Talk:20th century departures of foreign nationals from Egypt

Verification check

This article fails WP:V and WP:OR. Having reviewed Laskier, the main source for this article, as well as other works on the topic (e.g. Beinin), it is apparent that the concept of the "expulsion in 1956" has been completely misunderstood by the authors of this article.

Breaking down this article, the substance directly relevant to the article title comprises only three paragraphs in the lead and the "expulsion" sectiona. The key statements in those paragraphs are:

1. There was an "Expulsion of Egyptian Jews" as a distinct event in 1956
2. It came about via a decree, and "The decree bound all Jews with relatives in Israel and those suspected as Zionist agents - nearly half of the whole community."
3. The decree caused "About 25,000 Jews" to leave Egypt
4. The decree "called many Egyptian Jews to leave, with their citizenship abolished" and "was relevant to most of Egyptian Jews"
5. Thousands of Jews were then ordered to leave the country.
6. 25,000 Jews were "forced to sign declarations that they were leaving voluntarily"

I add a comparison of these points with Laskier and Beinin in due course.

In terms of the rest of the article, the "Background", "Jewish community" and "Alleged involvement of former Nazis" are (or should be) already covered under the scope of the existing article Jewish exodus from Arab and Muslim countries, whilst the "Egyptian government" section relates to the Suez Crisis article.

Oncenawhile (talk) 21:14, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

To continue, as I said, the article fails verification because it misrepresents the main source, Laskier, to such an extent that the whole article is misleading. To each of the points above:

1. The source shows that the event was actually part of a much larger set of expulsions during the Suez Crisis; the source states that the vast majority of expulsions were British and French citizens (two of Egypt's three adversaries in the war), and technically only 500 Jews without foreign nationality were expelled
2. According to the source, the "decree" described here related not to expulsions but to citizenship laws
3. The 25,000 figure in the source is simply the total number of people who left in 1956-57, not directly related to the citizenship decree or the expulsions
4. The key word "most" appears to be a figment of the editor's imagination
5. As does the key word "ordered"
6. As does the suggestion that 25,000 people were forced to do anything

So in summary, every single sentence purporting to relate directly to the title of this article was wrong. The article should either be deleted as a POVFORK or its title should be changed to "Expulsions from Egypt during the Suez Crisis", and it should be rewritten.

Another major problem, albeit a side issue compared to the above, is that the source itself is questionable. The relevant parts of Laskier are taken almost verbatim from pages 4,5,10 & 11 of a memo written by the American Jewish Committee, an advocacy organisation and therefore not RS. As Beinin writes: "In 1955 or 1956, Don Peretz began to work for the American Jewish Committee as a consultant on Middle East affairs. After a two-week visit to Egypt in June 1957, Peretz reported to the committee leadership that “the situation [of Egyptian Jews] in no way resembles that as portrayed by most of the American press or by the American Jewish Committee fact sheets,” which he regarded as “very misleading and not very helpful.”"

Oncenawhile (talk) 11:13, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

I have read some more on this. Key additional points below:

1. There are no WP:RS anywhere which focus primarily Expulsions post the Suez Crisis. Where information on this is available it is presented in a tangential fashion.
2. Primary information about the expulsions are extremely limited. Much of what is written appears to be based on conjecture, because as Laskier writes "Egypt's policy of getting rid of its Jewish population was implemented through both expulsion and 'voluntary' emigration. But the two methods were not entirely distinct." [As an aside, I have not seen any substantiation of the word "policy" used by Laskier]. The post Suez period was characterised by an extraordinary amount of propaganda from all sides, so it is difficult to see what was actually happening.
3. One book focusing on the Suez period in Egypt states: "After various contradictory orders had been given, the Egyptian government only expelled a small minority of the Jewish population of Egypt, though since that time a good many Jews have left Egypt of their own accord."
4. A United Nations paper was put together on the topic (A/AC.79/58), but I can't find it
5. The British Parliament discussed the British expellees twice, on 26 Nov and on 5 Dec. On the latter, the Foreign Affairs Minister stated "The Egyptian authorities have denied that they intend to expel all British subjects from Egypt."
6. Another book focusing on Nasser's period in Egypt summarises the various competing claims: "The Egyptian government Nov. 26 issued a statement denying that it had ever planned the mass expulsion of British and French nationals and saying that British and French citizens in Egypt were free to remain or to leave "at their own discretion." But Max Koenig, Swiss minister in Egypt, said Dec. 9 that expulsions of individual British and French citizens from Egypt and the sequestration of their property were "continuing relentlessly" on a large scale. Egyptian Interior Min. Zakaria Mohieddin said Dec. 9 that, of some 18,000 British and French citizens in Egypt, 1,452 had been ordered expelled from the country."

