Nakba
“Those good Jews brought civilization and peace to the Arab Muslims, and they dispersed gold and prosperity over Palestine without damage to anyone or taking anything by force. Despite this, the Muslims declared holy war against them and did not hesitate to massacre their children and women… Thus a black fate awaits the Jews and other minorities in case the Mandates are cancelled and Muslim Syria is united with Muslim Palestine.”
The statement is from a letter sent to the French Prime Minister in June 1936 by six Syrian Alawi notables (the Alawis are the ruling class in Syria today) in support of Zionism. The grandfather of Hafez al-Assad, the former Fuhrer of Syria, was one of them. (Source, Daniel Pipes, Greater Syria, Oxford U Press, p. 179)
A collection of historical quotations relating to the Arab refugees:
Collected by Moshe Kohn
ON APRIL 23, 1948 Jamal Husseini, acting chairman of the Palestine ArabHigher Committee (AHC), told the UN Security Council: “The Arabs did notwant to submit to a truce … They preferred to abandon their homes,belongings and everything they possessed.”
ON SEPTEMBER 6, 1948, the Beirut Daily Telegraph quoted Emil Ghory, secretary of the AHC, as saying: “The fact that there are those refugees isthe direct consequence of the action of the Arab states in opposingpartition and the Jewish state. The Arab states agreed upon this policy unanimously…”
ON JUNE 8, 1951, Habib Issa, secretary-general of the Arab League, wrote in the New York Lebanese daily al-Hoda that in 1948, Azzam Pasha, then League secretary, had “assured the Arab peoples that the occupation of Palestine and of Tel Aviv would be as simple as a military promenade … Brotherly advice was given to the Arabs of Palestine to leave their land, homes and property, and to stay temporarily in neighbouring fraternal states.”
IN THE MARCH 1976 issue of Falastin a-Thaura, then the official journal of the Beirut-based PLO, Mahmud Abbas (“Abu Mazen”), PLO spokesman, wrote: “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, and threw them into prisons similar to the ghettos in which the Jews used to live.”
ON APRIL 9, 1953, the Jordanian daily al-Urdun quoted a refugee, Yunes Ahmed Assad, formerly of Deir Yassin, as saying: “For the flight and fall of the other villages, it is our leaders who are responsible, because of the dissemination of rumours exaggerating Jewish crimes and describing them as atrocities in order to inflame the Arabs … they instilled fear and terror into the hearts of the Arabs of Palestine until they fled, leaving their homes and property to the enemy.”
ANOTHER refugee told the Jordanian daily a-Difaa on September 6, 1954: “The Arab governments told us, ‘Get out so that we can get in.’ So we got out, but they did not get in.”
THE JORDANIAN daily Falastin wrote on February 19, 1949: “The Arab states… encouraged the Palestinian Arabs to leave their homes temporarily in order to be out of the way of the Arab invasion armies.”
ON OCTOBER 2, 1948, the London Economist reported, in an eyewitness account of the flight of Haifa’s Arabs: “There is little doubt that the most potent of the factors [in the flight] were the announcements made over the air by the Arab Higher Executive urging all Arabs in Haifa to quit … And it was clearly intimated that those Arabs who remained in Haifa and accepted Jewish protection would be regarded as renegades.”
THE PRIME Minister of Syria in 1948, Khaled al-Azem, in his memoirs, published in 1973, listed what he thought were the reasons for the Arabfailure in 1948: ” … the fifth factor was the call by the Arab governments to theinhabitants of Palestine to evacuate it and leave for the bordering Arab countries … We brought destruction upon a million Arab refugees bycalling on them and pleading with them to leave their land.”
“FOLLOWING a visit to refugees in Gaza, a British diplomat reported the following: ‘But while they express no bitterness against theJews…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 homes.” -
British Foreign Office Document #371/75342/XC/A/4991 [From "Revising or Devising Israel's History" by Prof. Shlomo Slonim in Jewish Action, Summer 5760/2000, Vol. 60 #4]
Collected by Joseph E. Katz
Middle Eastern Political and Religious History Analyst
Brooklyn, New York
1.Research reported by the Arab-sponsored Institute for Palestine Studies in Beirut. (Also given by Joan Peters, in her classic work “From Time Immemorial,” on page 13) that “the majority” of the Arab refugees in 1948 were not expelled . . . “68%” left without seeing an Israeli soldier.”
2. Report in Jaffa newspaper Ash Sha’ab, January 30, 1948.
“The first of our fifth column consists of those who abandon their houses and businesses and go to live elsewhere . At the first signs of trouble they take to their heels to escape sharing the burden of struggle.”
