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ABSTRACT
This article discusses the campaign by the International League for the Rescue of the Jews in the Arab Countries (1948- 1950), formed by organisations representing Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews in Israel and the Herut party and aimed at preventing damage to the status of the Jews in the Arab states and promoting their emigration to Israel. The article will review the characteristics of the campaign, focusing on the public discourse it sparked in Israel around the idea of a population exchange between the Jews of the Arab states and the Palestinian refugees. This campaign, in which the memory of the Holocaust and the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide were employed, created a linkage between these two populations and expressed the political and social changes of this transitional period.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1. On transfer and population exchange, see for example: Robson, States of Separation; and Frank, Making Minorities History.
2. Rieber, Forced Migration, 1–2.
3. See for example: Shenhav, The Arab-Jews, 136–83.
4. One of the few studies to have devoted brief attention to the International League for the Rescue of the Jews in Arab Countries is Tzur, “The Transit Camp in Eden,” 120–1.
5. On the Iraqi transfer discourse, see: Bashkin, New Babylonians, 199–202; Meir, Zionism and the Jews in Iraq; and Zimhoni, “The Political Background,” 96–102.
6. Weiss, “Ethnic Cleansing,” 46.
7. For general review of the idea of transfer in Zionist ideology and in the history of the Jewish-Arab conflict, see, for example: Morris, The Birth; Karsh, “Resurrecting the Myth”; Masalha, Expulsion of the Palestinians; Teveth, The Vanished Years, 245–87; and Yeger, The Idea of Population Exchanges.
8. Eliachar, Life, 121–55, 168–77.
9. Hed Ha-Mizrah, March 25, 1949; and Eliachar, Life, 142.
10. Ibid., 107–17 On the rescue of Jews in the Arab lands during the Mandate period, see: Jacobson and Naor, Oriental Neighbors, 46–53.
11. Ba-Maaracha: Platform for Sephardi Studies, 7 (May 1948) from the Temporary Council of the Oriental Jewish Communities in Tel Aviv to the Members of the People’s Administration, May 13, 1948, State Archive, HTZ-11/2563.
12. Sheetrit to Foreign Minister, Memorandum concerning the Condition of the Jews in the Countries of the Near East, June 30, 1948, State Archive, HTZ-11/2563.
13. “Jews in Grave Danger in All Moslem Lands,” New York Times, May 16, 1948.
14. See, for example: Sa’adon, “The Palestinian Component,” 86–131; Cohen, The Jews in the Middle Eastern Countries, 37–40, 50, 53–54, 67–68; and Tringo, The End of Jewry.
15. Meeting between the Middle East Department in the Foreign Ministry and Representatives of the World Jewish Congress, April 28, 1949, State Archive, HTZ-11/2563.
16. Announcement by the Zionist Executive, September 1, 1948, Central Zionist Archive (CZA) S/23/459.
17. Action Plan of the Middle East Jewish Affairs Department, Middle East Collection, January 1949, Archive of the Sephardi Committee in Haifa, in Haifa Municipal Archive, Haifa 15/7 (hereinafter: HMA, CSC Files).
18. Conference of Representatives of Jews from the Middle Eastern Countries, November 18, 1948, CZA S/20/533; Report on the Activities of the Public Council, CZA S/64/523.
19. Hed Ha-Mizrah, March 10, 1950.
20. Herut, November 7, 1948.
21. Ibid., November 3, 1948.
22. Ibid.
23. From the League to the Government of Israel, Memorandum, January 16, 1949, Jabotinsky Archive (hereinafter: JA) 14/150 and also H 15/4.
24. Herut, December 12, 1948 and November 24, 1948.
25. Ibid., November 7, 1948.
26. Weitz, From Militant Underground, 208.
27. Herut, December 12, 1948.
28. Yirmiyahu Halperin to Shmuel Merlin, January 5, 1949, JA H 30/1-6; letter from Halperin to Shmuel Tamir, JA H 30/1-6.
29. Letter from the delegation in the US to Halperin, March 29, 1949, JA E 30/6-1.
30. Yirmiyahu Halperin, Exodus from the Arab Lands, JA H 11/15; Decisions of a Meeting of the National Council of the League, December 11, 1948 and January 11, 1949, JA H 15/9.
31. Weitz, Between Ze’ev Jabotinsky and Menachem Begin, 34–53.
32. Schechtman, Rebel and Statesman, 90.
33. Decisions of the National Council of the International League, December 11, 1948, JA H 15/9.
34. Press release, JA, H 15/10.
35. Broadsheet of the International League, JA H 7/5.
36. Minutes of a Meeting of the National Council of the International League, January 11, 1949, JH 15/9.
37. Begin’s speech at the Knesset, March 8, 1949, Knesset Protocols, First Session, Vol. 1 (Hebrew, Jerusalem – Tel Aviv, 1949):66.
38. Decisions of the International League, March 21, 1949, JA, H 15/9; Minutes of a Meeting of the National Council of the International League, January 11, 1949, JA H 15/9.
39. Meeting of the National Council of the International League, January 11, 1949, JA H 15/9.
40. March 21, 1949, JA H 15/6; League for the Rescue of the Jews in Arab Countries, Bulletin No. 2, JA H 15/6.
41. Archive of the Council of the Sephardi Community in the Archive of the Jerusalem Municipality, 6214–5.
42. Haaretz, August 2, 1948.
43. Hed Ha-Mizrah, April 29, 1949.
44. Knesset meeting, March 30, 1949, Knesset Protocols, First Session, Vol. 1, 268.
45. Ba-Maaracha, October 3, 1948.
46. Cohen and Ivri, “A Shared Homeland,” 299–301.
47. Ba-Maaracha, October 3, 1948.
48. Ha-Boker, July 23, 1948.
49. Morris, The Birth, 87–212, 428–58.
50. Dvar Yerushalayim, July 29, 1948.
51. Haaretz, August 2, 1948.
52. Herut, November 28, 1948.
53. Schechtman, Population Transfers in Asia, 84–136; and Schechtman, On Wings of Eagles.
54. Masalha, Expulsion of the Palestinians, 161–5.
55. Schechtman, Population Transfers in Asia, 100.
56. Mazower, No Enchanted Palace, 116; Ferrara, “Eugene Kulischer,” 715–40; and Weiss, A Confiscated Memory, 36–49.
57. Ha-Mashkif, August 27, 1948.
58. Schechtman, Population Transfers in Asia, 136.
59. Minutes of a Meeting of the Israel Government, February 27, 1949, State Archive.
60. March 21, 1949, JA H 15/6.
61. Hed Ha-Mizrah, August 26, 1949.
62. Minutes of a Meeting of the Israel Government, February 6, 1949 and March 15, 1949, State Archive.
63. Haaretz, October 17, 1949.
64. Minutes of a Government Meeting, October 18, 1948 and October 25, 1948, State Archive.
65. Bashkin, New Babylonians, 199.
66. Hed Ha-Mizrah, November 4, 1949.
67. Herut, October 17, 1949.
68. Statement by the Israel Government Press Office, October 23, 1949, State Archive, HTZ 2451/11. See also: Meir, Zionsim; and Zimhoni, “The Political.”
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Moshe Naor
Moshe Naor is Assistant Professor in the Department of Israel Studies at the University of Haifa.