than 100 Jews in Libya. When Col. Qaddafi came to power in 1969, all Jewish property was confiscated and all debts to Jews cancelled. Although emigration was illegal, more than 3,000 Jews succeeded to leave to Israel. When the British legalized emigration in 1949, more than 30,000 Jews fled Libya. At the time of Colonel Qaddafi's coup in 1969, some 500 Jews remained in Libya. Today, no Jews are believed to live in Libya. JEWS IN EGYPT PRIOR TO 1948 Jews have lived in Egypt since Biblical times, and the conditions of the community have constantly fluctuated with the political situation of the land. Israelite tribes first moved to the Land of Goshen (the northeastern edge of the Nile Delta) during the reign of the Egyptian pharaoh Amenhotep IV (1375-1358 B.C). During the reign of Ramses II (1298-1232 B.C), they were enslaved for the Pharaoh's building projects. His successor, Merneptah, continued the same anti-Jewish policies, and around the year 1220 B.C, the Jews revolted and escaped across the Sinai to Canaan. This is the biblical Exodus commemorated in the holiday of Passover. Over the years, many Jews in Eretz Israel who were not deported to Babylon sought shelter in Egypt, among them the prophet Jeremiah. By 1897 there were more than 25,000 Jews in Egypt, concentrated in Cairo and Alexandria. In 1937 the population reached a peak of 63,500. Friedman wrote in "The Myth of Arab Tolerance", "One Caliph, Al-Hakem of the Fatimids devised particularly insidious humiliations for the Jews in his attempt to perform what he deemed his roll as "Redeemer of mankind", first the Jews were forced to wear miniature golden calf images around their necks, as though they still worshipped the golden calf, but the Jews refused to convert. Next they wore bells, and after that six pound wooden blocks were hung around their necks. In fury at his failure, the Caliph had the Cairo Jewish quarter destroyed, along with it's Jewish residence, in". In 1945, with the rise of Egyptian nationalism and the cultivation of anti-Western and anti-Jewish sentiment, riots erupted. In the violence, 10 Jews were killed, 350 injured, and a synagogue, a Jewish hospital, and an old-age home were burned down. The establishment of the State of Israel led to still further anti-Jewish feeling: Between June and November 1948, bombs set off in the Jewish Quarter killed more than 70 Jews and wounded nearly 200. 2,000 Jews were arrested and many had their property confiscated. Rioting over the next few months resulted in many more Jewish deaths. Between June and November 1948, bombs set off in the Jewish Quarter killed more than 70 Jews and wounded nearly 200. Jews. In 1956, the Egyptian government used the Sinai Campaign as a pretext for expelling almost 25,000 Egyptian Jews and confiscating their property. Approximately 1,000 more Jews were sent to prisons and detention camps. On November 23, 1956, a proclamation signed by the Minister of Religious Affairs, and read aloud in mosques throughout Egypt, declared that "all Jews are Zionists and enemies of the state," and promised that they would be soon expelled. Thousands of Jews were ordered to leave New York World Telegram). By 1957 it had fallen to 15,000. In 1967, after the Six-Day War, there was a renewed wave of persecution, and the community dropped to 2,500. By the 1970s, after the remaining Jews were given permission to leave the country, the community dwindled to a few families. JEWS IN MOROCCO PRIOR TO 1948 The Jewish community of present-day Morocco dates back more than 2,000 years. There were Jewish colonies in the country before it became a Roman province. in 1032 AD, 6000 Jews were murdered. Indeed the greatest persecution by the Arabs towards the Jews was in Fez, Morocco, nothing was worse than the slaughter of 120,000 Jews in 1146 and before that In 1160 Maimonides in his Epistle concerning apostasy writes his fellow Jews: "Now we are asked to render the active homage to heathenism but only to recite an empty formula which the Moslems themselves knew we utter insincerely in order to circumvent the bigot ... indeed, any Jew who, after uttering the Muslim formula, wishes to observe the whole 613 precepts in the privacy of his home, may do so without hindrance. Nevertheless, if, even under circumstances, a Jew surrenders his life for the sanctification of the name of God before men, he has done nobly and his reward is great before the Lord. But if a man asked me, "shall I be slain or utter the formula of Islam?" I answer, "utter the formula and live ... "". In 1391 a wave of Jewish refugees expelled from Spain brought new life to the community, as