As for Arab promises of exterminating the Jewish state:
The Arabs not only rejected partition, but attacked Israel from all sides.
On the day that Israel declared its independence, the Arab League
Secretary, General Azzam Pasha declared "jihad", a holy war. He said,
"This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which
will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades".(1)
The Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin Al Husseini stated, "I declare a holy
war, my Moslem brothers! Murder the Jews! Murder them all!" (2) The
armies of lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Egypt and Iraq invaded the tiny new
country with the declared intent of destroying it.(3)
1. Howard M Sachar, A History of Israel (New York: Knopf, 1979), p. 333.
2. Leonard J. Davis and M. Decter (eds.). Myths and facts 1982; a Concise Record of the
Arab-Israeli Conflict (Washington DC: near east report, 1982), p. 199
3. In a formal cablegram to the UN Secretary General on May 15, 1948, the Secretary general of
the Arab League declared that the Arab states rejected partition and intended to set up a "United
State of Palestine." For a full text of the cablegram, see John N. Moore (ed.), The Arab-Israeli
Conflict; Readings and Documents (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, abridged and
revised edition, 1977), pp. 938-943.
As for who is "responsible" for the creation of the Arab refugee problem:
Approximately 720,000 Arabs, encouraged by their leaders to
leave, fled from what is now Israel between April and
December, 1948.(1) The Arab leaders promised them that they
would soon be able to return following Israel's destruction. In
some cases the Jews, including Israel's first Prime Minister,
David Ben-Gurion, urged the Arabs to remain, promising that
they would not be harmed.(2) Those who remained became full
and equal citizens of Israel, while those who chose to leave
went to neighboring Arab states. Instead of welcoming their
Arab brothers, and integrating them into the mainstream of their
societies, the Arab states kept them in squalid refugee camps
and used these Palestinians refugees as political pawns in their
fight against Israel.
1. Irving Howe and Carl Gershman (eds.), Israel, the Arabs and the Middle East (New
York: Bantam, 1972), p. 168.
2. See, for instance, The Economist, Oct. 2, 1948, for a description of Jewish efforts in Haifa
to persuade the Arabs to stay.
As for the Arab Jewish refugee problem:
In 1945 there were more than 870,000 Jews living in the
various Arab states. Many of their communities dated back
2,500 years. Throughout 1947 and 1948 these Jews were
persecuted. Their property and belongings were confiscated.
There were anti-Jewish riots in Aden, Egypt, Lybia, Syria, and
Iraq. In Iraq, Zionism was made a capital crime. Aproximately
600,000 Jews sought refuge in the State of Israel.(1) They
arrived destitute, but they were absorbed into the society and
became an integral part of the state. In effect, then, a vertible
exchange of populations took place between Arab and Jewish
refugees. Thus the Jewish refugees became full Israeli
citizens while the Arab refugees remained "refugees"
according to the wishes of the Arab leaders.
1. Howe & Gershman, op. cit., p. 168.
Zeev |