Oncenawhile (talk) 07:44, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

@Oncenawhile:I also had cause to check this article after having been shown posts on bad Wiki referencing made on www.politicalforum.com. In line with your own finding I view the referencing in this article as being rank-bad at times. I suggest that, since the calls for improved sources have not been responded to, that the offending text be delete.

But once that is done, the entire support for "EXPULSION" dies away and the article becomes massively POV. The references to the word in the title; the titling of the sub-section; are all no longer justified. I believe that the article should correctly reflect "The 1956-57 Exodus of the Jews from Egypt". Your comments would be most appreciated before I take action. Erictheenquirer (talk) 10:25, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Hi Erictheenquirer, I just read the thread at the forum you mentioned - interesting discussion, and amusing to note how the OP was wholly unable to support their original propagandistic post.

Thanks for reviewing this article. Since this thread, the name of the article has been changed as the 1956-57 exodus from Egypt was much wider than just the country's Jewish population. The reason we retained the word "expulsion" is that an Egyptian source at the time confirmed that some British and French nationals were expelled, and a contemporary journalist suggests a small number of Jews were expelled. It seems you came to the same conclusion, looking at your edits - particularly re Laskier.

By the way, on a separate note, do you happen to know anyone who has access to old newspaper archives. We are still looking for a way to verify the "Egyptian Proclamation" in the thread immediately below this. Propagandistic works imply this proclamation was somehow "official", which seems very unlikely, but we haven't been able to get hold of the original source yet. Oncenawhile (talk) 21:51, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

@Oncenawhile:Firstly, no luck on my side re the newspaper archives. Secondly many thanks for the ACJ reference. Indeed Laskier appears to have relied on an unreferenced and unsupported American Jewish Committee archive item for his estimate of 500 Jews having been expelled. I am inclined to judge this as not WP:RS, but given the paucity of source material of any kind, I am inclined to let it stand. However it should be noted that it is very weak support for a broader topic of expulsions from Arab countries. Erictheenquirer (talk) 14:49, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Proclamation re Jews and Zionists

A contributor at the AfD noted that Martin Gilbert's 2010 book refers to an Egyptian proclamation in November 1956 that "all Jews are Zionists and enemies of the state". Some comments on this:

• Gilbert's sourcing is wrong. The source attached to the sentence (Law 391) actually refers to the previous sentence re the Nationality Law, as attested in other sources e.g. [1]. So Gilbert does not provide a source for the statement.
• An FT review of Gilbert, and another here in footnote 26, are both highly critical of this work by Gilbert despite his broader credentials
• Advocacy group JJAC [2] and advocacy group AICE [3] do provide sources for the statement: AP, (November 26, 1956); New York World Telegram, (November 29, 1956).

What bothers me is (a) that the quote does not appear to have been widely picked up at the time (for example, it does not appear in The Times Digital Archive or Google News Archive during the period), (b) the quote (or parts thereof) does not come up in any google scholar articles, (c) the only other books which include the quote are either non-specialist or are polemical works (and it is not found in the specialist works by Joel Beinin, Gudrun Krämer or Michael Laskier), (d) the statement itself does not make sense for a government with nothing to gain from such inflammatory statements and (e) the post-Suez time period was flooded with anti-Egyptian propaganda in the Western press.

Any insight on this would be greatly appreciated.

Oncenawhile (talk) 09:06, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

JTA doesn't seem to have it, which is odd. Zero^talk 10:36, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

Gilbert is WP:RS second of all it does used in scholarly article [4]--Shrike (talk)/WP:RX 19:32, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

It also appears in this book [5]--Shrike (talk)/WP:RX 20:02, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Shrike,

• The scholarly article your brought is in the field of psychology. The authors are not historians. What source did they link to?
• The book you linked to uses the JVL as its source for the quote see chapter 14 footnote 3. And look at footnote 4!
• As I wrote above, Gilbert messed up the sourcing on this point, so we have nothing to go on. His work on the subject of the middle east has been heavily criticised.

I suggest we just try to find the newspaper articles which publicised this statement, per my request at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Resource_Exchange/Resource_Request#Associated_Press_or_New_York_World_Telegram_from_1956.

