[bjourne]

After the war the international community pressured Israel into letting the Palestinian refugees return home. The famous UN Resolution 194 was an attempt to settle the Palestine question and to demand of Israel that it let the refugees repatriate. But the racist Israeli leaders didn't want non-Jews in their state. "Only Jews have a right of return to Israel", Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion declared.

To shield itself from criticism, Israel promulgated the idea that the Arabs left voluntarily. That they had been "called out" by their own leaders. Joseph Schechtman, working for the Israeli state, was the first to claim this in his book The Arab refugee problem from 1952. He referenced radio broadcasts and evacuation orders from Arab community leaders ostensibly calling for them leave.

Erskine Childers in his classic article The Other Exodus from 1963 went through transcripts of radio broadcasts in Palestine during 1948 and couldn't find a single instance of an order by Arab leaders calling for them to leave. Arab leaders that he interviewed vehemently denied calling for the Arabs to leave. On the contrary, he found transcripts of radio broadcasts calling for the Arabs to stay. Since then, many historians have investigated the issue and have concluded that the "called out"-theory is completely bunk.

Despite the overwhelming evidence showing that the Palestinians left for fear of getting caught in the hostilities, were "adviced" to leave by Jewish troops, or forced out at gunpoint, some Zionists still cling to the debunked "called out"-theory. That's the power of propaganda, I guess.

I find it callous and cynical to attempt to justify Israel's ethnic cleansing of Palestine with Jewish emigration from Arab countries in the 1950s and 1960s. That the Arab countries persecuted their Jewish minorities cannot justify an ethnic cleansing committed decades prior. Furthermore, some Arab states have apologized for their persecution of Jews and allowed them to return and to claim property. No such apology is forthcoming from the Israeli state.

[joelbluminator]

> But the racist Israeli leaders didn't want non-Jews in their state

Is it solely about racism, really? You're talking as if there weren't around 50 years of mutual blood shedding before that moment, or that all surrounding Arab states didn't invade Israel to destroy it. The Jews had a good reason not to trust Palestinian intentions towards them (See the Grand Mufhti's meetings with Hitler to help find a "solution" to the Jewish problem for example). In fact the Palestinians refused to split the land twice, on 1937 and again on 1947 and then they started a war, what good would it have done to let them back - to have another civil war all over again?

[bjourne]

Yes, the Jewish Zionist leaders were racist in the sense that they wanted as many of one race - white Jews - in their state, while they wanted as few of any other race. The British had promised them a "national home" in Palestine in 1917 and subsequently they drew up plans for dealing with the Arab population. The number of Jews wishing to immigrate to Palestine ("return" in Zionist parlance) was far fewer than what they had expected so to build a Jewish majority they decided that the territory of the Jewish state had to be cleansed of Arabs. The Zionists in Palestine's leader, David Ben-Gurion, on countless occasions expressed his support for ethnic cleansing. For example, in 1937 he wrote to his son: "We must expel the Arabs and take their places."

Even after the war Israeli leaders attempted to cleanse the land of its remaining Arab population. JNF chairman Yosef Weitz in 1951 proposed that the Christian Arabs from the upper Galilee should be transferred to Argentina. Both Ben-Gurion and Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett gave the plan its blessing.

None of the Zionist leaders ever suggested that the need to ethnically cleanse the land of non-Jews was due to Arab belligerency. On the contrary, they were quite clear on that Arab belligerency was not an issue. While there were many more Arabs than Jews in Palestine, they were poorly organized, poorly trained, and lacked access to military equipment.

Yes, it is correct that the Palestinians wanted to keep Palestine as one territorial unit. Dividing it would have meant that hundreds of thousands of Arab from the Jewish part would have been transferred out of their homeland and their property would have been confiscated. Instead, they wanted to create an all-encompassing Palestinian state with a parliament in which all ethnic groups were represented. This idea was a complete non-starter for the Zionists who wanted a Jewish-majority state.

[skinkestek]

It is good when talking about the problems on one side not to completely leave out the problems at the other side.

