A Safe Haven

Israel is well-known as a safe-haven for Jews, but has it also reached out a protective arm to other minority groups it sees as subject to persecution?

My local barbers happen to be Kurdish, and on one of my visits when we would in part discuss the Middle East - as comedian George Burns once quipped, 'No wonder the country is in such a mess when all the people who know how to run it are cutting hair or driving taxis' - the head barber hit the topic of a recent vote on a Kurdish independent State.

He raised one hand, as if striking gold in the air, 'And guess who was the main nation who voted for us to have our own country?' I simply raised a quizzical brow. I'd read a couple of news articles on the topic, but this was his moment. I didn't want to steal his thunder. 'Israel!' he exclaimed. 'The Americans and Brits went against it, fearing it would upset the already shaky political alliances they'd forged in Iraq.'

The unspoken alliance between Israel and Kurds goes some way back. Israel took in 260,000 Jewish Kurds between the 1950s and 1960s, and has since taken in a far smaller number of non-Jewish Kurds, the most recent 200 Yazidi Kurds at the time of their persecution by ISIS in Iraq. Israel sees in the Kurds a sort of 'brotherhood of persecution', as Kurds too have been historically marginalized and persecuted by their Arab brothers, even though most of them are also Muslim.

Turkey alone has been responsible for the killing of 240,000 Kurds over the past 100 years, with a combination of Iraqi forces and ISIS being responsible for another 20,000 deaths and the displacement of almost 200,000 Kurds. Due to these continual pogroms, and seeing a certain 'security of numbers' by surrounding themselves with fellow Kurds, a de facto area/province, Kurdistan, has been formed over the last 80 years. And it was in the Northern Iraq part of this area that in 2017 the Kurds finally made a bid for their own independent state.

Paradoxically, what led to the failure of this bid was the very same alliance, the OIC - Organization of Islamic Cooperation - that today Israel finds rallied against it in the UN, where all 57 Arab and Islamic nations vote en bloc. In turn, Iraq also heavily lobbied the USA to not support the bid, fearing it would break the delicate new political alliances forged in Iraq. In the end, the only supporting nation was Israel.

Not content with just being party to destroying a Kurdish bid for their own state, with the advent of the Abraham Accords, the new Iraqi Parliament, strongly influenced by Iran's ruling Mullahs, passed a law - obviously fearing that the Kurds might join the throng - that any person, political body or company that opened or 'normalized' relationships with Israel faced life-imprisonment or death.

Israel's support for the Kurds in fact dates back to the mid-1960s. At first this involved humanitarian assistance, building field hospitals and training Peshmerga fighters, as well as supplying them with light arms. Later, Israel started providing the Kurds with significant amounts of more advanced weaponry, such as anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons, and training Peshmerga fighters in Israel.

Israel also helped to bring the 'Kurdish question' to Europe by financing awareness campaigns about the Kurds and their plight. The ties between the two continued with the first official acknowledgment on September 29, 1980, when Prime Minister Menachem Begin revealed that Israel supported the Kurds 'during their uprising against the Iraqis in 1965-1975.'

But this ethos of supporting other disadvantaged people and nations runs through much of Israel's history. The fact that Israel is a haven for Jews is of course well known. But these haven't just come exclusively from Europe, which is the headline claim. In fact, Ashkenazi Jews originating from Europe comprise only 32% of the overall population, whereas Mizrahi and Sephardic Jews - stemming from North Africa, Greece, Ethiopia, India, South America and Arab states including Iraq, Iran, Syria, Jordan and Israel itself - comprise 43% of the overall population, this including the 1 million Jews expelled or forced to flee Arab lands in 1948-1950. So, the claim by arch anti-Zionists that Israel was largely a European expulsion-colonial enterprise doesn't stand up to even the faintest examination.

This transfer of populations - 700,000 Palestinians to neighbouring Arab lands versus 1 million Jews from Arab lands - has led to the one blind spot Israel might have about the Palestinian plight and 'right of return'. Israel considers, and possibly rightly so, 'If we can absorb 1 million Jews, then why can't Arab nations absorb 700,000 Palestinians?' This seems a perfectly reasonable stance considering that combined Arab nations total 5 million square miles to Israel's 8,630 square miles. Egypt and Jordan alone, the two directly adjoining Arab nations total 421,545 square miles. In light of Israel absorbing 1 million Jews into such a small space, Arab-nation excuses to be unwilling or unable to absorb 700,000 of their Arab-Palestinian brothers into an infinitely larger space seem feeble.

