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{{Short description|Ethnic cleansing, expulsion, and flight of Palestinians during the 1948 Palestine war}}
{{pp-extended|small=yes}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2024}}
{{Infobox civilian attack
| title = 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight
| ___location = [[Mandatory Palestine]]
| date = [[Balad al-Shaykh massacre|31 December 1947]] – 20 July 1949
| partof = the [[Nakba]], the [[1948 Palestine war]] and the [[Arab–Israeli conflict]]
| image = Palestinian refugees leaving Gaza Gettyimages-1354487454.webp
| caption = Palestinian refugees boarding ships on their way to Egypt and Lebanon, 1949
| target = [[Palestinians|Palestinian Arabs]]
| type = [[Ethnic cleansing]], [[forced displacement]], [[dispossession]], [[mass killing]], [[settler colonialism]], [[biological warfare]]
| fatalities = Unknown. [[Aref al-Aref]] gives the number of Palestinian deaths as 13,000, with the majority of that number being civilians.{{refn|R. Khalidi 1997: ''Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness'', Columbia University Press http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7312/khal15074. "[...] al-Arif, in ''al-Nakba'', vol. 6, is able to list the names, dates, and places of death of 1,953 Palestinians (out of a total he puts at 13,000) who died as “martyrs” in the war of 1947-49."}}{{refn|Henry Laurens, ''La question de Palestine, Vol. 3. 1947-1967, l'accomplissement des prophéties'' (2007), citing ''al-Nakba'', vol. 6}} 15,000 deaths estimated by the [[Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics]] "from 1947 to 1949".<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Wright |first=Juwariyah |date=May 16, 2024 |title=The Solemn History Behind Nakba Day |url= https://time.com/6978612/nakba-day-history/|magazine= [[Time (magazine)|Time]] |access-date=15 September 2024}}</ref>
| victims = 750,000+ Palestinian Arabs expelled or fled
| perpetrators = {{flag|Israel|name=State of Israel}}
* [[File:Haganah Symbol.svg|13px|link=]] [[Haganah]]
* [[File:Irgun.svg|15px|link=]] [[Irgun]]
* [[File:Logo of the Lehi movement.svg|15px|link=]] [[Lehi (militant group)|Lehi]]
| motive = {{flatlist|
* [[Anti-Arab racism]]{{Citation needed|date=May 2025}}
*[[Zionism]]
* [[Zionism as settler colonialism|Settler colonialism]]}}
}}
In the [[1948 Palestine war]], more than 700,000 [[Palestinians|Palestinian Arabs]] – about half of [[Mandatory Palestine]]'s predominantly Arab population – were expelled or fled from their homes.<ref>{{multiref2
|{{harvb|Hazkani|2019|p=}}: "It is noteworthy that the aforementioned silk gloves were not invoked when discussing the Palestinian "exodus," i.e., the expulsion and flight of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, which became a pressing concern in the months following the adoption of Plan D (tokhnit dalet) by the Haganah’s general staff in March 1948."
|{{harvb|Warf|Charles|2020|p=384}}: "By 1948, the majority of Palestinians, about 700,000 to 800,000 people from 500 to 600 villages, were displaced. They were either expelled or fled from their homes for fear of being killed, as had actually taken place in a number of villages."
|{{harvb|Gerber|2008|p=189}}: "One of the more important consequences of the 1948 war was the expulsion and/or flight of some 750,000 Palestinians from their homes inside Israel, and the refusal of Israel to allow them to return, despite an express UN decision calling on it to do so. ... About 750,000 of the 900,000 strong Palestinian population were expelled, or fled, all completely terrorized and fearing for their lives"
|{{harvb|Petersen-Overton|Schmidt|Hersh|2010|p=49}}: "as scores of historical documentation has since revealed, the Yishuv encouraged the flight or directly forced 750,000 Palestinians (more than 80 percent of the population at the time) from their homeland in 1948 and destroyed 531 Palestinian villages"
|{{harvb|Natour|2015|p=81}}: "The Nakba is a catastrophe describing 'the expulsion and flight of the Palestinians which reached its peak in 1948'"
|{{harvb|Slater|2020|p=406}}: "There is no serious dispute among Israeli, Palestinian, or other historians about the central facts of the Nakba. All of the leading Israeli New Historians—particularly Morris, Shlaim, Pappé, and Flapan—extensively examined the issue and revealed the facts. Other accounts have reached the same conclusions. For example, see Ben-Ami, 'A War to Start All Wars'; Rashid Khalidi, 'The Palestinians and 1948'; Walid Khalidi, 'Why Did the Palestinians Leave, Revisited'; Masalha, Expulsion of the Palestinians; Raz, Bride and the Dowry. Reviewing the evidence marshaled by Morris and others, Tom Segev concluded that 'most of the Arabs in the country, approximately 400,000, were chased out and expelled during the first stage of the war. In other words, before the Arab armies invaded the country' (Haaretz, 18 July 2010). Other estimates have varied concerning the number of Palestinians who fled or were expelled before the May 1948 Arab state attack; Morris estimated the number to be 250,000–300,000 (The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited, 262); Tessler puts it at 300,000 (A History of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, 279); Pappé’s estimate is 380,000 (The Making of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 96). In another recent review of the evidence, the Israeli historian Daniel Blatman estimates the number to be about 500,000 (Blatman, 'Netanyahu, This Is What Ethnic Cleansing Really Looks Like'). Whatever the exact number, even Israeli 'Old Historians' now admit that during the 1948 war, the Israeli armed forces drove out many of the Palestinians, though they emphasized the action as a military 'necessity.' For example, see Anita Shapira, Israel: A History, 167–68. In July 2019, the Israeli government sought to cover up the extensive documentary evidence in its state archives that revealed detailed evidence about the extent of the Nakba—even the evidence that had already been published by newspapers and Israeli historians. A Haaretz investigation of the attempted cover-up concluded: 'Since early last decade, Defense Ministry teams have scoured local archives and removed troves of historic documents to conceal proof of the Nakba, including Israeli eyewitness reports at the time' (Shezaf, 'Burying the Nakba: How Israel Systematically Hides Evidence of 1948 Expulsion of Arabs')."
|{{harvb|BBC News|2018}}: "up to 750,000 Palestinians who had lived on that land fled or were expelled from their homes."
|{{harvb|Ibish|2018}}: "the overwhelming majority of Palestinian Arabs, perhaps 700,000 to 800,000 people, had either fled or been expelled"
|{{harvb|McDowall|Palley|1987|p=10}}}}</ref> Expulsions and attacks against Palestinians were carried out by the [[Zionism|Zionist]] paramilitaries [[Haganah]], [[Irgun]], and [[Lehi (militant group)|Lehi]], which merged to become the [[Israel Defense Forces]] after the establishment of [[Israel]] part way through the war. The expulsion and flight was a central component of the fracturing, dispossession, and displacement of Palestinian society, known as the [[Nakba]].<ref>Honaida Ghanim, [https://www.jstor.org/stable/40608203 ''Poetics of Disaster: Nationalism, Gender, and Social Change Among Palestinian Poets in Israel After Nakba,''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211106040944/https://www.jstor.org/stable/40608203 |date=6 November 2021 }} [[International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society]] March 2009 Vol. 22, No. 1 pp.23-39 p.37 Stern, Yoav (13 May 2008). [https://www.haaretz.com/1.4979391 "Palestinian refugees, Israeli left-wingers mark Nakba"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210517035746/https://www.haaretz.com/1.4979391 |date=17 May 2021 }}. ''[[Haaretz]]''. [http://www.badil.org/Publications/badil-nakba-60-info-packet/index.html Nakba 60] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080612162136/http://www.badil.org/Publications/badil-nakba-60-info-packet/index.html |date=12 June 2008 }}, BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights; Cleveland, William L. ''A History of the Modern Middle East'', Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2004, p. 270. {{ISBN|978-0-8133-4047-0}}{{cite journal |first1=Honaida |last1=Ghanim |jstor=40608203 |title=Poetics of Disaster: Nationalism, Gender, and Social Change Among Palestinian Poets in Israel After Nakba |journal=[[International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society]] |date=March 2009 |volume=22 |number=1 |pages=23–39 [25–26]|doi=10.1007/s10767-009-9049-9 |s2cid=144148068 | issn=0891-4486 }}</ref> [[w:Killings and massacres during the 1948 Palestine war|Dozens of massacres]] targeting Arabs were conducted by Israeli military forces and between [[Depopulated Palestinian locations in Israel|400 and 600 Palestinian villages]] were destroyed. Village [[well poisoning|wells were poisoned]] in a [[biological warfare]] [[Operation Cast Thy Bread|programme]], properties were looted to prevent [[Palestinian refugees]] from returning,<ref>{{cite journal |first1=Benny |last1=Morris |author1-link=Benny Morris |first2=Benjamin Z. |last2=Kedar |author2-link=Benjamin Z. Kedar |doi=10.1080/00263206.2022.2122448 |title='Cast thy bread': Israeli biological warfare during the 1948 War |journal=[[Middle Eastern Studies (journal)|Middle Eastern Studies]] |date=19 September 2022 |volume=59 |issue=5 |pages=1–25 [2–3]|s2cid=252389726 }}</ref><ref name="Pappe2006" /> and some sites were subject to [[Hebraization of Palestinian place names]].<ref>
*{{cite journal |last=Bardi |first=Ariel Sophia |title=The "Architectural Cleansing" of Palestine |journal=[[American Anthropologist]] |date=March 2016 |volume=118 |issue=1 |pages=165–171 |doi=10.1111/aman.12520}}
*{{cite journal|last=Sa'di|first=Ahmad H.|date=2002|title=Catastrophe, Memory and Identity: Al-Nakbah as a Component of Palestinian Identity|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/30245590|journal=Israel Studies|volume=7|issue=2|pages=175–198|doi=10.2979/ISR.2002.7.2.175|jstor=30245590|quote=, Al-Nakbah is associated with a rapid de-Arabization of the country. This process has included the destruction of Palestinian villages. About 418 villages were erased, and out of twelve Palestinian or mixed towns, a Palestinian population continued to exist in only seven. This swift transformation of the physical and cultural environment was accompanied, at the symbolic level, by the changing of the names of streets, neighborhoods, cities, and regions. Arabic names were replaced by Zionist, Jewish, or European names. This renaming continues to convey to the Palestinians the message that the country has seen only two historical periods which attest to its "true" nature: the ancient Jewish past, and the period that began with the creation of Israel.|authorlink=Ahmad H. Sa'di|s2cid=144811289|url-access=subscription}}
*{{cite book |last1=Pappe |first1=Ilan |title=A History of Modern Palestine |date=2022 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-108-41544-6 |page=198 |edition=3 |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/a-history-of-modern-palestine/624223AF93BAA2E69130BB3135FB395D |access-date=2 August 2025 |quote=Half of the villages had been destroyed, flattened by Israeli bulldozers which had been at work since August 1948 when the government had decided either to turn them into cultivated land or to build new Jewish settlements on their remains. A naming committee granted the new settlements Hebraized versions of the original Arab names: Lubya became Lavi, and Safuria Zipori, although Iteit retained its original name. David Ben-Gurion explained that this was done as part of an attempt to prevent future claim to the villages. It was also supported by the Israeli archaeologists, who had authorized the names as returning the map to something resembling ‘ancient Israel’.}}
*{{cite book |last1=Salvatore |first1=Armando |last2=Ḥanafī |first2=Sārī |last3=Obuse |first3=Kieko |title=The Oxford Handbook of the Sociology of the Middle East |date=2022 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-008747-0 |page=108 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MI-aEAAAQBAJ |access-date=2 August 2025 |quote=The Nakba was manifested in the elimination of the Arab features of the country and destruction of the Palestinian landscape. Alongside the Nakba, a dual process of Hebraization and Judaization was launched. ... Indigenous Palestinian names were wiped out of official records and replaced by new, biblical, Zionist, and Jewish toponyms. ... the striking of Arab names from official records and maps and their replacements by Hebraized and Judaized place names was a tool to reconstruct the landscape in line with an imagined biblical Jewish chronology.}}
*{{cite book |last1=Musleh-Motut |first1=Nawal |title=Connecting the Holocaust and the Nakba Through Photograph-based Storytelling: Willing the Impossible |date=15 May 2023 |publisher=Springer Nature |isbn=978-3-031-27238-7 |page=9 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iha_EAAAQBAJ |access-date=2 August 2025 |quote=Second, since 1948, multiple "[s]cenes of [e]rasure" (Swedenburg, 2003, p.38) were created by the Israeli state to remove the ghosts of the landscape's former inhabitants-a process Israeli scholar Ilan Pappe terms "the memoricide of the Nakba" (p. 225). This form of forgetting was most often enacted through the de-Palestinization or de-Arabization and then Hebraization and/or Judaization of the Israeli landscape and history (Benvenisti, 2000; Masalha, 2012; Pappe, 2007). Land formally owned and/or inhabited by Palestinians was confiscated, depopulated, and/or destroyed, and then built upon by Israelis, who replaced Arab names with Hebrew ones.}}</ref>
