Displaced populations

ON the 40th anniversary of the June 1967 Six-Day War, many comments mention 500,000-700,000 Arabs displaced in 1948 as a key element.

This ignores two fundamental realities.

First, a similar number of Jews were forced from the Arab states and Iran, and settled in Israel. It was thus another de facto population exchange.

This same process happened between Turkey and Greece after World War I, and ethnic Germans in eastern Europe post-1945 met a similar fate. In 1947, equal numbers moved between India and Pakistan, maybe 15 million in all.

None of the states involved, or the people displaced, demand these movements be reversed. So why the unique demand for the return of Arabs from Palestine?

Tom Carew

Merton Drive

Dublin 6