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…rrounding Arab states didn’t matter. It was just an expulsion from Jewish people or people running from their lives from Jewish massacres. Again, I feel like it’s a selective critical analysis of the- Again, I’m a little uncomfortable always using the term Jewish here, because it wasn’t the Jews of England or the Soviet Jews. Well, I say Jewish because prior to ’48, saying Israeli- I think it’s useful to refer to Zionists before 1948 and Israelis after ’48. We don’t need to implicate Jews of all- Well, sure, but the Jewish people that were being attacked in Arab states weren’t Zionists. They were just Jews living there, right? Okay, I need to just comment on that. I was rereading Shlomo Ben-Ami’s last book, and he does at the end discuss at some length the whole issue of the refugee question bearing on the so-called peace process. And on the question of ’48 and the Arab immigration, if you’ll allow me, let me just quote him. “Israel is particularly fond of the awkwardly false symmetry she makes between the Palestinian refugee crisis and the forced immigration of 600,000 Jews from Arab countries following the creation of the state of Israel, as if it were ‘an unplanned exchange of populations.’. And then Mr Ben-Ami, for those of you who are listening, he was Israel’s former foreign minister, and he’s an influential historian in his own right, he says, “In fact, envoys from the Mossad and the Jewish Agency worked underground in Arab countries and Iran to encourage Jews to go to Israel. More importantly, for many Jews in Arab states, the very possibility of immigrating to Israel was the combination of millennial aspirations. It represented the consummation of a dream to take part in Israel’s resurgence as a nation.” So this idea that they were all expelled after 1948, that’s one area, Professor Morris, I defer to expertise. That’s one of my credos in life. I don’t know the Israeli literature. But as it’s been translated in English, there’s very little solid scholarship on what happened in 1948 in the Arab countries which caused the Jews to leave. Arab Jews. Arab Jews, right. But Shlomo Ben-Ami knows the literature. He knows the scholarship. He’s a historian. He comes from Tangiers. He’s from Morocco. [inaudible 01:36:10] from Iraq has written on this issue as well. And the Jews in the Arab lands were not pro-Zionists. They weren’t Zionists at all. Certainly [inaudible 01:36:18] family was anti-Zionist. And [inaudible 01:36:21], when he was interviewed by Marin Rappaport, on this question he said, “You simply cannot say that the Iraqi Jews were expelled. It’s just not true.” And he was speaking as an Iraqi Jew who left with his family in 1948. They were pushed out. They weren’t expelled. That’s probably the right phrase. They were pushed out. Well, I think it’s more complex than that. Sorry, I interrupted you. left with his family in 1948. They were pushed out. They weren’t expelled. That’s probably the right phrase. They were pushed out. Well, I think it’s more complex than that. Sorry, I interrupted you. No, you’re not interrupting me, because I only know what’s been translated into English, and the English literature on the subject is very small and not scholarly. Now, there may be a Hebrew literature, I don’t know, but I was surprised that even Shlomo Ben-Ami, stalwart of his state, fair enough, on this particular point he called it false symmetry. No, no, Steven is right. There was a pull and a push mechanism in the departure of the Jews from the Arab lands post ’48. But there was also a lot of push. A lot of push. That’s indisputable. There was push- And on the point of agreement, on this one brief light of agreement, let us wrap up with this topic of history and move on to modern day. But before that, I’m wondering if we could just say a couple of last words on this topic. Steven?…

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