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Artificial Wound of Palestinian Refugees Has Festered Too Long
(JTA) Danny Danon - For over 2,000 years, places like Algiers and Aleppo, Tunis and Cairo, Aden and Tripoli and so many others across the Arab world were vibrant centers of Jewish life. They gave us great works of scholarship and contributed immensely to the broader Arab society in the fields of art and literature, medicine, government and commerce. When Israel was established in 1948, the Arab governments not only fought the new state, they also turned against their Jewish communities that had lived in peace with their neighbors for generations. Facing murderous anti-Jewish riots and government confiscation of wealth, nearly 1 million Jews were forced to flee the places their families had called home for generations, leaving behind everything they had. Yet these hundreds of thousands did not end up in refugee camps. Unlike the Arab countries that refused to absorb the Palestinian refugees, the State of Israel opened its doors to fellow Jews. When nations act responsibly, there is absolutely no reason for a refugee crisis to last more than a few years. Now is the time for the community of nations to put an end to the artificial wound of Palestinian refugees that has festered for way too long. The writer is Israel's Ambassador to the UN.