The precise number of Palestinian refugees, many of whom settled in [[Palestinian refugee camps]] in neighboring states, is a matter of dispute,<ref>{{cite book |editor-last=Crenshaw |editor-first=Martha |title=The Consequences of Counterterrorism |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eqrbWrjrvDAC&pg=PA356 |year=2010 |publisher=Russell Sage Foundation |___location=New York |isbn=978-0-87154-073-7 |page=356 |last1=Pedahzur |first1=Ami |last2=Perliger |first2=Arie |chapter=The Consequences of Counterterrorist Policies in Israel}}</ref> although the number is around 700,000, being approximately 80 percent of the Arab inhabitants of what became Israel.<ref>[[Nur-eldeen Masalha|Masalha, Nur]] (1992). ''Expulsion of the Palestinians''. Institute for Palestine Studies, this edition 2001, p. 175.</ref><ref>{{cite book |first=Rashid |last=Khalidi |title=Palestinian identity: the construction of modern national consciousness |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pQx8u8MN13AC&pg=PA21 |date=September 1998 |publisher=[[Columbia University Press]] |isbn=978-0-231-10515-6 |pages=21– |author-link=Rashid Khalidi |quote=In 1948 half of Palestine's ... Arabs were uprooted from their homes and became refugees |access-date=19 March 2016 |archive-date=14 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230114054409/https://books.google.com/books?id=pQx8u8MN13AC&pg=PA21 |url-status=live }}</ref> About 250,000–300,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled during the [[1947–1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine]], before the [[End of the British Mandate for Palestine|termination of the British Mandate]] on 14 May 1948. The desire to prevent the collapse of the Palestinians and to avoid more refugees were some of the reasons for the entry of the [[Arab League]] into the country, which began the [[1948 Arab–Israeli War]].<ref>Gelber 2006, p. 137: "Drawn into the war by the collapse of the Palestinians and the [[Arab Liberation Army|ALA]], the Arab governments' primary goal was preventing the Palestinians' total ruin and the flooding of their own countries by more refugees."</ref>{{refn|Matthew Hogan (2001). ''The 1948 Massacre at Deir Yassin Revisited'': "Meanwhile, the subsequent May 1948 outbreak of regional war between the newly declared state of Israel and the Arab states, beginning the prolonged Arab-Israeli conflict, was contemporaneously explained by Arab League chief [[Azzam Pasha]] in terms of the [[Deir Yassin massacre|Deir Yassin incident]]: "The massacre of Deir Yassin was to a great extent the cause of the wrath of the Arab nations and the most important factor for sending [in] the Arab armies."}}
Although the [[causes of the 1948 Palestinian exodus]] remain a significantly controversial topic in public and political discourse, with a prominent amount of [[Nakba denial|denialism regarding the responsibility of Israeli/Yishuv forces]], most scholarship today agrees that expulsions and violence, and the fear thereof, were the primary causes.{{refn|Slater, Jerome (2020). Mythologies Without End: The US, Israel, and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1917-2020. Oxford University Press, Incorporated. ISBN 978-0-19-045908-6. "There is no serious dispute among Israeli, Palestinian, or other historians about the central facts of the Nakba. All of the leading Israeli New Historians—particularly Morris, Shlaim, Pappé, and Flapan—extensively examined the issue and revealed the facts. Other accounts have reached the same conclusions. For example, see Ben-Ami, "A War to Start All Wars"; Rashid Khalidi, "The Palestinians and 1948"; Walid Khalidi, "Why Did the Palestinians Leave, Revisited"; Masalha, Expulsion of the Palestinians; Raz, Bride and the Dowry. Reviewing the evidence marshaled by Morris and others, Tom Segev concluded that "most of the Arabs in the country, approximately 400,000, were chased out and expelled during the first stage of the war. In other words, before the Arab armies invaded the country" (Haaretz, 18 July 2010). Other estimates have varied concerning the number of Palestinians who fled or were expelled before the May 1948 Arab state attack; Morris estimated the number to be 250,000–300,000 (The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited, 262); Tessler puts it at 300,000 (A History of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, 279); Pappé's estimate is 380,000 (The Making of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 96). In another recent review of the evidence, the Israeli historian Daniel Blatman estimates the number to be about 500,000 (Blatman, "Netanyahu, This Is What Ethnic Cleansing Really Looks Like"). Whatever the exact number, even Israeli "Old Historians" now admit that during the 1948 war, the Israeli armed forces drove out many of the Palestinians, though they emphasized the action as a military "necessity." For example, see Anita Shapira, Israel: A History, 167–68. In July 2019, the Israeli government sought to cover up the extensive documentary evidence in its state archives that revealed detailed evidence about the extent of the Nakba—even the evidence that had already been published by newspapers and Israeli historians. A Haaretz investigation of the attempted cover-up concluded: "Since early last decade, Defense Ministry teams have scoured local archives and removed troves of historic documents to conceal proof of the Nakba, including Israeli eyewitness reports at the time" (Shezaf, "Burying the Nakba: How Israel Systematically Hides Evidence of 1948 Expulsion of Arabs").”}}{{refn|Abu-Laban, Yasmeen; Bakan, Abigail B. (July 2022). "Anti-Palestinian Racism and Racial Gaslighting". ''The Political Quarterly'', Vol. 93, Issue 3, p. 511: "Palestinians have long known what happened to them in 1948 and its very human costs. However, the work of the 'new' (or revisionist) Israeli historians from the late 1970s also challenged the official state narrative of a miraculous wartime victory through access to material in the Israeli archives. This has established what Ilan Pappé has summarised as the 'ethnic cleansing of Palestine', a process involving massacres and expulsions at gunpoint. In light of the ever-growing historiography, serious scholarship has left little debate about what happened in 1948. [...] However, Nakba denial remains a political issue of the highest order.}}{{refn|Laila Parsons, McGill University, 2009, Review of Ilan Pappé's 'The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine', "Ilan Pappe has added another work to the many that have already been written in English on the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and the expulsion of more than 750,000 Palestinians from their homes. These include works by Walid Khalidi, Simha Flapan, Nafez Nazzal, Benny Morris, Nur Masalha, and Norman Finkelstein, among others. All but one of these authors (Morris) would probably agree with Pappe’s position that what happened to the Palestinians in 1948 fits the definition of ethnic cleansing, and it certainly is not news to Palestinians themselves, who have always known what happened to them." [https://www.mcgill.ca/islamicstudies/files/islamicstudies/parsons.pappe_.review.pdf]}} Scholars widely describe the event as [[ethnic cleansing]],<ref name="Ian Black-2010" /><ref name="Pappe2006" /><ref name="Shavit">Shavit, Ari. [http://www.logosjournal.com/morris.htm "Survival of the Fittest? An Interview with Benny Morris"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210905113719/http://www.logosjournal.com/morris.htm |date=5 September 2021 }}. Logos. Winter 2004</ref> although some disagree.<ref>{{cite book |first=David |last=Matas |title=Aftershock: anti-zionism and anti-semitism |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DYR7SqcMe9gC&pg=PA56 |year=2005 |publisher=Dundurn Press Ltd. |isbn=978-1-55002-553-8 |pages=555–558 |access-date=19 March 2016 |archive-date=3 July 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240703040549/https://books.google.com/books?id=DYR7SqcMe9gC&pg=PA56#v=onepage&q&f=false |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |first=Mêrôn |last=Benvenis'tî |title=Sacred landscape: the buried history of the Holy Land since 1948 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7itq6zYtSJwC&pg=PA124 |year=2002 |publisher=[[University of California Press]] |isbn=978-0-520-23422-2 |pages=124–127 |access-date=19 March 2016 |archive-date=3 July 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240703040549/https://books.google.com/books?id=7itq6zYtSJwC&pg=PA124#v=onepage&q&f=false |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>Benny Morris (21 February 2008). "Benny Morris on fact, fiction, & propaganda about 1948". ''[[The Irish Times]]'', [http://jeffweintraub.blogspot.com/2008/02/benny-morris-on-fact-fiction-propaganda.html reported by Jeff Weintraub] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081207221932/http://jeffweintraub.blogspot.com/2008/02/benny-morris-on-fact-fiction-propaganda.html |date=7 December 2008 }}</ref> Factors involved in the exodus include direct expulsions by Israeli forces; destruction of Arab villages; psychological warfare including [[terrorism]]; massacres such as the widely publicized [[Deir Yassin massacre]],<ref name="Morris-2004">{{cite book |last=Morris |first=Benny |author-link=Benny Morris |title=The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |date=2004 |isbn=978-0-521-81120-0}}</ref>{{rp|239–240|date=November 2012}} which caused many to flee out of fear; crop burning;{{refn|Pappe, I. (1999). Were they expelled?: The history, historiography and relevance of the Palestinian refugee problem. In G. Karmi & E. Cotran (Eds.), The Palestinian exodus, 1948–1988(pp. 37–61). London: Ithaca Press – "Where expulsion failed, transfer was encouraged, by every possible means (even by setting fire to the fields of Palestinian villages considered wealthy or by cutting water supply to city neighborhoods). Weitz convinced the Israeli government in May 1948 to confiscate any looted Arab harvest for the needs of the newly born state. This policy of burning fields or confiscating them continued throughout the summer of 1948."}}{{refn|Morris 2004 "While before May, burning Arab crops was mainly a Haganah means of retaliation for Arab attacks, during May–June the destruction of the fields hardened into a set policy designed to demoralise the villagers, hurt them economically and, perhaps, precipitate their exodus."}} [[typhoid]] epidemics in some areas caused by Israeli well-poisoning;<ref>[[Benny Morris]], [[Benjamin Z. Kedar]], [https://doi.org/10.1080/00263206.2022.2122448 'Cast thy bread': Israeli biological warfare during the 1948 War] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230305221558/https://doi.org/10.1080/00263206.2022.2122448 |date=5 March 2023 }} [[Middle Eastern Studies (journal)|Middle Eastern Studies]] 19 September 2022, pages =1-25 p.8:'The SHAI, in its report from the end of June 1948 on the causes of the Arab flight from Palestine, mentioned 'the typhus epidemic' as 'an exacerbating factor in the evacuation' in certain areas. 'More than the disease itself, it was the panic induced by the rumours of the spread of the disease in the area that was a factor in the evacuation', stated the report. In its site-by-site breakdown of the Arab flight, the report mentioned 'harassment [by the Haganah] and the typhus epidemic' as the causes of the partial exodus of the population from Acre on 6 May.'</ref> and the collapse of Palestinian leadership including the demoralizing impact of wealthier classes fleeing.<ref>J.P.D. Dunbabin, [https://books.google.com/books?id=R9QFBAAAQBAJ&pg=PT298 ''The Post-Imperial Age: The Great Powers and the Wider World,''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221008140853/https://books.google.com/books?id=R9QFBAAAQBAJ&pg=PT298 |date=8 October 2022 }} [[Routledge]] 2014 {{isbn|978-1-317-89293-9}} pp.256-258.</ref>{{Nakba}}Later, [[Land and Property laws in Israel#Absentees' Property Laws|a series of land and property laws]] passed by the first Israeli government prevented Arabs who had left from returning to their homes or claiming their property. They and many of their descendants remain refugees.<ref>Kodmani-Darwish, p. 126; Féron, Féron, p. 94.</ref><ref name="UNRWA"/> The existence of the so-called [[Law of Return]] allowing for immigration and naturalization of any Jewish person and their family to Israel, while a [[Palestinian right of return]] has been denied, has been cited as evidence for the charge [[Israel and apartheid|that Israel practices apartheid]].<ref>Human Rights Watch. "A Threshold Crossed," 27 April 2021. [https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/27/threshold-crossed/israeli-authorities-and-crimes-apartheid-and-persecution A Threshold Crossed] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210428073809/https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/27/threshold-crossed/israeli-authorities-and-crimes-apartheid-and-persecution |date=28 April 2021 }}.</ref><ref>Amnesty International. "Israel's Apartheid against Palestinians: A Cruel System of Domination and a Crime against Humanity," 1 February 2022. [https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/02/israels-apartheid-against-palestinians-a-cruel-system-of-domination-and-a-crime-against-humanity/ Israel's Apartheid against Palestinians] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230720191349/https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/02/israels-apartheid-against-palestinians-a-cruel-system-of-domination-and-a-crime-against-humanity/ |date=20 July 2023 }}.</ref> The status of the refugees, particularly whether Israel will allow them to return to their homes, or compensate them, are key issues in the ongoing [[Israeli–Palestinian conflict]].
==History==
The history of the Palestinian exodus is closely tied to the events of the war in Palestine, which lasted from 1947 to 1949, and to the political events preceding it. The first phase of that war began on 30 November 1947,<ref>[[Benny Morris]], ''1948: A History of the First Arab–Israeli War'', p. 77, Yale University Press, 2008.</ref> a day after the [[United Nations]] adopted the [[United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine|Partition Plan for Palestine]], which split the territory into Jewish and Arab states, and an [[Corpus separatum (Jerusalem)|international Jerusalem]].
In September 1949, the United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine estimated 711,000 [[Palestinian refugee]]s existed outside Israel,<ref>{{cite web |author=United Nations General Assembly |date=23 August 1951 |url=https://unispal.un.org/unispal.nsf/b792301807650d6685256cef0073cb80/93037e3b939746de8525610200567883?OpenDocument |title=General Progress Report and Supplementary Report of the United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine |format=OpenDocument |access-date=3 May 2007 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110822123836/http://unispal.un.org/unispal.nsf/b792301807650d6685256cef0073cb80/93037e3b939746de8525610200567883?OpenDocument |archive-date=22 August 2011}}</ref> with about one-quarter of the estimated 160,000 Palestinian Arabs remaining in Israel as "[[present absentees|internal refugees]]".
