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From an Era of Refugee Millions, Only Palestinians Remain
(Wall Street Journal) Andrew Roberts - In the mid-1940s to early 1950s, 20 different ethnic groups were either forcibly or voluntarily moved, and usually in far worse circumstances and for far longer distances than the Palestinians. The groups included the Sikhs, Muslims and Hindus of the Punjab; the Crimean Tatars; the Japanese and Korean Kuril and Sakhalin Islanders; and the Soviet Chechens, Ingush and Balkars - numbering in the tens or even hundreds of thousands, if not millions. All of these refugee groups, except one, chose to try to make the best of their new environments. Most have succeeded. The sole exception has been the Palestinians, who made the choice to embrace fanatical irredentism and launch two intifadas resulting in the deaths of thousands of Palestinians and Israelis. Sadly, it has been the Arab states' cynical and self-interested policy for nearly seven decades to keep the Palestinians boiling with indignation.