Why did the Palestinians leave – 1948 War

This is why I have such contempt for the Kosovars. Americans of the same age were almost called on to die because such cowards wouldn't fight for what they claimed was their own country. Cowardice forfeits the right to self-determination. The yellow Palestinians were relying on the other Arab countries to do their fighting for them. The Jews were overwhelmingly outnumbered and seemed sure to lose the whole country. The British, who had established the Jewish homeland in the first place as a decoy for the next jihad, had changed policy and were anti-Zionist. Despite international appeasement law, which is biased in favor of unfit nations, the courage of the Israelis gave them the right to take the land forfeited by Arab cowards. The Israelis were just following the proven laws of history, which the terminal decadence of the West has no right to change with weak, meaningless, and unenforceable pieces of paper called treaties.

 

You have no idea about either conflict and are opposed to human progress. This is not me trying to initiate a debate, this is me stating some facts.

 

I feel the same way about Cuba. The Communists had guts, the rest were yellow. This doesn't excuse the Communist betrayal of the revolution, but only the brave have the right to rule. Anti-Castro Cubans had the obligation to go into the Sierra Madre and fight just like Castro did. The fact that they never did that, instead they dragged the US into their war obligation, proves that Cubans don't deserve to be free. Freedom is not a free ride.

 

Expulsion of the Palestinians.


http://mondediplo.com/1997/12/palestine

 

The local Arabs did not want to share the territory with the Jews. They wanted to destroy Israel. The traditional and logical law of war is that if one nation tries to destroy another, it deserves to forfeit territory as punishment for aggression. Otherwise, countries can continually invade a targeted country until they win. They must be disabled the first time. The modern rules encourage aggression. Israel won the territory gained in the Six Days War fair and square and never should have given it back to the invaders.

 

No they do not. You can't act as if your moral values are the law...at least you can't do that and be taken seriously. Might does not make right anymore, we have moved on.

 

Yes, that's why they sold their land to the Jews. Come on, try a little harder.

 

And you just imposed your own moral values. But because you have backing from your weakling pseudo- intellectual gurus, you are incapable of realizing that you are being just as judgmental as I am. And I'm proud of it, but your conformity to our disintegrating times is nothing to be proud of.

If you can't judge, you can't think. The ruling-class ventriloquists are using you for a dummy. I don't care what the postmodern decadent fad is concerning moral values. There is nothing wrong with turning back the clock if it is connected to a time bomb.

 

This has nothing to do with my values, this has to do with what is legal under International Law, what is acceptable to those who alliance one seeks as a viable state on the world stage, and the direction we as humans have gone in recognizing each other's humanity. You can argue if this is truly "progress" or not, but you can't deny reality.

 

Local Jews were part of the community. Sharing the country with Europeans might even have been possible. What they did not want was their historical homeland to be taken over by foreigners. You happen to know of any indigenous population who ever has?

 

THE HISTORICAL EVIDENCE:

"Even amidst the violent attacks launched against us for months past, we call upon the sons of the Arab people dwelling in Israel to keep the peace and to play their part in building the State on the basis of full and equal citizenship and due representation in all its institutions, provisional and permanent.
"We extend the hand of peace and good-neighborliness to all the States around us and to their people, and we call upon them to cooperate in mutual helpfulness with the independent Jewish nation in its Land. The State of Israel is prepared to make its contribution in a concerted effort for the advancement of the entire Middle East."

- David Ben-Gurion, in Israel's Proclamation of Independence, read on May 14, 1948, moments before the 6 surrounding Arab armies, trained and armed by the British, invaded the day-old Jewish microstate, with the stated goal of extermination.



"The Arab armies entered Palestine to protect the Palestinians from the Zionist tyranny but, instead, THEY ABANDONED THEM, FORCED THEM TO EMIGRATE AND TO LEAVE THEIR HOMELAND, imposed upon them a political and ideological blockade and threw them into prisons similar to the ghettos in which the Jews used to live in Eastern Europe, as if we were condemned to change places with them; they moved out of their ghettos and we occupied similar ones. The Arab States succeeded in scattering the Palestinian people and in destroying their unity. They did not recognize them as a unified people until the States of the world did so, and this is regrettable".

