Current Events — HabitableZone

Current Events » in reply to re: Jews in the Middle East

re: Jews in the Middle East

I don't think I said anything about Jews being "better" than Arabs, although I would sure as hell rather live in Israel than Syria.

Your original point was about the Arabs being forced out of Israel by the Jews, based on a somewhat incomplete chart (a more comprehensive chart of this kind would be very informative.)

I responded in two ways:

First, I pointed out that, according to the chart, there are far more Arabs in Israel now than there ever were before, and I would bet hard cash that they are living better lives than Arabs in many Arab nations. This hardly shows them being "forced" out of Israel. The fact that the population of Jews has increased even more means nothing in itself. The land is more densely populated now than it was before, and displacing everyone who lived there before was not the only way to accommodate the increased numbers.

The Palestinian population of the West Bank and Gaza, about 1.1 million in 1967, is currently about 3.5 million. If Israel is forcing Arabs out, or doing ethnic cleansing, it's doing a lousy job of it.

And second, that in all the Arab nations the population of Jews has, in fact, dwindled or been completely eliminated. I will grant that some of this is probably due to voluntary emigration to Israel and elsewhere, as well as actual forced exile. I don't know the ratios. But then, most of the Palestinians were never physically forced out of Israel either. Most left at the urging of Arab nations, with the promise that their land would be returned after the Arabs exterminated the Jews.

If anyone has the right to complain about losing homes across the Middle East, it would be the Jews.

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