===December 1947 – March 1948===
In the first few months of the civil war, the climate in the [[Mandatory Palestine|Mandate of Palestine]] became volatile, although throughout this period both Arab and Jewish leaders tried to limit hostilities.{{r|Morris-2004}}{{rp|90–99|date=November 2012}} According to historian [[Benny Morris]], the period was marked by Palestinian Arab attacks and Jewish defensiveness, increasingly punctuated by Jewish reprisals.{{r|Morris-2004}}{{rp|65|date=November 2012}} [[Simha Flapan]] wrote that attacks by the [[Irgun]] and [[Lehi (group)|Lehi]] resulted in Palestinian Arab retaliation and condemnation.<ref>Flapan, 1987, p. 95; also quoted by Finkelstein, 1995, p. 82.</ref> Jewish reprisal operations were directed against villages and neighborhoods from which attacks against Jews were believed to have originated.{{r|Morris-2004}}{{rp|76|date=November 2012}}
The retaliations were more damaging than the provoking attack and included killing of armed and unarmed men, destruction of houses and sometimes expulsion of inhabitants.{{r|Morris-2004}}{{rp|76|date=November 2012}}{{rp|125|date=November 2012}} The Zionist groups of [[Irgun]] and [[Lehi (group)|Lehi]] reverted to their 1937–1939 strategy of indiscriminate attacks by placing bombs and throwing grenades into crowded places such as bus stops, shopping centres and markets. Their attacks on British forces reduced British troops' ability and willingness to protect Jewish traffic.{{r|Morris-2004}}{{rp|66|date=November 2012}} General conditions deteriorated: the economic situation became unstable, and unemployment grew.<ref>Gelber, p. 75.</ref> Some Palestinian Arab leaders sent their families abroad.{{CSS crop
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[[Yoav Gelber]] wrote that the [[Arab Liberation Army]] embarked on a systematic evacuation of non-combatants from several frontier villages in order to turn them into military strongholds.<ref>(Gelber, p. 79)</ref> Arab depopulation occurred most in villages close to Jewish settlements and in vulnerable neighborhoods in Haifa, Jaffa and West Jerusalem.{{r|Morris-2004}}{{rp|99–125|date=November 2012}} The more impoverished inhabitants of these neighborhoods generally fled to other parts of the city. Those who could afford to flee further away did so, expecting to return when the troubles were over.{{r|Morris-2004}}{{rp|138|date=November 2012}} By the end of March 1948 thirty villages were depopulated of their Palestinian Arab population.<ref name="Pappe2006">Ilan Pappé, 2006</ref>{{rp|82|date=November 2012}} Approximately 100,000 Palestinian Arabs had fled to Arab parts of Palestine, such as Gaza, Beersheba, Haifa, Nazareth, Nablus, Jaffa and Bethlehem.
Some had left the country altogether, to [[Jordan]], Lebanon and [[Egypt]].{{r|Morris-2004}}{{rp|67|date=November 2012}} Other sources speak of 30,000 Palestinian Arabs.<ref>Glazer, p. 104.</ref> Many of these were Palestinian Arab leaders and middle- and upper-class Palestinian Arab families from urban areas. Around 22 March, the Arab governments agreed that their consulates in Palestine would issue entry visas only to old people, women, children and the sick.{{r|Morris-2004}}{{rp|134|date=November 2012}} On 29–30 March the intelligence service of [[Haganah]], the main Zionist paramilitary, reported that "the [[Arab Higher Committee]] was no longer approving exit permits for fear of [causing] panic in the country."<ref>Morris, 2004, p. 137, quoting Haganah Archive (HA) 105\257.</ref>
[[File:SubaRuins.jpg|thumb|upright=1.1|Ruins of the Palestinian village of [[Suba (Village near Jerusalem)|Suba]], near Jerusalem, overlooking Kibbutz Zova, which was built on the village lands]]
[[File:BaytJibrin.jpg|thumb|upright=1.1|Ruins of the former Arab village of [[Bayt Jibrin]], inside the green line west of [[Hebron]]]]
The Haganah was instructed to avoid spreading the conflagration by stopping indiscriminate attacks and provoking British intervention.{{r|Morris-2004}}{{rp|68–86|date=November 2012}}
On 18 December 1947, the Haganah approved an aggressive defense strategy, which in practice meant a limited implementation of "Plan May"; this, also known as "Plan Gimel" or "Plan C",<ref>''Ruling Palestine, A History of the Legally Sanctioned Jewish-Israeli Seizure of Land and Housing in Palestine''. COHRE & BADIL, May 2005, p. 27.</ref> produced in May 1946, was the Haganah master plan for the defence of the [[Yishuv]] in the event that, the moment the British were gone, new troubles broke out. Plan Gimel included [[retaliation]] for assaults on Jewish houses and roads.{{r|Morris-2004}}{{rp|75|date=November 2012}}<ref>[http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Pappe_Ilan/Ethnic_Cleansing_Palestine.html Excerpts from the book ''The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210509094010/https://thirdworldtraveler.com/Pappe_Ilan/Ethnic_Cleansing_Palestine.html |date=9 May 2021 }} by [[Ilan Pappé]]. Oneworld Publications, 2006.</ref>
In early January the Haganah adopted [[Operation Zarzir]], a scheme to assassinate leaders affiliated to [[Amin al-Husayni]], placing the blame on other Arab leaders, but in practice few resources were devoted to the project, and the only attempted killing was of [[Nimr al Khatib]].{{r|Morris-2004}}{{rp|76|date=November 2012}}
The only authorised expulsion at this time took place at [[Caesarea Maritima|Qisarya]], south of Haifa, where Palestinian Arabs were evicted and their houses destroyed on 19–20 February 1948.{{r|Morris-2004}}{{rp|130|date=November 2012}} In attacks that were not authorised in advance, several communities were expelled by the Haganah and several others were chased away by the Irgun.{{r|Morris-2004}}{{rp|125|date=November 2012}}
According to [[Ilan Pappé]], the Zionists organised a campaign of threats,{{r|Pappe2006}}{{rp|55|date=November 2012}} consisting of the distribution of threatening leaflets, "violent reconnaissance" and, after the arrival of mortars, the shelling of Arab villages and neighborhoods.{{r|Pappe2006}}{{rp|73|date=November 2012}} Pappé also wrote that the Haganah shifted its policy from retaliation to offensive initiatives.{{r|Pappe2006}}{{rp|60|date=November 2012}}
During the "long seminar", a meeting of [[David Ben-Gurion|Ben-Gurion]] with his chief advisors in January 1948, the main point was that it was desirable to "transfer" as many Arabs as possible out of Jewish territory, and the discussion focussed mainly on the implementation.{{r|Pappe2006}}{{rp|63|date=November 2012}} The experience gained in a number of attacks in February 1948, notably those on [[Caesarea Maritima|Qisarya]] and [[Sa'sa']], was used in the development of a [[plan Dalet|plan]] detailing how enemy population centers should be handled.{{r|Pappe2006}}{{rp|82|date=November 2012}} According to Pappé, [[plan Dalet]] was the master plan for the expulsion of the Palestinians.{{r|Pappe2006}}{{rp|82|date=November 2012}} However, according to Gelber, [[Plan Dalet]] instructions were: In case of resistance, the population of conquered villages was to be expelled outside the borders of the Jewish state. If no resistance was met, the residents could stay put, under military rule.<ref>{{cite book |first=Yoav |last=Gelber |title=Palestine 1948: War, Escape And The Emergence Of The Palestinian Refugee Problem |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UcSUgrDsD_sC |year=2006 |publisher=Sussex Academic Press |isbn=978-1-84519-075-0 |pages=306 |quote=the method for taking over an Arab village: Surround the village and search it (for weapons). In case of resistance – … expel the population beyond the border… If there is no resistance, a garrison should be stationed in the village. . . appoint local institutions for administering the village internal affairs. The text clarified unequivocally that expulsion concerned only those villages that would fight against the Hagana and resist occupation and not all Arab hamlets.}}</ref>
Palestinian belligerency in these first few months was "disorganised, sporadic and localised and for months remained chaotic and uncoordinated, if not undirected".{{r|Morris-2004}}{{rp|86|date=November 2012}} [[Amin al-Husayni|Husayni]] lacked the resources to mount a full-scale assault on the Yishuv, and restricted himself to sanctioning minor attacks and to tightening the economic boycott.{{r|Morris-2004}}{{rp|87|date=November 2012}} The British claimed that Arab rioting might well have subsided had the Jews not retaliated with firearms.{{r|Morris-2004}}{{rp|75|date=November 2012}}
Overall, Morris concludes that during this period the "Arab evacuees from the towns and villages left largely because of Jewish—Haganah, [[IZL]] or [[Lehi (group)|LHI]]—attacks or fear of impending attack" but that only "an extremely small, almost insignificant number of the refugees during this early period left because of Haganah or IZL or LHI expulsion orders or forceful 'advice' to that effect."{{r|Morris-2004}}{{rp|138, 139|date=November 2012}}
===April–June 1948===
[[File:Haifa 1948 expulsion.jpg|thumb|upright=1.1|Arabs leaving Haifa as Jewish forces enter the city]]
{{Palestinians}}
By 1 May 1948, two weeks before the [[Israeli Declaration of Independence]], nearly 175,000 Palestinians (approximately 25%) had already fled.<ref>Sachar, Howard M. ''A History of Israel from the Rise of Zionism to Our Time''. New York: Knopf. 1976. p. 332. {{ISBN|978-0-679-76563-9}}</ref>
The fighting in these months was concentrated in the [[Jerusalem]]–[[Tel Aviv]] area, On 9 April, the [[Deir Yassin massacre]] and the rumours that followed it spread fear among the Palestinians.{{r|Morris-2004}}{{rp|264|date=November 2012}} Next, the Haganah defeated local militia in [[Tiberias]]. On 21–22 April in [[Haifa]], after the Haganah waged a [[Battle of Haifa (1948)|day-and-a-half battle]] including psychological warfare a mass flight followed. Finally Irgun, under [[Menachim Begin]], fired mortars on the infrastructure in [[Jaffa]]. Combined with the fear inspired by Deir Yassin, each of these military actions resulted in panicked Palestinian evacuations.<ref>{{cite AV media
| title = Al-Nakba: The Palestinian Catastrophe 1948
| medium = film
| publisher = [[Arte]]
| ___location = [[Israel]], [[Germany]], [[Netherlands]]
| time = 13:09
| date = 1998
| quote = Only five days earlier, the entire Arab population of Tiberias, a town by the Sea of Galilee, had panicked and fled, after the defeat of their militia by the Haganah. This was the first instance of a mass Arab evacuation from a town. The Haganah commanders in Haifa were undoubtedly well aware of this precedent as their own battle unfolded.
| url = http://vimeo.com/3714871
| access-date = 4 December 2012
| archive-date = 18 November 2021
| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20211118064727/https://vimeo.com/3714871
| url-status = live
}}</ref><ref>{{cite AV media
| people = [[Benny Morris]]
| title = Al-Nakba: The Palestinian Catastrophe 1948
| medium = film
| publisher = [[Arte]]
| ___location = [[Israel]], [[Germany]], [[Netherlands]]
| date = 1998
| time = 13:33
| quote = The Arabs for their part recalled that the Jews had [[Deir Yassin massacre|massacred many of the inhabitants of a village called Deir Yassin]] outside Jerusalem only ten days before increasing their fear and panic as Haifa fell.
| url = http://vimeo.com/3714871
| access-date = 4 December 2012
| archive-date = 18 November 2021
| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20211118064727/https://vimeo.com/3714871
| url-status = live
}}</ref><ref>{{cite AV media
| people = E. Toubassi
| title = Al-Nakba: The Palestinian Catastrophe 1948
| medium = film
| publisher = [[Arte]]
| ___location = [[Israel]], [[Germany]], [[Netherlands]]
| date = 1998
| time = 23:27
| quote = On the 25th or 26th of April, the people knew in Jaffa there was no hope. Also, the massacre in Deir Yassin or some other villages made panic among the Arab Palestinians. They started preparing for immigration.