- by Abu Mazen, from the article titled: "What We Have Learned and What We Should Do", published in Falastin el Thawra, the official journal of the PLO, of Beirut, in March 1976


"The first group of our fifth column consists of those who abandon their houses and businesses and go to live elsewhere. . . . At the first sign of trouble they take to their heels to escape sharing the burden of struggle."

- Ash Shalab (Jaffa newspaper), January 30, 1948


"The Arab streets are curiously deserted and, ardently following the poor example of the more moneyed class there has been an exodus from Jerusalem too, though not to the same extent as in Jaffa and Haifa."

- London Times, May 5, 1948

"The refugees were confident that their absence would not last long, and 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 and that there was no need for panic or fear of a long exile."
- Monsignor George Hakim, Greek Catholic Bishop of Galilee, in the Beirut newspaper Sada al Janub, August 16, 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."

- The London weekly Economist, October 2, 1948


"It must not be forgotten that the Arab Higher Committee encouraged the refugees' flight from their homes in Jaffa, Haifa, and Jerusalem."

- Near East Arabic Broadcasting Station, Cyprus, April 3, 1949


"This wholesale exodus was due partly to the belief of the Arabs, encouraged by the boasting of an unrealistic Arab press and the irresponsible utterances of some of the Arab leaders that it could be only a matter of some weeks before the Jews were defeated by the armies of the Arab States and the Palestinian Arabs enabled to re-enter and retake possession of their country."

- Edward Atiyah (then Secretary of the Arab League Office in London) in The Arabs (London, 1955), p. 183


"The mass evacuation, prompted partly by fear, partly by order of Arab leaders, left the Arab quarter of Haifa a ghost city...By withdrawing Arab workers their leaders hoped to paralyze Haifa.".

- Time, May 3, 1948, p. 25


The Arab exodus, initially at least, was encouraged by many Arab leaders, such as Haj Amin el Husseini, the exiled pro-Nazi Mufti of Jerusalem, and by the Arab Higher Committee for Palestine. They viewed the first wave of Arab setbacks as merely transitory. Let the Palestine Arabs flee into neighboring countries. It would serve to arouse the other Arab peoples to greater effort, and when the Arab invasion struck, the Palestinians could return to their homes and be compensated with the property of Jews driven into the sea.

- Kenneth Bilby, in New Star in the Near East (New York, 1950), pp. 30-31


I do not want to impugn anybody but only to help the refugees. The fact that there are these refugees is the direct consequence of the action of the Arab States in opposing Partition and the Jewish State. The Arab States agreed upon this policy unanimously and they must share in the solution of the problem, [Daily Telegraph, September 6, 1948]

- Emil Ghoury, Secretary of the Arab Higher Committee, the official leadership of the Palestinian Arabs, in the Beirut newspaper, Daily Telegraph, September 6, 1948


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.

- Falastin (Jordanian newspaper), February 19, 1949


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.

- Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Said, quoted in Sir Am Nakbah ("The Secret Behind the Disaster") by Nimr el Hawari, Nazareth, 1952


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 neighboring fraternal states, lest the guns of the invading Arab armies mow them down.

- Habib Issa, Secretary General of the Arab League (Azzam Pasha's successor), in the newspaper Al Hoda, June 8, 1951


Some of the Arab leaders and their ministers in Arab capitals . . . declared that they welcomed the immigration of Palestinian Arabs into the Arab countries until they saved Palestine. Many of the Palestinian Arabs were misled by their declarations.... It was natural for those Palestinian Arabs who felt impelled to leave their country to take refuge in Arab lands . . . and to stay in such adjacent places in order to maintain contact with their country so that to return to it would be easy when, according to the promises of many of those responsible in the Arab countries (promises which were given wastefully), the time was ripe. Many were of the opinion that such an opportunity would come in the hours between sunset and sunrise.

- Arab Higher Committee, in a memorandum to the Arab League, Cairo, 1952, quoted in The Refugee in the World, by Joseph B. Schechtman, 1963

Cont'd

 

"The Arab governments told us: Get out so that we can get in. So we got out, but they did not get in."

- from the Jordan daily Ad Difaa, September 6, 1954


"The Arab civilians panicked and fled ignominiously. Villages were frequently abandoned before they were threatened by the progress of war."