3. Jamal Husseini, Acting Chairman of the Palestine Arab Higher Committee, speaking to the United Nations Security Council. Quoted in the UNSC Official Records (N. 62), April 23, 1948, p. 14.
“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.”
4. From a memorandum by The Arab National Committee in Haifa to the Arab League Governments. 27 April 1948.
“ when the delegation entered the conference room it proudly refused to sign the truce and asked that the evacuation of the Arab population and their transfer to neighboring Arab countries be facilitated.”
5. Emile Ghoury, secretary of the Palestinian Arab Higher Committee, in an interview with the Beirut Telegraph, Sept. 6, 1948.
“The fact that there are these refugees is the direct consequence of the act of the Arab states in opposing partition and the Jewish state. The Arab states agree upon this policy unanimously and they must share in the solution of the problem.”
6. Jordanian daily newspaper Falistin, Feb 19, 1949.
“The Arab states which had encouraged the Palestinian Arabs to leave their homes temporarily in order to be out of the way of the Arab invasion armies, have failed to keep their promise to help these refugees.”
7. Radio broadcast by the Near East Arabic Broadcasting Station, Cyprus. April 3 1949.
“It must not be forgotten that the Arab Higher Committee encouraged the refugees’ flight from their homes in Jaffa, Haifa, and Jerusalem.”
8. Musa Alami, a leading Palestinian nationalist of the time, revealed the attitude of the fleeing Arabs in his article “The Lesson of Palestine”, Middle East Journal, Vol. 3, No. 4, October 1949, pp. 373-405.
“The Arabs of Palestine left their homes, were scattered, and lost everything. But there remained one solid hope: The Arab armies were on the eve of their entry into Palestine to save the country and return things to their normal course, punish the aggressor, and throw oppressive Zionism with its dreams and dangers into the sea. On May 14, 1948, crowds of Arabs stood by the roads leading to the frontiers of Palestine, enthusiastically welcoming the advancing armies.”
“Days and weeks passed, sufficient to accomplish the sacred mission, but the Arab armies did not save the country. They did nothing but let slip from their hands Acre, Sarafand, Lydda, Ramleh, Nazareth, most of the south and the rest of the north. Then hope fled.”
9. Statement by the Arab National Committee of Haifa in memorandum to the Arab States, April 27, 1950. Cited by Peter Dodd and Halim Barakat, “River Without Bridges. – A Study of the Exodus of the 1967 Arab Palestinian Refugees”. Beirut 1969
“The removal of the Arab inhabitants was voluntary and was carried out at our request The Arab delegation proudly asked for the evacuation of the Arabs and their removal to the neighboring Arab countries . We are very glad to state that the Arabs guarded their honour and traditions with pride and greatness.”
10. Report by Habib Issa in the New York Lebanese newspaper, Al Hoda, June 8, 1951.
“The Secretary-General of the Arab League, Azzam Pasha, assured the Arab peoples that the occupation of Palestine and 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.”
11. The Beirut Muslim weekly Kul-Shay, Aug. 19, 1951.
“Who brought the Palestinians to Lebanon as refugees, suffering now from the malign attitude of newspapers and communal leaders, who have neither honor nor conscience? Who brought them over in dire straits and penniless, after they lost their honor? The Arab states, and Lebanon amongst them, did it.”
12. 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.”
13. The Egyptian daily Akhbar El Yom, Oct 12, 1963.
“The 15th May, 1948 arrived on that day the Mufti of Jerusalem appealed to the Arabs of Palestine to leave the country, because the Arab countries were about to enter and fight in their stead.”
14. Khaled al-`Azm, who served as Prime Minister of Syria in 1948 and 1949, wrote in his memoirs, Beirut 1973 (Part 1, pp. 386-387). that among the reasons for the Arab failure in 1948 was . . .
“the call by the Arab Governments to the inhabitants of Palestine to evacuate it and to leave for the bordering Arab countries, after having sown terror among them 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 We have brought destruction upon a million Arab refugees, by calling upon them and pleading with them to leave their land, their homes, their work and business ”
15. Fuad Abu Higla, columnist, writing in PA daily Al Hayat Al Jadida, March 19, 2001. He quotes a prisoner from the 1948 generation. (Per Palestinian Media Watch)
“To the [Arab and Muslim] Kings and Presidents, “Poverty is killing us, the symptoms are exhausting us and the souls are leaving our body, yet you are still searching for the way to provide aid, like one who is looking for a needle in a haystack or like the armies of your predecessors in the year of 1948, who forced us to leave [Israel], on the pretext of clearing the battlefields of civilians So what will your summit do now?”
