This is part IV of what I hope will be a 5 part series this week concerning Jews who emigrated from Arab and Muslim countries after Israel declared its independence in 1948.
Part I - Introduction, A Summary of Allegations Made and Information Omitted, Statistics, Notes on Israeli Laws Passed Immediately after Israeli Independence Regarding Palestinians and Their Possessions, Land Ownership in Israel Today
Part II - Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen/Aden, Libya
Part III -Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco
Part IV - Lebanon, Syria
Part V - Egypt, Iraq, Closing Notes
--- ---
If you are interested in my feelings about Israel and Palestine please read Just Me and I/P.
Lebanon
In 1948 Lebanon was a pro-Western parliamentary democracy.
Lebanon was placed under the administration of France as a part of the French Mandate of Syria and the Lebanon in 1923.
Lebanon came under the control of Vichy France after France surrendered to Germany in June, 1940. When British Allied forces defeated the Vichy French in Syria and Lebanon in July, 1941 Lebanon came under the control of the Free French and was occupied by British and Free French troops.
The Free French, under the command of General Charles de Gaulle, then recognized the independence of Lebanon under the French Mandate on November 26, 1941. However, the Free French continued to exercise control over the country.
In 1943 elections were held in Lebanon, and on November 8, 1943 the new Lebanese government unilaterally abolished the French Mandate. The French reacted by arresting the president, prime minister and cabinet members. International pressure forced the French to release the government officials and recognize the independence of the Republic of Lebanon on November 22, 1943 and the Lebanese government took control of most governmental functions. The French then ended the French Mandate on January 1, 1944.
On August 1, 1945 the French transferred command of the 3,000 man Lebanese armed forces to the Lebanese government.
After intense international pressure in 1945 and 1946 France and Britain agreed to withdraw their troops and on December 31, 1946 the last troops were withdrawn from Lebanon.
It is reported that about 5,200 Jews lived in Lebanon in 1948.
The number of Jews in Lebanon is reported to have gradually increased to about 9,000 in 1958 and then to have gradually decreased to about 6,000 in 1966.
During this period Lebanon was a generally calm, prosperous, pro-Western country with all its citizens equal under the law, and with strong tourism, agriculture, and banking sectors.
While at the same time serious political, religious and feudal rivalries were ever-present.
Lebanese Jews lived as the Lebanese in general did. Very few incidents which could be considered anti-Jewish occurred.
In 1952 discontent with the corruption of the regime of President Khoury provoked a series of protests and general strikes in Lebanon which called for the president’s resignation. A general strike on September 11, 1952 brought most of Lebanon to a standstill.
President Khoury ordered General Fuad Chehab, the Army Chief of Staff, to end the strike but the general refused to do so because he considered it to be a political matter, and on September 18, 1952 the president resigned. A new president was soon elected and the crisis ended. This peaceful coup is often referred to as the ‘Rosewater Revolution’.
Allegations of electoral fraud in the 1957 parliamentary election in Lebanon and the following dismissal of several pro-Arab ministers was the beginning of what became the 1958 Lebanon Crisis.
In February, 1958 Egypt and Syria united and became the United Arab Republic. Lebanese Muslims and Druze, who were still angry about electoral fraud in the 1957 parliamentary election, pushed the government to join the United Arab Republic, but the Christians wanted to keep Lebanon aligned with the West. There were a number of demonstrations and counter demonstrations which were growing more violent.
The growing instability in Lebanon and the overthrow of the pro-Western government of Iraq on July 14, 1958 caused Lebanese President Chamoun to request immediate assistance from the United States, Britain, and France because he believed that the independence of Lebanon was in danger.
U.S. President Eisenhower then sent about 14,000 U.S. soldiers into Lebanon to support the Lebanese government and to protect against possibly foreign invasion. The soldiers occupied Beirut’s port and airport and took control of the roads into Beirut. The situation quickly calmed down and the U.S. withdrew its forces on October 25, 1958.
Some Lebanese Christians, Muslims, Jews and Druze, and many of the Jews who had come to Lebanon after leaving Syria or Iraq, felt uneasy following the 1958 Lebanon Crisis and began to emigrate.
On September 23, 1958 Fuad Chehab was elected president. Under his leadership tensions dropped and stability quickly returned.
In 1962 after a coup attempt against him, President Chehab began to strengthen the Lebanese intelligence and security services. Some supported his actions while others accused him of being repressive and undemocratic.
