Was Mossad at least partly involved in causing Jews to flee Arab countries?

Two little-known facts are that the PLO helped protect the Beirut Jewish community (and also the American embassy) during the Lebanese Civil War,¹²⁴ and it was the Israelis who destroyed their synagogue during the siege of Beirtut.¹²⁵ Nor has it been widely publicized that nine Palestinian Jews were among the victims of the Sabra and Shatila massacre.126

There are also a small number of Palestinian Jews still living within Palestinian society. Esther Ramahi is one such individual. She prefers to live in the squalor of the Jelazoun refugee camp, a few kilometers from Ramallah, with her Moslem Palestinian family rather than with her Jewish daughter and all the comforts of modern Israel.¹²⁷

Like the Palestinian Jews, many Arab Jews (also called Oriental and Sephardic) were initially opposed to political Zionism. European secular Zionism was a totally alien ideological concept that was in direct conflict with their Jewish religious and their Arab cultural background. Kohavi Shemesh, a former leader of the Black Panthers, an Israeli anti-Zionist Oriental Jewish organization, has stated that, contrary to popular belief, "There wasn't any large-scale anti-Semitism in the Arab countries."¹²⁸

The long-simmering Arab-Israeli dispute and Israel's military actions in the name of the "Jewish people" have all but virtually destroyed what was once a thriving Jewish-Arab community. Today, only remnants remain. It was, of course, in Israel's interest to strengthen the Jewish foothold in Palestine by ingathering Jews from the Arab world.

Naim Giladi, an Oriental Jew and one of the founders of the Black Panthers, has been working on the subject of Mossad operations in the Jewish-Arab community to "facilitate" Jewish-Arab immigration to Israel.¹²⁹ One example of this campaign to "encourage" Zionist immigration were the bombs set off in Baghdad in 1950 to terrorize the Iraqi-Jewish community into fleeing their home of 2,500 years.¹³⁰ This question is also the subject of Marion Woolfson's Prophets in Babylon where she argues, from an anti-Zionist Jewish perspective, that the Jewish Arabs were victims of Zionism.¹³¹

124 The leader of the Lebanese Jewish community is reported to have said: "The Lebanese Jews are grateful to Mr. Arafat. We have no need of any outside protection because no one has touched a hair on our heads. We reject Israeli reports that the community is in any danger. We want no outside protectors, Israeli or otherwise. We simply plan to go on living as we always have, as Lebanese." Quoted in Lilienthal, The Zionist Connection II, p. 782. Also see Paul Martin, "Palestinians send food to Jews besieged in Beirut synagogue," The Times (London), November 4, 1975, p. A5. See also "PLO guarded our embassy U.S. admits," Toronto Star, May 16, 1985, p. A12.

125 "Beirut's Only Synagogue Is Casualty of the Israelis," The New York Times, August 12, 1982, p. A17.

126 "Nine Jews said to be among massacre victims," The Jerusalem Post, September 30, 1982.

127 Ron Jourad, "Bitter conflict on West Bank cuts through family ties," The Globe and Mail, November 22, 1988, p. A9.

128 Israleft Biweekly News Service, November 20, 1972, p. 7, cited in Glass, p. 65.

129 For an example of his work see Naim Giladi, "The Iraqi Jews and Their Coming to Israel," The Black Panther, September 11, 1972, reprinted in Documents from Israel 1967-1973, Davis and Mezvinsky eds., pp. 126-133.

130 Feuerlicht, pp. 230-232.

131 Woolfson, pp. 15-17.