| url = http://vimeo.com/3714871
| access-date = 4 December 2012
| archive-date = 18 November 2021
| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20211118064727/https://vimeo.com/3714871
| url-status = live
}}</ref>
The significance of the attacks by underground military groups Irgun and Lehi on Deir Yassin is underscored by accounts on all sides. [[Meron Benvenisti]] regards Deir Yassin as "a turning point in the annals of the destruction of the Arab landscape".<ref>[[Meron Benvenisti]]. ''Sacred Landscape: The Buried History of the Holy Land Since 1948''. University of California Press. 2002. p. 116. "Long afterward Menachem Begin boasted that the panic that descended on the Arabs caused them to flee from the cities of Tiberias and Haifa as well. And indeed, the consequences of this barbaric act of ethnic cleansing were far-reaching. The Deir Yasin Massacre, which was reported on over and over again in all the Arab media, inspired tremendous fear, which led many Arabs to abandon their homes as the Jewish forces drew near. There is no doubt that Deir Yasin was a turning point in the annals of the destruction of the Arab landscape."</ref>
Israel began engaging in [[biological warfare]] in April, poisoning the water supplies of certain villages, including a successful operation that caused a typhoid epidemic in Acre in early May, and an unsuccessful attempt in Gaza that was foiled by the Egyptians in late May.<ref>{{harvnb |Morris |Kedar |2023 |pp=752–776 |ps=, "[p. 752] Taken together, these documents revealed that the Acre and Gaza episodes were merely the tip of the iceberg in a prolonged campaign ... But bulldozing or blowing up houses and wells was deemed insufficient. With its back to the wall, the Haganah upped the ante and unleashed a clandestine campaign of poisoning certain captured village wells with bacteria – in violation of the Geneva Protocol ... The aim of ''Cast Thy Bread'' ... like the demolitions, was to hamper an Arab return. Over the weeks, the well-poisoning campaign was expanded to regions beyond the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem road and included Jewish settlements captured or about to be captured by Arab troops, and then to inhabited Arab towns, to facilitate their prospective conquest by the Haganah or to hinder the progress of the invading Arab armies ... [p. 768] The Yishuv’s decision to use the bacteriological weapons was taken at the highest level of the government and military and was, indeed, steered by these officers, with Ben-Gurion’s authorization, through the campaign ... [p. 769] The use of the bacteria was apparently fairly limited in Israel/Palestine during April–December 1948, and apart from Acre, seems to have caused no epidemic and few casualties. At least, that is what emerges from the available documentation."}};
{{harvnb |Nashef |2018 |ps=, p. 143 n. 4 (quoting Pappe 2006)}};
{{harvnb |Carus |2017 |p=145 |ps=, "Some BW programs relied on extremely crude methods, about as sophisticated as those employed by some terrorist groups or criminals ... The same was true of the reported activities associated with the early Israeli program in 1948."}};
{{harvnb |Docker |2012 |pp=19–20 |ps=, "The urbicide of May 1948 directed against the old Crusader city of Acre involved biological warfare, including poisoning of water, Pappé writing that it seems clear from Red Cross reports that the Zionist forces besieging the city injected 'typhoid germs' into the water supply, which led to a 'sudden typhoid epidemic'. There was a similar attempt to 'poison the water supply in Gaza' on 27 May 1948 by injecting typhoid and dysentery viruses into wells; this attempt was fortunately foiled."}};
{{harvnb |Martin |2010 |p=7 |ps=, "Israeli biological warfare activities included Operation Shalach, which was an attempt to contaminate the water supplies of Egyptian Army. Egypt reports capture of four 'Zionists' trying to infect wells with dysentery and typhoid. There are also allegations that a typhoid outbreak in Acre in 1948 resulted from a biological attack and that there were attacks in Egypt in 1947 and in Syria in 1948."}};
{{harvnb |Sayigh |2009 |p= |ps=, "A unit had been formed to develop biological weapons, and there is evidence that these were used during 1948 to poison the water supplies of Akka and Gaza with typhoid bacteria."}};
{{harvnb |Ackerman |Asal |2008 |p=191 |ps=, "Egyptian Ministry of Defense and, later, Israeli historians, contend that Israeli soldiers contaminated Acre’s water supply."}};
{{harvnb |Pappe |2006 |ps=, pp. 73–4 ("The flame-thrower project was part of a larger unit engaged in developing biological warfare under the directorship of a physical chemist called Ephraim Katzir ... The biological unit he led together with his brother Aharon, started working seriously in February [1948]. Its main objective was to create a weapon that could blind people.") and 100–101 ("During the siege [of Acre] typhoid germs were apparently injected into the water. Local emissaries of the International Red Cross reported this to their headquarters and left very little room for guessing whom they suspected: the Hagana. The Red Cross reports describe a sudden typhoid epidemic and, even with their guarded language, point to outside poisoning as the sole explanation for this outbreak ... A similar attempt to poison the water supply in Gaza on 27 May was foiled.")}};
{{harvnb |Abu Sitta |2003 |ps=, "The Zionists injected typhoid in the aqueduct at some intermediate point which passes through Zionist settlements ... The city of Acre, now burdened by the epidemic, fell easy prey to the Zionists. ... Two weeks later, after their "success" in Acre, the Zionists struck again. This time in Gaza, where hundreds of thousands of refugees had gathered after their villages in southern Palestine were occupied. The end however was different. ... The biological crimes perpetrated against the Palestinians in Acre and Gaza in 1948 are still being enacted today."}};
{{harvnb |Leitenberg |2001 |p=289 |ps=, "As early as April 1948, Ben Gurion directed one of his operatives in Europe (Ehud Avriel) to seek out surviving East European Jewish scientists who could "either increase the capacity to kill masses or to cure masses: both things are important". At that time, that 'capacity' meant chemical and biological weapons ... These were ultimate weapons that could be used either for offense or defense (and the context of the immediate military operations, as well as those that had preceded it, would be the critical factors in that categorization)."}};
{{harvnb |Cohen |2001 |p=31 |ps=, "It is believed that one of the largest operations in this campaign was in the Arab coastal town of Acre, north of Haifa, shortly before it was conquered by the IDF on May 17,1948. According to Milstein, the typhoid epidemic that spread in Acre in the days before the town fell to the Israeli forces was not the result of wartime chaos but rather a deliberate covert action by the IDF—the contamination of Acre's water supply ... The success of the Acre operation may have persuaded Israeli decisionmakers to continue with these activities. On May 23, 1948, Egyptian soldiers in the Gaza area caught four Israeli soldiers disguised as Arabs near water wells ... It seems that many people knew something about these operations, but both the participants and later historians chose to avoid the issue, which gradually became a national taboo ... Despite the official silence, it appears there is little doubt now about the mission of the failed Gaza operation."}}</ref>
====Haifa====
{{Further|Battle of Haifa (1948)}}
[[File:Palestinians leaving the city after the fall of Haifa (cropped).webp|thumb|Palestinians leaving Haifa accompanied by armed Haganah personnel.]]
Palestinians fled the city of [[Haifa]] en masse, in one of the most notable flights of this stage. Historian [[Efraim Karsh]] writes that not only had half of the Arab community fled the city before the final battle in late April 1948, but another 5,000–15,000 left voluntarily during the fighting while the rest, some 15,000–25,000, were ordered to leave, as was initially claimed by an Israeli source, on the instructions of the Arab Higher Committee.{{r|Morris-2004}}{{rp|195-198|date=November 2012}}
Karsh concludes that there was no Jewish grand design to force this departure, and that in fact the Haifa Jewish leadership tried to convince some Arabs to stay, to no avail.<ref>Karsh, E. "Nakbat Haifa: Collapse and Dispersion of a Major Palestinian Community" in ''Middle Eastern Studies'', Volume 37, Number 4/ 1 October 2001.</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.mideastweb.org/haifa1948.htm|title="Middle East Source Documents – Haifa – British Police Report Regarding Flight of Arabs – 1948|access-date=24 April 2016|archive-date=10 October 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211010054838/http://www.mideastweb.org/haifa1948.htm|url-status=live}}</ref> [[Walid Khalidi]] disputes this account, saying that two independent studies, which analysed [[CIA]] and [[BBC]] intercepts of radio broadcasts from the region, concluded that no orders or instructions were given by the Arab Higher Committee.<ref>[http://ipsnewsite.mysite4now.com/enakba/exodus/Erskine%20Childers,%20Walid%20Khalidi,%20Jon%20Kimche,%20et%20al.pdf Erskine Childers, Walid Khalidi, and Jon Kimche] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090319003435/http://ipsnewsite.mysite4now.com/enakba/exodus/Erskine%20Childers%2C%20Walid%20Khalidi%2C%20Jon%20Kimche%2C%20et%20al.pdf |date=19 March 2009 }} 1961 Correspondence in "The Spectator" on "Why the Refugees Left" Originally Appendix E of Khalidi, Walid, "Plan Dalet Revisited: Master Plan for the Conquest of Palestine" in 18 no. 1, (Aut. 88): 51–70.</ref> Benny Morris agrees with Karsh, while also acknowledging "an undercurrent of expulsive thinking."{{r|Morris-2004}}{{rp|date=November 2012|pages=198–207}}
According to Morris, "The Haganah mortar attacks of 21–22 April [on Haifa] were primarily designed to break Arab morale in order to bring about a swift collapse of resistance and speedy surrender. [...] But clearly the offensive, and especially the mortaring, precipitated the exodus. The three-inch mortars "opened up on the market square [where there was] a great crowd [...] a great panic took hold. The multitude burst into the port, pushed aside the policemen, charged the boats and began to flee the town", as the official Haganah history later put it".{{r|Morris-2004}}{{rp|191, 200|date=November 2012}} According to Pappé,{{r|Pappe2006}}{{rp|96|date=November 2012}} this mortar barrage was deliberately aimed at civilians to precipitate their flight from Haifa, while Morris denies this claim.{{r|Morris-2004}}{{rp|200|date=November 2012}}
The Haganah broadcast a warning to Arabs in Haifa on 21 April: "that unless they sent away 'infiltrated dissidents' they would be advised to evacuate all women and children, because they would be strongly attacked from now on".<ref>"British Proclamation in Haifa Making Evacuation Secure", ''The Times'', London, 22 April 1948; p. 4; Issue 51052; col D</ref>
Commenting on the use of "psychological warfare broadcasts" and military tactics in Haifa, [[Benny Morris]] writes:
<blockquote>Throughout the Haganah made effective use of Arabic language broadcasts and loudspeaker vans. Haganah Radio announced that "the day of judgement had arrived" and called on inhabitants to "kick out the foreign criminals" and to "move away from every house and street, from every neighbourhood occupied by foreign criminals". The Haganah broadcasts called on the populace to "evacuate the women, the children and the old immediately, and send them to a safe haven". Jewish tactics in the battle were designed to stun and quickly overpower opposition; demoralisation was a primary aim. It was deemed just as important to the outcome as the physical destruction of the Arab units. The mortar barrages and the psychological warfare broadcasts and announcements, and the tactics employed by the infantry companies, advancing from house to house, were all geared to this goal. The orders of Carmeli's 22nd Battalion were "to kill every [adult male] Arab encountered" and to set alight with fire-bombs "all objectives that can be set alight. I am sending you posters in Arabic; disperse on route."{{r|Morris-2004}}{{rp|191, 192|date=November 2012}}</blockquote>
By mid-May there were only ~4,000 Palestinians in Haifa. This remaining Arab population was relocated to the neighbourhood of [[Wadi Nisnas]], in a process that has been described as "[[ghettoization]]".<ref>Benny Morris (1988). "Haifa’s Arabs: Displacement and Concentration, July 1948". Middle East Journal, 42(2), 241–259. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4327736</ref><ref>[[Ilan Pappé]], [[The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine]] (2006)</ref>{{refn|Finkelstein, Norman. "Myths, Old and New". Journal of Palestine Studies 21, no. 1 (1991): 66–89. https://doi.org/10.2307/2537366 – "In July, Haifa's remaining inhabitants, some 3,500, were packed into a ghetto in the downtown Wadi Nisnas neighborhood."}}{{refn|Azoulay, Ariella. "Declaring the State of Israel: Declaring a State Of". Critical Inquiry 37, no. 2 (2011): 265–85. https://doi.org/10.1086/657293 – "[...] the ghetto in Wadi Nisnas that had been established for them after they had been expelled from their homes."}} A systematic destruction of Arab housing in certain areas, which had been planned before the War, was implemented by Haifa's Technical and Urban Development departments in cooperation with the IDF's city commander [[Ya'akov Lublini]].{{r|Morris-2004}}{{rp|209–211|date=November 2012}}
====Further events====
According to Glazer (1980, p. 111), from 15 May 1948 onwards, expulsion of Palestinians became a regular practice. Avnery (1971), explaining the Zionist rationale, says, <blockquote>I believe that during this phase, the eviction of Arab civilians had become an aim of David Ben-Gurion and his government... UN opinion could very well be disregarded. Peace with the Arabs seemed out of the question, considering the extreme nature of the Arab propaganda. In this situation, it was easy for people like Ben-Gurion to believe the capture of uninhabited territory was both necessary for security reasons and desirable for the homogeneity of the new Hebrew state.<ref>Avnery, Uri (1971). ''Israel Without Zionism: A Plan for Peace in the Middle East''. New York: Collier Books, pp. 224–25.</ref></blockquote>
Based on research of numerous archives, Morris provides an analysis of Haganah-induced flight:
<blockquote>Undoubtedly, as was understood by IDF intelligence, the most important single factor in the exodus of April–June was Jewish attack. This is demonstrated clearly by the fact that each exodus occurred during or in the immediate wake of military assault. No town was abandoned by the bulk of its population before the Haganah/IZL assault... The closer drew the 15 May British withdrawal deadline and the prospect of invasion by Arab states, the readier became commanders to resort to "cleansing" operations and expulsions to rid their rear areas.<ref name="Morris-2004" />{{rp|265}}
[R]elatively few commanders faced the moral dilemma of having to carry out the expulsion clauses. Townspeople and villagers usually fled their homes before or during battle... though (Haganah commanders) almost invariably prevented inhabitants, who had initially fled, from returning home...<ref name="Morris-2004" />{{rp|165}}</blockquote>
Edgar O'Ballance, a military historian, adds, <blockquote>Israeli vans with loudspeakers drove through the streets ordering all the inhabitants to evacuate immediately, and such as were reluctant to leave were forcibly ejected from their homes by the triumphant Israelis whose policy was now openly one of clearing out all the Arab civil population before them... From the surrounding villages and hamlets, during the next two or three days, all the inhabitants were uprooted and set off on the road to Ramallah... No longer was there any "reasonable persuasion". Bluntly, the Arab inhabitants were ejected and forced to flee into Arab territory... Wherever the Israeli troops advanced into Arab country the Arab population was bulldozed out in front of them.<ref>O'Ballance, Edgar (1956) pp. 147, 172.</ref></blockquote>
After the fall of Haifa the villages on the slopes of [[Mount Carmel]] had been harassing the Jewish traffic on the main road to Haifa. A decision was made on 9 May 1948 to expel or subdue the villages of [[Kafr Saba]], [[Al-Tira, Baysan|al-Tira]], [[Qaqun]], [[Qalansuwa]] and [[Tantura]].<ref>Morris, 2004, p. 246; Summary meeting of the Arab Affairs Advisor in Netanya 9 May 1948 IDF 6127/49//109.</ref> On 11 May 1948 Ben-Gurion convened the "Consultancy"; the outcome of the meeting is confirmed in a letter to commanders of the Haganah Brigades telling them that the [[Arab Legion|Arab legion's]] offensive should not distract their troops from the principal tasks: "the cleansing of Palestine remained the prime objective of [[Plan Dalet]]."<ref>Yehuda Slutzky, ""Summary of the Hagana Book"", pp. 486–7. Cited from Ilan Pappé, 2006, p. 128.</ref>
The attention of the commanders of the [[Alexandroni Brigade]] was turned to reducing the [[Mount Carmel]] pocket. [[Tantura]], being on the coast, gave the Carmel villages access to the outside world and so was chosen as the point to surround the Carmel villages as a part of the Coastal Clearing offensive operation in the beginning of the [[1948 Arab–Israeli War]].
