Re: Palesrtnian Refugees.
By Letters To The Editor Tom Carew (10/07/07)
Dear Sir,
The UK Protestant leader, Archbishop Rowan Williams of Canterbury, had recent wide-ranging contacts in Lebanon, Syria and Armenia, with not only official figures, but also visited refugee camps. That there are Arab refugees languishing in camps since 1948 is absolutely appalling, but the responsibility for this sad state of affairs is seldom mentioned.
In 1947, when UK granted independence to India and Pakistan, nearly 11 times as many Muslims were displaced, some 7.5m, who moved from India to Pakistan, while some 711,000 Arabs [UN estimate] left Israel. And an equal number of Hindus and Sikhs moved in the opposite direction - exactly as happened with Jewish refugees fleeing Arab lands and Iran to Israel. No mention ever of any **right of return** for those Muslims to India, or for nearly 1m Jews displaced from the Arab world and Iran from 1947.
The 12th Pakistani President, General Pervez Musharraf, was born in India [in Delhi in 1943], while the first Sikh to become India's 14th PM, Dr. Manmohan Singh, was born in Pakistan [in the Punjab in 1932]. The 15m displaced persons on the Indian sub-continent were not cynically and callously left to rot in camps, not were the Jewish refugees who came to Israel from 1947.
In addition to those who fled to Israel, many more Jews fled elsewhere, such as to US, and in 1962 to France from Algeria.
Nearly 1m Jews in Arab world and Iran in 1947 are now reduced to 1% of that level, but Israel alone has MORE Arabs than those in the WHOLE of British-administerd Palestine in 1947 [ 1.4m against 1.2m] .
Very relevant facts, forgotten often, and, for whatever reasons, also little used even by Israeli official spokespersons, but essential to have any perspective on this situation.
The unique creation of UNRWA, a UN agency dedicated solely to the Palestinian Arabs, may ultimately have hindered, not facilitated, their re-integration into society. The 15m refugees on the Indian sub-continent enjoyed no such dedicated agency.
And Muslim oil revenues would be more than sufficient to integrate all Palestinian Arabs into their host societies, and/or into Gaza and the West Bank. This ongoing scandal surely deserves urgent but informed attention.
Yours sincerely,
Tom Carew
Dublin City,
Ireland
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