Israeli narrative claims most Palestinians fled in 1948 because the Arab armies encouraged them to do so Are there historical proofs of that ?
It’s a myth that was dismantled long time ago, but for the moment, let’s assume that the Palestinian refugees were not terrorized out of their homes, but left based on their free will.
The questions that many Palestinians ask :
Is that a good reason to confiscate their homes, farms, and businesses?
Is that a good reason to block their return to their homes?
Is that a good reason to nullify their citizenship in the country they were born?
Let us pose the questions the other way around. For a very long time, the Zionist movement encouraged Jews from Europe and the Middle East to emigrate to Israel:
Is that a good reason to confiscate their homes, farms, and businesses in their respective countries?
Is that a good reason to block their return to their homes if they choose to do so?
Is that a good reason to nullify their citizenship in the countries they were born?
The just and fair answer to all of these questions is a big fat NO. Nobody has the right to usurp the political and civil rights of another citizen PERIOD, regardless of the circumstances.
Neither the Israeli Army boot camps, nor the Israeli schools dares to disclose the truth to its subjects. The truth is most Palestinians were terrorized out of their homes, farms, and businesses. A minor example is the destruction and ethnic cleansing of Imwas. It should be noted that what happened to ‘Imwas by the Israeli Army was a copycat war crime to what already happened to more than 450 Palestinian towns during the 1948 war.
Ethnic cleansing and destruction of ‘Imwas, June 17, 1967. Note the Israeli officer to the left directing Palestinians out of their village.
‘Imwas – عِمواس : General view of the beautiful village in 1958 – before destruction.
Imwas – عِمواس : General View Of The Village One Year After Destruction in 1968. Note The Old Road On The Left & Abu Ubaydah’s Shrine, Picture Taken By Pierre Medebielle.
Since the inception of Zionism, its leaders have been keen on creating a “Jewish State” based on a “Jewish majority” by mass immigration of Jews to Palestine, primarily European Jews fleeing from anti-Semitic Tsarist Russia and Nazi Germany. When a “Jewish majority” was impossible to achieve, based on Jewish immigration and natural growth, Zionist leaders (such as Ben Gurion, Moshe Sharett, Ze’ev Jabotinsky, and Chaim Weizmann) concluded that “population transfer” was the only solution to what they referred to as the “Arab Problem.”
Year after year, the plan to cleanse Palestine away from its indigenous people became known as the “transfer solution.”It will be shown by the following Zionist quotes and actions :
David Ben-Gurion, the first Israeli Prime Minister, eloquently articulated the “transfer solution” as the following:
– In a joint meeting between the Jewish Agency Executive and Zionist Action Committee on June 12th, 1938:“
With compulsory transfer we [would] have a vast area [for settlement] …. I support compulsory transfer. I don’t see anything immoral in it.” (Righteous Victims p. 144).
-In a speech addressing the Central Committee of the Histadrut on December 30, 1947:
“In the area allocated to the Jewish State there are not more than 520,000 Jews and about 350,000 non-Jews, mostly Arabs. Together with the Jews of Jerusalem, the total population of the Jewish State at the time of its establishment, will be about one million, including almost 40% non-Jews. such a [population] composition does not provide a stable basis for a Jewish State. This [demographic] fact must be viewed in all its clarity and acuteness. With such a [population] composition, there cannot even be absolute certainty that control will remain in the hands of the Jewish majority …. There can be no stable and strong Jewish state so long as it has a Jewish majority of only 60%.” (Expulsion Of The Palestinians, p. 176 & Benny Morris p. 28).
-And on February 8th, 1948, Ben-Gurion also stated to the Mapai Council:
“From your entry into Jerusalem, through Lifta, Romema [East Jerusalem Palestinian neighborhood]. . . there are no [Palestinian] Arabs. One hundred percent Jews. Since Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans, it has not been Jewish as it is now. In many [Palestinian] Arab neighborhoods in the west one sees not a single [Palestinian] Arab. I do not assume that this will change. . . . What had happened in Jerusalem. . . . is likely to happen in many parts of the country. . . in the six, eight, or ten months of the campaign there will certainly be great changes in the composition of the population in the country.” (Expulsion Of The Palestinians, p. 180-181).
–In a speech addressing the Zionist Action Committee on April 6th, 1948:
“We will not be able to win the war if we do not, during the war, populate upper and lower, eastern and western Galilee, the Negev and Jerusalem area ….. I believe that war will also bring in its wake a great change in the distribution of Arab population.” (Expulsion Of The Palestinians, p. 181)
– In speech to the Jewish Agency on June 12, 1948, Ben Gurion stated:
“I am for compulsory transfer; I don’t see anything immoral in it.”