On the night of 22–23 May 1948, one week and one day after the declaration of Independence of the State of [[Israel]], the coastal village of Tantura was attacked and occupied by the 33rd Battalion of the Alexandroni Brigade of the Haganah. The village of Tantura was not given the option of surrender and the initial report spoke of dozens of villagers killed, with 300 adult male prisoners and 200 women and children.<ref>Morris, 2004, p. 247; unsigned short report on Tantura Operation, IDFA 922/75//949, and Ya'akov B.,' in the name of the deputy OC "A" company "Report on Operation Namal" 26 May 1948, IDFA 6647/49//13.</ref> Many of the villagers fled to [[Fureidis]] (previously captured) and to Arab-held territory. The captured women of Tantura were moved to Fureidis, and on 31 May Brechor Shitrit, Minister of Minority Affairs of the provisional Government of Israel, sought permission to expel the refugee women of Tantura from Fureidis as the number of refugees in Fureidis was causing problems of overcrowding and sanitation.<ref>Morris, 2004; [[Shitrit]] to Ben-Gurion 31 May 1948 ISA MAM 302/48.</ref>
A report from the military intelligence SHAI of the Haganah titled "The emigration of Palestinian Arabs in the period 1/12/1947-1/6/1948", dated 30 June 1948, affirms that:
<blockquote> At least 55% of the total of the exodus was caused by our (Haganah/IDF) operations. To this figure, the report's compilers add the operations of the Irgun and Lehi, which "directly (caused) some 15%... of the emigration". A further 2% was attributed to explicit expulsion orders issued by Israeli troops, and 1% to their psychological warfare. This leads to a figure of 73% for departures caused directly by the Israelis. In addition, the report attributes 22% of the departures to "fears" and "a crisis of confidence" affecting the Palestinian population. As for Arab calls for flight, these were reckoned to be significant in only 5% of cases...<ref>Morris, Benny (1986): "The Causes and Character of the Arab Exodus from Palestine: The Israel Defense Forces Intelligence Branch Analysis of June 1948". ''Middle Eastern Studies''. Vol. 22, No. 1 (Jan., 1986), pp. 5–19.</ref><ref>Kapeliouk, Amnon (1987). "New Light on the Israeli–Arab Conflict and the Refugee Problem and Its Origins". ''Journal of Palestine Studies''. Vol. 16, No. 3. (Spring 1987). p. 21.</ref><ref>Intelligence report "Migration of Eretz Yisrael Arabs between December 1, 1947, and June 1, 1948". [https://www.akevot.org.il/en/article/intelligence-brief-from-1948-hidden-for-decades-indicates-jewish-fighters-actions-were-the-major-cause-of-arab-displacement-not-calls-from-arab-leadership/?full#popup/15413e71e82f9865d9e05c83102c4751 Scan of Hebrew original and English translation] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210516043921/https://www.akevot.org.il/en/article/intelligence-brief-from-1948-hidden-for-decades-indicates-jewish-fighters-actions-were-the-major-cause-of-arab-displacement-not-calls-from-arab-leadership/?full#popup/15413e71e82f9865d9e05c83102c4751 |date=16 May 2021 }}</ref></blockquote>
According to Morris's estimates, 250,000 to 300,000 Palestinians left Israel during this stage.{{r|Morris-2004}}{{rp|262|date=November 2012}} "Keesing's Contemporary Archives" in London place the total number of refugees before Israel's independence at 300,000.<ref>Quoted in Mark Tessler's ''A History of the Arab–Israeli Conflict'': "Keesing's Contemporary Archives" (London: Keesing's Publications, 1948–1973). p. 10101.</ref>
[[File:Clause 10 of Cablegram dated 15 May 1948 addressed to the Secretary-General by the Secretary-General of the League of Arab States.jpg|thumb|Clause 10 of the 15 May 1948 [[Arab League]] cablegram stating the expulsion of, at that point, 250,000 Palestinians, as a reason for their entry into the territory]]
In Clause 10.(b) of the [[:s:Cablegram from the Secretary-General of the League of Arab States to the Secretary-General of the United Nations|cablegram]] from the Secretary-General of the League of Arab States to the UN Secretary-General of 15 May 1948 justifying the intervention by the Arab States, the Secretary-General of the League alleged that "approximately over a quarter of a million of the Arab population have been compelled to leave their homes and emigrate to neighbouring Arab countries."<ref>[https://www.un.org/Docs/journal/asp/ws.asp?m=S/745 PDF copy of Cablegram from the Secretary-General of the League of Arab States to the Secretary-General of the United Nations: S/745: 15 May 1948: Retrieved 6 June 2012] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140107030419/http://www.un.org/Docs/journal/asp/ws.asp?m=S%2F745 |date=7 January 2014 }}</ref>
===July–October 1948===
{{Further|1948 Palestinian expulsion from Lydda and Ramle}}
Israeli operations named [[Operation Dani|Dani]] and Dekel that broke the truce were the start of the third phase of expulsions.{{citation needed|date=August 2024}} The largest single expulsion of the war began in [[Lod|Lydda]] and [[Ramla]] 14 July under Operation Dani when 60,000 inhabitants of the two cities (nearly 8.6% of the whole exodus) were forcibly expelled on the orders of [[David Ben-Gurion]] and [[Yitzhak Rabin]] in events that came to be known as the "Lydda Death March".
According to Flapan (1987, pp. 13–14) in Ben-Gurion's view Ramlah and Lydda constituted a special danger because their proximity might encourage co-operation between the Egyptian army, which had started its attack on Kibbutz Negbah, near Ramlah, and the Arab Legion, which had taken the Lydda police station. However the author considers that Operation Dani revealed that no such co-operation existed.
In Flapan's opinion, "in Lydda, the exodus took place on foot. In Ramlah, the IDF provided buses and trucks. Originally, all males had been rounded up and enclosed in a compound, but after some shooting was heard, and construed by Ben-Gurion to be the beginning of an Arab Legion counteroffensive, he stopped the arrests and ordered the speedy eviction of all the Arabs, including women, children, and the elderly."<ref name="Oren1976">Oren, Elhanan (1976): ''On the Way to the City''. Hebrew, Tel Aviv.</ref> In explanation, Flapan cites that Ben-Gurion said that "those who made war on us bear responsibility after their defeat."{{r|Oren1976}}
Rabin wrote in his memoirs:
{{blockquote|What would they do with the 50,000 civilians in the two cities... Not even Ben-Gurion could offer a solution, and during the discussion at operation headquarters, he remained silent, as was his habit in such situations. Clearly, we could not leave [Lydda's] hostile and armed populace in our rear, where it could endanger the supply route [to the troops who were] advancing eastward... Allon repeated the question: What is to be done with the population? Ben-Gurion waved his hand in a gesture that said: Drive them out!... "Driving out" is a term with a harsh ring... Psychologically, this was one of the most difficult actions we undertook. The population of [Lydda] did not leave willingly. There was no way of avoiding the use of force and warning shots in order to make the inhabitants march the 10 to 15 miles to the point where they met up with the legion. ("Soldier of Peace", pp. 140–141)}}
Flapan maintains that events in Nazareth, although ending differently, point to the existence of a definite pattern of expulsion. On 16 July, three days after the Lydda and Ramlah evictions, the city of Nazareth surrendered to the IDF. The officer in command, a Canadian Jew named [[Ben Dunkelman]], had signed the surrender agreement on behalf of the Israeli army along with [[Haim Laskov|Chaim Laskov]] (then a brigadier general, later IDF chief of staff). The agreement assured the civilians that they would not be harmed, but the next day, Laskov handed Dunkelman an order to evacuate the population, which Dunkelman refused.<ref>"Peretz Kidron interview with Ben Dunkelman". ''Haolam Hazeh''. 9 January 1980.</ref><ref>Kidron, Peretz (1988). "Truth Whereby Nations Live". In [[Edward Said]] and [[Christopher Hitchens]] (Eds.). ''[[Blaming the Victims#"Truth Whereby Nations Live" (Peretz Kidron)|Blaming the Victims: Spurious Scholarship and the Palestinian Question]]'' Verso. {{ISBN|978-1-85984-340-6}}, p. 87.</ref>
Additionally, widespread looting and several cases of rape<ref>[http://www.logosjournal.com/morris.htm "Ari Shavit—Survival Of The Fittest? An Interview With Benny Morris"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210905113719/http://www.logosjournal.com/morris.htm |date=5 September 2021 }}, Logos, Winter 2004.</ref> took place during the evacuation. In total, about 100,000 Palestinians became refugees in this stage according to Morris.{{r|Morris-2004}}{{rp|448|date=November 2012}}
Glazer<ref>Glazer 1980, p. 109.</ref> quotes the testimony of [[Folke Bernadotte|Count Bernadotte]], the UN mediator in Palestine, who reported that "the exodus of the Palestinian Arabs resulted from panic created by fighting in their communities, by rumours concerning real or alleged acts of terrorism, or expulsion. Almost the whole of the Arab population fled or was expelled from the area under Jewish occupation."<ref>UN Progress Report, 16 September 1948, Part 1 Section V, paragraph 6; Part 3 Section I, paragraph 1 to 3. According to Glazer, this observation by Count Folke Bernadotte is frequently cited not only as an example of descriptions of panic, but also as evidence that the Zionists pursued a policy of expulsion.</ref><ref>[http://domino.un.org/unispal.nsf/9a798adbf322aff38525617b006d88d7/ab14d4aafc4e1bb985256204004f55fa UN Doc. a/648] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120609143305/http://domino.un.org/unispal.nsf/9a798adbf322aff38525617b006d88d7/ab14d4aafc4e1bb985256204004f55fa |date=9 June 2012 }} Progress Report of the United Nations Mediator on Palestine Submitted to the Secretary-General for Transmission to the Members of the United Nations Part 1 Section V para 6. "It is not yet known what the policy of the [[Provisional government of Israel]] with regard to the return of Arab refugees will be when the final terms of settlement are reached. It is, however, undeniable that no settlement can be just and complete if recognition is not accorded to the right of the Arab refugee to return to the home from which he has been dislodged by the hazards and strategy of the armed conflict between Arabs and Jews in Palestine. The majority of these refugees have come from territory which, under the Assembly resolution of 29 November, was to be included in the Jewish State. The exodus of Palestinian Arabs resulted from panic created by fighting in their communities, by rumours concerning real or alleged acts of terrorism, or expulsion. It would be an offence against the principles of elemental justice if these innocent victims of the conflict were denied the right to return to their homes while Jewish immigrants flow into Palestine, and, indeed, at least offer the threat of permanent replacement of the Arab refugees who have been rooted in the land for centuries."</ref>
On 26 September, [[Yosef Weitz]] alerted Ben-Gurion to the problem of masses of Palestinians endeavouring to return to their land in Israel or to lands Israel was about to take control of. On being asked how to deal with the problem, Weitz advocated a policy of endless 'harassment' (''[hatrada]''). Later on the same day, his cabinet turned down his proposal that Israel launch an invasion against the [[Arab Legion]] in order to wrest control over part, or all, of the West Bank where the latter was entrenched. It was in this context that Ben-Gurion then ordered [[Yigael Yadin]] extend Israel's biological warfare operations abroad, beginning with the poisoning of Cairo's water network with toxic bacteria. Both this and other projects to take similar measures in Syria and Lebanon, for a variety of reasons, were never activated.<ref>[[Benny Morris]], [[Benjamin Z. Kedar]], [https://doi.org/10.1080/00263206.2022.2122448 'Cast thy bread': Israeli biological warfare during the 1948 War] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230305221558/https://doi.org/10.1080/00263206.2022.2122448 |date=5 March 2023 }} [[Middle Eastern Studies (journal)|Middle Eastern Studies]] 19 September 2022, pages =1-25 pp.16-18.</ref>
===October 1948 – March 1949===
[[File:Operation order for the destruction of Palestinian villages in 1948.jpg|thumb|IDF operation order for the destruction of Palestinian villages in November 1948]]
This period of the exodus was characterized by Israeli military accomplishments; [[Operation Yoav]], in October, this cleared the road to the Negev, culminating in the capture of [[Beersheba]]; [[Operation Ha-Har]] that same month which cleared the [[Jerusalem Corridor]] from pockets of resistance; [[Operation Hiram]], at the end of October, resulted in the capture of the [[Upper Galilee]]; [[Operation Horev]] in December 1948 and [[Operation Uvda]] in March 1949, completed the capture of the Negev (the Negev had been allotted to the Jewish State by the United Nations) these operations were met with resistance from the Palestinian Arabs who were to become refugees. The Israeli military activities were confined to the [[Galilee]] and the sparsely populated [[Negev desert]]. It was clear to the villages in the Galilee, that if they left, return was far from imminent. Therefore, far fewer villages spontaneously depopulated than previously. Most of the Palestinian exodus was due to a clear, direct cause: expulsion and deliberate harassment, as Morris writes "commanders were clearly bent on driving out the population in the area they were conquering".{{r|Morris-2004}}{{rp|490|date=November 2012}}
