Libya is once again in the news.
It's been a while, since the media largely lost interest following Muammar Gaddafi's ouster and assassination.
The North African nation just held its first election. What emerges will doubtless have regional consequences.
But there's another reason Libya should be in the public eye now, though don't hold your breath that it will make the news anytime soon.
Forty-five years ago this month, the last Jews of Libya were forced to flee the country. They included my wife, then 16 years old, her seven siblings, and her parents.
In the end, they were among the lucky ones.
Some would call them, and the few thousand other Jews who remained in the country after 1951, naïve. That's when Libya gained its independence from the British. There had already been pogroms in 1945 and 1948. The vast majority of Jews had no confidence that a newly sovereign Libya, whatever its constitutional guarantees might promise, would emerge democratic and law-abiding, and they left.
The remaining Libyan Jews were targeted following the outbreak of the 1967 Six-Day War, a thousand miles away, for no other reason than that they were Jews.
My wife's family found a raging mob in front of their Tripoli home, and calls rang out to burn the house down. The ten occupants trembled in fear inside.
Miraculously, they were saved. One man courageously addressed the mob and told them to leave the family alone. He knew them, he said, and they were good people.
The crowd dispersed to look for other Jews, while this lone individual arranged for the family to be shuttled to a safe house for a couple of weeks until they could manage to go abroad.
They left on July 14, never to return.
The link with the country today known as Libya - believed to date back to the tragic 15th-century exodus of Jews from Spain, in the case of my wife's maternal lineage, and 2,000 years to the involuntary Roman transport of Jews from Palestine in the case of her paternal lineage -- was severed.
Italy, which had once been the colonial power in Libya, gave the family refuge.
With nothing other than a few suitcases and barely a couple hundred dollars, they started new lives.
But rather than wallow in victimization, they put one foot in front of the other and moved forward. It wasn't easy, especially for such a large family, but they did what they had to do.
Meanwhile, dozens of other Libyan Jews weren't as fortunate.
With no one to stand up for them, and the government of Libyan King Idris quite impotent, they were hunted down and killed.
What happened to the brave soul who saved my wife's family?
He survived, but begged the family never to disclose his name. He feared retribution from fellow Libyans who might do him harm for the "crime" of saving ten Jews.
And what of the Jewish legacy in Libya?
Here was a community that had lived on the soil for more than two millennia, long predating the occupation by invading armies from the Arabian Peninsula. And Jews, numbering nearly 50,000 at their peak, had contributed in every way imaginable to the area's development.
Libya went to work to erase every trace of Jewish existence.
What lessons can we take from this neglected anniversary?
First, if a new regime in Tripoli wants to distinguish itself from its predecessors, one way would be to acknowledge that Jews once lived in the country, that they were forcibly expelled and their synagogues and cemeteries destroyed, and that a process of honest reckoning with these crimes is warranted.
Second, the international community should at long last acknowledge these Jewish refugees from Arab lands and the injustices they endured.
When people meet my wife and hear her story, many ask why they didn't know what befell the Jews of Libya.
The answer begins with the fact that no UN body, neither at the time nor since, has ever taken action in response to what happened.
Nor did the international media focus on what took place. To the contrary, the tragic events hardly merited any space in the world's leading print and broadcast outlets.
And last, but by no means least, there's the inevitable contrast with the Palestinians.
Libyan Jews, like the hundreds of thousands of other Jews from Arab countries uprooted and sent packing simply because they were Jews, found new homes primarily in Israel, but also in Western Europe and North and South America.
Were many bitter about their forced exodus? No doubt. But they impressively started over and quickly began playing a part in their new countries.
In the case of the Palestinians -- some of whom were encouraged to leave their homes by Arab leaders who promised a quick return, and some of whom became refugees in a war their Arab brethren began against Israel -- the story has been entirely different. They always seem to be in the news.