16. From Asmaa Jabir Balasimah Um Hasan, who fled Israel in 1948. Quoted from Al-Ayyam May 16, 2006 per Palestinian Media Watch.
“We heard sounds of explosions and of gunfire at the beginning of the summer in the year of the Nakbah [1948]. They told us: The Jews attacked our region and it is better to evacuate the village and return, after the battle is over. And indeed there were among us [who fled Israel] those who left a fire burning under the pot, those who left their flock [of sheep] and those who left their money and gold behind, based on the assumption that we would return after a few hours.”
17. Journalist Mahmud Al-Habbash, in the official PA paper, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, in his column “The Pulse of Life”, December 13, 2006.
“The leaders and the elites promised us at the beginning of the “Catastrophe” [the establishment of Israel and the creation of refugee problem] in 1948, that the duration of the exile will not be long, and that it will not last more than a few days or months, and afterwards the refugees will return to their homes, which most of them did not leave only until they put their trust in those “Arkuvian” promises made by the leaders and the political elites. Afterwards, days passed, months, years and decades, and the promises were lost with the strain of the succession of events.”
Other collected quotes from breasy.com:
Ismayil Safwat, Commander of Palestinian Operations, March, 1948:
“The Jews haven’t attacked any Arab village, unless attacked first.”
Haifa District HQ of the British Police, April 26, 1948, (quoted in Battleground by Samuel Katz).
“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.”
From a memorandum by The Arab National Committee in Haifa in a to the Arab League Governments 27 April 1948:
“… when the delegation entered the conference room it proudly refused to sign the truce and asked that the evacuation of the Arab population and their transfer to neighboring Arab countries be facilitated.”
A report from the time noted that “the military and civil authorities and the Jewish representatives expressed their profound regret. The mayor of Haifa (Mr. Shabtai Levi) adjourned the meeting with a passionate appeal to the Arab population to reconsider its decision…”
John Bagot Glubb, the commander of Jordan’s Arab Legion, in the London Daily Mail, August 12, 1948
“Villages were frequently abandoned even before they were threatened by the progress of war”
Monsignor George Hakim, Greek Orthodox Catholic Bishop of Galilee, in Beirut newspaper, Sada al-Janub, August 16, 1948
“The refugees were confident 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.”
Jordanian daily newspaper Falistin, Feb 19, 1949.
“The Arab states which had encouraged the Palestinian Arabs to leave their homes temporarily in order to be out of the way of the Arab invasion armies, have failed to keep their promise to help these refugees.”
Secretary of Palestine Higher Committee interviewed in Beirut Telegraph, September 6, 1949
The Beirut Telegraph carried an interview with Mr. Emile Ghoury, Secretary of the Palestine Higher Committee, in which he said:
“The fact that there are these refugees is the direct consequence of the act of the Arab States in opposing partition and the Jewish State.”
Statement by the Arab National Committee of Haifa in memorandum to the Arab States, April 27, 1950. Cited by Peter Dodd and Halim Barakat, “River Without Bridges. – A Study of the Exodus of the 1967 Arab Palestinian Refugees”. Beirut 1969. p. 43
“The removal of the Arab inhabitants … was voluntary and was carried out at our request … The Arab delegation proudly asked for the evacuation of the Arabs and their removal to the neighboring Arab countries…. We are very glad to state that the Arabs guarded their honour and traditions with pride and greatness.”
The Beirut Muslim weekly Kul-Shay, Aug. 19, 1951.
“Who brought the Palestinians to Lebanon as refugees, suffering now from the malign attitude of newspapers and communal leaders, who have neither honor nor conscience? Who brought them over in dire straits and penniless, after they lost their honor? The Arab states, and Lebanon amongst them, did it.”
April 9, 1953 Jordanian daily Al Urdun, quotes a refugee, Yunes Ahmed Assad, formerly of Deir Yassin, as saying:
“The Arab Exodus …was not caused by the actual battle, but by the exaggerated description spread by the Arab leaders to incite them to fight the Jews. …For the flight and fall of the other villages it is our leaders who are responsible because of their dissemination of rumors exaggerating Jewish crimes and describing them as atrocities in order to inflame the Arabs … By spreading rumors of Jewish atrocities, killings of women and children etc., they instilled fear and terror in the hearts of the
Arabs in Palestine, until they fled leaving their homes and properties to the enemy.”
Edward Atiyah, London Secretary, The Arab League, in his book “The Arabs” p.183. London: Penguin Books 1955
“This wholesale exodus was due partly to the belief of the Arabs, encouraged by the boastings of an unrealistic Arabic press and the irresponsible utterances of some of the Arab leaders that it could only be a matter of 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.”
