Before 1948, there were a lot of Jews in the Arab world. They often had vibrant communities and many were treated well by their neighbors. The foundation of Israel changed all of this, forever.
When Israel expelled the Palestinians, Arab countries expelled the Jews. Over a million of them fled their homes, most went to Israel.
Was this “necessary”? I do not think so. I think it was a tragedy, in fact. Because so many innocent people were caught in the crosshairs of a conflict they didn’t start and didn’t have anything to do with.
The foundation of Israel and the subsequent ethnic cleansing of not only the Palestinian people but countless uproote Jewish communities across the Middle East was a tragedy, not a victory. The whole process was badly done and badly handled. By both sides, frankly. And it robbed a continent of ethnic diversity that used to be there and was now, as a result of the establishment of the Jewish state, forever extinghuished. I’d much rather have seen a world where Jewish communities continued to thrive across various countries and there wasn’t a community of wandering Palestinians that belong to no nation and aren’t welcomed by anyone.
In the backdrop of the horrors of the Holocaust, what transpired in 1948 makes sense. But in retrospect, it was an unimaginable tragedy of epic proportions. If I was a European Jew and I made it through WWII, I’d likely have said: “Okay, screw this. We’re not going to take our chances anymore” and done the same. But understanding alone doesn’t justify all that happened in 1948 and beyond.
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