The Israeli train of thought is further supported by the fact that Israeli-Jews originally saw them all as 'Arabs' and termed them as such. The term 'Palestinian' for an Arab that lived in that area didn't gain strong traction until the mid-1970s. Indeed, pre-1948 the area term 'Palestine' was equally applied to Jews to differentiate from European Jews. One of the early English-language Jewish newspapers was called The Palestine Post, later changing its name in 1950 to The Jerusalem Post.

But of course the argument on the Arab-Palestinian side was always that they had been removed or fled from their 'homeland' whereas the Jews had been removed or fled from various Arab regions. A singular geographic situation versus a wider indeterminate one; though this didn't particularly help sway Israeli opinion, because they had always seen Arab-Palestinians as part of a wider combined Arab body. Part of that fed by the fact that after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire there was a massive re-drawing of many borders in the Middle East. Nation names changed, but the main body of people within them were all still Arabs. Further bolstered by the fact that between 1950-1975 pan-Arabism was the most popular game in town, with King Hussein of Jordan declaring in 1971, 'We are all fedayeen.' From this, we see that Palestinians were happy to be seen as part of a wider Arab body when it suited them - as supported by the fact that the 1948, 1967 and 1973 wars were from a combined body of Arab nations - then singular when they chose.

Though it's easy to see why that 'singular' option was latched onto later - particularly after peace deals had been made between Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994 - it gave a more readily identifiable name for an exiled people wishing to return to their nation, even if that didn't fully reflect the situation. If they'd just remained as a loose band of Arab brothers, then they could easily have been absorbed into those neighbouring Arab nations, which Israel has been claiming all along.

Of all the Jews absorbed into Israel, those from Ethiopia are particularly noteworthy. Immigration from Ethiopia to Israel started in 1950, with a heavier wave in the 1970s due to famine there. Then in 1991, with many Ethiopian Jews under threat with an ongoing civil war, Israel launched 'Operation Solomon' in which 14,000 Ethiopian Jews were airlifted to safety by successive aircraft runs over a 36-hour period. The name 'Solomon' chosen because it was in fact the union between Israel's King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba that resulted in their son, Menelik 1, being the ruler of Ethiopia, with his descendants then continuing to rule Ethiopia up until the last Emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie 1, who died in 1974.

Indeed, due to these Biblical links, Haile Selassie was revered as something of a God or 'Returning Jesus' in Rastafarian culture, with their religion revolving heavily around him. Influenced by both Christian and Jewish thought, some scholars have described Rastafari as 'an Afro-centralized blend of Christianity and Judaism.' Which explains terms such as 'Lion in Zion' and 'Exodus' in Bob Marley songs. And possibly why his son, Ziggy Marley - whose wife is an Iranian Jew - feels a close tie with Israel and spends much time with his family there. But this lineage from Israel's King Solomon also led to a large number of Ethiopian Jews - though of the original 170,000 there, 168,000 have emigrated to Israel in successive waves since 1950, leaving only 2,000 in Ethiopia.

Another minority group to come under Israel's watchful eye has been the Baha'is. Persecuted in their originating nation, Iran, since the era of Khomeini - because Islam dictates that no Prophet shall come after Mohammed - Israel has provided a safe haven for their World Centre Temple and gardens in Haifa. Open residency is given to Baha'is - who come from as far afield as USA, India, Kenya, Brazil, Guyana and Australia - to tend to the Temple and its grounds, study, worship, pray and take care of Baha'is worldwide affairs. In addition, an estimated one million Baha'is visit Israel each year to see their World Centre and gardens and take part in prayers and studies, including Bahá'í pilgrims.

Following the ethos of 'an elephant never forgets', Israel has been keen to commemorate all those who have provided 'safe havens' to Jews over the years. Starting in 1953, Yad Vashem set up a commemoration programme, 'Righteous Among Nations' to recognize the numerous non-Jews who had helped Jews during the holocaust. Over the years, this award has been granted to almost 30,000 individuals in 51 countries, with Poland, Netherlands and France topping the list of recipients.

