Abbas claims Ben Gurion was forced to bring MENA Jews to Israel
Official PA TV, excerpt of a speech given by PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas on Jan. 14, 2018, at the PLO Central Council in Ramallah
PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas: “[First Israeli Prime Minister David] Ben Gurion did not want to bring the Jews from the East [to Palestine]… He would say: ‘I hate these Jews because they are similar to Arabs. They’re similar to Arabs, I don’t want them… In another three to four generations they may cause some sort of problem’… But when he saw that the land is wide, he was forced to bring the Jews. The Arab Jews did not want to immigrate (sic., there was Jewish immigration from the Arab lands even before Israel’s establishment in 1948)… and so they gathered the Jews from all of the Arab states, from Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon. They did not leave a single one and transferred them to this land.”
PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas: “[First Israeli Prime Minister David] Ben Gurion did not want to bring the Jews from the East [to Palestine]… He would say: ‘I hate these Jews because they are similar to Arabs. They’re similar to Arabs, I don’t want them… In another three to four generations they may cause some sort of problem’… But when he saw that the land is wide, he was forced to bring the Jews. The Arab Jews did not want to immigrate (sic., there was Jewish immigration from the Arab lands even before Israel’s establishment in 1948)… and so they gathered the Jews from all of the Arab states, from Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon. They did not leave a single one and transferred them to this land.”