rao@utcsstat.UUCP (Eli Posner) (12/22/83)
Chaim Herzog writes:
"Two large refugee problems were created as a result of the
conflict [48-49 war], each encompassing approximately 800,000
persons: a Palestinian Arab refugee problem and a Jewish refugee
problem, the latter created upon the establishment of the State
of Israel when the Jewish populations in Arab countries were exiled
from their countries. The Jewish people and the State of Israel solved
the Jewish refugee problem rapidly and re-established the Jewish
refugees, primarily in Israel. But the Arab governments chose to
perpetuate the Arab refugee problem, to use the Arab refugees as
political pawns over the years, and to allow generations to be born
and to grow up in miserable refugee camps in the Middle East
supported by international charity. (It is sobering to reflect that
just one day's Arab oil revenues, even in 1949, would have sufficed
to solve the entire Arab refugee problem. But this was not to be.)
-- quote from "The Arab-Israeli Wars",Chaim Herzog,1982
It should be read.
Eli Posner
utzoo!utcsstat!rao