The Double Nakba

[aranthus]

16. No he doesn't say that.

First because he recognizes that the war started in December, 1947, when the Palestinians started it. More to the point, he doesn't actually say that Arabs were being expelled in 1947. He says that they left. Expulsion is the intentional forcing out of people. While that happened in 1948, he doesn't say that it happened in 1947. Look at the chart below the text. He doesn't say expulsion until July, 1948.

Jews lived in Arab countries as second class citizens (subject to the Muslim version of pogroms) for centuries. They were allowed to be second class citizens because they were "people of the book" and because they paid a special tax, the Jizya. As people of the book they had four choices: convert; pay the Jizya, leave or die (the same choices that ISIS gives people today). As long as the Jews knew and kept their place, then they could stay. By creating Israel, the Jews "broke the deal" and that opened up the Jews of the Middle East to greater oppression.