For tactical reasons, he was against proposing it at the moment, but
“we have to state the principle of compulsory transfer without insisting on its immediate implementation.” (Simha Flapan, p.103).
-The concept of “transferring” European Jews to Palestine and “transferring” the Palestinian people out has always been central to Zionism. Ben-Gurion, the 1st Israeli Prime Minister, eloquently articulated this essential Zionist pillar, he stated in 1944:
“Zionism is a TRANSFER of the Jews. Regarding the TRANSFER of the [Palestinian] Arabs this is much easier than any other TRANSFER. There are Arab states in the vicinity . . . . and it is clear that if the [Palestinian] Arabs are removed [to these states] this will improve their condition and not the contrary.” (Expulsion Of The Palestinians, p.159)
For a moment, let us assume that the above evidence is nothing but Palestinian propaganda. Contemplate what Yitzhak Rabin, one of Israel’s Prime Ministers, had written in his diary soon after the occupation of Lydda and al Ramla on July 10th-11th, 1948:
“After attacking Lydda [later called Lod] and then Ramla, …. What would they do with the 50,000 civilians living in the two cities ….. Not even Ben-Gurion could offer a solution …. and during the discussion at operation headquarters, he [Ben-Gurion] remained silent, as was his habit in such situations. Clearly, we could not leave [Lydda’s] hostile and armed populace in our rear, where it could endanger the supply route [to the troops who were] advancing eastward. Ben Gurion would repeat the question: What is to be done with the population?, waving his hand in a gesture which said: Drive them out! [garesh otem in Hebrew]. ‘Driving out’ is a term with a harsh ring,…. Psychologically, this was on of the most difficult actions we undertook”. (Soldier Of Peace, p. 140-141 & Benny Morris, p. 207).
Residents of al-Ramla being ethnically cleansed based on the orders from Rabin; July 1948
Later, Rabin underlined the cruelty of the operation as mirrored in the reaction of his soldiers. He stated during an interview (which is still censored in Israeli publications to this day) with David Shipler from the New York Times on October 22, 1979:
“Great Suffering was inflicted upon the men taking part in the eviction action [They] included youth movement graduates who had been inculcated with values such as international brotherhood and humaneness. The eviction action went beyond the concepts they were used to. There were some fellows who refused to take part. . . Prolonged propaganda activities were required after the action. . . to explain why we were obliged to undertake such a harsh and cruel action.” (Simha Flapan, p. 101)
Just before the 1948 war, the residents of the twin cities, Lydda and al-Ramla, almost constituted 20% of the total urban population in central Palestine, inclusive of Tel-Aviv. Currently, the former residents and their descendents number at least a half a million, who mostly live in deplorable refugee camps in and around Amman (Jordan) and Ramallah (the occupied West Bank) for example. According to Rabin, the decision to ethnically cleanse the twin cities was an agonizing decision, however, his guilty conscious did not stop him from placing a similar order against three nearby villages (‘Imwas, Yalu, and Bayt Nuba ) 19 years later. The exodus from Lydda and al- Ramla was portrayed firsthand by Ismail Shammout, the renowned Palestinians artist from Lydda itself. What basically happened is upon Lydda’s and Ramla’s occupation on July 11-12, 1948, the Israelis were surprised to find that over 60,000 Palestinian civilians didn’t flee their homes. Subsequently, Ben Gurion ordered the wholesale expulsion of all civilians (including men, women, children, and old people), in the middle of the hot Mediterranean summer. The orders to ethnically cleanse both cities were signed by the future Prime Minister of Israel, by Yitzhak Rabin. Many of the refugees died (400+ according to the Palestinian historian ‘Aref al-‘Aref) from thirst, hunger, and heat exhaustion after being stripped of their valuables on their way out by the Israeli soldiers.
The exodus out of Lydda, July 1948.
Successive Israeli Governments censoring Yitzhak Rabin's admission that he ethnically cleansed Palestinians based on Ben-Gurion's orders, NY Times Oct 22nd, 1979.
From the Zionist ethnic cleansing quotes, it shall be conclusively proven that the Palestinian version of the events is the true version as other versions regarding many other cities and villages. It should be noted that the Zionist account of this war crime was intentionally suppressed until Yitzhak Rabin reported it in his biography and in a New York Times interview (which was censored in Israel at the time), however, it was later confirmed in the declassified Israeli and Zionist archives.