During Operation Hiram in the upper Galilee, Israeli military commanders received the order: "Do all you can to immediately and quickly purge the conquered territories of all hostile elements in accordance with the orders issued. The residents should be helped to leave the areas that have been conquered." (31 October 1948, [[Moshe Carmel]]) The UN's acting Mediator, [[Ralph Bunche]], reported that United Nations Observers had recorded extensive looting of villages in Galilee by Israeli forces, who carried away goats, sheep and mules. This looting, United Nations Observers reported, appeared to have been systematic as army trucks were used for transportation. The situation, states the report, created a new influx of refugees into Lebanon. Israeli forces, he stated, have occupied the area in Galilee formerly occupied by Kaukji's forces, and have crossed the Lebanese frontier. Bunche goes on to say "that Israeli forces now hold positions inside the south-east corner of Lebanon, involving some fifteen Lebanese villages which are occupied by small Israeli detachments."<ref>[http://domino.un.org/unispal.nsf/9a798adbf322aff38525617b006d88d7/a1c20f7009def4fe85256a70006891fd UN Doc. PAL/370] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120609143322/http://domino.un.org/unispal.nsf/9a798adbf322aff38525617b006d88d7/a1c20f7009def4fe85256a70006891fd |date=9 June 2012 }} UN Press Release, 6 November 1948.</ref>
According to Morris, 200,000–230,000 Palestinians fled during Operation Hiram and Operation Yoav.{{r|Morris-2004}}{{rp|492|date=November 2012}} According to [[Ilan Pappe|Ilan Pappé]], "In a matter of seven months, five hundred and thirty one villages were destroyed and eleven urban neighborhoods emptied [...] The mass expulsion was accompanied by massacres, rape and [the] imprisonment of men [...] in labor camps for periods [of] over a year."<ref>{{cite web | author = Pappe, Ilan | date = Spring 2006 | url = http://www.badil.org/al-majdal/2006/Spring/article03.htm | title = Calling a Spade a Spade: The 1948 Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine | access-date = 3 May 2007 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20070527093509/http://www.badil.org/al-majdal/2006/Spring/article03.htm | archive-date = 27 May 2007 | url-status = dead}}</ref>
==Contemporary mediation and the Lausanne Conference==
===UN mediation===
The United Nations, using the offices of the [[United Nations Truce Supervision Organization]] and the [[Mixed Armistice Commissions]], was involved in the conflict from the very beginning. In the autumn of 1948 the refugee problem was a fact and possible solutions were discussed. [[Count Folke Bernadotte]] said on 16 September:
{{blockquote|No settlement can be just and complete if recognition is not accorded to the right of the Arab refugee to return to the home from which he has been dislodged. It would be an offence against the principles of elemental justice if these innocent victims of the conflict were denied the right to return to their homes while Jewish immigrants flow into Palestine, and indeed, offer the threat of permanent replacement of the Arab refugees who have been rooted in the land for centuries.<ref>[http://domino.un.org/unispal.nsf/9a798adbf322aff38525617b006d88d7/ab14d4aafc4e1bb985256204004f55fa UN Doc A/648] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120609143305/http://domino.un.org/unispal.nsf/9a798adbf322aff38525617b006d88d7/ab14d4aafc4e1bb985256204004f55fa |date=9 June 2012 }} Progress Report of the United Nations Mediator on Palestine Submitted to the Secretary-General for Transmission to the Members of the United Nations see part 1 section V para 6.</ref><ref>Bowker, 2003, pp. 97–98.</ref>}}
[[UN General Assembly Resolution 194]], passed on 11 December 1948 and reaffirmed every year since, was the first resolution that called for Israel to let the refugees return:
{{blockquote|the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/C758572B78D1CD0085256BCF0077E51A |title=United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194 |publisher=[[United Nations General Assembly]] |date=11 December 1948 |access-date=6 June 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150702150304/http://unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/C758572B78D1CD0085256BCF0077E51A |archive-date=2 July 2015}}</ref>}}
===Lausanne Conference of 1949===
{{main|Lausanne Conference of 1949}}
At the start of the [[Lausanne Conference of 1949]], on 12 May 1949, Israel agreed in principle to allow the return of some of the Palestinian refugees.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Israel's membership in the UN - Ad Hoc Political Committee - Summary record |url=https://www.un.org/unispal/document/auto-insert-185978/ |access-date=2024-11-03 |website=Question of Palestine |language=en-US}}</ref> At the same time, Israel became a member of the U.N. upon the passage of [[United Nations General Assembly Resolution 273]] on 11 May 1949, which read, in part,
{{blockquote|Noting furthermore the declaration by the State of Israel that it "unreservedly accepts the obligations of the United Nations Charter and undertakes to honour them from the day when it becomes a member of the United Nations".}}
Instead Israel made an offer of allowing 100,000 of the refugees to return to the area, though not necessarily to their homes, including 25,000 who had returned surreptitiously and 10,000 family-reunion cases.{{r|Morris-2004}}{{rp|577|date=November 2012}} The proposal was conditional on a peace treaty that would allow Israel to retain the territory it had captured which had been allocated to the Arab state by the [[United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine]], and, contrary to Israel's UN acceptance promise, on the Arab states absorbing the remaining 550,000–650,000 refugees. The Arab states rejected the proposal on both legal, moral and political grounds, and Israel quickly withdrew its limited offer.
Benny Morris, in his 2004 book, ''The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited'', summarizes it from his perspective:
{{blockquote|In retrospect, it appeared that at Lausanne was lost the best and perhaps only chance for a solution of the refugee problem, if not for the achievement of a comprehensive Middle East settlement. But the basic incompatibility of the initial starting positions and the unwillingness of the two sides to move, and to move quickly, towards a compromise—born of Arab rejectionism and a deep feeling of humiliation, and of Israeli drunkenness with victory and physical needs determined largely by the Jewish refugee influx—doomed the "conference" from the start. American pressure on both sides, lacking a sharp, determined cutting edge, failed to budge sufficiently either Jew or Arab. The "100,000 Offer" was a classic of too little, too late.{{r|Morris-2004}}{{rp|580|date=November 2012}}}}
==Results of the Palestinian exodus==
The expulsion of Palestinians in 1947–49 resulted in the significant depopulation of territory occupied by Israel, in which "about 90 percent of the Palestinians were ethnically cleansed – many by psychological warfare and /or military pressure and a large number at gunpoint."<ref name="Masalha-2009">{{cite journal |journal=Holy Land Studies |volume=8 |issue=2 |pages=245–247 |date=2009 |first=Nur |last=Masalha |doi=10.3366/E1474947509000614 |title=Rosemary M. Esber, Under the Cover of War: The Zionist Expulsion of the Palestinians}}</ref> Historic Arabic place names were replaced with Hebrew names, based on biblical names.<ref name="Masalha-2009"/>
===Economic damage===
As towns and villages were either conquered or abandoned in the conflict, looting by Jewish forces and residents was widespread. In the aftermath, on 24 July 1948, [[David Ben-Gurion]] criticised the looting: "It turns out that most of the Jews are thieves... I say this deliberately and simply, because unfortunately it is true."{{efn|Ben-Gurion continued: "People from the Jezreel Valley stole! The pioneers of the pioneers, parents of [[Palmach]] children! And everyone took part in it, baruch Hashem, the people of [Moshav] Nahalal!... This is a general blow. It’s appalling, because it shows a basic flaw. Theft and robbery – and where does this come to us from? Why have the people of the land – builders, creators, pioneers – come to deeds like this? What happened?"<ref name="looted property" />}} [[Netiva Ben-Yehuda]], a Palmach commander, likened the pillaging she observed in [[Tiberias]] to the classic behavior seen by their oppressors during anti-Jewish [[pogroms]] in Europe:
<blockquote>Such pictures were known to us. It was the way things had always been done to us, in the Holocaust, throughout the world war, and all the pogroms. Oy, how well we knew those pictures. And here – here, we were doing these awful things to others. We loaded everything onto the van – with a terrible trembling of the hands. And that wasn't because of the weight. Even now my hands are shaking, just from writing about it.<ref name="looted property">Ofer Aderet, [https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium.highlight.MAGAZINE-jews-looted-arab-property-en-masse-in-48-the-authorities-let-them-1.9201926 'Jewish soldiers and civilians looted Arab neighbors' property en masse in '48,'] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211123095801/https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium.HIGHLIGHT.MAGAZINE-jews-looted-arab-property-en-masse-in-48-the-authorities-let-them-1.9201926 |date=23 November 2021 }} [[Haaretz]] 2 October 2020</ref></blockquote>
===Abandoned, evacuated and destroyed Palestinian localities===
{{Main|Depopulated Palestinian locations in Israel}}
Several authors have conducted studies on the number of Palestinian localities that were abandoned, evacuated or destroyed during the 1947–1949 period. Based on their respective calculations, the table below summarises their information.<ref>''Ruling Palestine, A History of the Legally Sanctioned Jewish-Israeli Seizure of Land and Housing in Palestine''. COHRE & BADIL, May 2005, p. 34.</ref>
{| class="wikitable"
|+Abandoned, evacuated or destroyed Palestinian localities (comparative figures)
|-
! Reference
! Towns
! Villages
! Tribes
! Total
|-
! Morris
| 10
| 342
| 17
| 369
|-
! Khalidi
| 1
| 400
| 17
| 418
|-
! Abu Sitta
| 13
| 419
| 99
| 531
|}
<small>'''Source''': The table data was taken from ''Ruling Palestine, A History of the Legally Sanctioned Jewish-Israeli Seizure of Land and Housing in Palestine''. COHRE & BADIL, May 2005, p. 34.<br />
'''Note''': For information on methodologies; see: Morris, Benny (1987): ''The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947–1949''. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987; Khalidi, Walid (ed.): ''[[All That Remains: The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948]].'' Washington, D.C.: Institute for Palestine Studies, 1992, App. IV, pp. xix, 585–586; and Sitta, Salman Abu: ''The Palestinian Nakba 1948''. London: The Palestinian Return Centre, 2000.</small>
According to the [[Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions]] (COHRE) and BADIL, Morris's list of affected localities, the shortest of the three, includes towns but excludes other localities cited by Khalidi or Abu Sitta. The six sources compared in Khalidi's study have in common 296 of the villages listed as destroyed or depopulated. Sixty other villages are cited in all but one source. Of the total of 418 localities cited in Khalidi, 292 (70 percent) were completely destroyed and 90 (22 percent) "largely destroyed". COHRE and BADIL also note that other sources refer to an additional 151 localities that are omitted from Khalidi's study for various reasons (for example, major cities and towns that were depopulated, as well as some Bedouin encampments and villages "vacated" before the start of hostilities). Abu Sitta's list includes tribes in Beersheba that lost lands; most of these were omitted from Khalidi's work.<ref>''Ruling Palestine, A History of the Legally Sanctioned Jewish-Israeli Seizure of Land and Housing in Palestine''. COHRE & BADIL, May 2005, p. 35.</ref>
Another study, involving field research and comparisons with British and other documents, concludes that 472 Palestinian habitations (including towns and villages) were destroyed in 1948. It notes that the devastation was virtually complete in some sub-districts. For example, it points out that 96.0% of the villages in the Jaffa area were totally destroyed, as were 90.0% of those in Tiberias, 90.3% of those in Safad, and 95.9% of those in Beisan. It also extrapolates from 1931 British census data to estimate that over 70,280 Palestinian houses were destroyed in this period.<ref>Saleh, Abdul Jawad and Walid Mustafa (1987): p. 30.</ref>
In another study, Abu Sitta<ref>Abu Sitta, Salman (2001).</ref> shows the following findings in eight distinct phases of the depopulation of Palestine between 1947 and 1949. His findings are summarized in the table below:
{| class="wikitable"
|+Information on the depopulation of Palestinian towns and villages (1947–1949)
|-
! Phase:
! No. of destroyed/depopulated localities
! No. of refugees
! Jewish/Israeli lands (km<sup>2</sup>)
|-
! 29 Nov. 1947 – Mar. 1948
| 30
| >22,600*
| 1,159.4
|-
! Apr. – 13 May 1948<br />
(Tiberias, Jaffa, Haifa, Safed, etc.)
| 199
| >400,000
| 3,363.9
|-
! 15 May – 11 June 1948<br />
(an additional 90 villages)
| 290
| >500,000
| 3,943.1
|-
! 12 June – 18 July 1948<br />
(Lydda/Ramleh, Nazareth, etc.)
| 378
| >628,000
| 5,224.2
|-
! 19 July – 24 Oct. 1948<br />
(Galilee and southern areas)
| 418
| >664,000
| 7,719.6
|-
! 24 Oct. – 5 Nov. 1948<br />
(Galilee, etc.)
| 465
| >730,000
| 10,099.6
|-
! 5 Nov. 1948 – 18 Jan. 1949<br />
(Negev, etc.)
| 481
| >754,000
| 12,366.3
|-
! 19 Jan. – 20 July 1949<br />
(Negev, etc.)
