Craig Baker

Why are there Palestinian refugees? In the months before the British abandoned its mandate & Israel declared independence, civil war raged as Arab factions tried to prevent the Jewish state from being born. Of course, had the Arabs agreed to the UN's partition plan, they would have had yet another state & there would have been no war in 1948. But their goal was not another Arab state; it was to ensure there would be no Jewish state. Meanwhile, 5 #Arab armies amassed on the borders & waited for the British to leave so they could push the Jews into the #Mediterranean Sea. As Secretary-General of the Arab League Azzam Pasha put it on the day of the Arab #invasion: "This will be a war of extermination & momentous massacre, which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades." Or as the then war #criminal & fugitive #Nazi Grand Mufti Amin al-Husseini put it during the invasion: "Murder the #Jews. Murder them all!" But before the invasion began, & starting as early as Dec 1947, Arab officers began ordering Arab residents of specific villages to flee. Their reasoning? Arab citizens not involved in active fighting could only: (1) "treacherously" abide the creation of a the Jewish state &/or even become citizens of same; or (2) be in the way of Arab #military deployments & potentially get caught in the crossfire. And so, for example, on this day (March 8) in 1948, the Arab Higher Committee ordered all Arab women, children & elderly to leave Jerusalem. The order continued, "Any opposition to this order ... is an obstacle to the holy war ... & will hamper the operations of the fighters in these districts.” In fact, the Arab Higher Committee ordered the evacuation of dozens of Arab villages between April & July of 1948 (see photo of Arab citizens fleeing below). Meanwhile, on April 19, 1948, Jewish forces secured Tiberias, which had a population of ~6,000 #Arabs - all of whom chose to leave. In fact, they left under British military supervision. The Jewish Community Council immediately issued a statement regarding Tiberias' Arabs: "We did not dispossess them; they themselves chose this course ... Let no citizen touch their property." At around this same time, in early & mid-April of 1948, an Arab faction led by Fawzi al-Qawukji was attacking Haifa & attempting to take the city. Then, rumors spread among Haifa's Arab community that Arab air forces were about to bomb the city & ~25,000 of Haifa's Arabs fled. As U.S. Consul-General in Haifa Aubrey Lippincott noted on April 22, 1948: "local mufti-dominated Arab leaders ... [urged] all Arabs to leave the city, & large numbers did so." On April 23, 1948, however, #Jewish forces fought back the Arab attack & retook Haifa. Three days later, on April 26, 1948, a British police report from Haifa noted: "[E]very effort is being made by the Jews to persuade the Arab populace to stay and carry on with their normal lives, to get their shops and businesses open and to be assured that their lives and interests will be safe." What were some of those "efforts?" Israel's first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, sent future Prime Minister Golda Meir to Haifa with the direct instructions to "persuade the Arabs to stay." Ms. Meir was unsuccessful, however, as Haifa's Arabs told her they feared that if they stayed, they would be branded "#traitors." And so, another ~25,000 of Haifa's Arabs fled. Stop me if you've heard this one before, but despite facts on the ground, Arab leaders at the #UN began demanding the end to a fake "#massacre." Specifically, #Syria's UN Ambassador Faris al-Kouri, said the Jewish victory at Haifa was a "massacre" that provided "evidence that the '#Zionist program' is to annihilate Arabs within the Jewish state if partition is effected." The #British were still on the ground, however, & the British Ambassador to the UN, Sir Alexander Cadogan, told the UN the very next day both that the fighting in Haifa had only begun as a result of "continuous attacks by Arabs against Jews" & that the "reports of massacres & deportations [were] erroneous." Meanwhile, after Israel declared its independence & was invaded by five Arab armies, the newly established #IDF issued an Order on July 6, 1948, making it clear that non-combatant Arab civilians were not to be harassed or expelled, nor their villages touched. But the Arabs were being given a very different message. #Iraqi #PrimeMinister Nuri Said announced: "We will smash the country with our guns & obliterate every place the Jews seek shelter in. The Arabs should conduct their wives & children to safe areas until the fighting has died down." This used to be known. In fact, Arab leaders for years after the war had no qualms about repeating it. For example, Syrian Prime Minister Haled al Azm later wrote: "Since 1948, we have been demanding the return of the #refugees to their homes. But we ourselves are the ones who encouraged them to leave. Only a few months separated our call to them to leave & our appeal to the UN to resolve on their return." Similarly, #Jordan's King Abdullah wrote: "The tragedy of the #Palestinians was that most of their leaders had paralyzed them with false & unsubstantiated promises that they were not alone; that 80 million Arabs & 400 million #Muslims would instantly & miraculously come to their rescue." Similarly, Edward Atiyah, Secretary of the Arab League Office in #London wrote: "This wholesale #exodus was due partly to the belief of the Arabs, encouraged by the boastings of an unrealistic #Arabic press & the irresponsible utterances of some of the Arab leaders that it could be only a matter of weeks before the Jews were defeated by the armies of the Arab States & the #Palestinian Arabs enabled to re­enter & retake possession of their country.” Even as the war still raged on Aug 16, 1948, the Arab #Greek Orthodox Catholic Bishop of the Galilee told #Beirut newspaper Sada al-Janub: “The refugees were confident their absence would not last long, & that they would return within a week or two ... Their leaders had promised them that the Arab Armies would crush the ’Zionist gangs’ very quickly & that there was no need for panic or fear of a long exile.” A few months later, on Feb 19, 1949, the Jordanian newspaper Filastin confirmed: "The Arab States encouraged the Palestine Arabs to leave their homes temporarily in order to be out of the way of the Arab invasion armies." Even many of the Palestinian Arab refugees themselves admitted their reasons for leaving. For example, on June 8, 1951, Habib Issa admitted to #NewYork Lebanese newspaper Al Hoda: "Azzam Pasha assured the Arab peoples that the #occupation of Palestine & #TelAviv would be ... simple ... He pointed out that they were already on the frontiers & that all the millions the Jews had spent on land & economic development would be easy booty, for it would be a simple matter to throw Jews into the Mediterranean ... Arabs of Palestine [were told] to leave their land, homes & property & to stay temporarily in neighboring fraternal states, lest the guns of the invading Arab armies mow them down.” Similarly, Asmaa Jabir Balasimah recalled being told by Arab leaders to "evacuate the village & return after the battle is over," & that she & others in her village left all their possessions behind "based on the assumption that we would return after a few hours." Again, however (& most importantly), had the Arabs agreed to Partition or even agreed to negotiate different borders with Zionist leaders who begged Azzam Pasha to make any counteroffer instead of invading with #genocidal intent, there would never have been a single Palestinian #refugee. #Education #Israel #Palestine