In order to excuse themselves from any responsibility of war crimes, Zionists have concocted a myth that Palestinians were ordered by their leaders to abandon their homes. There was no such call, it is a myth invented by the Israeli foreign ministry. The position of the Israeli foreign office on the very short-lived UN attempt to bring peace in the immediate aftermath of the 1948 war was that the refugees ran away. However, that particular peace process (which lasted for a few months in the first half of 1949) was so brief that Israel was not asked to provide any evidence for this claim, and for many years the refugee problem was expunged from the international agenda.
The need to provide proof emerged in the early 1960s, as it was learned recently thanks to the diligent work of Shay Hazkani, a freelance reporter working for Haaretz (Israeli media).
According to his research, during the early days of the Kennedy administration in Washington, the US government began to exert pressure on Israel to allow the return of the 1948 refugees to Israel. The official US position since 1948 had been to support the Palestinian right of return. In fact, already in 1949, the Americans had exerted pressure on Israel to repatriate the refugees and imposed sanctions on the Jewish state for its refusal to comply. However, this was a short-term pressure, and as the Cold War intensified the Americans lost interest in the problem until John F. Kennedy came to power (he was also the last US president to refuse to provide Israel with vast military aid; after his assassination the faucet was fully open, a state of affairs that led Oliver Stone to allude to an Israeli connection to the president’s murder in his film JFK).
One of the first acts of the Kennedy administration on this front was to take an active part in a UN General Assembly discussion on the topic in the summer of 1961. Prime Minister Ben-Gurion panicked. He was convinced that, with American blessing, the UN might force Israel to repatriate the refugees. He wanted Israeli academics to conduct research that would prove that the Palestinians left voluntarily, and to this end approached the Shiloah Institute, the leading center for Middle Eastern studies in Israeli academia at the time. A junior researcher, Ronni Gabai, was entrusted with the task. With his permit to access classified documents, he reached the conclusion that expulsions, fear, and intimidation were the major causes of the Palestinian exodus. What he did not find was any evidence for a call from the Arab leadership for the Palestinians to leave so as to make way for the invading armies. However, there is a conundrum here. The conclusion just mentioned appeared in Gabai’s doctorate on the topic and is recalled by him as the one he sent to the foreign ministry. And yet in his research in the archives Hazkani found a letter from Gabai to the foreign ministry summarizing his research and citing the Arab call to leave as the main cause for the exodus.
Hazkani interviewed Gabai, who even today is adamant that he did not write this letter, and that it did not reflect the research he had undertaken. Someone, we still do not know who, sent a different summary of the research. In any case, Ben-Gurion was not happy. He felt the summary(he did not read the whole research) was not poignant enough. He asked for a researcher he knew, Uri Lubrani, later one of Mossad’s experts on Iran, to undertake a second study. Lubrani passed the bucket to Moshe Maoz, today one of Israel’s leading orientalists. Maoz delivered the goods, and in September 1962 Ben-Gurion had what he himself described as our White Paper that proves beyond doubt that the Palestinians fled because they were told to do so. Moaz later went on to do a PhD in Oxford under the late Albert Hourani (on a non-related topic), but said in an interview that his research was affected less by the documents he had seen and more by the political assignment he received.
The documents Gabai examined in early 1961 were declassified in the late 1980s, and several historians, among them Benny Morris and Ilan Pappe , saw for the first time clear evidence for what pushed the Palestinians out of Palestine. The Israeli historians concurred that there was no call from Arab and Palestinian leaders for people to leave. Their research, since described as the work of the “new historians,” reaffirmed Gabai’s conclusion that the Palestinians lost their homes and homeland mainly through expulsion, intimidation, and fear.
As it will be proven below, the General Israeli version of events was conclusively proven wrong based on Israeli declassified documents. According to the Israeli historian Benny Morris:
‘In general, during the first months of the war until April 1948 the Palestinian leadership struggled, if not very manfully, against the exodus: “The AHC [Arab Higher Committee] decided …. to adopt measures to weaken the exodus by imposing restrictions, penalties, threats, propaganda in the press [and] on the radio …. [The AHC] tried to obtain the help of neighboring countries in this context….. [The AHC] especially tried to prevent the flight of army-age young males,” according to IDF intelligence’. (Benny Morris, p. 60)
‘Whatever the reasoning and attitude of the Arab states’ leaders, I have found no contemporary evidence to show that either the leaders of the Arab states or the Mufti [Hajj Amin al-Husseini] ordered or directly encouraged the mass exodus during April [1948].