Here are some:

> Until the Arab armies invaded Israel on the very day of its birth, May 15, 1948, no quarter whatsoever had ever been given to a Jew who fell into Arab hands. Wounded and dead alike were mutilated. Every member of the Jewish community was regarded as an enemy to be mercilessly destroyed....

> [T]he Arab population of Palestine anticipated nothing less than massacres in retaliation if the Jews were victorious. Measuring the Jewish reaction by their own standards, they simply could not imagine that the Jews would not reply in kind what they had suffered at Arab hands. And this fear played a significant role in the Arab flight.[112]

I got it from https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_the_1948_Palestini...

It is also worth mentioning that despite what David Ben-Gurion meant, Israels Proclamation of Independence, issued on May 14, 1948, invited the Palestinians to remain in their homes and become equal citizens in the new state.

It might also be worth mentioning that Israel even offered Arabs to return or to buy them out since.

It might also be worth mentioning that while Israeli citizens massacred (some nasty examples exist) this was not encouraged, and perpetrators could be threatened with harsh punishments instead of celebrations like on the other side.

The story goes on.

Israel is not blameless, but the way you present it it is evil powerful Israel relentlessly attacking poor Arabs.

I enjoy (for the lack of a better word, I find it disgusting to read about) learning more including were Israel was wrong, but at the same time, wherever I look it is obvious that while the things you say are correct, you systematically leave out the other side.

(And now that I think of it I might be guilty of the same, even if it is to a lesser degree.)

[bjourne]

First of all, Wikipedia is not a great source for this topic. It's a simple fact that many more Zionists edit Wikipedia than pro-Palestinians and its coverage is therefore often slanted. Instead, consult books written by historians on the subject. Some good ones are The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, The War for Palestine: Rewriting the History of 1948, and All That Remains: The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948.

The quotes you cite are from Joseph Schechtman and Rony Gabbay, two historians who were employed by the Israeli state to "chronicle its history". Schechtman, as I mentioned, is the one who promulgated the idea that the Arabs were "called out" by their own commanders. If you want to know what actually happened, you need to consult modern scholarly works on the subject - not books written for propaganda purposes.

It is true that many Arabs fled because they were afraid of the Jewish violence. Dozens of massacres were committed in the course of the war, some of which to punish Arabs who refused to obey evacuation orders. Most of these massacres have been hushed down so unless you are a specialist you probably haven't heard of them. The Israeli state even closed its archives of the 1948 war because the documents historians found were just too embarrassing. The most infamous massacre was the Deir Yassin massacre for which news stated that the Jews had killed some 250 villagers. This was not true - the Jews had only killed about 110 villages - but the news of the massacre caused many Arab civilians to panic. For what it's worth, Deir Yassin's village elders had signed an agreement with the Jews to stay out of the fighting. This agreement was violated by the Jews who captured it in a sneak attack on April 9, 1948 - over a month before the Zionists proclaimed their state and the Arab states intervened.

So, yes, it is true that fear played a role in the refugee flight. Civilians usually try to get away from war zones. The main driver of the refugee flight, however, was military operations by Jewish forces.

According to a Shin Bet document from June 30, 1948, the most important factor in leading to the refugee flight was direct, hostile Jewish operations against Arab settlements. Abu Sitta in Atlas of Palestine comes to the same conclusion; 54.4% of the villages were abandoned due to military assault by Jewish forces, 24.6% due to direct expulsion orders, and 1% (5) were abandoned due to Arab evacuation orders. You can find details on how and when each Palestinian village was depopulated here: https://interactive.aljazeera.com/aje/palestineremix/maps-an...

Regarding Ben-Gurion, there are countless instances of him lending support for the idea that the Arabs should be transferred out of the Jewish state. Whatever the Declaration of Independence stated, it was clearly and loudly overruled by military commanders who depopulated Arab villages and then dynamited the houses to prevent the villagers from returning. For example, in one section of Yitzhak Rabin's memoir, he describes how Ben-Gurion wanted him to drive the Palestinians out Lod and Ramle:

"Not even Ben‐Gurion could offer any solution, and during the discussions at operational headquarters, he remained silent, as was his habit in such situations. Clearly, we could not leave Lod's hostile and armed populace in our rear, where it could endanger the supply route to Yiftach, which was advancing eastward."