Still others would look back years later and say that he was right and that if there had been even stronger, well-organized and disciplined intelligence and security services, Lebanon could have been able to control the events which happened in 1967 and 1968 and prevent them from escalating.
On October 14, 1966 Intra Bank, Lebanon’s largest bank, collapsed. The collapse seriously damaged Lebanon’s economic stability and prosperity. The bank was then restructured by the Lebanese Central Bank with the government of Lebanon owning most of its shares. A series of new banking regulations were also implemented but the Lebanese banking sector never fully recovered.
The number of Jews in Lebanon is reported to have decreased to 3,000 by the end of 1968 and then to have gradually decreased to 1,800 in 1975.
Lebanon remained neutral in the 1967 Six-Day War and Lebanese authorities stationed guards in Jewish districts to ensure public order was maintained and to calm fears. In spite of this it is reported that about half of the Jews in Lebanon emigrated soon after the Six-Day War.
Lebanon’s neutrality in the war seemed to doom it to a bleak future.
Instead of recognizing that Lebanon’s neutrality had been the best course of action for the country to have taken and then joining together to build and defend Lebanon as a strong prosperous neutral country, Lebanese religious, feudal and political groups seemed to see Lebanon’s neutrality as something they could take advantage of and use against their rivals to win political, military or financial power.
Syria seemed to see Lebanon as being even more vulnerable and easier to manipulate and control.
Several different Palestinian groups seemed to see Lebanon as a potential base which would not be able to object or interfere in their activities.
Egypt seemed to see Lebanon as being unimportant and didn’t seem to want to exert any of the influence it had with other Arab countries and the PLO in support of Lebanon.
Israel seemed to see Lebanon as weak and as a country that could be easily bombed or invaded.
After more than 20 generally peaceful years of prosperity, the shortsightedness, arrogance, rivalries, self-interest, and pursuits of power of all of these countries and groups caused the events which would slowly grow in intensity in the following years. These events would then result in Lebanon’s descent into the darkest period in its modern history.
Due to the unease they felt during this period of increasing instability and upheaval many Lebanese, including Jews, Christians, Druze and Muslims, emigrated during this period.
The number of Jews in Lebanon is reported to have decreased to 400 in 1976 and then to have gradually decreased to about 40 currently.
The multifaceted and extremely destructive Lebanese Civil War began in 1975. By the time it ended in 1990 hundreds of thousands had been killed or wounded, and hundreds of thousands more had been displaced. More than 500,000 people are also said to have left Lebanon during the civil war, including most of the remaining Jews in Lebanon.
The effects of the civil war continue in Lebanon today.
* Notes:
Immediately after the 1948-1949 Arab-Israeli War there were about 100,000 Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. Initially they were aided by the Lebanese and the International League of Red Cross Societies.
In 1950 the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), which had been established on December 8, 1949, began operations in Lebanon and administered 16 Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon. Many of these had been established before UNRWA began operations in Lebanon.
About 1,000 of Lebanon’s 3,500 man armed forces and about 1,000 Lebanese volunteers participated in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. Lebanon did not have a navy or air force in 1948.
Shortly after the war began on May 15, 1948 the 1,000 Lebanese troops crossed the southern Lebanese border into the northwestern part of Galilee. The area had been designated as a Palestinian area in the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine.
In the Israeli operation called Operation Hiram, Israeli forces drove all Arab forces out of this area and also occupied southern Lebanon up to the Litani River during the last week of October, 1948.
The armistice agreement between Lebanon and Israel was signed on March 23, 1949. In the agreement the armistice line, the ‘Green Line’, was agreed to be the internationally recognized border between Lebanon and Israel, and Israel agreed to withdraw its forces from the Lebanese territory which it had occupied during the war.
In 1943, in negotiations between Maronite Christian, Sunni Muslim and Shiite Muslim leaders an unwritten agreement, called the National Pact, was reached that Lebanon would be a fully independent country with a confessional system of government.
The key points the leaders agreed to in the National Pact were that:
- Lebanon would be an independent country, Christians would not seek western intervention and Muslims would not seek merger with any Arab country.
- Lebanon would be pro-Western Arab state which would also work in cooperation with other Arab countries.
- the President would be a Maronite Christian, the Prime Minister would be a Sunni Muslim, and the Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies would be Shiite Muslim.
- the ratio of deputies in the Chamber of Deputies would be 6 Christians to 5 Muslims.
--- ---
Syria
In 1948 Syria was a generally pro-Western parliamentary democracy.