| 531
| >804,000
| 20,350
|}
<small><nowiki>*</nowiki> Other sources put this figure at over 70,000.<br />
'''Source''': The table data was taken from ''Ruling Palestine, A History of the Legally Sanctioned Jewish-Israeli Seizure of Land and Housing in Palestine''. [[COHRE]] & BADIL, May 2005, p. 34. The source being: Abu Sitta, Salman (2001): "From Refugees to Citizens at Home". London: Palestine Land Society and Palestinian Return Centre, 2001.</small>
===Hebraization of Palestinian place names===
{{Main|Hebraization of Palestinian place names}}
[[Hebrew-language]] names were coined for the [[place names of Palestine|place-names of Palestine]] after the establishment of [[Israel]] following the 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight.<ref name="Kadman2015">{{cite book|author=Noga Kadman|title=Erased from Space and Consciousness: Israel and the Depopulated Palestinian Villages of 1948|date=7 September 2015|publisher=Indiana University Press|isbn=978-0-253-01682-9|pages=91–|chapter=Naming and Mapping the Depopulated Village Sites|ref=none|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FIdNCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA100}}</ref> Palestinians consider the Hebraization of place-names in [[Palestine (region)|Palestine]] part of the Palestinian [[Nakba]],<ref>{{cite journal|last=Sa’di|first=Ahmad H.|date=2002|title=Catastrophe, Memory and Identity: Al-Nakbah as a Component of Palestinian Identity|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/30245590|journal=Israel Studies|volume=7|issue=2|pages=175–198|doi=10.2979/ISR.2002.7.2.175|jstor=30245590|quote=, Al-Nakbah is associated with a rapid de-Arabization of the country. This process has included the destruction of Palestinian villages. About 418 villages were erased, and out of twelve Palestinian or mixed towns, a Palestinian population continued to exist in only seven. This swift transformation of the physical and cultural environment was accompanied, at the symbolic level, by the changing of the names of streets, neighborhoods, cities, and regions. Arabic names were replaced by Zionist, Jewish, or European names. This renaming continues to convey to the Palestinians the message that the country has seen only two historical periods which attest to its "true" nature: the ancient Jewish past, and the period that began with the creation of Israel.|authorlink=Ahmad H. Sa'di|s2cid=144811289|url-access=subscription}}</ref> while Zionists consider this to be a way of emphasizing historical continuity and a Jewish connection to the region.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Cohen |first1=Saul B. |last2=Kliot |first2=Nurit |title=Israel's Place-Names as Reflection of Continuity and Change in Nation-Building |journal=Names |date=1 September 1981 |volume=29 |issue=3 |pages=227–248 |doi=10.1179/nam.1981.29.3.227 |quote=Thus, place-names in Israel reflect the Jewish nationhood of the past by imprinting the landscape with Ancient-Biblical and Mishnaic-Talmudic place-names. These names emphasize the continuity of culture in the land of Israel for more than 3,000 years, and enhance the perception of Israel as the "land of the Bible" in the eyes of its settlers and outsiders"<br/>"[...] While the Zionist and military-heroism origins of place-names symbolize change and innovation in the cultural landscapes, Arabic-origin names, as with the Ancient-Biblical, strengthen the sense of cultural continuity.|doi-access=free }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Azaryahu |first1=Maoz |last2=Golan |first2=Arnon |title=(Re)naming the landscape: The formation of the Hebrew map of Israel 1949–1960 |journal=Journal of Historical Geography |date=April 2001 |volume=27 |issue=2 |pages=178–195 |doi=10.1006/jhge.2001.0297 |quote=Conceived of as a restorative measure, the introduction of the official Hebrew map challenged the status of existing Arabic toponymy as the only authoritative and legitimate rendition of the landscape. From a Zionist perspective, the Hebraicization of the landscape may be praised as a restoration of the Jewish past of the land and as an aspect of Jewish national revival. From an anti-Zionist perspective it may be condemned as symbolic erasure of the Arab past. However, as it became apparent, the Hebrew map of Jewish Israel has not replaced the Arabic map of Arab Filastin. Arabic toponymy further persists in the form of Arab folk geography and in Arab-Palestinian maps that assert the validity of Arabic place names.}}</ref> In certain areas of Israel, particularly the [[mixed cities]], there is a growing trend to restore the original Arabic street names that were Hebraized after 1948.<ref name="Rekhess">{{cite journal |jstor=10.2979/israelstudies.19.2.187 |quote=A new trend that has become particularly popular in recent years in mixed Jewish-Arab cities, is attempts to restore original Arabic street names, “Hebraized” after 1948|doi=10.2979/israelstudies.19.2.187|title=The Arab Minority in Israel: Reconsidering the "1948 Paradigm"|year=2014|last1=Rekhess|journal=Israel Studies|volume=19|issue=2|pages=187–217|s2cid=144053751}}</ref><ref name="OA">{{cite web|author=Ofer Aderet|url=https://www.haaretz.com/weekend/week-s-end/a-stir-over-sign-language-1.375919|title=A stir over sign language: A recently discovered trove of documents from the 1950s reveals a nasty battle in Jerusalem over the hebraization of street and neighborhood names. This campaign is still raging today.|work=[[Haaretz]]|date=29 July 2011|access-date=18 December 2011}}</ref>
===Palestinian refugees===
{{Main|Palestinian refugees|Estimates of the Palestinian Refugee flight of 1948}}
{{Infobox ethnic group| group=Palestinian refugees | pop=4.9 million (Registered with UNRWA—including descendants and re-settled)<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.un.org/unrwa/publications/pdf/rr_countryandarea.pdf |title=Total Registered Refugees per Country and Area |date=31 March 2005 |publisher=UNRWA |access-date=2009-09-23 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080723174310/http://www.un.org/unrwa/publications/pdf/rr_countryandarea.pdf |archive-date=23 July 2008 }} Refugees Per Country & Area; 2005</ref> | popplace=[[Gaza Strip]], Jordan, [[West Bank]], Lebanon, [[Syria]] | rels=Islam and Christianity | langs=[[Arabic]]}}
On 11 December 1948, 12 months prior to UNRWA's establishment, [[United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194]] was adopted. The resolution accepted the definition of Palestinian refugees as "persons of Arab origin who, after 29 November 1947, left territory at present under the control of the Israel authorities and who were Palestinian citizens at that date" and; "Persons of Arab origin who left the said territory after 6 August 1924 and before 29 November 1947 and who at that latter date were Palestinian citizens; 2. Persons of Arab origin who left the territory in question before 6 August 1924 and who, having opted for Palestinian citizenship, retained that citizenship up to 29 November 1947"<ref>{{cite book | title=International law and the Israeli–Palestinian conflict | publisher=Taylor & Francis | author=Susan Akram | author-link=a rights-based approach to Middle East peace | year=2011 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oeJ50a76z5cC&q=DEFINITION+OF+A+%E2%80%9CREFUGEE%E2%80%9D+UNDER+PARAGRAPH+11+OF+THE+GENERAL+ASSEMBLY+RESOLUTION+OF+11+DECEMBER+1948&pg=PA38 | pages=38, 19 | isbn=978-0-415-57322-1 | quote=This was the definition accepted by the drafters of the resolution 194 for the purposes of defining the entire group of Palestinians who were entitled to the protection of the International Community | access-date=29 October 2020 | archive-date=3 July 2024 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240703040550/https://books.google.com/books?id=oeJ50a76z5cC&q=DEFINITION+OF+A+%E2%80%9CREFUGEE%E2%80%9D+UNDER+PARAGRAPH+11+OF+THE+GENERAL+ASSEMBLY+RESOLUTION+OF+11+DECEMBER+1948&pg=PA38 | url-status=live }}</ref>
[[UNRWA]] was established under UNGA resolution 302 (IV) of 8 December 1949.<ref name="UNRWA">{{cite web | url=http://www.unrwa.org/etemplate.php?id=85 | title=Overview | publisher=United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) | access-date=29 October 2011 | archive-date=17 May 2021 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210517065958/https://www.unrwa.org/?id=85 | url-status=live }}</ref> It defines refugees qualifying for UNRWA's services as "persons whose normal place of residence was Palestine between June 1946 and May 1948, who lost both their homes and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 Arab–Israeli conflict" and also covers the descendants of persons who became refugees in 1948. The UNRWA mandate does not extend to final status.<ref name="UNRWA mandate">{{cite web | url=http://www.unrwa.org/etemplate.php?id=87#final_status | title=Q/A Final Status | publisher=UNRWA | access-date=30 October 2011 | quote=Q) Is UNRWA involved in the Middle East peace negotiations and in the discussions on a solution to the refugee issue? A) No. UNRWA is a humanitarian agency and its mandate defines its role as one of providing services to the refugees. | archive-date=6 September 2013 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130906121016/http://www.unrwa.org/etemplate.php?id=87#final_status | url-status=live }}</ref>
The final 1949 UNRWA estimate of the refugee count was 726,000,{{r|Morris-2004}}{{rp|602|date=November 2012}} but the number of registered refugees was 914,000.<ref>[https://www.un.org/unrwa/refugees/whois.html "Who is a Palestine Refugee?"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090806150018/http://www.un.org/unrwa/refugees/whois.html |date=6 August 2009 }} UNRWA's operational definition</ref> The U.N. Conciliation Commission explained that the number was inflated by "duplication of ration cards, addition of persons who have been displaced from area other than Israel-held areas and of persons who, although not displaced, are destitute," and the UNRWA additionally noted that "all births are eagerly announced, the deaths wherever possible are passed over in silence," as well as the fact that "the birthrate is high in any case, a net addition of 30,000 names a year." By June 1951, UNRWA had reduced the number of registered refugees to 876,000 after many false and duplicate registrations had been weeded out.<ref>[http://domino.un.org/unispal.nsf/181c4bf00c44e5fd85256cef0073c426/8d26108af518ce7e052565a6006e8948 Assistance To Palestine Refugees UN Doc A/1905] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140407095842/http://domino.un.org/unispal.nsf/181c4bf00c44e5fd85256cef0073c426/8d26108af518ce7e052565a6006e8948 |date=7 April 2014 }}, Report of the Director of the UNRWA, 28 September 1951.</ref>
Today the number who qualify for UNRWA's services has grown to over 4 million, one third of whom live in the West Bank and Gaza; slightly less than one third in Jordan; 17% in Syria and Lebanon (Bowker, 2003, p. 72) and around 15% in other Arab and Western countries. Approximately 1 million refugees have no form of identification other than an UNRWA identification card.<ref>Bowker, 2003, pp. 61–62.</ref>
===Prevention of Infiltration Law===
{{Main|Prevention of Infiltration Law}}
Following the emergence of the [[Palestinian refugee]] problem after the [[1948 Arab–Israeli war]], many Palestinians tried, in one way or another, to return to their homes. For some time these practices continued to embarrass the Israeli authorities until they passed the [[Prevention of Infiltration Law]], which defines offenses of armed and non-armed infiltration to Israel and from Israel to hostile neighboring countries.{{citation needed|date=March 2021}} According to Arab Israeli writer [[Sabri Jiryis]], the purpose of the law was to prevent Palestinians from returning to Israel, those who did so being regarded as [[Palestinian infiltration|infiltrators]].<ref>Jiryis, Sabri (1981): "Domination by the Law". ''Journal of Palestine Studies''. Vol. 11, No. 1, 10th Anniversary Issue: Palestinians under Occupation. (Autumn, 1981), pp. 67–92.</ref>
According to Kirshbaum,<ref name="Kirshbaum, David A. 2007"/> over the years the Israeli Government has continued to cancel and modify some of the [[Land and Property laws in Israel#Defence (Emergency) Regulations|Defence (Emergency) Regulations of 1945]], but mostly it has added more as it has continued to extend its declared state of emergency. For example, even though the Prevention of Infiltration Law of 1954 is not labelled as an official "Emergency Regulation", it extends the applicability of the "Defence (Emergency) Regulation 112" of 1945 giving the Minister of Defence extraordinary powers of deportation for accused infiltrators even before they are convicted (Articles 30 & 32), and makes itself subject to cancellation when the [[Knesset]] ends the [[State of Emergency]] upon which all of the Emergency Regulations are dependent.
===Land and property laws===
{{Main|Israeli land and property laws}}
Following its [[Israeli Declaration of Independence|establishment]], Israel designed a system of law that legitimised both a continuation and a consolidation of the [[nationalisation]] of land and property, a process that it had begun decades earlier. For the first few years of Israel's existence, many of the new laws continued to be rooted in earlier [[Ottoman Law|Ottoman]] and [[United Kingdom law|British law]]. These laws were later amended or replaced altogether.
The first challenge facing Israel was to transform its control over land into legal ownership. This was the motivation underlying the passing of several of the first group of land laws.<ref>"Ruling Palestine, A History of the Legally Sanctioned Jewish-Israeli Seizure of Land and Housing in Palestine". COHRE & BADIL, May 2005, p. 37.</ref>
====Initial "Emergency Laws" and "Regulations"====
Among the more important initial laws was article 125 of the "Defence (Emergency) Regulations"<ref name="Kirshbaum, David A. 2007">Kirshbaum, David A.{{cite web|url=http://geocities.com/savepalestinenow/emergencyregs/essays/emergencyregsessay.htm |title=Israeli Emergency Regulations & The Defense (Emergency) Regulations of 1945 |access-date=2010-11-13 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091028101623/http://geocities.com/savepalestinenow/emergencyregs/essays/emergencyregsessay.htm |archive-date=28 October 2009}} .</ref>
According to Kirshbaum, the Law has as effect that "no one is allowed in or out without permission from the Israeli Military." "This regulation has been used to exclude a land owner from his own land so that it could be judged as unoccupied, and then expropriated under the 'Land Acquisition (Validation of Acts and Compensation) Law (1953)'. Closures need not be published in the Official Gazette."<ref name="Kirshbaum, David A. 2007"/>
====Absentees' Property Laws====
The Absentees' Property Laws were several laws, first introduced as emergency ordinances issued by the Jewish leadership but which after the war were incorporated into the laws of Israel.<ref>{{cite web|title=Absentees' Property Law (1950) |url=http://www.geocities.com/savepalestinenow/israellaws/fulltext/absenteepropertylaw.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091028090048/http://www.geocities.com/savepalestinenow/israellaws/fulltext/absenteepropertylaw.htm |archive-date=28 October 2009 |url-status=dead}}</ref> As examples of the first type of laws are the "Emergency Regulations (Absentees' Property) Law, 5709-1948 (December)", which according to article 37 of the "Absentees Property Law, 5710-1950" was replaced by the latter;<ref>See article 37 [http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/d80185e9f0c69a7b85256cbf005afeac/e0b719e95e3b494885256f9a005ab90a Absentees' Property Law 5710-1950] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120609143352/http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/d80185e9f0c69a7b85256cbf005afeac/e0b719e95e3b494885256f9a005ab90a |date=9 June 2012 }}</ref> the "Emergency Regulations (Requisition of Property) Law, 5709-1949", and other related laws.<ref>''Ruling Palestine, A History of the Legally Sanctioned Jewish-Israeli Seizure of Land and Housing in Palestine''. COHRE & BADIL, May 2005, p. 41.</ref>
According to COHRE and BADIL (p. 41), unlike other laws that were designed to establish Israel's "legal" control over lands, this body of law focused on formulating a "legal" definition for the people (mostly Arabs) who had left or been forced to flee from these lands.