- General Glubb Pasha, in the London Daily Mail on August 12, 1948


"The Arab exodus from other villages was not caused by the actual battle, but by the exaggerated description spread by Arab leaders to incite them to fight the Jews"

- Yunes Ahmed Assad, refugee from the town of Deir Yassin, in Al Urdun, April 9, 1953


"[The Arabs of Haifa] fled in spite of the fact that the Jewish authorities guaranteed their safety and rights as citizens of Israel."

- Monsignor George Hakim, Greek Catholic Bishop of Galilee, according to Rev. Karl Baehr, Executive Secretary of the American Christian Palestine Committee, New York Herald Tribune, June 30, 1949


"Every 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. [However] ...A large road convoy, escorted by [British] military . . . left Haifa for Beirut yesterday. . . . Evacuation by sea goes on steadily. ...
[Two days later, the Jews were] still making every effort to persuade the Arab populace to remain and to settle back into their normal lives in the towns... [as for the Arabs,] another convoy left Tireh for Transjordan, and the evacuation by sea continues. The quays and harbor are still crowded with refugees and their household effects, all omitting no opportunity to get a place an one of the boats leaving Haifa.""

- Haifa District HQ of the British Police, April 26, 1948, quoted in Battleground by Samuel Katz


"The Arabs did not want to submit to a truce they rather preferred to abandon their homes, their belongings and everything they possessed in the world and leave the town. This is in fact what they did."

- Jamal Husseini, Acting Chairman of the Palestine Arab Higher Committee, told to the United Nations Security Council, quoted in the UNSC Official Records (N. 62), April 23, 1948, p. 14


"the military and civil authorities and the Jewish representative expressed their profound regret at this grave decision [to evacuate]. The [Jewish] Mayor of Haifa made a passionate appeal to the delegation to reconsider its decision"

- The Arab National Committee of Haifa, told to the Arab League, quoted in The Refugee in the World, by Joseph B. Schechtman, 1963


"...our city flourished and developed for the good of both Jewish and Arab residents ... Do not destroy your homes with your own hands; do not bring tragedy upon yourselves by unnecessary evacuation and self-imposed burdens. By moving out you will be overtaken by poverty and humiliation. But in this city, yours and ours, Haifa, the gates are open for work, for life, and for peace, for you and your families."

The Haifa Workers' Council bulletin, 28 April 1948


"...the Jewish Hagana asked (using loudspeakers) Arabs to remain at their homes but the most of the Arab population followed their leaders who asked them to leave the country."

The TIMES of London, reporting events of 22.4.48


" The existence of these refugees is a direct result of the Arab States' opposition to the partition plan and the reconstitution of the State of Israel. The Arab states adopted this policy unanimously, and the responsibility of its results, therefore is theirs.
...The flight of Arabs from the territory allotted by the UN for the Jewish state began immediately after the General Assembly decision at the end of November 1947. This wave of emigration, which lasted several weeks, comprised some thirty thousand people, chiefly well-to-do-families."

- Emil Ghory, secretary of the Arab High Council, Lebanese daily Al-Telegraph, 6 Sept 1948


"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 and our appeal to the United Nations to resolve on their return."

- Haled al Azm, the Syrian Prime Minister in 1948-49, The Memoirs of Haled al Azm, (Beirut, 1973), Part 1, pp. 386-387


"Since 1948 it is we who demanded the return of refugees... while it is we who made them to leave... We brought disaster upon... Arab refugees, by inviting them and bringing pressure to bear upon them to leave... We have rendered them dispossessed... We have accustomed them to begging... We have participated in lowering their moral and social level... Then we exploited them in executing crimes of murder, arson, and throwing bombs upon... men, women and children - all this in service of political purposes..."

- Khaled al Azm, Syria's Prime Minister after the 1948 war [note: same person as above]


"As early as the first months of 1948 the Arab League issued orders exhorting the people to seek a temporary refuge in neighboring countries, later to return to their abodes in the wake of the victorious Arab armies and obtain their share of abandoned Jewish property."

- bulletin of The Research Group for European Migration Problems, 1957


One morning in April 1948, Dr. Jamal woke us to say that the Arab Higher Committee (AHC), led by the Husseinis, had warned Arab residents of Talbieh to leave immediately. The understanding was that the residents would be able to return as conquerors as soon as the Arab forces had thrown the Jews out. Dr. Jamal made the point repeatedly that he was leaving because of the AHC's threats, not because of the Jews, and that he and his frail wife had no alternative but to go.