Syria was placed under the administration of France as a part of the French Mandate of Syria and the Lebanon in 1923.
Syria came under the control of Vichy France after France surrendered to Germany in June, 1940. When British Allied forces defeated the Vichy French in Syria and Lebanon in July, 1941 Syria came under the control of the Free French and was occupied by British and Free French troops.
On September 27, 1941 the leader of the Free French, General Charles de Gaulle, recognized the independence of the Syrian Republic under the French Mandate and promised to withdraw French troops from Syria when the war ended, but the Free French continued to exercise control over Syria. At the same time General de Gaulle also required the Syrians to raise taxes and the price of bread in order to raise funds for the Free French. This created a great deal of resentment among the Syrians towards the French.
International pressure forced the French to end the French Mandate on January 1, 1944 and during 1944 the Syrian government took over some governmental functions, but France refused to relinquish control of several of them, most importantly of the Syrian armed forces.
After a series of demonstrations in Syria against France’s refusal to withdraw from Syria, on May 29, 1945 while the Syrian Prime Minister was at the founding conference of the United Nations in San Francisco, French forces in Damascus tried to capture the President of Syria and other government officials, bombed the Syrian Parliament building and other government buildings, surrounded the Presidential Palace, and shot people in the streets. The attack only ended after Britain's Prime Minister Winston Churchill threatened to intervene.
On August 1, 1945 the French transferred command of the 8,500 man Syrian armed forces, 5,000 army and 3,500 gendarmerie, to the Syrian government.
After intense international pressure in 1945 and 1946 France and Britain agreed to withdraw their troops, and on April 17, 1946 Syria became fully independent after the last troops were withdrawn.
On March 22, 1945 the Arab League was founded in Cairo. One of the Arab League’s first official actions was announcing a boycott, on December 2, 1945, of Jewish owned businesses operating in British Mandate Palestine. The boycott was implemented in Syria and had a negative effect on Jewish owned businesses in Syria.
Following the 1947 U.N. vote on the partition of the British Mandate for Palestine anti-Zionist riots broke out in Aleppo, Syria. There are conflicting reports about the riot but according to reports, between eight and 40 Jews were killed and many more wounded, and 150 Jewish community buildings - including several synagogues, homes and shops were burned and damaged. There are several reports which state that there were about 10,000 Jews in Syria at this time.
It is reported that about 8,000 Jews lived in Syria in 1948.
A November, 1948 U.S. State Department report states:
According to the best available estimates over 8,000 Jews are now resident in Syria …
This represents a population decline within the past 10 years of around 20,000 who have emigrated from Syria …
Since early in 1948 the Syrian Government has endeavored to halt the emigration of Jews and to curb Zionist propaganda and espionage by restricting the movement of most Jews to the city of their habitual residence.
The number of Jews in Syria is reported to have decreased to about 7,000 in 1949 and then to have gradually decreased to about 4,000 in 1991.
During and just after the 1948 Arab-Israeli War a series of restrictions were placed on Jews in Syria. Buying and selling property was restricted, bank accounts were frozen, travel in Syria was restricted, travelling out of the country was severely restricted, and travelling to Israel and emigration were banned.
Some homes and Jewish community property were seized, some Jews lost their jobs and acquiring telephones and driving licenses was very difficult. Hundreds were reported to have been arrested, some of them were reported to have been tortured, and most if not all of them were reported to have been later released.
Most of these restrictions gradually eased over the next few years but the restrictions on travelling abroad, the bans on emigration and travelling to Israel remained.
In August, 1949 two grenades were thrown into the Menarsha Synagogue in Damascus and 12 Jews were killed. The Syrian President sent his representative to the synagogue and he ordered that the attackers be arrested and executed. Three young men were found and arrested but in the chaos caused by the multiple coups that year the case was never proved.
Even though emigrating was illegal for Jews in Syria during these years, many were able to leave illegally. Doing so was often dangerous and usually accomplished by paying bribes. Those who were caught were sometimes sentenced to prison.
During the years Syria and Egypt were united in the UAR some of the restrictions on Jews in Syria were lifted. After the breakup of the UAR many were imposed again.
In 1976 most of the restrictions were lifted, but the restrictions on travelling abroad, the bans on emigration and travelling to Israel remained.
- * -
The situation of Jews in Syria between 1948 and 1994 varied from year to year. Some years were only difficult, some years were bad, and some years were very bad.
There were periods when bank accounts were frozen, then unfrozen some time later only to be frozen again at a later time.
