Book Review: In Ishmael's House: A History of Jews in Muslim Lands

Predictably starting with Khaibars horrible Jewish-Muslim battle of 628 629 CE, the book stretches to as recently as 22 February 2010, when the Israeli Knesset approved a law instructing the government to protect the rights of Jewish refugees from Arab countries in all forthcoming peace negotiations; the rst Israeli law to recognize Jews as coming to Israel not only to fulll Zionist aspirations, but as refugees (p. 334). First: While the Israeli leadership strove to support the Jewish refugees from Muslim land and make them an integral and equal part of Israeli life and society, no Arab nation tried to integrate the Palestinian Arab refugees into their new homelands. (p. 313) Second: The capacity of the Arab world to absorb this [Palestinian] refugee Population has been increased by the [post-1949] immigration to Israel of Jews from Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Yemen and other Arab lands, who left behind them their homes, property and labor opportunities and who have been proudly received in Israel, without any plaintive outcry or rush for international help.