did new arrivals from Spain and Portugal in 1492 and 1497. From 1438, the Jews of Fez were forced to live in special quarters called mellahs, a name derived from the Arabic word for salt because the Jews in Morocco were forced to carry out the job of salting the heads of executed prisoners prior to their public display. Chouraqui sums it up when he wrote: "such restriction and humiliation as to exceed anything in Europe". Charles de Foucauld in 1883 who was not generally sympathetic to Jews writes of the Jews: "They are the most unfortunate of men, every Jew belongs body and soul to his seigneur, the sid[Arab master]". Similarly, in 1465, Arab mobs in Fez slaughtered thousands of Jews, leaving only 11 alive, after a Jewish deputy vizier treated a Muslim woman in "an offensive manner." The killings touched off a wave of similar massacres throughout Morocco. JEWS IN MOROCCO AFTER 1948 In June 1948, bloody riots in Oujda and Djerada killed 44 Jews and wounded scores more. That same year, an unofficial economic boycott was instigated against Moroccan Jews. In 1956, Morocco declared its independence, and Jewish emigration to Israel was suspended. In 1963, emigration resumed, allowing more than 100,000 Moroccan Jews to reach Israel. In 1965, Moroccan writer Said Ghallab described the attitude of his fellow Muslims toward their Jewish neighbors: The worst insult that a Moroccan could possibly offer was to treat someone as a Jew....My childhood friends have remained anti-Jewish. They hide their virulent anti-Semitism. A whole Hitlerite myth is being cultivated among the populace. The massacres of the Jews by Hitler are exalted ecstatically. It is even credited that Hitler is not dead, but alive and well, and his arrival unclean. They lay claims to all his belongings, and if he is unwilling, they employ force...The Jews live in outside the town in dark dwellings like prison cells or caves out of fear...for the least offense, he is sentenced to outrageous fines, which he is quite unable to pay. In case of non-payment, he is put in chains and cruelly beaten every day. Before the punishment is inflicted, the Cadi[judge] addresses him in gentle tones and urges him to change his faith and obtain a share of all the glory of this world and of the world beyond. His refusal is again regarded as penal obstinacy. On the other hand, it is not open to the Jew to prosecute a Muslim, as the Muslim by right of law can dispose of the life and the property of the Jew, and it is only to be regarded as an act of magnanimity if the Jews are allowed to live. The Jew is not admissible as a witness, nor has his oath any validity.". Danish-German explorer Garsten Neibuhr visited Yemen in 1762 described Jewish life in Yemen: "By day they work in their shops in San'a, but by night they must withdraw to their isolated dwellings, shortly before my arrival, 12 of the 14 synagogues of the Jews were torn down, and all their beautiful houses wrecked". The Jews did not improve until the establishment of the French Protectorate in 1912, when they were given equality and religious autonomy. However, during World War II, when France was ruled by the anti-Semitic Vichy government, King Muhammed V prevented the deportation of Jews from Morocco. In 1922, the government of Yemen reintroduced an ancient Islamic law that decreed that Jewish orphans under age 12 were to be forcibly converted to Islam. In 1947, after the partition vote, Muslim rioters, joined by the local police force, engaged in a bloody pogrom in Aden that killed 82 Jews and destroyed hundreds of Jewish homes. Aden's Jewish community was economically paralyzed, as most of the Jewish stores and businesses were destroyed. Early in 1948, looting occurred after six Jews were falsely accused of the ritual murder of two Arab girls. (Howard Sachar, A History of Israel). By 1948 there were some 270,000 Jews in Morocco. In an atmosphere of uncertainty and grinding poverty, many Jews elected to leave for Israel, France, the United States, and Canada. Finally, nearly 50,000 traditionally religious Yemeni Jews, who had never seen a plane, were airlifted to Israel in 1949 and in 1950 in Operation "Magic Carpet.". Since the Book of Isaiah promised, "They shall mount up with wings, as eagles". The Jewish community bordered "The Eagles" contentedly; to the pilots consternation some of them lit a bong fire aboard, to cook there food. JEWS IN TUNISIA PRIOR TO 1948 The first documented evidence of Jews in this area dates back to 200 A.D and demonstrates the existence of a community in Latin Carthage under Roman rule. Latin Carthage contained a significant