Volume 4 No 1 - Journal for the Study of Antisemitism

2012] PALESTINIAN RIGHTS AND ISRAELI WRONGS 119
There were more Jews displaced from Arab countries by this conflict
than Arabs from the territory that now forms Israel. Folke Bernadotte, in his
mediation report to the United Nations of October 1948, reported that there
were 472,000 Arab refugees created by the conflict. He expected the number
to rise to slightly over 500,000. 15 Jews forcibly displaced from Arab
countries because of the conflict numbered 820,000. 16 There were an additional
57,000 Jews forcibly displaced from Iran. 17
Moreover, Jews forcibly displaced from Arab countries and Iran were
real refugees and not artificially defined ones. The Office of the United
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees took the position that these victims
“may be considered prima facie within the mandate of this office.” 18
The Camp David accords, the Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty, and the
resolutions of November 22, 1967—Security Council 242—refer to refugees
generically. The historical record shows that this was done in order to
encompass the Jewish refugee population. When it comes to advocacy of
Palestinian refugee rights, however, redress for Jewish refugees typically is
forgotten. The focus on one refugee population to the exclusion of the other
when both were generated by the same conflict is an indicator that pursuit
of respect for rights is not the primary objective.
C. UNREAL WRONGS
There is a similar litany of phony wrongs. The list of unreal wrongs
attributed to Israel is even more extensive than the list of unreal rights
attributed to Palestinians. These unreal wrongs all supposedly victimize
Palestinians.
Occupation and Settlement. One such unreal wrong is the objection to Jews
who used to live in Gaza now living in the West Bank. Palestinian rights
activists invidiously call these Jewish residents/Israeli nationals “settlers”
and label Israeli control of the West Bank and its former control of Gaza as
15. Progress Report of the Acting Mediator for Palestine, submitted to the secretary-general
for transmission to the members of the United Nations, UN Document
A/689, October 18, 1948.
16. Jewish Virtual Library.
17. “Jewish Population in Arab Countries 1948-2001.” In Maurice Roumani,
The Case of Jews from Arab Countries: A Neglected Issue (World Organization of
Jews from Arab Countries, 1983), and American Jewish Yearbook: 1958, 1969,
1970, 1978, 1988, 2001 (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America).
18. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Document No. 7/2/3/
Libya, which is the letter from Dr. E. Jahn for the Office of the High Commissioner
to Daniel Lack, legal adviser to the American Joint Distribution Committee, on
July 6, 1967.