Commentary Magazine -- January 2000, http://www.commentarymagazine.com/0001/letters.html

http://www.peacefaq.com/refugees.html

You can try busting one or two- but you'll never Bust the GIST of Dozens, mostly By Arab leaders and Fair press.

I LOVE CONTESTS!

 

The rule should be that cowards, deserters, and those who expect others to fight for them should have no rights. But Americans love their Chickenhawks!

 

They left for the same reasons the Jews of Europe left Germany or went into hiding.

 

I ALSO LOVE CONTESTS, Try_This. But this is an utter Non-Contest.

I cannot believe that you have had to stoop to dredging up that tired old Commentary Magazine article. It is chock full of propaganda dreamt up in the early 1950 by Shmuel “Goebbels” Katz and was debunked in the 1960s. Now THAT I call really scraping the barrel.

Here’s my one-shot rebuttal to squash the “gist” of your claim.

Israel’s foremost historiographic researcher of that period, Benny Morris, dredged through Israeli state archives, Haganah archives and many other libraries, newspapers and other data sources over 12 years and came up with the following final conclusion as presented by him on pages XIV to XX of his book ““The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited” (Cambridge University Press – 2004) That is a rock-solid reference to the foremost authority on the detail of the creation of the Palestinian refugees. Brace yourself:

Of the 400+ Palestinian settlements depopulated between 1947 and 1949, only five (5) were abandoned on Arab orders.

The score is 412 versus 5 against your Commentary Magazine, Try_This. Bang go all traces of “Gist”

But since you love contests, I will gladly provide you with detail, even though it has been done a half-dozen times on this forum in the past. That is because Myth Theory 101 demands that, even after a MYTH has been annihilated, myth supporters are duty-bound to repeat the MYTHS at regular intervals …. as though they remained pristine and unsullied.

MYTH BUSTED :::: YET AGAIN!!!

Do you seriously want to be shown how many lies and distortionary spin there are in the article that you quoted? If so, please give a signal.

 

29 of the 30 quotes Exist independent of 'Commentary'.
Klipkap FAILS Again.
ie, See my Signature.

LOL,
That's because you have NO rebuttal. There is no Real one.

Um.. Uh.. er.. YEOOOWCH!

Now you've not only got Caught the usual 100% WRONG, But LYING.
Intentional Deception by kilpkap.

One need Only look at YOUR OWN VM's to see you know/were informed Different, by someone about Benny Morris' Conclusion.
From your Own VM"s

Klipkap SREDDED by his own partisan/hand Picked.. expert/EXECUTIONER.

This also goes for Khalil who cited/Is Stuck with Benny 21 times in his Opening posts.

 

The Arabs forfeited any claim to the territory when they refused to declare independence from the Ottoman Empire. The British gained the territory as a legitimate punishment of the Turkish Ottomans for declaring war on them. Breaking up the Ottoman Empire was also legitimate punishment for the 600-year Islamic jihad it had led. In order to deal with the inevitable next jihad, the British established an infidel Jewish state to act as a decoy to it. That was done by a ruling class that hadn't turned decadent yet, including Winston Churchill. The first decadent generation of formerly Great Britain tried to appease the Arabs by going back on their promise to establish an independent Jewish state. The first Zionist war was a war for independence against the British, just like the first American war. So the Israelis earned their self-determination, while the Arabs are merely jealous sore losers. Now that America has taken over the Mandate, its own post-60s decadent ruling class supports these sore losers, who are the present greatest threat to civilization. But our illegitimate rulers want to make us obey their propaganda that we ourselves are that threat.

 

Was that a rebuttal, Try_This?

OK, I can see that I am going to have to do this all over again to show you that “Chinese whisper circular references” have no value. I have no intention of doing them all. That was fully accomplished years ago.

Where’s the verifiable reference that you claim, Try_This. Oh, you mean the “Ad Difaa” report of 6th September 1954, do you? Off you go and try to verify it. I can tell you exactly where the trail stops. It dies at a Samuel (Shmuel) Katz book – “Battleground” (NY: Bantam Books, 1985). There is no evidence back to source.

