The great Irwin Cotler’s article “The Double Nakba” is an important document. The reference in the title is to the double disaster the Arabs created in 1948:
Simply put, the Arab countries not only rejected a Palestinian state and went to war to extinguish the nascent Jewish state, but also targeted the Jewish nationals living in their respective countries, thereby creating two refugee populations — [1] the Palestinian refugee population resulting from the Arab war against Israel, and [2] the Jewish refugees resulting from the Arab war against its own Jewish nationals.
The Arabs have never acknowledged their responsibility for either of their nakbas. The first they blame on the country they attacked; the second they refuse even to acknowledge, much less assume their undeniable responsibility. But the full story is set forth in a recent report entitled “Jewish Refugees from Arab Countries: The Case for Rights and Redress.”
Cotler’s article concludes with a “nine-point international human rights action agenda,” starting with the acknowledgment of the “forgotten exodus” of Jews from Arab countries and the incorporation of that history in the “Middle East narrative” from which they “have been expunged and eclipsed these 60 years.”