They have a special agency, UNRWA, devoted entirely to them, with no mandate for resettlement in other countries and an unprecedented, open-ended definition of "refugee," which is transferred from one generation to the next. With support from colleagues on both sides of the aisle, U.S. Senator Mark Kirk, to his great credit, has begun to shine the spotlight on this ongoing travesty.
Moreover, Arab countries, with the exception of Jordan, cry crocodile tears for the Palestinians, but largely refuse to give them citizenship and, in places like Lebanon, even restrict their participation in the economy.
So while the world watches post-election Libya to see what unfolds, I'll be watching, too.
And I shall also be waiting to see if, after 45 years, Libya is ready to confront its past.
Yes, this is about Jews, but not only.
For the Arab upheaval to have a chance to turn into an Arab spring, newly emerging regimes need to demonstrate a genuine commitment to the protection of minorities -- and, yes, to confront the consequences of that lack of protection in the past.
It's high time, I'd say.
Became refugees? Seriously Mr Harris, could you be any more obvious in you effort to whitewash Israeli crimes?
Around half of the Palestinian Refugees were expelled before the declaration and before any Arab Force set foot on the land. From Israeli records: A report from the military intelligence SHAI of the Haganah entitled "The emigration of Palestinian Arabs in the period 1/12/1947-1/6/1948", dated 30 June 1948, affirms that: At least 55% of the total of the exodus was caused by our (Haganah/IDF) operations." To this figure, the report's compilers add the operations of the Irgun and Lehi, which "directly (caused) some 15%… of the emigration". A further 2% was attributed to explicit expulsion orders issued by Israeli troops, and 1% to their psychological warfare. This leads to a figure of 73% for departures caused directly by the Israelis. In addition, the report attributes 22% of the departures to "fears" and "a crisis of confidence" affecting the Palestinian population. As for Arab calls for flight, these were reckoned to be significant in only 5% of cases…[50][51][52] According to Morris's estimates, 250,000 to 300,000 Palestinians left Israel during this stage.[9]:262 Keesing's Contemporary Archives in London place the total number of refugees before Israel's independence at 300,000.[53] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_Palestinian_exodus#April_1948_.E2.80.93_June_1948
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_exodus_from_Arab_and_Muslim_countries
Benny Morris debunked this myth that Arad leaders encouraged anyone to leave.
'Whatever the reasoning and attitude of the Arab states' leaders, I have found no contemporary evidence to show that either the leaders of the Arab states or the Mufti [Hajj Amin al-Husseini] ordered or directly encouraged the mass exodus during April [1948]. It may be worth noting that for decades the policy of the Palestinian Arab leaders had been to hold fast to the soil of Palestine and to resist the eviction and displacement of Arab communities'. (Benny Morris, p. 66)
Frankly, the treatment of Jews throughout the Muslim world has often been abominable, in the truest meaning of the word: The Qur'an declares Israel's destiny is to belong to the Jewish people, and also declares AlLah's approval of Judaism. Knowing that, the first Muslims defended the right of their Jewish brethren to live and practice their faith throughout the Muslim world in peace, before later generations began to restrict them. Those who teach otherwise create an abomination.
However, as a Jew you must know that the promises Hashem makes in Abraham's Covenant are contingent on Israel's (and Ishmael's?) commitment to Tzedakah, a word that means benevolent justice. And that simple fact makes the plight of the Palestinians an abomination in the truest meaning of the word too.
Throughout our world's history on through to today, it seems our world's people are united in the abominable ways we have treated the children of Abraham, whether those children are Jewish, Muslim or Christian.
I look forward to the day we unite in condemning anti-Semitism and ending it in all it's awful forms once and for all instead.
The kind of informed and objective opinion one is unlikely to find on a colum by David Harris
This is the verse I'm talking about: "In the Beginning" 18:19 says, Kiy y'da'Tiyw l'maan ásher y'tzaûeh et-Bänäyw w'et-Bëytô acháräyw w'shäm'rû Derekh' y'hwäh laásôt tz'däqäh ûmish'Pä†l'maan häviy y'hwäh al-av'rähäm ët ásher-DiBer äläyw.
