I don't know who your British "researcher" is, but here are the contemporary reports from the Economist and Time Magazine:
The Economist, 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."
Time's report of the battle for Haifa (May 3, 1948) was similar: "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."
The Arabs really thought they would win quickly. If they had, their policy would have made sense. Of course, since it was a huge strategic blunder, it's easy to see why they would want to deny it.
You still haven't explained how come Israel has so many Arabs in it. By 1949, the Arabs in Israel were demoralized, leaderless and quite powerless. How was it that the Zionists did not pursue what you say was their expulsion policy to its logical conclusion? |
