In the modern world, major population exchanges have occurred several times, and although they are drastic and involve great loss of life, they may be judged ultimately to have been successful. It would be preferable if communities with different cultures and religions could live together (in an ideal world), but more often than not, the evidence is that they can’t. Here are some examples,
Jack Cohen
1. India and Pakistan: The separation of the inhabitants of the subcontinent into Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan in 1948, although it involved the transfer of ca. 12 million people and the loss of ca. 1 million lives, may ultimately be regarded as successful. The war that succeeded the departure of the British imperialists resulted in the formation of an independent Muslim State separate from the rest of India. Actually it is incorrect to state that India is exclusively Hindu, since there remains a very large Muslim minority in India, ca. 15% or 177 million people, that makes India the third largest Muslim nation in the world. There are of course other minorities in India, such as Sikhs, Catholics, Parsees, Jains, Buddhists and Animists, so that India is a secular democratic republic. By contrast Pakistan is quite homogeneous, although it has quite a troubled political history. Nevertheless, despite two wars between them, India and Pakistan are currently co-existing
2. Greece and Turkey: After WWI the future of Turkey was in doubt, the Ottoman Empire had been defeated and there were plans by the Allies (Britain, France and the USA) to divide Turkey, much as they did Germany after WWII. British PM Lloyd George, who was a liberal and philo-Hellenist, supported Greece in attacking the Turkish mainland in 1919 to take territory that had been inhabited by Greeks for millenia. Unfortunately, the Greeks finding little opposition went too far inland and were then counter-attacked and defeated by a Turkish Army led by the hero of Gallipoli, Gen Mustafa Kemal known as Ataturk. As the (Muslim) Turks advanced the (Christian) Greeks fled before them and concentrated in the city of Smyrna, now known as Izmir, where a series of massacres occured, including drowning tens of thousands of Greeks in the harbor. The Republic of Turkey was established in 1923 with Ataturk as President. The Turks then systematically expelled 1.5 million Greeks from villages and towns along the western coast mostly to Greek islands. In exchange ca. half a million Turks were expelled from the Greek Isles, such as Crete, to Turkey. This exchange of populations, although it caused great suffering at the time, has undoubtedly resulted in a more stable, peaceful climate between Greece and Turkey. Much later the island of Cyprus was divided between northern Turkish and southern Greek regions by the invasion of Turkish forces in 1974, also resulting in an exchange of Greek and Turkish populations.
3. Germany and Eastern Europe: During WWII the German Reich expanded its borders by conquest and annexed territory to the east, including Poland and parts of Russia. As the Soviet forces advanced westwards on the eastern front, Germans were forced to flee before them. Between 1944-1950 it is estimated that 12 million Germans, both those that had been re-settled and the original ethnic German inhabitants were expelled from Poland and eastern Europe. In exchange, millions of Poles and other nationals who had been expelled to make way for the German settlers, were repatriated to their native countries. However much one might consider this exchange of populations brutal and forced, nevertheless the position of Germans in Eastern Europe was no longer viable after WWII and the exchange of populations led to a more stable situation that has lasted for 65 years.
4. Arabs and Jews: In 1947 the UN voted to Partition the British Mandate of Palestine into Jewish and Arab enclaves. Israel accepted the Plan, but the Arab countries rejected it and their armies invaded Israel. The Palestinian Arabs were told to move out of the way, while the armies of the Arab countries (Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq) killed the Jews. But, the Arabs were defeated and as a result of the 1948 War of Independence, Israel became a recognized country in the UN. The Arab refugees (ca.750,000) were left where they were, mostly incarcerated in camps from which they were not allowed to leave or to work. Only Jordan gave the Palestinian refugees citizenship, thus actually removing from them the designation of “refugee.” Also, those that remained on the West Bank or in Gaza were still within the Palestine Mandate and also technically were not refugees. This left ca. 400,000 actual refugees in Syria, and Lebanon. But, since the international definition of a refugee is only those who leave a country and does not include their descendents, this leaves only a handful of actual refugees today (ca. 20,000). At the same time the Arab countries attacked, massacred and expelled their indigenous Jewish populations. Many fled, from Morocco to Iraq a total of ca. 800,000 Jewish refugees, and about 500,000 of these came to Israel, where they were integrated within the population and ceased to be refugees. Most of the rest went to France, but many are leaving there now to settle in Israel due to the tremendous wave of anti-Semitism and violence there. This was then a population exchange between Israel and the Arab countries, for which the Jewish refugees have received no compensation, unlike the Palestinian Arabs who have been supported to the tune of billions of dollars by UNWRA.