Jewish presence, and several sages mentioned in the Talmud lived in this area from the 2nd to the 4th centuries. During the Byzantine period, the condition of the community took a turn for the worse. An edict issued by Justinian in 535 excluded Jews from public office, prohibited Jewish practice, and resulted in the transformation of synagogues into churches. Many fled to the Berber communities in the mountains and in the desert. After the Arab conquest of Tunisia in the 7th century, Jews lived under satisfactory conditions, despite discriminatory measures such as a poll tax. From 7th century Arab conquest down through the Almahdiyeen atrocities, Tunisia fared little better than its neighbors. The complete expulsion of Jews from Kairouan near Tunis occurred after years of hardship, in the 13 century when Kairouan was anointed as a holy city of Islam. In the 16th century, the "hated and despised" Jews of Tunis were periodically attacked by violence and they were subjected to "vehement anti-Jewish policy" during the various political struggles of the period. In 1869 Muslims butchered many Jews in the defenseless ghetto. Conditions worsened during the Spanish invasions of 1535-1574, resulting in the flight of Jews from the coastal areas. The situation of the community improved once more under Ottoman rule. During this period, the community also split due to strong cultural differences between the Touransa (native Tunisians) and the Grana (those adhering to Spanish or Italian customs). Improvements in the condition of the community occurred during the reign of Ahmed Bey, which began in 1837. He and his successors implemented liberal legislation, and a large number of Jews rose to positions of political power during this reign. Under French rule, Jews were gradually emancipated. However, beginning in November 1940, when the country was ruled by the Vichy authorities, Jews were subject to anti-Semitic laws. From November 1942 until May 1943, the country was occupied by German forces. During that time, the condition of the Jews deteriorated further, and many were deported to labor camps and had their property seized. Jews suffered once more in 1956, when the country achieved independence. The rabbinical tribunal was abolished in 1957, and a year later, Jewish community councils were dissolved. In addition, the Jewish quarter of Tunis was destroyed by the government. Anti-Jewish rioting followed the outbreak of the Six-Day War; Muslims burned down the Great Synagogue of Tunis. This caused massive immigration of Jews. JEWS IN ALGERIA PRIOR TO 1948 Jewish settlement in present-day Algeria can be traced back to the first centuries of the Common Era. In the 14th century, with the deterioration of condiesult, almost 130,000 Algerian Jews immigrated to France. Since 1948, 25,681 Algerian Jews have emigrated to Israel. JEWS IN SYRIA BEFORE 1948 The last Jews who wanted to leave Syria departed with the chief rabbi in October 1994. Prior to 1947, there were some 30,000 Jews made up of three distinct communities, each with its own traditions: the Kurdish- speaking Jews of Kamishli, the Jews of Aleppo with roots in Spain, and the original eastern Jews of Damascus, called Must'arab. Today only a tiny remnant of these communities remains. The Jewish presence in Syria dates back to biblical times and is intertwined with the history of Jews in neighboring Eretz Israel. With the advent of Christianity, restrictions were imposed on the community. The Arab conquest in 636 A.D, however, greatly improved the lot of the Jews. Unrest in neighboring Iraq in the 10th century resulted in Jewish migration to Syria and brought about a boom in commerce, banking, and crafts. During the reign of the Fatimids, the Jew Menashe Ibrahim El- Kazzaz ran the Syrian administration, and he granted Jews positions in the government. Syrian Jewry supported the aspirations of the Arab nationalists and Zionism, and Syrian Jews believed that the two parties could be reconciled and that the conflict in Palestine could be resolved. However, following Syrian independence from France in 1946, attacks against Jews and their property increased, culminating in the pogroms of 1947, which left all shops and synagogues in Aleppo in ruins. Thousands of Jews fled the country, and their homes and property were taken over by the local Muslims. For the next decades, Syrian Jews were, in effect, hostages of a hostile regime. They could leave Syria only on the condition that they leave members of their family behind. Thus the community lived under siege, constantly under fearful surveillance of the secret police. add your comments