Double Standards – Why Jews and Arabs Are Treated Differently in the Middle East

Since the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, shortly after the Second World War, and during the broader wave of decolonisation that followed the retreat of European powers, many new states have emerged around the world. This process was often accompanied by major population movements. A clear example is the partition of British India into Pakistan and India in 1947: Pakistan became a Muslim-majority state, while India became a Hindu-majority state with a very large Muslim minority, now numbering around 200 million people. In many ways, the relationship between Israel and its Arab neighbours can be compared to that between India and Pakistan.

What stands out is that virtually no Hindus remain in Pakistan, whereas India still has a large Muslim population, around 14% of its total population. A similar contrast can be seen in the Middle East. Israel, as a Jewish state, has an Arab minority of about 20%, consisting of both Muslims and Christians. By contrast, in the surrounding Arab countries, almost all Jews have disappeared, having been expelled or forced to flee, while the Christian share of the population continues to decline sharply. This reflects a broader difference between democracies and religious dictatorships. It also shows the double standards why Jews and Arabs are treated differently in the Middle East

Middle East

In both cases, the same pattern has been visible for decades: Muslims who feel unable to accept life in a democratic society where they are not the dominant group, and Muslim-majority countries in which other communities are driven out or destroyed.

The situation in the Middle East is even more extreme than in the case of India and Pakistan. Israeli politician Einat Wilf articulated this clearly in a speech in Amsterdam in 2025, during the 50th anniversary celebration of CIDI. Wilf, a social-democratic politician, has argued that a two-state solution is unworkable because Palestinian Arabs will not tolerate the existence of a Jewish state alongside them.

Israel should not be viewed as a Western colonial project, despite the way it is often portrayed today by left-wing Western critics and Islamists. On the contrary, Israel can be seen as one of the most successful examples of decolonisation. The region, with its mixed population, had been ruled for centuries by foreign empires: first the Romans, then the Ottomans, and finally the French and British, who governed the area not as formal colonies but as mandates and protectorates. After the French withdrew from Lebanon and Syria, and the British from Transjordan, new states were established.

Jews have lived for roughly 3,000 years in the area now known as Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank. Jerusalem, too, has historically been a Jewish city, with the exception of the period from 1948 to 1967, when Jordan expelled all Jews from East Jerusalem, including the Old City.

After the British Mandate ended in 1948 and new states began to take shape, David Ben-Gurion proclaimed the establishment of the State of Israel. Shortly afterward, the young Jewish state was attacked by the surrounding Arab countries. As a result of the 1948 war, around 700,000 Arab inhabitants of what had become Israel fled, in part following calls by Arab leaders who urged them to leave during the fighting.

What is far less well known in the West is that, following the creation of Israel, virtually all Jews living in Arab countries were also driven out. In total, this involved roughly 800,000 people. Most of them fled to Israel, losing all their property in the process.

The approximate numbers by country were as follows: Morocco: 250,000+ Algeria: 140,000+ Tunisia: 100,000+ Libya: 35,000+ Iraq: 120,000+ Yemen: 50,000+ Egypt: 70,000+ Syria: 25,000+ Lebanon: 5,000+ Iran: 80,000+ (especially after the fall of the Shah in 1979) Turkey: 70,000+ (gradually, since Israel’s independence) Afghanistan: 5,000+

The claim that Israel was simply a European colonial invention, handed to Holocaust survivors as compensation, is therefore misleading. It is true that many European Jews immigrated to Israel after the Second World War, but a very large part of Israel’s population consists of Jews who were expelled from Arab countries.

Out of guilt over the Second World War, many European countries supported Israel for a long time. In later decades, however, that support declined in many places, partly under the influence of demographic change driven by mass migration, mainly from Muslim countries. By the same “coloniser” logic that left-wing Western critics and Islamists often apply to Israel, one could argue that Europe itself has been “colonised” through large-scale migration from Muslim countries since the 1960s. Yet this argument is rarely, if ever, acknowledged in public debate.

The Jewish refugees who arrived in Israel after 1948 received no help from the Red Cross or the United Nations. They were absorbed and integrated into their new homeland.

For the Arab refugees who left Israel, by contrast, the United Nations created a separate agency: UNRWA. Unlike other refugee populations around the world, who fall under the general UN refugee system and whose status is not automatically passed on to their descendants, Palestinians under UNRWA are subject to a unique framework. In this system, refugee status is also granted to descendants of the original refugees, allowing that status to continue across generations, along with the associated international support.

For example, the children of former Dutch minister Sigrid Kaag have refugee status through their Palestinian father; under current rules, that status can also be passed on to future generations. This illustrates how the system operates in practice.

As a result, the original group of roughly 700,000 Arab refugees from 1948 has, over the decades, grown to more than five million. This is partly because refugee status within the UNRWA system has become hereditary. In addition, people living in territories considered Palestinian, such as Gaza and the West Bank, are still registered as refugees. In practice, this means that many people are officially classified as refugees while living in what is regarded as their own territory.

As noted earlier, the Arab states attacked Israel in 1948 with the intention of destroying the Jewish state. In that context, part of the Arab population was encouraged to leave temporarily. The war unfolded differently, however: Israel survived, and Palestinians refer to these events as the Nakba (“catastrophe”).

Following later wars launched by neighbouring Arab states, Israel came to control territories such as Sinai and Gaza (from Egypt), the West Bank (from Jordan), and the Golan Heights (from Syria). These territories were taken primarily for security reasons, as strategic buffer zones, rather than as part of a project of territorial expansion.

After peace was concluded with Egypt, Sinai was returned on the condition that it remain demilitarised. Egypt did not want the Gaza Strip back. In 2005, under Prime Minister Sharon, Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza, and all Jewish residents were forced to leave. From that point on, Gaza became, for the first time in 3,000 years, “Judenrein.”

Historically, Jewish communities also lived in what is now commonly called the West Bank. Hebron is a well-known example, with a Jewish presence going back thousands of years. Today, the Israeli army (IDF) is present there in part to guarantee the security of Israeli residents.

The West Bank, which Israel captured from Jordan in 1967 during the Six-Day War, is historically known as Judea and Samaria and holds deep historical and religious significance for Jews.

Today, nearly two million Arabs - Christians, Druze, and Muslims- live in Israel in freedom and relative prosperity under a democratic rule of law. At the same time, Gaza and the West Bank are effectively “Judenrein”: Jews are not permitted to settle there freely. In the West Bank, Jews may live only in designated areas under Israeli administration (Area C under the Oslo Accords), amounting to fewer than half a million people.

How, then, does the accusation that Israel is an apartheid state square with the reality that Jewish presence in Palestinian-administered areas is effectively impossible, while within Israel itself millions of Arab citizens enjoy full civil rights?

Demographic trends also speak volumes. Across almost the entire Arab world, including the Palestinian territories, the number of Christians is declining sharply. Israel is the exception: there, the Christian population is growing. That does not sit easily with the image of a supposed “apartheid state.”

Perhaps it is time for European leaders to ask themselves whether a double standard is being applied. Israel is repeatedly accused of practices that occur demonstrably, and on a larger scale, in the surrounding region.

All the more striking, then, is the fact that for about a year now, the Belgian government has no longer provided consular assistance to Belgian residents living in the West Bank.

Image credits: Hartono creative studio via Unplash