The lesson to be drawn from this is that population exchanges when the two groups are incompatible, although terribly costly in lives and disruption, are effective in the long term, as long as both sides are satisfied by the complete separation. Unfortunately in the case of the Arabs and Israel, this is not the case, the separation was incomplete and perhaps needs to be completed for there to be peace between the two sides.
Killing the Killers
After the three Israeli teens, Eyal Yifrah (19), Gilad Shaar (16), and Naftali Fraenkel (16, with dual Israeli-American citizenship), disappeared on June 12, PM Netanyahu announced that they had been kidnapped by Hamas terrorists. The world, including US commentators, was sceptical, they attributed this statement to Netanyahu’s natural enmity towards Hamas. But Netanyahu said that Israel had the necessary evidence, while Hamas of course denied any connection to the kidnappings.
Then on July 1, the bodies of the three teens were found on the West Bank in the Hebron region and Netanyahu reiterated his claim that they were murdered by Hamas terrorists. The Head of Hamas himself, Khaled Mashaal, denied any knowledge of the killings. Nevertheless, on Aug 6 the so-called mastermind or planner of the killings and the owner of the land where the bodies were discovered, Hamad Kawasme, a known Hamas operative, was arrested in Hebron. At that point Hamas in Gaza admitted that it had been a Hamas operation.
The IDF believed that the murderers, who were named as Marwan Kawasme and Amer Abu Ayash, were hiding out in Hebron, an intricate city with very narrow streets and which is fiercely anti-Israel. In one of the largest manhunts in Israeli history, the two killers were finally located yesterday and surrounded in a house in Hebron. They refused to give up and returned fire and were both killed and in the process the house was destroyed. No Israelis were injured in the incident. Khaled Mashaal then issued a statement bemoaning the death of the two Hamas members. The lesson to draw from this is not only that Hamas terrorists are indiscriminate killers of children, but that the Israeli Government does not issue a statement attributing guilt without evidence and that such statements can be trusted, while Hamas lies.
All of Israel feels relieved that the two murderers are dead. But, unfortunately it probably won’t be the last time that such killings will occur. Meanwhile the US is busy killing Islamic State killers. But, maybe some people they killed in the air strikes in Iraq and now in Syria weren’t IS killers. Maybe they were innocent civilians. But, I don’t see the headlines blaring in the international media saying ‘Disproportionate attacks by US’ in fact the word ‘disproportionate’ is only used against Israel – why is that? So let’s not see it used any more, it is inaccurate, inappropriate and biased!! If you see it used again in any media against Israel, contact their editors and complain.
About IS, they have beheaded American and British journalists and they have commited genocide against Yazidis, Christians and Kurds. Yesterday ca. 130,000 Kurds from Northern Syria fled over the border into Turkey. At first Turkey had closed the border, then opened it, then closed it again, stopping Kurdish men returning to fight the IS, then they opened it again. Turkey is in a bind, they fear the Kurds demanding sovereign rights, so oppose them, but they also fear the IS, even though the current Turkish Government is pro-Sunni and pro- Muslim Brotherhood, opposes the al-Sisi Government of Egypt and supports Qatar, that has been bank-rolling IS and Hamas. It’s all too complex even for Middle East experts. The best approach is the simplest, cut the Gordian knot, just kill all the killers!
