On 12 November 1948, Avraham Elmaleh filed this report on the increasingly desperate situation of Jews in Arab countries for the weekly newspaper Had Hamizrah (The Echo of the Orient), warning of the dire consequences if nothing was done to save them. They were hostages to the war instigated by Arab countries against the new state of Israel, a war which the Arab League intended to finance with assets stolen from its Jewish citizens or extorted from them. These measures were contrary to resolutions passed by the recently-created UN. This extract is from page 12 and appears in the digital archives of the National Library of Israel and Tel Aviv University. (With thanks: Joel)
In my review of the situation of Jewry in the Middle East and North Africa, I used to refer to these countries as “rare islands of tranquillity in a stormy sea”. Compared to the situation of Jews scattered around Central Europe, these Jews lived in security. They were not persecuted because of their Jewishness and race, and enjoyed equal rights with the rest of the country’s citizens. However, it was enough for a slight change to take place between Israel and the Arab countries, for the situation of their Jews to change for the worst from one end of the region to the other, and become worse than the situation of their brothers in pre-peace Poland, in Hitler’s Germany, in fascist France and in Nazi Central Europe during World War II. Approximately one million Jews in the Islamic countries spanning Asia and Africa – from Morocco to Persia – are now targeted by Arab nationalism, which has taken on a threatening and aggressive form and turned the Jewish minorities in Arab countries not only into second-class citizens, but into dispensable elements that can be permitted to be abused and persecuted to the point that they are boycotted, rioted against, hunted down and hanged for no reason, just to rob them of their wealth and property.
An iron curtain separates us from these brothers, and the little news that filters up to us is sparse. However, even from the little information that has reached us, we have learned that the Jews of the Islamic countries are now living in a huge prison, under a tyrannical, oppressive and insulting regime of terror, headed by dark and fanatical feudal lords who oppress unique, ancient communities. The captives live in disgraceful conditions, in great distress and in danger of being killed. About a million Jews in Arab countries moan and groan under the yoke of the oppressor, at the mercy of incendiary mobs, and of bloodthirsty outlaws who seek robbery and plunder, who steal their property under the pretext of donations to Arab jihad: hundreds of thousands of them are expected to be exterminated and massacred, condemned to slow physical and spiritual degeneration if measures are not taken to save them, because the stranglehold around their necks is getting tighter and tighter day by day, and they live in terror while others are put in concentration camps. Others still live in destitution and are deprived of their livelihoods; part of their property was stolen, and the other part was seized. According to the UN partition plan of November 29,1947 it was clear to all who knew about the affairs of the Arab countries that there was a danger to their Jews, their property and rights.
We demand an immediate investigation into the difficult situation of the Jews living in the Islamic countries, who are expected to be in great danger, and also into the law which the Political Council of the Arab League tried to pass. According to this, the Jews in these countries will be vulnerable and remain deprived of the right to legal protection. In its memorandum, the World Jewish Congress stood against anti-Jewish outbreaks in Syria, Pakistan, Persia, Bahrain and Aden, which due to strict censorship and poor communication, the outside world knew nothing of. These were open persecutions, and discrimination against a racial and religious group, which is contrary to the principles contained in the Constitution of the United Nations and violates the decision made at the General Assembly session of November 14, 1946, calling on all governments to put an immediate end to persecution based on religion and race. The same memorandum also proposed the resolution that was unanimously accepted in the general session in which genocide was declared to be an international crime that calls for international unity, politically and individually. In the face of the opposition and anger of Arab members of the council, the problem of Jews in Arab countries was brought up on the agenda, but the representative of Lebanon, who was the chairman of the Economic and Social Council at the beginning of the year, removed the question from the agenda. The Arabs won in the first round and the World Jewish Congress was successful in the second round – but the results of this success were shocking, because the situation of the Jews in the Arab countries, not only did not improve a whole lot, but worsened sevenfold.
Sympathetic European and American news media also highlighted the situation of the Jews in the Arab countries and emphasized that the actions of the Arab League are definitely directed against the implementation of UN jurisdiction by creating an atmosphere hostile to this decision, and rejected taking urgent measures to protect the Jewish population in the Arab countries. Mr. Eliyahu Elisher, the president of the Sephardic community in Jerusalem, went on a comprehensive tour of Europe and North and South America to arouse public opinion and influential figures in the world to the terrible fate of these martyred Jews. The World Sephardi Federation appealed to the World Jewish Congress with a demand to pressure the governments of Arab countries to save the Jews. But it seems that if vigorous measures are not taken against these malicious governments, who knows what awaits our unfortunate brothers in the Arab countries in the nearest future. According to reliable information received from various sources, the governments of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Iraq agreed, at the beginning of 1948, to the wording of a law proposed by the “Arab League”, according to which all Jews settled in their countries will be considered citizens of the Jewish minority state in Israel, and use their property to finance the war against the Jewish state. According to this law, the “Zionists” will be imprisoned and the Jews of countries outside the Arab League will be forced to join the Arab armies.