Among many of the charges leveled against Israel, ethnic cleansing is high up on the list. Is ethnic cleansing a crime per se? Paradoxically it is not. It all depends upon the context. One proper punishment for criminals is imprisonment. Another is banishment. If an entire ethnic group committed serious crimes, and were all of them, together, banished, that might well be justified. And it would be difficult to see the difference between such a state of affairs and ethnic cleansing.
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Nor is banishment, even for the innocent, always unwelcome. The millions of Jews in Nazi Germany would have been delighted to have been ethnically cleansed, that is, instead of being murdered. "Please, ethnically cleanse us" might well have been their plea at the time, their fervent hope. Unhappily, the Nazis refused to ethnically cleanse the Jews. That is, kick them out of the country. (Not that they would have very much been welcomed anywhere else. A Canadian minister in charge of immigration was asked "How many Jews would he allow into the country?" Came the answer: "None is too many.")
Another case of ethnic cleansing took place for equally innocent folk, this time on an unwilling basis. Almost one million Jews from Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, etc. were banished by a combination of mal-treatment by these national governments and pogroms against them by the citizenry of those countries. What of these almost one million Jews who were indeed ethnically cleansed from the Arab states around 1948? Would they have been better off remaining in their original homes in their countries of origin, or by emigrating to Israel? We can easily answer this based on immigration patterns: virtually all of them "voted with their feet" for their new country.
Is Israel guilty of ethnic cleansing? The present incursion of the IDF into Gaza, it is charged, is an instance of this phenomenon. For example, according to Michelle Goldberg: "… it looks as if America is underwriting a war to remove Gazans from Gaza." In the view of Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territory, "Palestinians are in grave danger of mass ethnic cleansing … The situation in the occupied Palestinian territory and Israel has reached fever pitch …" Kenneth Roth maintains that "Israel appears to be on the verge of ethnic cleansing in Gaza." And Al Jazeera informs us that John Mearsheimer has averred that "Israel is choosing … 'ethnic cleansing."'
But this is ludicrous. There would have been no incursion of the IDF into Gaza had it not been for the vicious, depraved, and almost (but not quite) unprecedented attack on Israeli women, babies, and the elderly by Hamas on October 7, 2023, a day that will live in infamy forever. This should have occurred, given that rockets had been heading eastwards from Gaza for many years.
Here is a criticism of Israel coming up, so I offer a trigger warning: The Iron Dome softened the response to these rockets of the military. Without it, it is likely that an attack on Hamas in Gaza would have taken place much sooner. The IDF is at fault for not entering Gaza, and rooting out Hamas, when the first of these rockets landed in the only civilized country in the Middle East.
Actually, as it happens, somewhat surprisingly, there was indeed an instance of ethnic cleansing in Gaza. It took place in 2005, not 2023. Nor were the targets of this particular episode Arabs and the perpetrators Jews. Well, the perpetrator of this bout of ethnic cleansing were indeed Israelis, but the victims were the Jews living in Gaza at the time. So, yes, in that very narrow sense, the critics of Israel are correct: The military of that nation compelled thousands of Jews to depart from Gaza. (To be sure, there was compensation paid, and the targets of this particular ethnic cleansing were welcomed back into Israel).
If Israel really wanted to ethnically cleanse Gazans, why did they wait until just after October 7, 2023, to begin this process? The answer is obvious: There was no ethnic cleansing (of Arabs, that is) before that date. Rather, what took place after that date was an act of self-defense. Finally, finally, at long last, Israel, thank God, decided to end that terrorist organization. As well, it was a strike against Hamas to free the kidnap victims held by them.
What about the supposed ethnic cleansing of Arabs in 1948? Was there any ethnic cleansing on that occasion? Again, not at all. Rather, these people departed from their homes as a result of orders given to them by the five invading armies at the time of the birth of this country. The departing folk were told that their continued presence there would interfere with the intended slaughter of the Jews. Their absence would greatly facilitate such matters, which would be concluded within a week or two, and then they could return, safely.
The Israelis begged them to stay but to no avail. Their departure in effect was an exercise of aiding and abetting the invading armies.
Such travel is not per se a criminal act. But in this context, matters are far from clear. Picking up some friends by car from their visit to the bank is in like manner not a crime. But the same exact physical act, when undertaken by the getaway driver for the bank robbers is an entirely different matter.
Yes, some of these emigrants might have been entirely innocent; a few were not at all cooperating with the five invading armies. Perhaps. More likely, many of them could have been considered as traitors. If they had been allowed the so-called right of return, they could well have constituted a fifth column of enemies, ready, willing, and able to undermine Israeli safety.
If we judge Israel by strict libertarian principles a case can be made that they all have the right to return, unless it could be proven otherwise. But if this country is tried using the criterion employed on other nations, we reach a very different assessment. Consider, for example, how the US treated its own Japanese population during World War II. Many of these people, too, were entirely innocent of any crime.
I know I know, this is difficult to understand; this one democracy in the Middle East is never evaluated on the same basis as used for other countries. Who are we to do so? It is time, it is past time, to assess Israel on the same basis used for all other nations.
One albeit imperfect way out of this morass would have been a swap. Allow the non-returning Arabs to take over the properties lost by the Jews compelled to depart from countries such as Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, and Iraq. The Jews expelled from these countries were welcomed by Israel. The opposite did not occur. Instead, these people were consigned to refugee camps, where they stayed for many generations, even until the present. The Arabs decided upon this course of action to demonstrate how cruel and unlawful are the Israelis. And, unhappily, all too many people in the world bought into this lie.
There is of course one disanalogy between Arabs leaving Israel at this point of time, and Jews then departing from the several Arab states. The former did so voluntarily. The latter were compelled to do so. So, who is more of a victim here? Obviously, this applies to the Jews.
If there were ethnic cleansing by Israelis, Arabs would not be judges, politicians, nor members of the Knesset, nor professors in that country.
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