bwere allowed back under a “family reunification plan.” Thou-
bsands of others illegally infiltrated and were allowed to remain.
bThe Rhodes Agreement brought some 30,000 Arabs of the Tri-
bangle into Israel. They were the Arabs who remained to become
bthe nucleus from which grew the present ticking time bomb.
bThey remained to be the thorns in our eyes and the thistles in
bour sides of our time. They remained to grow in quantity, in
bbrazenness, in danger to the existence of a Jewish state.
bThey remained, but more than 700,000 Jews from Arab
blands came to Israel. There was the opportunity for a multiple
bblessing: Jews to Zion, Arabs to their own lands. Hundreds of
bthousands of Jews coming home to their brethren from lands
bwhere they had lived for centuries but which were not theirs.
bHundreds of thousands of Arabs leaving a land that was not
btheirs and finding a home among their brethren.
bIn 1948 Jews lived in almost every Arab land in the Middle
bEast and North Africa: Morocco, 300,000 Jews; Tunisia,
b25,000; Algeria, 150,000; Libya, 40,000; Egypt, 75,000; Syria,
b45,000; Iraq, 145,000; Yemen, 55,000; Lebanon, 20,000; Aden,
b5,000. Of these, the overwhelming majority left the land of their
bbirth, where their families had lived as minorities in official
bMuslim states without equal rights, and came home to their own
bpeople.
bThey left behind a fortune in property, today worth billions
bof dollars, for which the Arabs never gave them a penny in com-
bpensation. The Jews from Greater Arabia came home, but the
bIsraelis did not complete the transfer of the Arabs from the Jew-
bish state. Had they done so, there would have been an exchange
bof population that would have brought both Jews and Arabs
bback to their own people. It was a golden opportunity, lost.
bAnd in great measure, the failure to realize the opportunity
bof 1948 led to the catastrophic blunder of 1967, when the G-d of
bIsrael gave His people a second opportunity—this time to drive
bout their enemies from all of western Eretz Yisrael. Once again
bIsrael failed—this time, utterly, miserably.
bThe Six-Day War of 1967—what a divine, golden op-
bportunity! What a disastrous failure to seize it!
bThey poured across the ancient lands—theirs. The children
bof Israel. The soldiers, children of a generation that went to the
bgas chambers, a thing the Gentile had come to equate with the
b