Speech #900096143

Shabtal Levi). adjourned the meeting with a passionate appeal to the Arab population to reconsider its decision." End of quote from an official Arab memorandum of that time. However. let us go on from herefrom where the situation stands now. Let us hypothetically assume that there are a million legitimate Arab refugeesnot as somebody recently said on the radio in a concentration camp controlled by Jews. but rather in an enclosed area determined and controlled by the Arabs. in Arab countries. where the socalled refugees are being supported by the United Nations and nobody is being killed. nobody is being thrust into burning death ovens. nobody is being buried alive. nobodys body chemicals are being used to make soap. nobodys skin is being used to make lampshades. They are being fed and treated like human beings. until such time as the Arab leaders stop playing cruel games with their destinies. Incidentally. the rule is that upon the death of a resident in the camp there. the food card should be turned back. and this is the only place in the world where not a single death has been reported in eighteen years. (Apparently the place must agree with them.) The births. however. have been reported in great number. and food cards issued for every newly born Arab there. Let us go on from there. Very wellassume there were a million refugees. and now there are more. How can any fairminded person. concerned with considerations of justice. fail to recognize that since the Arabs openly proclaim they are still officially and factually at war with Israel. that obviously to take back a million or more hatefilled. resentmentnurtured Arabs would be to admit into Israel a million enemy nationals and fifth columnists in time of warwhich would certainly be an act of sheer idiocy. At the Refugee Conference in Homs. Syria. in July. 1957. the following Resolution was adopted: "Any discussion aimed at a solution of the Palestine problem which will not be based on ensuring the re/ugees right to annihilate Israel will be regarded as a desecration of the Arab people and an act of treason." (And if you want to know where I got this I took it from a Lebanese daily newspaper. "Beirut alMassa" of July 15. 1957.) And the Chicago Tribune of January 11. 1959 contains an article which records the impressions of a team of American journalists who toured Arab refugee camps. and contains the following. which is almost a quote: "We were told by the Director of Jordans Kalandia Camp for Palestine that when refugees talk about going back to their former homes they do not mean repatriation in Israel. but rather to convert it into an Arab Country. Our own powerful United States of America. during World War II. not only barred their doors to Japanese citizens but actually interned in camps peaceful Japanese who were American citizens and who happened to live on the West Coast. because they were potential fifth columnists. And this was the allpowerful United States of America. with all its might and wealth. and is close to 200.000.000 population. How unjust. thenand how absurdto expect tiny Israel. with its 2.000.0000 population. to take in a million enemy nationals. It would be an act of sheer stupidity[ All this becomes especially unjust when one considers the fact that the official records of United Nations will show that Israel has consistently offered to discuss the refugee question as part of an overall peace plan. refusing only to discuss the refugee question as an isolated question in a framework of circumstances in which the Arabs would continue to claim. as they do now. that a state of war exists between them and Israel. and that they will annihilate Israel whenever and wherever they get the chance. and what better chance could they possibly get than to have a million of their enemy nationals Inside this tiny country? I have much more to say on this. but no longer have the time to say it. There Is however. one additional point concerning the refugee question which must be made in weighing Israels moral position on the Arab refugee question. I refer to the fact that in this one case. for some unexplained reason. all precedent in dealing with refugee questions is being ignored. After World War II there were refugees all over the worldthere were 13.000.000 refugees in West and East Germany. 15.000.000 refugees in India and Pakistan. 400.000 Karelians in Finland. 350.000 Volksdeutsche in Austria. 2.500.000 who moved from N. Korea to S. Korea. not to mention over a million refugee Jews. In none of these cases was repatriation to the original country considered to be the answer. In each case. the problem was solved because there was a conational or coreligious host country which was willing to solve it.