Historical Analysis of Jewish Migration

They would, they would dress like Muslims, uh,

taken to another town in Morocco where no one knew them, and

they would harass Jew- Jewish girls,

uh, in order to frighten their parents.

You know, the worst things that can happen is that, you know, a,

a girl would be

molested,

and that really moved quite a few people out of Morocco,

uh,

to Israel or somewhere else.

And, and many years later after I heard the

story,

I met a Moroccan Jewish woman

who actually confirmed that she was on the receiving end of it

in her town.

Uh, for example, in the case of Iraq,

uh,

Israeli government negotiated a deal with the Iraqi

government that would allow Jews to leave.

But Jews were in no rush to leave. See, this is very

important because Jews had lived there for centuries, and

like Avi Shlaim, social, they, they were settled, they spoke Arabic,

they, they were Arabs for all practical purposes

with a different confession.

So Zionist activists had to do something to prod

them to leave,

and here we come to very sad episode, well, sad s- pa-

page of the history of Zionism, when Zionist activists

actually committed acts of violence against Jews and against Jewish

institutions,

uh, in order to prod them to leave. You know, there was explosion in,

in s- in, in Jewish institutions in, in Iraq.

Uh, there were similar events in

Egypt, in Morocco. So, uh,

and that's very-- Again, it's understandable, but because for,

for the

Zionist movement, for Ben-Gurion, for those who created the state,

the most important thing was the raison d'état,

Staatsreason,

and that's how they behaved during the, during the

Nazi genocide.

Uh, I- famously or infamously, Ben-Gurion is quoted as saying

that he would rather save half of the children,

uh, Jewish children that could be sent to, to Palestine

rather than

all of them if they are sent somewhere else.

So for them, Jews were a human material,

and human material, European human material was

exhausted because of the genocide, and that's why they

had to resort to human material from,

uh, country- from Arab countries, from Iran, and so on.

So for them,

Jews are a means to create a state, to

strengthen the state. The state is a lot more important than

individual