Dr. Walid al-Qamhawi, former PLO executive committee member.
From Joseph Schechtman, “The Refugee in the World” (NY: A.S. Barnes and Co.1963. p. 186.
“it was collective fear, moral disintegration and chaos in every field that exiled the Arabs of Tiberias, Haifa and dozens of towns and villages”
Khaled al-`Azm, Syrian Prime Minister, from his memoirs. Beirut 1973.
Khaled al-`Azm, who served as Prime Minister of Syria in 1948 and 1949, wrote that among the reasons for the Arab failure in 1948 was
“the call by the Arab Governments to the inhabitants of Palestine to evacuate it and to leave for the bordering Arab countries, after having sown terror among them…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…We have brought destruction upon a million Arab refugees, by calling upon them and pleading with them to leave their land, their homes, their work and business…” (Part 1, pp. 386-387).
H.C. Stebbens, British Port Officer, in London Evening Standard January 10, 1969.
“Long before the end of the British mandate, between January and April, 48, practically all my Arab Palestinian staff of some 200 men and women and all of the 1800 labor force had left Haifa in spite of every possible effort to assure them of their safety if they stayed.”
“They all left for one or more of the following reasons:
1. The Arab terrorism engendered by the November, 1947, U.N. partition resolution frightened them to death of their imaginative souls and they feared Jewish retaliation.
2. Propagandists promised a blood bath as soon as the mandate ended in which the street of all the cities would run with blood.
3. The promised invasion by the foreign Arab armies (which started on May 14, 1948, with the Arab Legion massacre of some 200 Jewish settlers at Kfar Etzion) was preceded by extensive broadcasts from Cairo, Damascus, Amman, and Beirut to the effect that any Arabs who stayed would be hanged as collaborators with the Jews.“The Palestinian Arabs were the victims then, as in 1967, of their own propaganda, and having on the average no stomach for violence they ran. I have met many of my Palestinian Arab friends since in Beirut, Damascus, Amman, and in the Persian Gulf states, and they have all without exception gladly told me that they had wished they had listened to me and stayed – as did some 200,000 who became and still are the most economically advanced Arabs in the Middle East.
The massacre of Kfar Etzion, the massacre of the hospital convoy killed 48 Jewish doctors and nurses, the continued shelling and blasting of Jewish settlement for more than 20 years, has not caused one single Israeli to move away. They sit tight and if necessary in their shelters while across the river, where the shooting comes from, the towns and villages are deserted, last year’s crops still rot on the trees and the refugees move still further away from any trouble. How long will the Palestinian Arabs continue the myth that they were kicked out, every time they ran away from trouble and got themselves into more trouble?”
Abu Mazen, in his article “Madha `Alamna wa-Madha Yajib An Na`mal” [What We Have Learned and What We Should Do] “Falastineth-Thawra” [Revolutionary Palestine], official journal of the PLO, Beirut, March 1976,
“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.”
Trans Jordan’s King Abdullah, “My Memoirs Completed” London: Longman Group, Ltd., 1978. p. xvi.
“The tragedy of the Palestinians was that most of their leaders had paralyzed them with false and unsubstantiated promises that they were not alone; that 80 million Arabs and 400 million Muslims would instantly and miraculously come to their rescue.”
Fuad Abu Higla, columnist, writing in PA daily Al Hayat Al Jadida, March 19, 2001. He quotes a prisoner from the 1948 generation. per Palestinian Media Watch
“To the [Arab and Muslim] Kings and Presidents,
“Poverty is killing us, the symptoms are exhausting us and the souls are leaving our body, yet you are still searching for the way to provide aid, like one who is looking for a needle in a haystack or like the armies of your predecessors in the year of 1948, who forced us to leave [Israel], on the pretext of clearing the battlefields of civilians… So what will your summit do now?”
Quoted from Al-Ayyam May 16, 2006 per Palestinian Media Watch. From Asmaa Jabir Balasimah Um Hasan, who fled Israel in 1948.
“We heard sounds of explosions and of gunfire at the beginning of the summer in the year of the Nakbah [1948]. They told us: The Jews attacked our region and it is better to evacuate the village and return, after the battle is over. And indeed there were among us [who fled Israel] those who left a fire burning under the pot, those who left their flock [of sheep] and those who left their money and gold behind, based on the assumption that we would return after a few hours.”
Categories
Tag Cloud
Blog RSS
Comments RSS
Last 50 Posts
Back
Void 
Life 
Earth 
Wind 
Water 
Fire