And so it is which most of your quotes. They die with Shmuel Katz. Go check for yourself (it takes a while). The quote supposedly attributed to Habib dies at the same place (different page). Likewise that of Sada al-Janub; and the Jordanian Newspaper Filastin, (February 19, 1949) quote also disappears there. And dead trails are just so unsatisfactory, aren’t they, Try_This? So suspicious.

Now just because the links die before reaching a source does not mean that they are invalid. It just means that they are non-verifiable and depend on the credibility of the author to ameliorate the suspicion. So let us test the credibility of Katz and Commentary Magazine and its quoted article. Oh, by the way, I noticed that you picked amongst the Commentary magazine quotes for those that you wished to present.

And we can test this credibility of Katz and Commentary Magazine by evaluating the quotes where we CAN find the source or which HAVE been tested against verifiable historical evidence. Is that fair enough, Try_This? Oh, and I hope you don’t mind if I include some Katz/Commentary “proofs” that you chose not to quote.

So off we go to your provided reference. OOOPPSS!!! Guess what. C Mag has withdrawn the page. Didn’t you check when you made that “cut-and-paste” from some Zionist web site participating in that circular referencing, Try_This? But don’t worry; there is a preserved copy here: http://www.science.co.il/Arab-Israeli-conflict/Refugees.asp . I have chosen to test the three most “viral” of the CM quotes; those that feature on just about every Zionist web site addressing the Arab Nakba.

TEST 1: "It must not be forgotten that the Arab Higher Committee encouraged the refugees' flight from their homes in Jaffa, Haifa, and Jerusalem." - - Near East Arabic Broadcasting Station, Cyprus, April 3, 1949 [This Commentary Magazine quote originates from Katz’s book as you can see here: http://www.peaceforourtime.org.uk/page141.html ]

As Khalil posted earlier in this thread, if the Arab leaders were issuing orders, there should have been a strong trail of evidence. In those days the way that administrations and even the Haganah got messages to large numbers of people was by means of broadcasts on the local radio stations. Luckily (?) the BBC was monitoring all broadcasts in the area from their base in Cyprus. . It seems that Katz had found evidence for this. Let’s test his claim. In fact it had alreqady been tested a long time ago. You can find results of the test done by Erskine Childers here (click) He went through the entire Cyprus broadcast archive for the period. You really should try to read all of it, Try_This.

Did the BBC simply do a poor monitoring job? Here is Walid Khalidi from the same reference:

Based on these first-hand investigations I cannot see how anyone could conclude other than that Shmuel Katz made up the story about the Near East Arabic Broadcasting Station, Cyprus, April 3, 1949 records purporting to show that the Arab leadership encouraged the Palestinian flight. Let's be honest. He lied.

TEST 2: "The refugees were confident that their absence would not last long, and 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 and that there was no need for panic or fear of a long exile."
- Monsignor George Hakim, Greek Catholic Bishop of Galilee, in the Beirut newspaper Sada al Janub, August 16, 1948"

Lucky for us this claim was also investigated, here (click)

TEST3: "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."

- The London weekly Economist, October 2, 1948”

Here is what a reading of the full Economist article revealed (same as previous referenced source):

I put it to you that both Shmuel Katz and Commentary Magazine failed our credibility test abominably!! All of their “dead” sources can therefore also be tossed on the trash heap.

Try_This, these proofs and a host more were supplied over five years ago by Ashley Kennedy. I was stunned when I read them but I was even more stunned when a few weeks after she had obliterated all Commentary credibility, the same crap was posted again by Abu Afak and Moshe3. And you have continued with that debunked chorus.

I am glad that you like contests, Try_This.

MYTH BUSTED!!!

But all of these test were in fact unnecessary. The foremost Israeli archive historiographer, Benny Morris, has concluded from many years of study that in only five cases was the most direct cause for the depopulation of 400+ Arab settlements, the instructions to leave them by the Arab leadership. I repeat - in only 5 out of 400+ cases. If the official Israeli archives show this, why are we pursuing dead claims to the contrary?

Oh, I see why. Try-This has offered a rebuttal of Moris' published conclusion. I will address that next.

.... (to be continued) ....

 

Who is us? I was under the impression that this is a debate between readers... Who died and nominated you the 'porte parole' of <us>.????????

 

Benny Morris RECANTED...

