UPDATED: ‘Ethnic Cleansing’ Yemen’s Jews
Jan. 25 UPDATE: No major American media outlet or wire service has followed up on this story since it first became known. Ironically, the Arab Gulf News Service and the Agence France Press (AFP) have. Are newspapers like the New York Times looking to repeat their sorry record of under-reporting the “ethnic cleansing” of Jews?
Photo: Al-Watan website
Jan. 23 entry: While the plight of Palestinian refugees who left their homes during Israel’s War of Independence is a very popular topic in the world media, the story of the hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees forced from their homes in Arab lands at the same time garners considerably less attention.
Now word comes that the story may be recurring today. Yediot Aharonot reports that:
Jewish residents of the Saada region in northern Yemen have received explicit threats to leave the area within 10 days from followers of radical cleric Hussein Badr Eddin al Houthi, according to the Saudi newspaper Al-Watan.
Following complaints from the threatened Jews, a meeting of the local authorities and the district’s sheikhs was held.
The Jews demanded they be treated as equal Yemenite citizens, and at the end of the meeting a religious verdict determining the relationship between them and the Muslims was given.
This verdict, which was also signed by Jews, did not guarantee them immunity from threats.
The report emphasizes that Yemenite Jews do NOT wish to leave their home or Yemen itself:
Yemenite immigrants in Israel have been following these developments. Masoud, a resident of Israel’s southern city of Beer Sheva who immigrated to Israel from Yemen six-and-a-half years ago said in an interview on Israel Radio that he was still in touch with his relatives in Yemen.
“Those who stayed are stubborn, they don’t want to come here…on Friday they told me that they got letters saying whoever doesn’t leave their home will be killed and have their children taken,” said Masoud.
Regardless of the wisdom of the Yemeni Jews’ decision, it behooves the press to find out more about what may become a form of ethnic cleansing in which “Arab Jews” are once again victims.
UPI is carrying the story and we hope that other mainstream media outlets will follow suit. Let’s wait and see…
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