Speech #890119771

These forces were defeated by the Jews. The 1949 armistice agreements left two states in PalestineIsrael and the Hashemite kingdom of Jordan. Since that time. the fate of and the responsibility for the Arabs who fled from what is now Israel has been heatedly disputed. * It is aifact that in Israel there now live Jewish refugees from Arab States in numbers roughly equivalent to the Arabs who fled from Israel. and consequently there has occurred a roughly balanced exchange of populations. And. in general. the Jews who came to Israel from Yemen. Iraq. Algeria. and Morocco brought with them no more possessions than Arab refugees carried to Jordan. Egypt. Syria. and Lebanon. But there is a crucial difference. The refugees who came to Israel were accepted and efforts were made to absorb them as citizens. whereas the Arabs who took refuge in the Arab States surrounding Israel were. and to a great extent. still are considered unfortunate intruders and the consensus is that they should be returned to the land of their origin as speedily as possible. The Arab refugee problem is infinitely complex and that complexity has been compounded by the bitterness it generates. What remains is a large. but indefinite. number of displaced. indigent Arabs who are miserable pawns in a tragic situation. To most people the word refugee evokes a picture of a homeless person forced to flee his native land. a person compelled to rebuild his life in a new country. It is a picture which commands compassion and calls for help. Unfortunately. all of us are too familiar with it. We can recall the tragedy of those who escaped the Nazi terror and those who were forced to flee Communist tyrannythe people of Poland. of Hungary. of East Germany. of Tibet. and of Cuba. many of whom have found refuge in our own country. To the Arabs. however. the word refugee has a different meaning. To the leaders of the Arab States a refugee is just one more weapon. in their growing arsenal. to be used against Israel. The plight of the refugees is a doubleedged sword in the hands of the Arab States. On the one hand. it constitutes a symbol of inhumanity which arouses pity and sympathy for the Arab cause. and. on the other hand. it constitutes a source of bitterness which can be tapped as an excuse for terror and sabotage. Syrian extremists. anxious to provoke a war with Israel. early this year began to tap this second resource.