BENNY MORRIS Wrote the following
April 17, 2004
To the Editor:
Re "An Israeli Who's Got Everybody Outraged," by Jonathan D. Tepperman (Arts & Ideas, April 17), about my views on Israel's past and present:
To expel armed thugs who are trying to murder you in your home is not a war crime. And this is ultimately what happened to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who tried to destroy Israel in 1948. But massacre and rape are crimes, and their perpetrators are to be reviled.
Israel indeed has "a moral obligation" to compromise. I continue to oppose the settlements and believe that a two-state solution is just and practical. But I fear that the Palestinians want all of Palestine. That is why they rejected the Clinton-Barak proposals in 2000 as they did the Peel Commission proposals in 1937 and the United Nations partition resolution in 1947 and insist on the refugees' "right of return" to Israel, which would spell instant death for the Jewish state.
The Middle East peace process did not just "collapse," as Mr. Tepperman would have it; it was bombed and bludgeoned and knifed to death by Yasir Arafat.
BENNY MORRIS
Jerusalem, April 17, 2004
----------------------------------------------------------

Post-Zionist Historian Benny Morris Clarifies His Thesis
www.memri.org
Arab propagandists on NM have always used the writing of historian 'Benny Morris' to illustrate their historical quasi truth; here is what B. Morris says in relation to that...
For the past two decades, Benny Morris - a prominent Israeli and international academic, and a leading figure in Israel's Post-Zionism camp - has been advocating the notion that Israel's official version of history is filled with misconceptions and misleading myths. However, in a surprising recent interview, Morris now argues that others have misconstrued his thesis. He argues that the Palestinians, not Israel, are to blame for the ongoing conflict and for the current state of affairs.
In an interview with Yediot Ahronot, Morris clarified his positions regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (this interview followed a September 2001 lecture at UC Berkley's Theological Institute in which Morris first articulated these positions). Following are excerpts from the article, which included an interview with Morris.(1)


"The audience at UC Berkley's Theological Institute thought it knew what they were in for. Professor Benny Morris promised them a lecture on the peace process - an Israeli historian, well-known leftist, who had a hard time finding a niche in Israel's academia due to his extreme opinions, which reject [Israel's] official Zionist history. Berkley is still the stronghold of America's radical left [and] all the listeners who filled the lecture
hall was sure that the lecturer would say exactly what they wanted to hear: that Israel is to blame for everything, that Israel is the aggressor and the evil perpetrator, that the Palestinians are the good guys..."
"Morris had different plans. He knew exactly what was in store for his audience: a surprise, a big surprise. [In the lecture] he told them that the Palestinians have been
obstinately refusing to accept any compromise since the 1930's. They refused to accept the 1937 Partition Plan of the Peel Commission (a Jewish State on 20% of the Sharon and Galilee regions of territorial Palestine), they rejected the 1947 UN partition plan (an Arab state on 40% of the territory), they did not even want to hear about Sadat and Begin's [1979] Autonomy Plan (which was a part of the Camp David Accord and which was never implemented), and they rejected Bill Clinton's generous offer (which included 95% of the West Bank). To make a long story short, [Morris said that] the Jews always agreed [to various compromise offers] whereas the Arabs always refused to accept them, and the blame falls squarely on the Palestinians. They have been making historic mistakes for seventy years now, and there is a price for historic mistakes..."
"Yes, the Palestinians are to blame. And this is true not only because they rejected Ehud Barak's generous offer but also because they are unwilling to come to terms with Israel's existence here. They want to throw [the Jews] into the ocean, and anyone who holds a different opinion is mistaken. These are the words of the Historian."
Were The Palestinians Forced to Leave?
"One has to go back in time thirteen years in order to understand how surprising [Morris'] statements are. Morris - a Jerusalem Post reporter at the time, a Cambridge
University PhDs, and a Kibbutz and [Israeli Defense Force] Paratroopers veteran - published his book The Birth of The Palestinian Refugee Problem in 1988. His book created an immediate outburst [of an acute debate in Israel]."
"Up until then, it was generally assumed that 700,000 Palestinians left their homes voluntarily during the 1948 War of Independence, following promises by their leaders
that they will be able to return and plunder Jewish property when the war was over.
According to what Morris wrote in his 1988 book, that never happened; these stories
are nonsense. The leaders of the Yishuv [the Jewish Zionist community in pre-state Israel] believed in a transfer, and in their actions contributed much to the fleeing of the
refugees. Some ran away to escape the battles, others left after the Jews made their lifes difficult, and still others were simply expelled. [According to Morris' 1988 book], the
Palestinians did not leave and did not run away, these words are too soft. They were also not expelled - that word is too harsh. The Palestinians "were driven out."
"[After the book was published,] Morris became [Israel's] public enemy number one, and the price he paid was considerable. He was fired from The Jerusalem Post and he had a hard time finding a job in Israel's academia despite the success of his book outside of Israel..."
"In the heart of every Palestinian exists a desire that the State of Israel will not be here anymore."