It may be worth noting that for decades the policy of the Palestinian Arab leaders had been to hold fast to the soil of Palestine and to resist the eviction and displacement of Arab communities’.(Benny Morris, p.66)
‘In Kafr Saba [early May 1948], the locals, under threat from Haganah attack, wanted to leave, but were ordered to stay by the ALA [Arab Liberation Army] garrison. According to Haganah sources, the ALA, with the population of Ramallah about to take flight, blocked all roads into the Triangle:
“The Arab military leaders are trying to stem the flood of refugees and taking stern and ruthless measures against them.” Arab radio broadcast, picked up by the Haganah, conveyed orders from the ALA to all Arabs who had left their homes to “return within three days. The commander of Ramallah assembled the mukhtars [official leaders] from the area” and demanded they strengthen morale in the their villages. The local ALA commanders turned back trucks which were coming to take families out of Ramallah. …. Haganah intelligence on May 6 reported that “Radio Jerusalem in its Arabic broadcast (14:00 hours, 5 May) and Damascus [Radio] (19:45 hours, 5 May) announced in the name of the Supreme Headquarters: ‘Every Arab must defend his home and property …. Those who leave their places will be punished and their homes will be destroyed.’. The announcement was signed by [Fawzi al-Qawukji.’] (Benny Morris, p. 68-69)
Similarly, Simha Flapan (the Israeli writer and politician) stated according to declassified Israeli documents and to the November 6th, 1948 edition of the Israeli newspaper Davar:
“. . . after April 1948, the flight acquired massive dimensions. Abdal-Rahman Azzam Pasha, secretary general of the Arab League, and King Abdullah both issued public calls to the Arabs NOT to leave their homes. Fawzi al-Qawukji, commander of the Arab Liberation Army, was given instructions to stop the flight by force and to requisition transport for this purpose.The Arab government decided to allow entry only to women and children and to send back all men of military age (between eighteen and fifty). Mohammad Adib al-Umri, deputy director of Ramallah broadcasting station, appealed to the Arabs to stop the flight from Jenin, Tulkarm, and other towns in the Triangle that were bombed by the Israelis. On May 10, Radio Jerusalem broadcasted orders on its Arab program from Arab commanders and AHC to stop the mass flight from Jerusalem and the vicinity.”(Simha Flapan, p. 86-87)
Original letter sent by the Arab Higher Committee to the Egyptian government urging it to refuse entry for refugees unless in emergency situations
The various National Committees issued BANS on flight. The Ramle National Committee set up pickets at the exits to the town to prevent Arabs departing.The inhabitants of the villages east of Majdal (Beit Daras, the Sawafirs, ..etc) were warned not to allow in with their belongings. On 15 May [1948], Faiz Idris, AHC’s “inspector for public safety,” issued ordered militia men to help the invading Arab armies and to fight against “the Fifth column and the rumor mongers, who are causing the flight of the Arab population'(Benny Morris, p. 69).
On 10-11 May [1948], the AHC [Arab Higher Committee] called on officials, doctors, and engineers who had left the country to return on 14-15 May, repeating the call, warned the the officials who did not return would lose their ” moral right to hold these administrative jobs in the future.” Arab governments began to bar entry to the refugee -as happened, for example, on the Lebanese border in the middle of May’(Benny Morris, p. 69).
‘The fall of Safad and the flight of its inhabitants shocked the [Palestinian] Arab villagers of the Hula Valley, to the north.
