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The
tragedy of refugees is not unique to the Palestinians.
- 2
million displaced
war victims were resettled in a population transfer between Turkey and
Greece. (early 1920s)
- 900,000
Germans were forcibly transferred to Germany from Czechoslovakia, Poland,
Hungary, and Yugoslavia. (Following World War II)
- 2,520,000
Poles, Ukrainians, white Russians, and Lithuanians.
(exchange of population between Poland and Soviet Russia)
- 13
million
people, Hindus and Muslims uprooted.
(partition of India 1947)
- 590,000
Arab refugees fled from Israel.
(1948)
- 800,000
Jewish refugees expelled or fled from Muslim lands.
(1948)
- In
the 1950s there were 60 million refugees in the free world, Palestinians
comprised less than 1 percent of the total.
Population
Exchanges were not reversible.
There was no historical precedent for the return of such numbers
of fugitives - in the Middle East the 590,000 emigré Arabs in effect
represented a population exchanged for the 800,000 Jewish refugees from
Muslim lands. Arab countries blockaded and rejected refugees, refusing
to integrate them.
(see Arab Refugees ; Jewish Refugees from Muslim lands) |