Among them have been some notable recipients: Oskar Schindler, who helped save 1,200 Jews through employment at his Krakow and Brunnlitz factories; Queen Elisabeth of Belgium, who used her influence to save hundreds of Jewish children from deportation to death camps; Princess Alice of Battenberg, mother of the late Prince Phillip, Duke of Edinburgh, who in Athens sheltered hundreds of Jewish refugees; Bishop Chrysostomos and Mayor Loukas Karrer of the Greek island of Zakynthos, who, when a German Commander demanded a list of the island's Jewish population for deportation, hid the Jews in the mountains and turned in a list with only their own names. Nicholas Winton, who ran the children's kindertransport from Prague to London, saving hundreds of Jewish children, was not included in the list because both his parents were Jewish; however, his endeavours were praised by Yad Vashem, and he was honoured in the Czech Republic and also received a Knighthood from Queen Elizabeth ll.

The Zakynthos link is particularly interesting because in 1953, when the island and nearby Kefalonia suffered a serious earthquake, which killed 600 and displaced another 110,000, Israel was the first nation to offer aid and relief and rescue teams. Israel also offered an aid team to Greece in 1999, when a serious earthquake hit the Greek mainland.

This practice of Israel offering aid and rescue teams internationally is in fact quite widespread - unusual for a small nation in a state of almost constant defence from terrorism and hostilities, where you'd have thought its prime resources and attention should be kept at home. Israel's commitment to providing aid, humanitarian and rescue teams started officially in 1957, with the establishment of Mashav, the Israel's Agency for International Development Cooperation.

Other Israeli humanitarian and emergency response groups that work with the Israel government include IsraAid, a joint programme run by 14 Israeli organizations and North American Jewish groups, The Fast Israeli Rescue and Search Team, Israeli Flying Aid (IFA), Save a Child's Heart (SACH) and Latet.

In the 1970s, Israel broadened its aid agenda by granting safe haven to refugees and foreign nationals in distress from around the world. Since the 1980s, Israel has also provided humanitarian aid to places affected by natural disasters and terrorist attacks. In 1995, the Israeli Foreign Ministry and Israel Defence Forces established a permanent humanitarian and emergency aid unit, carrying out humanitarian operations worldwide. As well as providing humanitarian supplies, Israel has also sent rescue teams and medical personnel and set up field hospitals in disaster-stricken areas worldwide.

Between 1985 and 2015, Israel sent 24 delegations of the IDF search and rescue unit, the Home Front Command, to 22 countries. In Haiti, immediately following the 2010 earthquake, Israel was the first country to set up a field hospital capable of performing surgical operations. Israel sent over 200 medical doctors and personnel to start treating injured Haitians at the scene. Despite radiation concerns, Israel was one of the first countries to send a medical delegation to Japan following the 2011 earthquake and tsunami disaster. Israel dispatched a medical team to the tsunami-stricken city of Kurihara in 2011. A medical clinic run by an IDF team of some 50 consultants and medics, after treating 200 patients in two weeks, the departing emergency team donated its specialist equipment to the Japanese.

But despite all these marvellous efforts, in the spirit of 'keep demonizing Jews and in particular Zionists', arch left-wingers and Islamists discard and poo-poo all of this, claiming that it's all just 'whitewashing' to cover-up and over-compensate for their terrible treatment of the Palestinians. In the same vein that - despite Tel-Aviv being a noted LGBT-friendly city, one of the few where indeed gays are safe and not persecuted in the Middle East - this is put down to 'Pink-washing' for the same reasons. Israel's denigrators seem incapable of simply giving praise where praise is due.

A ludicrous double standard. When the UK gives aid internationally, does anyone say, 'Ah, they're just doing that to make up for their terrible history with past British colonialism'; or French aid the same by pointing to past French Colonialism and Napoleon; or the USA, saying they're just making up for their terrible treatment of their native Indians; or Italian aid, 'just compensating for the past vagaries of the Roman Empire'. No, Israel is the only nation to be singled out in that manner over their foreign aid initiatives.

Among the numerous other signs, if there was ever conclusive proof that anti-Semitism was still alive and well - though now mainly guising as anti-Zionism or 'Israelophobia' - then this would be it.

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John Matthews is an experienced writer and journalist. The author of 24 books, including two centred around WW2 and the holocaust in the name of J.C. Maetis (his father’s original Jewish name) his first experience of writing about the Middle East came as a war correspondent covering the last years of the Lebanese Civil War, which led to his second book, ‘The Crescents of the Moon’. He has since written on the subject for a number of journals, including The Times, Sunday Times, Newsweek, The Independent and The Spectator. He was also in the run-up to the millennium editor of European Brief, the main magazine for the European Parliament, editing the likes of Tony Blair, Al Gore and Henry Kissinger on subjects ranging from the fall of the Berlin Wall and European unity, climate change and nuclear fusion to, once again, the Middle East. He lives in London with his wife and family.

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