More than 150 UN resolutions on Arab Middle East refugees have been issued since then, but none mentioned Jewish refugees from Arab countries. One of the reasons for neglecting the Jewish refugees is that there are none now. All of them were absorbed into Israel and granted citizen status. In the political arena, there is no discussion of their property and their right to return. The situation with Arab refugees is quite different. At the time of writing, there are about 5 million of them, who grew from the original 711,000. Since the outset of the problem, tension and hatred in the Middle East has grown, together with the number of registered Palestinian refugees. According to the UNRWA, in January, 2010, the distribution of registered Palestinian refugees by country or territory was as follows:
Gaza Strip..... 1,106,195
West Bank........ 778,993
Lebanon........... 425,640
Syria................. 472,109
Jordan............ 1,983,733
Total:.............. 4,766,670
Table 1 indicates the rate of growth of Palestinian refugees and the population of countries where they are settled.
Table 1
_________:Lebanon__Syria_______Jordan____West Bank_Gaza_____Total
Pop.1948_:1,238,000_3,068,000___1,188,000__420,000___80,000**__5,994,000
Pop.2010_:4,903,000_23,331,000__6,686,000__2,520,000_1,600,000_39,040,000
Pop.Grwth:396% ____760%______563%._____600%_____2,000%___651%
Refg.1948:100,000___80,000*____100,000____280,000___197,000__757,000
Refg.2010:425,640___472,109____1,983,733__778,993___1,106,195_4,766,670
Ref.Grwth: 426%_____590%______1,984%____278%_____562%____630%
Comment * 70,000 to 100,000. **Estimate indigenous
In Syria it is hard to estimate exact growth of refugees, as about 100,000 fled from Golan Heights in 1967, and some from Lebanon.
As the table suggests, the Palestinian refugee population grew comparably with the Arab population in their host countries. It is worth comparing the growth of Arab refugees with the growth of other refugees who were displaced in the 20th century.
At the end of WWII there were more than 40 million refugees in Europe. The issue, in all its complexity, is too big for a short article. I will therefore limit the discussion to German refugees as the most representative example.
Altogether, at least 12 million Germans were displaced after the war. Of them, about 7 million German civilians fled or were transported from territory controlled by East Prussia and Poland. 1.8 million German civilians were expelled from East Prussia alone, which the Soviet Union had annexed without any justification. The brutality in the period of 1945-1950 was appalling. Hundreds of thousands died due to terrible weather conditions and the difficulty of the journey. Thousands of German children, nicknamed ‘wolf children’, became orphans or died in brutal winters of 1945-1947. The last 7 Germans had been expelled from their homeland in January 1950. I bet most of my readers have never heard this, as the international community and media appear not interested in refugee problems where Israel is not involved.
Article comments
1 - Andreas Andersen
Excellent Article! Thank you!