There were periods when Jews were restricted to their homes, other periods when travel was restricted to no more than three kilometers from home, and other periods when there were no restrictions on travel inside the country.
There were periods when Jews were fired from their jobs and forbidden from opening their businesses, and other periods when working and doing business were allowed.
There were periods when homes, businesses and community buildings were seized, sometimes they were returned and sometimes they weren’t returned.
There were periods when random arrest and torture were common, and other periods when there were few or no arrests.
There were also some terribly dark periods. One was in 1974 when four young Jewish women were raped, tortured and murdered and their bodies were left on a street in Damascus, and a short time later two Jewish boys were murdered and their bodies were left very near where the young women’s bodies had been left.
The number of Jews in Syria is reported to have decreased to 1,200 in 1992 and then to have gradually decreased to about 200 in 1995.
In 1992 restrictions on international travel, except to Israel, were lifted.
Since 1995 the number of Jews in Syria is reported to have gradually decreased and to be about 40 currently.
* Notes:
Immediately after the 1948-1949 Arab-Israeli War there were about 85,000 Palestinian refugees in Syria. Initially they were aided by the Syrians and the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Syrian government temporarily housed many Palestinian refugees in military barracks which had been deserted by the French and British two years earlier.
In 1949 the Palestine Arab Refugee Institution was established by the Syrian government to administer Palestinian refugee affairs and to provide for their needs.
In 1950 the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), which had been established on December 8, 1949, began operations in Syria and administered nine Palestinian refugee camps in Syria. Most of these had been established before UNRWA began operations in Syria.
Following the 1948 Arab-Israeli War an armistice agreement between Syria and Israel was signed on July 20, 1949.
During the war Syrian forces were involved in battles along the Syria-Israel border and occupied some parts of the narrow strip of land to the east of the Jordan River, Lake Hula, and the Sea of Galilee which they believed belonged to Syria but had been transferred to British Mandate Palestine in 1923 and 1924, along with a narrow strip of land along the west bank of the Jordan River between Lake Hula and the Sea of Galilee.
In the agreement Syria withdrew its forces from the areas which it had occupied during the war and these areas then became demilitarized zones. The armistice line, the ‘Blue Line’, was agreed to be the borders of the demilitarized zones and the internationally recognized border between Syria and Israel in the places where there were no demilitarized zones.
The first twelve years of Syrian independence, from 1946 to 1958, were years of upheaval in Syria, as were most of the years Syria was under the French mandate.
There were four coups; three of them occurred in 1949, the head of state changed 10 times, and the Prime Minister changed 22 times during these 12 years. Pro-Western sentiment decreased, and Arab nationalist and socialist sentiments steadily increased.
Syria was not involved in the 1956 Suez Crisis, which began when Israel invaded the Sinai Peninsula, but martial law was declared in Syria.
Syria’s relationship with the Soviet Union began when Syria and the Soviet Union signed a pact in 1956 soon after the Suez Crisis in which the Soviet Union agreed to provide military equipment to Syria.
In 1958 Syria and Egypt united to form the United Arab Republic (UAR), but Syria left the UAR after another coup in Syria in 1961.
Nationalist, socialist and Pan-Arab sentiments increased dramatically in Syria in the 1960s.
In 1963 the Baath Party seized power in coups in both Syria and Iraq. In 1966 the ultra left-wing faction of the Syrian Baath Party seized power in Syria in another coup. This led to a permanent breakup of the Syrian and Iraqi branches of the Baath Party.
During the 1967 Six-Day War, which began with a large-scale surprise Israeli attack on Egypt, Syria lost the Golan Heights to Israel. The ceasefire line between Syrian forces and Israeli forces created after the Six-Day War was called the ‘Purple Line’.
In 1970 Hafez al-Assad, who was the leader of a more pragmatic faction in the Syrian Baath Party, came to power in yet another coup and he remained in power until he died in 2000.
In the 1973 Yom Kippur War Syria attacked the Israeli forces in the Israeli occupied Golan Heights and Egypt attacked the Israeli forces in the Israeli occupied Sinai Peninsula in an effort to retake them. After initial successes Syrian forces were pushed back across part of the Purple Line by Israeli forces. Israeli forces continued into Syria but a truce was called during Syrian preparations for a counter attack because there was a danger that the war would escalate into a war between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. Following negotiations Syria and Israel agreed to withdraw their respective forces back to the Purple Line.
--- ---