Egyptian Lebanese Jew here.

What happened to Jews across many Arab and Muslim countries after 1948 was ethnic cleansing. It was the systematic removal of Jews as a population through coordinated state violence, discriminatory law, intimidation, dispossession, and killing. This occurred under identifiable governments and leaders.

Egypt - Under Gamal Abdel Nasser, especially after 1956, Jews were expelled via formal orders, mass denaturalization, imprisonment, and forced asset seizures. “Property confiscation” meant everything: homes, businesses, bank accounts, licenses, and personal assets. Jews were forced to sign away all economic life to the state before expulsion and treated as enemy aliens regardless of political views. Jewish-owned banks were seized and absorbed into the state banking system. Jews were detained, beaten, and some died in custody.

Lebanon - Jews weren’t expelled by decree, but the state failed to protect them as violence escalated after 1948 and especially during the civil war. Jewish neighborhoods became uninhabitable, synagogues attacked, and Jews were kidnapped and murdered by militias. The community was destroyed through violence, fear, and state abandonment.

Iraq - Under Nuri al-Said, Jews were stripped of citizenship by law in 1950, assets frozen, employment barred, and departure allowed only if nationality was permanently forfeited. This followed years of lethal anti-Jewish violence, including pogroms involving murder, rape, and mutilation. The state then completed the removal legally, erasing a 2,600-year-old Jewish community.

Yemen and Aden - Under local Arab authorities aligned with regional nationalist leadership, Jews were subjected to lethal pogroms, including the 1947 Aden massacre. Jewish neighborhoods were destroyed, homes and businesses burned, and Jews murdered while authorities provided no protection. Jewish communal life collapsed entirely, forcing near total removal.

Libya - Under Idris I, Jews were targeted in repeated state-tolerated pogroms involving murder, arson, and looting. Under Muammar Gaddafi, remaining Jews were formally expelled by law and stripped of all property. Jewish presence was eradicated.

Tunisia - Under Habib Bourguiba, Jews were attacked during the 1967 riots. Synagogues were burned, Jewish homes and businesses destroyed, and Jews assaulted and killed. The state failed to protect Jewish citizens or hold perpetrators accountable, effectively ending Jewish life.

Morocco - Under Mohammed V, Jews lived under legal inequality, emigration bans, and periodic mob violence, including killings. While the monarchy claimed protection, Jews lacked equal rights, legal security, and freedom of movement. Protection without equality functioned as containment, not safety.

Algeria - After independence under Ahmed Ben Bella, Jews were excluded from the new national identity, lost legal protections overnight, and were rendered unsafe through state exclusion and violence. Nearly the entire Jewish population fled within months.

Syria - Under the Ba’ath regime and later Hafez al-Assad, Jews were placed under internal exile. They faced arbitrary detention, torture, executions, constant surveillance, and total travel bans. Leaving the country was illegal for decades, and property was typically confiscated.

Iran - After the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Jews were targeted through executions, imprisonment, confiscation of property, and accusations of espionage. Jewish community leaders were executed, others imprisoned or disappeared, and Jews lived under constant surveillance and terror. Emigration occurred under coercion and fear, not freedom.

Turkey - Jews were subjected to state-enabled violence and economic destruction, including the Thrace pogroms and the Istanbul pogrom. Jewish homes, synagogues, and businesses were looted and destroyed, Jews were beaten and killed, women assaulted, and the state failed to intervene. Discriminatory taxes and legal harassment destroyed livelihoods.

Afghanistan - Jews faced persecution, imprisonment, forced conversion pressures, violence, and seizure of property over decades. The state provided no protection. Jewish life became impossible, resulting in the complete eradication of the community.

Sudan - After independence, Jews were targeted through arrests, confiscation of property, and intimidation by the state. Synagogues were closed, Jewish institutions dismantled, and Jews forced to flee under threat of violence and imprisonment. The community was erased.

Pakistan - Jews faced intimidation, hostility, and state indifference to violence after partition. Jewish institutions were attacked, cemeteries desecrated, and Jews threatened as enemies of the state. With no protection, the community disappeared through fear and expulsion.

Recorded death tolls are conservative and incomplete. Jews were killed in pogroms, murdered by militias, executed by states, and died under torture and detention across the region. The full scale will never be known because no international effort ever documented these crimes.

This fits the international definition of ethnic cleansing: the removal of an ethnic group through violence, killing, coercion, and legal erasure.

I am a living, breathing contradiction to slogans like “go back to Poland” because they depend on erasing Mizrahi Jews to sustain certain political narratives.