World War III
Jack Cohen
We are already involved in the beginning of WWIII. But, of course, few recognise that, particularly the western liberal elite, who as in WWI and WWII were typically caught napping. Whereas WWI involved the breakup of Empires (Austro-Hungarian, Turkish, Prussian), and WWII involved the clash of the Nazi-Fascist ideology with the rest of the world, WWIII involves the clash of western values with Islamism.
Here are some battles in the start of WWIII that are taking place currently:
1. The establishment of the Islamic State in the ruins of Syria and Iraq, and US and allied aerial counter-attacks against them
2. The battle of Israel to resist the forces of Hamas in Gaza
3. The violent attacks being carried out by Muslim extremists in Europe, such as in London, Brussels and Marseille
4. The struggle of the Egyptian Government to suppress the Muslim Brotherhood
5. Conflict in Kenya against the Somali-based Al Shabbab
6. Violent clashes between Malian and French forces with Islamists in Mali
7. Attacks by Boko Haram against Nigerian civilians and the Army in Nigeria
8. On-going conflict between Philippino forces and the Abu Sayyaf Islamist insurgency in Mindanao
9. The opposition party Jamaat-e-Islami in Pakistan, that supports formation of a Caliphate
10. The continuing struggle of the Afghan government against the Taliban
People don’t realize that this is a truly world wide phenomenon, which was essentially started when Osama bin Laden declared war on the US, after US troops were stationed in Saudi Arabia in order to fight Iraq and rescue Kuwait in the First Gulf War. Consequently, the first act in this War was the successful destruction of the Twin Towers in NY in 2001 killing 3,000 people. From then Pres. Bush declared the War on Global Terrorism, but Pres. Obama, who was elected in opposition to US involvement in the Iraq War, refused to recognise this international campaign of Islamism, and tried to ingratiate himself with the Islamic world by making his speech from Cairo in 2005, which was an abject failure. Even he, after all his efforts at groveling to the Muslims, has been forced to declare war on the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) after they made rapid progress in capturing territory with US weaponry from the Iraqi Army, carried out genocide agaisnt all minorities (Yazidis, Christians, Kurds) and also very publicly beheaded two American journalists. If only he had maintained the pressure on the Islamists from the start of his presidency we would not be where we are today, trying to catch up and stop their rapid progress.
Note that Islamism, or the political version of Islam, that contends that Islam must be a political force that overcomes the West, is not of ancient origin. It was initiated by Hassan al Banna in 1928, when after visiting the US and living there as a student, he organized the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. The failure of the Arabs and the Palestinians to defeat Israel, considered a bastion of the West in “their” lands, led to the formation of Hamas, the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, and then to other groups, such as Hizbollah in Lebanon. Finally the emergence of Al Qaeda resulted in the actual outbreak of hostilities with the US. It is noteworthy that while the perpetrators of the World Trade Center attack in 2001 were mostly Saudis (17 plus one French-Moroccan) who had met in Hamburg, the perpetrators of the 7/7 attack in London in 2005 that killed 52 were of Pakistani origin. the shoe bomber who was caught was Nigerian, the murderer of a British soldier in a street in broad daylight in London last year was a Somali and the man who beheaded the American journalists was British. The national origin of the Islamists is irrelevant.
Some people might argue that the true origin of WWIII is in eastern Ukraine, where Pres. Putin in trying to extend Russian power to restore its position as it was under the Communists. He is trying to conquer Ukrainian territory by supporting the pro-Russian insurgents, as he did in the Crimea, which is now well and truly incorporated into Russia, although this is not accepted by the UN, the US and the EU. Pres. Poroshenko of Ukraine, who signed a pact with the EU contrary to Russia’s wishes, is now firmly supported by NATO. Applying western sanctions does not apparently inhibit Putin’s designs, and consequently this region may become the nucleus of WWIII of the West against Russia. Or maybe that will be WWIV. Certainly the US does not want to fight both of these wars, against Islamist and Russian expansionism, both at the same time.
Jack Cohen, Netanya, Israel
Jack Cohen: Born in London, UK, lived in suburban Washington DC area for 30 years, moved to Israel in 1996. He has a web site: Comment From Israel
