[Architect]

Shulewitz says most of the Jews did not leave on their own but were forced out as the Arab states carried out an ethnic cleansing of their Jews. Any discussions of possible compensation for the Palestinian Arabs - for their dislocation - must, she says, also include discussion of compensation for the even larger number of Jews who were dislocated, not by war, but by Arab political decision.

I have no idea what percentage of Jews left voluntarily. More important I don't know what percentage lost their property. Neither do you. But it is obviously true that some people have claims. And these claims are against Arab governments and Arab citizens. They have nothing to do with claims that Palestinians have against the Israeli government and Israeli citizens. She is wrong when she say that the one is related to the other.

[anapikoros]

The point in comparing the Jewish refugees with the Arab is that Israel a poor country barely off its feet absorbed the Jewish refugees. When those refugees arrived in Israel they also had to live in camps and temprary shelter but by the next generation they were pretty much fully integrated into the community. Israel is still doing it today for refugees from Russia, Yemen and Ethiopia etc. .

The Arab nations (with all their oil wealth) didn't lift a finger to help their own - in fact quite the opposite they forced the Arabs to stay refugees for generations and live off the handouts from the UN.

The other point is to consider it as a populatioin exchange - not an uncommon thing post WWII. $hit happens and life goes on - my parents were refo's from WWII, they didn't find it easy starting from scratch, but they got on with their lives - so I speak from the experience of being directly affected by it. And don't give me the stuff that the Arabs had lived their for generations etc., most of them "fled" back to their homelands in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Egypt. Its their own governments that kept them as reugees. Israel didn't force them over the borders, that's where they elected to go. Most Arabs who were indigenous or owned property stayed and if they needed temporary refuge they could have found it on parts of the West Bank where there was no fighting in 1948.

Worse still, when there was an opportunity for some to return to Israel the Arab governments prohibited them from doing so. You won't find that sort of information at the Intifada websites you visit.