It's the verse that declares Hashem knows Abraham, and knows that he will command his children (plural- this is after the birth of Ishmael, and at the time when Sarah laughed at the thought of becoming pregnant herself) to live correctly, and that they (plural- both sons) would bring benevolent justice to all, SO THAT Hashem's promises will come to pass.
That makes Hashem's promise of peace for Abraham's children in Israel CONTINGENT on their behavior. I think that means the way we treat Abraham's children in God's Holy Land, both the Israelis and the Palestinians, regardless of whether they are Jew, Christian or Muslim, controls the world we create tomorrow.
Right now, none of us are doing very well, Abraham's children are suffering, and I don't think it matters so much who started it. Instead, I think God's waiting to see who ends it, and in so doing lives up to Abraham's example: I know that's what I tell my kids when they're fighting with each-other, and if you have children I'm pretty sure you tell them the same.
How was the Palestinian refugee problem created by the Arabs themselves? Has it occured to you that it was Israel that created Palestinian refugees?
Almost since the the day that the U.N. voted for statehood for Israel, it has done so much to impede its acceptance into the community of nations. It is contemptuous that the U.N. has several special commissions and offices to propagandize on behalf of the Palestinians and against Israel. That there is a Nakba Day at the U.N. is beyond outrageous! I try to be conciliatory and diplomatic in most aspects of life, but I find very little which is good and productive in the U.N. today. If the Arabs had had to care for there brethren following Israel's War of Independence, there wouldn't have been more wars, intifadas, and 64 years of suffering. Because of cynical, Arab neglect of the Palestinians and because the world has made the Palestinians the biggest charity case ever, the Palestinians still don't have a national homeland.
it never cease to amaze me how Israeli apologists protray the UN as on the wrong side of history not becasue fo the fact, but because it has been critical of Israel.
>> That there is a Nakba Day at the U.N. is beyond outrageous!
What is outrageous about commemorating a massive trime agaisnt humanity? Do you consider memorial days about the Holocasut to be an outrage too?
>> f the Arabs had had to care for there brethren following Israel's War of Independence, there wouldn't have been more wars,
Rubbish. Do you believe that Israel would have given up Jerusalem? If there had been no War of Independence, there woudl be no Israel today.
I think it is only fair for the Arab countries that expelled and continue to expel their Jews to settle their Palestinian brothers on their own territories.
The situation today has little in common with the post WW2 international agreements. In fact, Israel stands in violation of many.
Israel was largely cfreated by destroying Palestinian society. How is it justice to offload this problem on to Arab countries?
The Jewish refugees looked forward and rebuilt their lives. They looked past 1400 years of oppression and dhimmi status. They got no UN aid, unlike the billions wasted by UNWRA. Arab manipulation of this issue is especially hypocritical, as the Arab world started the wars that led to BOTH refugee issues.
And most arrived in Israel of their own volition - to make Alyah. Many were lured to Israel under promises of a better life only to be explooited for cheap labor.
>> Arab manipulation of this issue is especially hypocritical, as the Arab world started the wars that led to BOTH refugee issues.
ISrale bgan creating refugees 5 months before the war of independence. Israel expelled 300,000 of them before a single Arab army set foot in Palestine.
And most arrived in Israel of their own volition - to make Alyah." Very true: they could have chosen to stay put in various Arab countries, and continue to be treated like dogs. And face more repression and massacres.
You would prefer they had done that?
Every other refugee group in the history of the world has moved on, the vast majority with far less support than the Palestinians get. But the Arab countries force them to live in refugee camps, and refuse them citizenship, so that with the cooperation of the UN, they can be used as a tool for the attempted destruction of the State of Israel.
Half of it anyway. It's pretty shamelful how Mr Harris omits the fact that the refugees became refugees by being expelled by Israel.