A number of years ago when Avigdor
Lieberman, served as Israel's Minister for Strategic
Affairs, he said that the primary way to achieve peace in the Middle East would
be for Jews and Arabs - including Israeli-Arabs - to live separately.
“Minorities are the biggest problem in the world," he claimed. Asked if
Arab Israeli citizens should be removed, he said: "I think separation
between two nations is the best solution. Cyprus is the best model. Before
1974, the Greeks and Turks lived together and there were frictions and
bloodshed and terror. After 1974, they constituted all Turks on one part of the
island, all Greeks on the other part of the island and there is stability and
security."
When reminded that they were removed forcibly from their homes,
he replied, "Yes, but the final result was better." Later, he
explained, "Israeli Arabs don't have to go…. But if they stay they have to
take an oath of allegiance to Israel
as a Jewish Zionist state."
Lieberman’s remarks set off a firestorm of criticism in the
Knesset and around the country. Whether you support Lieberman or find his
proposals abhorrent, they should be seen with a historical perspective. After
World War I and II, transferring populations was considered legal and moral,
and the most favored response to inter-ethnic strife. This is no longer true.
Population transfer is now seen as illegal and a crime notes Eyal Benvenisti, professor of Law at Tel Aviv University
As Benvenisti points out, the first population-exchanges
involved Bulgaria , Greece and Turkey . The Treaty of Nueilly of
November 27, 1919 provided for 46,000 Greeks from Bulgaria
and 96,000 Bulgarians from Greece
to switch countries. After the defeat of the Greek army in the
Greek-Turkish War following World War I, and the Turk assault against Greek
communities in Turkey , Greek
refugees began fleeing their homes in Turkey . Greece
and Turkey
exchanged populations with about 2,000,000 Greeks, who were Turkish citizens,
and about 500,000 Turks, who were Greek citizens.
The exchange of populations had worked so
effectively, Benvenisti observed, that in post-World-War II, the Allies decided
to transfer 15 million Germans living in Eastern Europe, primarily in the
Eastern part of Germany, after it had been granted to Poland. According to the Potsdam Declaration, Germans
living in Poland , Czechoslovakia , Hungary
and Austria were to be
transferred to Germany
"in an orderly and humane manner.” Although the West attempted to
ease the transition, there was much distress, suffering and large numbers
of deaths. After the borders in Europe were redrawn, smaller transfers were
made in parts of Central and Eastern Europe .
Population
transfer was also used to settle the inter-religious enmity between Hindus and
Muslims in British India in 1947. Once
it became clear the communities could not live together, the sub-continent was
partitioned into two states -- India
and Pakistan —requiring
the resettlement of millions of people.
Mass
transferring of populations by states is no longer acceptable. When Turkey
invaded Cyprus in July 1974,
Turkey
was condemned for the large numbers of Greek and Turkish Cypriots who were
displaced after being forced to flee from their homes. After atrocities were
committed in the former Yugoslavia ,
people began using the term “ethnic cleansing” to describe the uprooting and
displacement of populations, which was identified as a war crime. A process
that was sanctioned, if not legal in 1948, is now regarded as criminal.
The most recent example of
forced mass transfer, Benvenisti continues, occurred in Cyprus with the
Greek-Cypriots and the Turkish-Cypriots. After Turkey invaded and occupied the
northern part of the island, more than 200,000 Cypriots fled or were relocated
across the "Attila Line," set up by the Turkish
military. Greek-Cypriots left the Turkish-occupied zone, while Turkish
Cypriots escaped to the north, where they moved into homes abandoned by
Greek-Cypriots. The Greek-Cypriot refugees resettled in the southern part of
the island, a number on property owned by Turkish-Cypriots. The right to
recover property and the right to return are two of the key obstacles to
settling this dispute.
The need to separate Arabs and
Jews or transferring Palestinian Arabs to another Arab state is not a new idea.
In 1937, the British Government’s Peel Commission concluded, “An irrepressible
conflict has arisen between two national communities within the narrow bounds
of one small country. There is no common ground between them. Their national
aspirations are incompatible… Neither of the two national ideals permits of
combination in the service of a single State.”
If partition is to succeed,
the Commission said, drawing new boundaries and establishing two separate
states will not be sufficient. “Sooner or later there should be a transfer of
land, and as far as possible, an exchange of population.”
For numerous reasons, transfer never took place. In
his book on the international proposals to transfer of Arabs from 