"We walked outside, Ben‐Gurion accompanying us. Alton repeated his question: ‘What is to be done with the population?’ B.G. waved his hand in a gesture which said, ‘Drive them out!’"

"Allon and I held a consultation. I agreed that it was essential to drive the inhabitants out. We took them on foot towards the Bet Horon Road, assuming that the legion would be obliged to look after them, thereby shouldering logistic difficulties which would burden its fighting capacity, making things easier for us."

"Psychologically, this was one of the most difficult actions we undertook. The population of Lod did not leave willingly. There was no way of avoiding the use of force and warning shots in order to make the inhabitants march the 10 to 15 miles to the point where they met up with the legion."

> It is good when talking about the problems on one side not to completely leave out the problems at the other side.

I don't think I'm leaving anything out. When discussing the Holocaust no one in their right mind would bring up Jewish violence against ethnic Germans because it would be irrelevant. The ethnic cleansing of Palestine was a war crime and made much worse by the Zionist side's justifications and insistence on that the victims of that crime have no right to redress.

[skinkestek]

I'm a hard nut to crack and so are you.

I think that I should say to you that even if I fundamentally disagree with you on the root of the problem, I find it very interesting and I actually read what you write with great interest even though (or maybe specifically because) it sometimes shatters some of my previous beliefs.

I cannot defend everything Israelis have done and I probably gave that up somewhere late as a teenager or about the time I was drafted, so half a life ago.

I also believe that I could play your position to some degree if I ever met a crazy Arab hater so there's that.

That said this thread is getting long and old. Thanks for taking time to write so carefully instead of just calling me a shill and moving on. I also hope I have demonstrated that I am not and that I'm willing to try change my position in face of evidence :-)

[skinkestek]

> Erskine Childers in his classic article The Other Exodus from 1963 went through transcripts of radio broadcasts in Palestine during 1948 and couldn't find a single instance of an order by Arab leaders calling for them to leave.

This is interesting. I'll stop writing that. (Or until I can get proof of it.)

[skinkestek]

Ok, I had to look this up.

It would be astounding to me if this was true but I also cannot square the idea of a genocide of Arabs within Israeli borders with the fact that there are many more Arabs inside Israel today than before 1948.

I still haven't made up my mknd on this, but here is what I found:

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=did+arab+leaders+ask+arabs+to+leav...

There is a lot of information there but the most interesting (too me at least since it partially contractict my llng beld beliefs) was what I found by following the Wikipedia result one step further to this page:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_the_1948_Palestini...

This page mostly supports bjourne but interestingly is also full of quotes that support what I learned:

> Furthermore, in his comprehensive book on the Arab–Israeli conflict, Righteous Victims, Morris wrote:

>> In some areas Arab commanders ordered the villagers to evacuate to clear the ground for military purposes or to prevent surrender. More than half a dozen villages ... were abandoned during these months as a result of such orders. Elsewhere, in East Jerusalem and in many villages around the country, the [Arab] commanders ordered women, old people, and children to be sent away to be out of harm's way.... [T]he AHC and the Arab League had periodically endorsed such a move when contemplating the future war in Palestine.[174]

> In a 2003 interview with Haaretz, Morris summed up the conclusions of his revised edition of The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem: "In the months of April–May 1948, units of the Haganah were given operational orders that stated explicitly that they were to uproot the villagers, expel them and destroy the villages themselves. At the same time, it turns out that there was a series of orders issued by the Arab Higher Committee and by the Palestinian intermediate levels to remove children, women and the elderly from the villages."[175]

> The Arab National Committee in Jerusalem, following the 8 March 1948 instructions of the Arab Higher Committee, ordered women, children and the elderly in various parts of Jerusalem to leave their homes and move to areas "far away from the dangers. Any opposition to this order ... is an obstacle to the holy war ... and will hamper the operations of the fighters in these districts."[176]