. Not only was there always a Jewish presence in Palestine
In 1900 about 24,000 Jews, mostly elderly individuals whose lives revolved around religion, lived in Palestine, along with approximately 600,000 resident Arabs.
it may be that elements of the Irgun, the more militant paramilitary organization among the Zionists, used the attack on Israel in '48 to despoil some villages
Menachim Begin, in his book The Revolt, cites the massacre of 254 Arabs by the Irgun at Deir Yassin - which occurred on April 9, 1948, before the Arab attack - as the single most important factor in the flight of the Arabs. Of course Begin refers to the incident as "a crude atrocity story" despite the availability of several convincing non-Arab accounts and the report of the British police officers that interviewed the survivors - and found, incidentally, that "there is, however, no doubt that many sexual atrocities were committed"..
it is generally acknowledged that the main cause of Palestinian flight during that war was the advice of the Arab League to get out of the way while the Arab Powers drove the Jews into the sea.
This "general acknowledgement" is the result of years of repetitive propaganda, and anyone that has the interest to read period sources can easily see that it is false. The Book of the Palmach, hardly a vehicle for Arab propagandists, has several detailed accounts of propaganda operations designed to induce Arab flight, and recounts their success with some glee. This makes sense, of course: why would the Israelis want the Arabs to stay?
Joseph Weitz, a prominent Zionist, wrote this in 1940:
Between ourselves it must be made clear that there is no room for both peoples together in this country... we shall not achieve our goal of being an independent people with the Arabs in this small country. The only solution is a Palestine, at least a Western Palestine, without Arabs.
While public pronouncements generally took a more diplomatic tack, I think that this was pretty much accepted wisdom, for fairly obvious reasons, among the Zionist leadership. |