Oncenawhile (talk) 21:20, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

The AP archive is from 1985 the New york world telegram I couldn't find at all.Maybe someone could provide a link to the archives.--Shrike (talk)/WP:RX 05:18, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

The AP archive from 1937 is apparently available via ancestry.com, but I can't figure out how to search by date and keyword. Oncenawhile (talk) 08:07, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

You can search by date and keyword here. But it seems you have to sign up to ancestry.com to see the results. Zero^talk 13:04, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

I tried and it pretty much useless its more suitable for looking names of people.--Shrike (talk)/WP:RX 06:09, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

I have found that according to this [6] the source should be "New York World Telegram November 26 and 29 1956" does someone have access to library that have this newspaper archive?--Shrike (talk)/WP:RX 06:47, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

And it looks like 12 institutions in the USA have the NYWT archives per [7]. So if anyone happens to pass those institutions, maybe they can find the article. Oncenawhile (talk) 23:44, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Proposed rename

Per the above discussion, the primary focus of the post-Suez Crisis expulsions appears to have been the Mutamassirun community, whether British, French, Greek, Italian etc, and of course including Jews. The event was at no point solely focused on Jews, and certainly not "Egyptian Jews", as it appears that if any Jews with Egyptian nationality were expelled they were very small in number. So I propose to neutralise / broaden the title of the article so the subject can be covered with appropriate context and better sources. Any objections? Oncenawhile (talk) 23:26, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

 Done Oncenawhile (talk) 21:39, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

The specific title I propose is 1956-57 exodus and expulsions from Egypt, to capture the fact that many (or most) were not technically expelled but that the exodus and expulsions were related (per Laskier "the two methods were not entirely distinct"). Oncenawhile (talk) 07:52, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Here is an article on the Greek community. Oncenawhile (talk) 23:39, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

Reverted - a disruptive procedure, with no notification to editors and just 2 days of vote. Looks like a deliberate POV move. Extremely problematic.GreyShark (dibra) 10:37, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

Happy to discuss. Please respond to the concerns raised in the threads above. I brought your attention to this on your user talk page three months ago. Oncenawhile (talk) 10:51, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

Discussion

• Neutral - this could be ok, as long as the content remains well sourced and profound. Unfortunately, it seems Oncenawhile is trying to delete the content of this article.GreyShark (dibra) 10:54, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

Please don't cast around WP:ASPERSIONS. Surely you know me well enough by now to understand that my modus operandi is not to just delete things I "don't like" as you seem to suggest. I just want to the get the facts right. Please, please, please - respond to the points I raised above and notified you about 3 months ago. Oncenawhile (talk) 10:55, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

Once, i refer to your previous proposal to erase this article. If you would have started from rename, there would have been no issue here. However, you first asked to delete the article, and when it failed you ask to rename (change the topic?). BYW, similar issue is now being discussed in Yazidi persecution discussion. I have no objection to properly rename "Expulsions of Egyptian Jews (1956)", but your prior attempt to erase this article concerns me.GreyShark (dibra) 14:58, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

I generally don't like deleting articles, but with this article earlier having had all of its key sentences being factually incorrect I considered that "putting it out of its misery" might be the best solution. The discussion at the AfD taught me that I was being lazy going for the WP:TNT route, so I decided to invest the time in fixing it instead. One day I hope you will WP:AGF with respect to my editing. Oncenawhile (talk) 18:19, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

• Agree – It does seem that the expulsion of Jews was a part of a much larger process. Unless there is a case for two articles, the title should reflect the larger process and not just the Jewish aspect of it. Zero^talk 13:54, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

Jewish families taken hostage?

The article says

"Foreign observers reported that some members of Jewish families were taken hostage, apparently to ensure that those forced to leave did not speak out against the Egyptian government."

The source is Unprotected Palestinians in Egypt since 1948, which is about Palestinians in Egypt, not about Jews. The only times it mentions 'hostages' is referring to Palestinians taken by Israel.

The only time it ever mentions Jews from Egypt is when it says:

"Palestinians arriving in Egypt after 194816 who had enough capital to start their own businesses and who were granted commercial licences and franchises in the early Nasser years began to prosper, especially after the departure of much of Egypt’s Jewish population in the wake of the 1956 Suez war and the nationalization of their businesses. Moving into sectors where Jewish businessmen had been strong, such as the wholesale and retail trade, manufacturing, small hotels, and restaurants,17 Palestinians also developed an important presence in the tertiary sector, including barbershops, restaurants, and sweet shops."

Nowhere does it mention that Jewish families were ever taken hostage by the Egyptian government. If that is true, a better source is needed. Drsmartypants(Smarty M.D) (talk) 04:25, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

I checked this and you are correct. This claim has been in the article since the beginning and it never had a citation. I took it out. Zero^talk 12:17, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

Goal of the entry

Hi there, I'm a Master's student in Middle Eastern Studies. I've been working on contributing to the content of this Wikipedia page, specifically focusing on expanding and improving the article. I've added information from reputable sources to provide a comprehensive overview of the events and their implications. Additionally, I've introduced new sections and organized the existing content to improve the overall structure and readability of the page. Furthermore, I've made the decision to change the title of the page to "20th century departures of foreign nationalist from Egypt" to better reflect the scope of the topic covered. This title adjustment aims to provide a clearer and more comprehensive overview of the subject discussed on the page. WAC1998 (talk) 09:32, 5 May 2024 (UTC)