"[Morris] is denying that his views have shifted. He claims that this was his opinion all along. However, no one knew it. Even when he expressed his opinion, the interviewers
preferred not to quote him on that. 'It is not politically correct,' he says. Nevertheless, he admits, he has a lot of built up anger over the past two years against the Palestinians since they rejected Clinton's proposal. He says that Barak also made mistakes but that these were marginal. The bottom line is that Barak accepted Clinton's generous proposal which demanded [of him] to give up 95% of the West Bank, 100% of Gaza, and to divide Jerusalem."
"By the way, with regards to Jerusalem, Morris disagrees with Barak. Morris would not be willing to give up the Temple Mount."
Morris: "If there is a nation that deserves the title to the Temple Mount it is we. But injustice was perpetrated and two mosques were erected on the ruins of the [Jewish]
Temple 1,400 years ago, and [now] the Arabs [also] have a claim to the Temple Mount. I accept a compromise in which both Jews and Arabs will control the Temple Mount. But why should the Palestinians have sole control over there? Why? What kind of justice is that?"
"In any case, everything shrinks when compared with Yasser Arafat's mistake [when he] rejected the Clinton proposal. "Both people - Israelis and Palestinians - are paying with
their lives for [the Palestinian] mistakes" Morris says..."
"In Camp David and Taba the issue of the 'right of return' emerged; it was prominent [in the discussions]. The Israelis claimed that the Palestinian demand to allow
millions of refugees to return into Israel destroys any possibility for peace, since this demand translates into the destruction of the state of the Jews. The Palestinian spokespersons tried to downplay the gravity of the dispute. Publicly they continued to demand the 'right of return,' while at the same time they were hinting [to the Israelis] that it would be possible to reach an agreement on this issue. In his book A Guide for the Wounded Dove, Yossi Beilin - who headed the Taba negotiation team in charge of
the refugee issue - claims that he reached satisfactory agreements on this issue with the Palestinians."
to be continued

 

Nothing is ever certain. There is fear in Israel right now about being out-numbered in Israel. I first heard mention of it when Kissinger said something about there not being an Israel in ten years. Now, Israelis are talking about that likely possibility themselves. Furthermore, over half of Israel thinks they'll get torn-up, severely, if they attack Iran.

 

In this thread we have seen that studies by Benny Morris of many different archives on the depopulation of Israel of Palestinians resulted in a summary by him that almost 400 Arab settlements were depopulated by actions of the Zionist military and only 6 were the result of exhortations by the Arab leadership for their followers to leave their homes. That is incredibly evocative evidence for the Zionists being guilty of ethnic cleansing, especially when it is considered that 700 000+ Palestinians (at least 75% of the erstwhile population) were affected by the Nakba.

Borat and HBendor came to the rescue by claiming that Benny Morris had changed his view. He now believes that the Palestinians were responsible for their own expulsion.

So Morris’ recantation is that the Palestinians who were (for instance) forced into the Death March from Lydda (Lod) were made to do so because they were “armed thugs who are trying to murder you in your home”

Note that Morris does not deny that they were expelled (by the Zionist militia). What he states is that these militia were not committing a war crime. His original research stands; he is just putting spin on the results. That is NOT a recanting.

Here we have the difference between Morris the expert research historiographer, and Morris the clumsy political speculator. Why do I say that? Well, read it again. The tens of thousands who were frog-marched out of Lod and died on route were murdering thugs??!! Where is Morris’ evidence in his research reports that these people committed such crimes ‘en masse’?

