Reply #15: More fruit.

[Behind the Aegis]

"Transcripts from Arab radio broadcasts all show that Palestinians were told to stay." However, I actually said: "While the number is probably in the correct ballpark, the Jews weren't the only ones 'expelling' and intimidating Palestinians into flight."

As early as December, 1947, Arabs had begun abandoning their homes and leaving Palestine. The exodus began earliest in Arab neighborhoods of West Jerusalem such as Rumeima (now Romema). By the time the British left Palestine, about a quarter of a million Arabs had become refugees. Another half million, approximately, fled or were forced to leave during the war. The reasons for leaving varied. In Beersheba and Safed, the Arabs left before Jewish troops had entered. In Lod and Ramlah, the Arab population was expelled by force, as were Arabs who remained in Isdood (Ashdod) and other towns. Subsequently Israel enacted a law that forbade the return of refugees. During the war, Jews fled from areas conquered by Arabs without exception, or were escorted out as in the old City of Jerusalem. No Jews at all were allowed to return to the the West Bank areas conquered by Jordan in 1948, and all their property was turned over to a Custodian of Absentee property, as the Israeli did for property of Arabs who had fled.

Israeli partisans often assert that the Arab Palestinian refugees left because Arab radio broadcasts and Arab leaders told them to leave and make way for invading Arab armies, promising them a quick and easy return. Palestinian partisans claim this is not so, and that the Palestinians were forcibly expelled. In fact, there is evidence of expulsion, of fear of expulsion but also of encouragement by Arab leaders to leave. Perhaps the most potent factor was that in many towns the leaders of the Arab communities had already left, as pointed out by Benny Morris and others.

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Encouragement by Arab Leaders and Rumors - A study by Childers, which examined British monitoring of Arab broadcasts during that period, did not find any evidence that Arab leaders called on Palestinians to leave their homes. However, considerable evidence and testimony exists that at different times, Arab leaders encouraged refugees to flee. This issue has been inflated beyond its actual importance. It has no real significance in international law, except to counter or support the Palestinian claims of expulsion by force.

During a fact-finding mission to Gaza in June 1949, Sir John Troutbeck, head of the British Middle East office in Cairo and no friend to Israel or the Jews, found that while the refugees "express no bitterness against the Jews (or for that matter against the Americans or ourselves) they speak with the utmost bitterness of the Egyptians and other Arab states. "We know who our enemies are," they will say, and they are referring to their Arab brothers who, they declare, persuaded them unnecessarily to leave their home. . . ."

The Economist, reported on October 2, 1948: "Of the 62,000 Arabs who formerly lived in Haifa not more than 5,000 or 6,000 remained. Various factors influenced their decision to seek safety in flight. There is but little doubt that the most potent of the factors were the announcements made over the air by the Higher Arab Executive, urging the Arabs to quit....It was clearly intimated that those Arabs who remained in Haifa and accepted Jewish protection would be regarded as renegades."

Times Magazine (May 3, 1948) reported: "The mass evacuation, prompted partly by fear, partly by orders of Arab leaders, left the Arab quarter of Haifa a ghost city....By withdrawing Arab workers their leaders hoped to paralyze Haifa."

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Nimr el Hawari, the Commander of the Palestine Arab Youth Organization, in his book Sir Am Nakbah (The Secret Behind the Disaster, published in Nazareth in 1955), quoted the Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Said as saying "We will smash the country with our guns and obliterate every place the Jews seek shelter in. The Arabs should conduct their wives and children to safe areas until the fighting has died down."

Habib Issa wrote in the New York Lebanese daily newspaper Al Hoda on June 8, 1951, " The Secretary General of the Arab League, Azzam Pasha, assured the Arab peoples that the occupation of Palestine and of Tel Aviv would be as simple as a military promenade... He pointed out that they were already on the frontiers and that all the millions the Jews had spent on land and economic development would be easy booty, for it would be a simple matter to throw Jews into the Mediterranean. -- Brotherly advice was given to the Arabs of Palestine to leave their land, homes, and property and to stay temporarily in neighbouring fraternal states, lest the guns of the invading Arab armies mow them down."

source

"More Jews emigrate to Germany than to Israel, so it seems that yes, Jews can live in Germany, as is right." Again, this has nothing to do with what I said! Apples and Oranges. There is NO "right of return" for German Jews.

"But Palestinians, no matter how peaceful, cannot return to Israel, even buy a home in Israel, if they are refugees (Olmert has promised NOT ONE refugee would be allowed to return...in all the land of Israel, ever)." And like any other country, Israel can determine who can and cannot live within its borders.

"Why do you think "The "catastrophe" is that Israel (i.e. the Jews) was not crushed as promised"?" I think that falls under 'asked and answered,' actually, 'answered and asked,' in this case.

"Is that your definition of the catastrophe?" It is one of my definitions.

"Shouldn't we permit the Palestinians to define for themselves their pain, their history, their words?" They are and have.

"It seems clear that it was the Palestinians who were crushed, it was the Palestinians who were literally pushed out to the sea." Not really, that is your opinion. They lost much and there should be no dispute over that fact. As for being "pushed into the sea," no, that didn't happen, they were pushed into lands owned by the very people who attacked Israel over and over and use them as "pawns" in an effort to destroy Israel. They have since learned they cannot do it militarily, so now they are using diplomatic and the public opinion routes.

"Why can't there be mutual remembrance?" There can be, I have never said anything of the sort. But comparing al-Nakaba and the Holocaust, well, that is apples and oranges.

"Shouldn't the world recognize the suffering of all people?" Yes, and that includes that of the Jews and not using the Holocaust as a segue!

"Isn't that a critical step in ending the conflict?" No.