REFUGEES
By
1949, at least 800,000 Palestinians had been driven out of their
homes.
Israeli
historian Benny Morris has documented 369 Palestinian villages that were
eradicated. At least 234 of those villages were destroyed by direct
Israeli military action. Over 80 of these villages were outside the
territory of the UN-defined Jewish state. Israeli towns were founded on
many of the sites.
The
new state of Israel spread the story that all these Palestinians had left
under orders from Arab leaders. They cited "Arab broadcasts"
telling people to move away so that Arab armies could "operate
without interference." In fact, both US and British intelligence
services were monitoring all broadcasts during this period. Examination
of those records demonstrates:-- Not a single "Arab broadcast"
telling people to leave was recorded. -- Several Arab broadcasts were
recorded telling the population to stay put.-- Israeli forces, meanwhile,
were using threats, violence, and murder to force many Palestinians to
leave their homes.
It
is no longer the official line of the Israeli Foreign Office that Arab
leaders ordered Palestinians to leave Palestine.
Some
of the Palestinian refugees were forced elsewhere in Palestine; most were
forced out of the country altogether. The United Nations set up refugee
camps in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and inside the Palestinian areas
occupied by Jordan and Egypt. Many thousands of Palestinians have lived
in refugee camps ever since.
Many
refugees tried to cross the border back into Israel, mostly in the
attempt to tend their farmlands or homes. Israel treated these returnees
as criminal infiltrators and launched violent reprisals against locations
in Jordan, Syria, and Egyptian-controlled Gaza. Several historians,
including some Israeli, have concluded that not until 1953, after several
years of being violently excluded and attacked by Israel, did Palestinian
refugees begin infiltrating Israel with intent to sabotage.
It
is sometimes claimed that Israel absorbed Jewish refugees from Arab
countries “in exchange" for Palestinian refugees. In fact,
however, Palestinians were driven out starting in 1947, whereas the
movement of Jewish populations from Arab countries did not begin until
after the founding of Israel in 1948, with most of the movement happening
in 1949 and later. Israel enthusiastically solicited Jews from Arab
countries, even arranging for their transport and promising opportunities
that were later not available. Both the inviting of Jews from Arab
countries and the expulsion of Palestinians from Palestine served the
goal of the Zionist movement, which was to establish a Jewish majority in
the new nation of Israel.
The
forced ethnic cleansing of two-thirds of the Palestinian population
between 1947 and 1949 -- called “al-Nakba” in Arabic, or “the
Catastrophe” -- is still a central fact in modern Palestinian
consciousness. It will be difficult to resolve the current crisis without
acknowledging these historical events and causes.
United
Nations Security Council Resolution 194 called for Israel to give
Palestinian refugees the choice of returning to their homes or taking
financial compensation. The acceptance of Israel into the United Nations
was conditional on Israel's compliance with this resolution. Israel has
never complied. Since 1949, both the General Assembly and Security
Council of the United Nations have passed hundreds of resolutions
criticizing Israel. Many of these resolutions have called for the return
of Palestinian refugees, and for the end of the Israeli occupation of the
West Bank and Gaza. The Israeli government, while insisting on
Resolutions 181 and 194 as legal basis for founding its state, has
rejected all other UN resolutions -- including Security Council
resolutions which have the power of law -- as non-binding.
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