I have Morris’ definitive book in front of me. Nowhere does he even hint that such was the case. In fact, as just one example amongst hundreds, he writes regarding the expulsion of the people of Lod:

# (page 429) “Operation Dani HQ issued the following orders to Yiftah brigade: ‘The inhabitants of Lydda must be expelled quickly without attention to age” – signed by Yitzhak Rabin. “The old, women and children will be transported by vehicle … and moved across the lines”. This was an expulsion of murderous thugs? Yeah ... right!!

# (page 430) “Minority Affairs Minister Shi-trit (yes, the profanity checker is lame – I had to add the hyphen) was shocked by what he saw and heard. Kiryati troops were about to expel the inhabitants. … Ben-Gal told him that (it) was in line with an order from General Allon. …. Upset and angry Shi-trik returned to Tel Aviv. … Ben-Gurion apparently failed to tell Shi-trik that he had been the source of the expulsion orders.

# (I can give tens of dozens of examples of other Palestinian settlements in similar vein)

But why don't you look for yourself to see Morris' archival evidence for the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians (click for access to Morris' book here) --- note his impeccable referencing to State, IDF, Haganah, and Palmach archives -

I put it to you that the Morris letter that you quote was nothing like a recantation of the direct cause of the expulsions by the Zionist militia of Palestinian inhabitants.

Why did Morris undergo this change of emphasis?; this switch away from the direct reason for the depopulations of the Palestinian settlements? I believe that you provide the answer in your own post: It was spin to get his arse out of the sling

And there you had the reason for this ‘volte face’ all along!!

Morris did not recant. He put a transparently nonsense spin, without withdrawing even one single quote from his book on the direct reasons for the expulsions. And the Apologists opened their mouths and swallowed, and Benny was once again a good Jewish boy.

How transparent!!

.... (perhaps to be continued - but I think the case is clear) ....

 

…. (continued) ….

More on Morris the Chameleon:

1) Ari Shavit (senior correspondent at Haaretz Newspaper and a member of its editorial board) (click here for source): “Two years ago, different voices began to be heard. The historian [1] who was considered a radical leftist suddenly maintained that Israel had no one to talk to. The researcher[1] who was accused of being an Israel hater (and was boycotted by the Israeli academic establishment) began to publish articles in favor of Israel.

Whereas citizen Morris[2] turned out to be a not completely snow-white dove, historian Morris [1] continued to work … So that in the past two years citizen Morris [2]and historian Morris [1] worked as though there is no connection between them, as though one was trying to save what the other insists on eradicating.

2) Avi Shlaim has also referred to these two faces of Morris. He calls them Morris the historiographic researcher, and Morris the political commentator. He goes so far as to accord Morris the label “schizophrenic”.

3) In his book “Wounds of Peace; Scares of War” the ex-Foreign Minister of Israel was kinder. On page 43 he writes: “… Benny Morris, whose thesis about the birth of the refugee problem being not by design but by the natural logic and evolution of war is not always sustained by the very evidence he himself provides”

Even so, with mounting evidence of Morris’ two faces, in all of his more recent back-pedaling works he never once retracts even a single conclusion regarding the most direct reasons for the depopulation of the vast majority of the Arab settlements in Palestine. NOT ONCE. It remains the actions of the various Zionist militia forces.

And the best reason to explain Morris the Chameleon remains the evidence that HBendor provided:

Crystal clear.

 

Palestinian refugees did not leave of their own free-will, at first, they were being forced out through many different methods- physical and violent, threats, harassment, political maneuvers and pressures, etc. But mostly, news of the physical and violent expulsion of Palestinians from their land soon spread to other Palestinians, and Palestinians in other places began to leave to avoid the "your next" thing. For perspective, the Palestinians did to Israel what the Jews did not do in Germany when they realized the State was becoming increasingly violent towards them.

Further, many Palestinians simply wanted to return to their homes, and countless applications for citizenship were submitted...and rejected. Palestinians were not allowed back because they were hostile, they weren't allowed back because they were Palestinian. At that time Palestinians outnumbered Jews. If they allowed Palestinians to become citizens in an Israeli Democracy, then the country would become dominantly Palestinian. This was one of the reasons, along with the simple fact that Israel wanted to grow. Israel is a very, very small country. It wants to be a big one. Simple.

 

'The Palestinians' didn't leave at all; some Palestinians left, other Palestinians stayed, like the Jews and Christians and Druze and others. No point in 'debating' a fallacious point from the get go. Didn't bother reading past the original and demonstrably false premise.