In Addition to massacres like Deir Yassin, and al-dawamyiha committed by Zionist forces against Palestinians, Yigal Allon( Former Foreign Affairs Minister of Israel ) launched a psychological warfare campaign (“If you don’t flee immediately, you will all be slaughtered, your daughters will be raped,” are the like), and almost all the villagers fled to Lebanon and Syria.’(Righteous Victims, p.213)
According to a Jewish Agency’s Arab section report from January 3, 1948, at the beginning of the flight:“
The Arab exodus from Palestine continues, mainly to the countries of the West. Of late, the Arab Higher Executive has succeeded in imposing close scrutiny on those leaving for Arab countries in the Middle East.” Prior to the declaration of the “Jewish state,” the Arab League’s political committee, meeting in Sofar, Lebanon, recommended that the Arab states ” the doors to . . . women and children and old people if events in Palestine make it necessary.”(Simha Flapan, p. 85)
On March 10, 1948, Zionist political and military leaders, including Ben-Gurion, met in Tel Aviv and formally adoptedPlan Dalet (or Plan D). The operational military orders specified which Palestinian population centers should be targeted and laid out in detail a blueprint for their forcible depopulation and destruction. It called for:
Mounting operations against enemy population centers located inside or near our defensive system in order to prevent them from being used as bases by an active armed force. These operations can be divided into the following categories:
Destruction of villages (setting fire to, blowing up, and planting mines in the debris), especially those population centers which are difficult to control continuously
Mounting search and control operations according to the following guidelines: encirclement of the village and conducting a search inside it. In the event of resistance, the armed force must be destroyed and the population must be expelled outside the borders of the state.
Professor Erich Fromm, a noted Jewish writer, social psychologist and thinker, has this to say on the Zionist argument that the Arab refugees left of their own accord:
"It is often said that the Arabs fled, that they left the country voluntarily, and that they therefore bear the responsibility for losing their property and their land. It is true that there are some instances (in Rome and in France during the Revolutions) when enemies of the state were proscribed and their property confiscated. But in general international law, the principle holds true that no citizen loses his property or his rights of citizenship; and the citizenship right is de facto a right to which the Arabs in Israel have much more legitimacy than Jews. Just because the Arabs fled? Since when is that punishable by confiscating of property and by being barred from returning to the land on which a people's forefathers have lived for generations? Thus, the claim of the Jews to the land of Israel cannot be a realistic political claim. If all nations would suddenly claim territories in which their forefathers had lived two thousand years ago, this world would be a madhouse."
Dr. Fromm goes on to say:
"I believe that, politically speaking, there is only one solution for Israel, namely, the unilateral acknowledgment of the obligation of state toward the Arabs; not to use it as a bargaining of the Israeli state to its former inhabitants of Palestine." (Bitter Harvest p. 95; printed in Jewish Newsletter on Feb. 9th, 1959)
Further proof of ethnic cleansing (as if more evidence is needed) comes from Glubb Pasha, the British officer of the Jordanian army during the 1948 war, was on the spot at the time and therefore was in a position to know what is going on. He said:
“The story which Jewish publicity at first persuaded the world to accept , that the [Palestinian] Arab refugees left voluntarily, is not true. Voluntary emigrants do not leave their homes with only the clothes they stand in. People who decided to leave house do not do so in such a hurry that they lose other members of their family — husband losing sight of his wife, or parents of their children. The fact is that the majority left in panic flight, to escape massacre. They were in fact helped on their way by the occasional massacres–not of very many at a time, but just enough to keep them running.”(Bitter Harvest,p. 95)
Who shall push who into the sea? Haifa‘s Palestinians are being loading onto ships out of their homes, April 1948
Haifa‘s Palestinians are being loading onto ships out of their homes, April 1948
As Moshe Sharett (2nd prime minister of Israel) was ending his career in the mid-1950s, he came to the conclusion that Israel cannot be ruled without deceit as if it’s essential for the Jewish state’s survival. He wrote just before resigning:
“I have learned that the state of Israel cannot be ruled in our generation without deceit and adventurism. These are historical facts that cannot be altered. . . In the end, history will justify both the stratagems and deceit and the acts of adventurism. All I know is that I, Moshe Sharett, am not capable of them, and I am therefore unsuited to lead this country”(Simha Flapan, p. 52-53).
In other word, what Moshe Sharett is saying that the “Jewish state” is incapable of surviving without lying to its citizens and the rest of the world; in fact it has been national security for the “Jewish state” to do so. This form of carefully crafted deception and lies is known in Israel by its Hebrew name: The art of Hasbara.
Finally, it must be emphasized that Israel tried Adolf Eichmann for atrocities committed as a Nazi leader, it included charges of forcible expulsion (ethnic cleansing), which were classified as war crimes and crimes against humanity. It’s ironic how often Israelis and Zionists are selective in the interpretation of war crimes against humanity in a way that fits their political agenda.
9- Testimony of Amnon Neumann, a 948 Palmach soldier describing the occupation of the Negev villages.
10- Interview with the former Israeli Foreign Minister (Shlomo Ben-Ami) admitting that it is a concocted myth that Palestinians willingly left their homes, farms and businesses during the 1948 war. Daily Show for February 14, 2006