The absentee property played an enormous role in making Israel a viable state. In 1954, more than one third of Israel's Jewish population lived on absentee property and nearly a third of the new immigrants (250,000 people) settled in urban areas abandoned by Arabs. Of 370 new Jewish settlements established between 1948 and 1953, 350 were on absentee property.<ref>Peretz, (1958)</ref>
The absentee property law is directly linked to the controversy of parallelism between the [[Jewish exodus from Arab and Muslim countries]] and the Palestinian exodus, as advocacy groups have suggested that there are strong ties between the two processes and some of them even claim that decoupling the two issues is unjust.<ref>Mendes, Philip. [http://www.labyrinth.net.au/~ajds/mendes_refugees.htm "THE FORGOTTEN REFUGEES: the causes of the post-1948 Jewish Exodus from Arab Countries"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081205002325/http://www.labyrinth.net.au/~ajds/mendes_refugees.htm |date=5 December 2008 }}, Presented at the 14 Jewish Studies Conference Melbourne March 2002. Retrieved 12 June 2007.</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.jimena.org/faq.htm|title=Jimena Faq|access-date=21 July 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120717104328/http://www.jimena.org/faq.htm|archive-date=17 July 2012|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/jun/25/middleeast.middleeastthemedia |title=Lyn Julius: Recognising the plight of Jewish refugees from Arab countries |work=The Guardian |___location=London |date=25 June 2008 |access-date=6 May 2010 |archive-date=29 August 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210829230356/https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/jun/25/middleeast.middleeastthemedia |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>[https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/jun/23/israelandthepalestinians.middleeast "A different kind of catastrophe"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210418005331/https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/jun/23/israelandthepalestinians.middleeast |date=18 April 2021 }}. ''The Guardian'', 23 June 2008.</ref>
However, al-Husseini, Palestinian governor of East Jerusalem in the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), has said that the Israeli law "is racist and imperialistic, which aims at seizing thousands of acres and properties of lands".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90777/90854/7074643.html|title=Palestinians warn of executing Israeli "absentee property" law in Jerusalem|author=F_404|access-date=24 April 2016}}</ref>
====Laws enacted====
A number of Israeli laws were enacted that enabled the further acquisition of depopulated lands. Among these laws were:
* The "Land (Acquisition for Public Purposes) Ordinance (1943)". To authorise the confiscation of lands for Government and public purposes.
* The "Prescription Law, 5718-1958". According to COHRE and BADIL (p. 44), this law, in conjunction with the "Land (Settlement of Title) Ordinance (Amendment) Law, 5720-1960", the "Land (Settlement of Title) Ordinance (New Version), 5729-1969" and the "Land Law, 5729-1969", was designed to revise criteria related to the use and registration of Miri lands—one of the most prevalent types in Palestine—and to facilitate Israel's acquisition of such land.
==Israeli censorship of documents==
Following the large-scale declassification of Israeli archival material in the 1980s, additional information about the circumstances surrounding the expulsion and flight of Palestinians became available, contributing to modern understandings of these events.<ref>{{cite book |first1=Benny |last1=Morris |author1-link=Benny Morris |editor1-last=Rogan |editor1-first=Eugene L. |editor2-last=Shlaim |editor2-first=Avi |title=The War for Palestine |date=2012 |chapter=Revisiting the Palestinian exodus of 1948 |page=37}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Levey |first=Zach |date=August 24, 2020 |title=Israel's Archives: Digitization, Delays and Nostalgia for the Reading Room |url=https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/israels-archives-digitization-delays-and-nostalgia-reading-room |access-date=November 28, 2024 |website=Wilson Center |language=en}}</ref> At the same time, there has been evidence of Defense Ministry officials searching Israeli archives to remove previously declassified documents evidencing Israeli massacres of Palestinian villagers in 1947 and 1948 that led to the Palestinian expulsion and flight.<ref>{{cite news |first=Hagar |last=Shezaf |date=4 July 2019 |url=https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium.MAGAZINE-how-israel-systematically-hides-evidence-of-1948-expulsion-of-arabs-1.7435103 |title=Burying the Nakba: How Israel Systematically Hides Evidence of 1948 Expulsion of Arabs |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211128084245/https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium.MAGAZINE-how-israel-systematically-hides-evidence-of-1948-expulsion-of-arabs-1.7435103 |archive-date=28 November 2021 |work=[[Haaretz]]}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |first=Dina |last=Kraft |date=20 April 2018 |url=https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/palestinians/.premium.MAGAZINE-hidden-stories-of-the-nakba-1.6010350 |title=Nakba, Even as Israel Cuts Them Off From Their Sources |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211108125306/https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/palestinians/.premium.MAGAZINE-hidden-stories-of-the-nakba-1.6010350 |archive-date=8 November 2021 |work=[[Haaretz]]}}</ref>
==Historiography==
{{Further|Nakba denial|Causes of the 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight}}
In the first decades after the exodus, two diametrically opposed schools of analysis could be distinguished.<ref>Erskine Childers. ''The Other Exodus''. "The BBC monitored all Middle Eastern broadcasts throughout 1948. The records, and companion ones by a United States monitoring unit, can be seen at the British Museum. There was not a single order or appeal, or suggestion about evacuation from Palestine, from any Arab radio station, inside or outside Palestine, in 1948. There is a repeated monitored record of Arab appeals, even flat orders, to the civilians of Palestine to stay put."
Erskine Childers: The Other Exodus ''The Israel-Arab Reader: A Documentary History of the Middle East Conflict'', (1969) rev.ed. Pelican, 1970 pp. 179–188 p. 183.</ref>
[[Ian Black (journalist)|Ian Black]] at [[The Guardian]] noted in 2010 that the events of the Nakba were by that point "widely described" as involving [[ethnic cleansing]],<ref name="Ian Black-2010">{{cite news |title=Memories and maps keep alive Palestinian hopes of return |author=Ian Black |newspaper=The Guardian |date=26 November 2010 |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/nov/26/palestinian-refugees-middle-east-conflict |access-date=10 December 2016 |archive-date=20 November 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211120173426/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/nov/26/palestinian-refugees-middle-east-conflict |url-status=live }}</ref> with Israeli documents from 1948 themselves using the term "to cleanse" when referring to uprooting Arabs.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.haaretz.com/1.5262428 |title=Survival of the Fittest (Cont.) |work=Haaretz |date=8 January 2004 |access-date=24 April 2016 |archive-date=19 March 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230319084559/https://www.haaretz.com/2004-01-08/ty-article/survival-of-the-fittest-cont/0000017f-e86d-da9b-a1ff-ec6fb5000000 |url-status=live }}<!-- this is part 2 of {{cite news |author=Ari Shavit |title=Survival of the Fittest |newspaper=Haaretz |date=7 January 2004 |url=https://www.haaretz.com/1.5262454}}--></ref> Not all historians accept this characterization.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL1008/S00201/book-review-palestine-betrayed-by-efraim-karsh.htm|title=Book Review: Palestine Betrayed by Efraim Karsh|access-date=24 April 2016|archive-date=1 May 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210501055434/https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL1008/S00201/book-review-palestine-betrayed-by-efraim-karsh.htm|url-status=live}}</ref> [[Efraim Karsh]] is among the few historians who still consider that most of the Arabs who fled left of their own accord or were pressured to leave by their fellow Arabs, despite Israeli attempts to convince them to stay. He says that the expulsions in Lod and Ramle were driven by military necessity.<ref>{{cite web|last=Karsh |first=Efraim |url=http://www.kcl.ac.uk/artshums/depts/mems/people/staff/academic/karsh/articles/WerethePalestiniansExpelled.pdf |title=Were the Palestinians Expelled? |work=[[Commentary (magazine)|Commentary]] |access-date=2014-08-06 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140224112045/http://www.kcl.ac.uk/artshums/depts/mems/people/staff/academic/karsh/articles/WerethePalestiniansExpelled.pdf |archive-date=24 February 2014 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last=Karsh|first=Efraim|url=http://www.meforum.org/302/rewriting-israels-history|title=Rewriting Israel's History|journal=The Middle East Quarterly|date=June 1996|access-date=2014-08-10|archive-date=22 July 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140722100118/http://www.meforum.org/302/rewriting-israels-history|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>cf. {{cite journal|last=Teveth|first=Shabtai|title=The Palestine Arab Refugee Problem and Its Origins|journal=Middle Eastern Studies|volume=26|issue=2|pages=214–249|date=April 1990|jstor=4283366|doi=10.1080/00263209008700816}}</ref>
===Palestinian narrative===
The term "[[Nakba]]" was first applied to the events of 1948 by [[Constantin Zureiq]], a professor of history at the [[American University of Beirut]], in his 1948 book "Ma'na al-Nakba" (The Meaning of the Disaster) he wrote "the tragic aspect of the Nakba is related to the fact that it is not a regular misfortune or a temporal evil, but a Disaster in the very essence of the word, one of the most difficult that Arabs have ever known over their long history."<ref name="Honaida Ghanim-2009">{{cite news |author=Honaida Ghanim |title=Poetics of Disaster: Nationalism, gender, and social change among Palestinian poets in Israel after Nakba |journal=International Journal of Political and Cultural Science |volume=22 |year=2009 |pages=33–39}}</ref> The word was used again one year later by the Palestinian poet [[Burhan al-Deen al-Abushi]].<ref name="Honaida Ghanim-2009"/>
In his encyclopedia published in the late 1950s, [[Aref al-Aref]] wrote: "How Can I call it but Nakba? When we the Arab people generally and the Palestinians particularly, faced such a disaster (Nakba) that we never faced like it along the centuries, our homeland was sealed, we [were] expelled from our country, and we lost many of our beloved sons."<ref name="Honaida Ghanim-2009"/> [[Muhammad Nimr al-Hawari]] also used the term Nakba in the title of his book "Sir al Nakba" (The Secret behind the Disaster) written in 1955. After the [[Six-Day War]] in 1967, Zureiq wrote another book, ''The New Meaning of the Disaster'', but the term Nakba is reserved for the 1948 war.
Together with [[Naji al-Ali]]'s "[[Handala]]" (the barefoot child always drawn from behind), and the symbolic key for the house in [[Palestine (region)|Palestine]] carried by so many Palestinian refugees, the "collective memory of that experience [the Nakba] has shaped the identity of the Palestinian refugees as a people".<ref name="Bowker, 2003, p. 96">Bowker, 2003, p. 96.</ref>
The events of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War greatly influenced the [[Palestinian culture]]. Countless books, songs and poems have been written about the Nakba. The exodus is usually described in strongly emotional terms. For example, at the controversial 2001 [[World Conference Against Racism]] in [[Durban]], prominent Palestinian scholar and activist [[Hanan Ashrawi]] referred to the Palestinians as "...a nation in captivity held hostage to an [[ongoing Nakba]], as the most intricate and pervasive expression of persistent colonialism, ''apartheid'', racism, and victimization" (original emphasis).<ref>[http://www.i-p-o.org/palestine-ashrawi.htm Address by Ms. Hanan Ashrawi] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210304060303/http://www.i-p-o.org/palestine-ashrawi.htm |date=4 March 2021 }}, Durban (South Africa), 28 August 2001. World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Related Intolerances.</ref>
In the Palestinian calendar, the day after Israel declared independence (15 May) is observed as [[Nakba Day]]. It is traditionally observed as an important day of remembrance.<ref name="Bowker, 2003, p. 96"/> In May 2009 the political party headed by Israeli foreign minister [[Avigdor Lieberman]] introduced a bill that would outlaw all Nakba commemorations, with a three-year prison sentence for such acts of remembrance.<ref>Boudreaux, Richard. [http://articles.latimes.com/2009/05/26/news/fg-israel-loyalty26 "Israeli legislation raises loyalty issue"] {{Webarchive|url=https://archive.today/20120707155623/http://articles.latimes.com/2009/05/26/news/fg-israel-loyalty26 |date=7 July 2012 }}, ''Los Angeles Times'', 26 May 2009.</ref> Following public criticism the bill draft was changed, the prison sentence dropped and instead the [[Ministry of Finance (Israel)|Minister of Finance]] would have the authority to reduce state funding for Israeli institutions that hold the commemorations. The new draft was approved by the [[Knesset]] in March 2011.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.acri.org.il/he/680|title=חוק הנכבה|date=4 May 2011|access-date=24 April 2016|archive-date=27 February 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210227180116/https://www.acri.org.il/he/680|url-status=live}}</ref>
[[Ghada Karmi]] writes that the Israeli version of history is that the "Palestinians left voluntarily or under orders from their leaders and that Israelis had no responsibility, material or moral, for their plight." She also finds a [[Nakba denial|form of denial]] among Israelis that Palestinians bear the blame for the Nakba by not accepting the UN's [[United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine|proposed partition]] of Palestine into separate ethnic states.<ref>{{Cite web |url= http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2000/476/op5.htm |title=Denial and the future of peace |work= Al-Ahram Weekly |access-date=7 September 2010 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20110605164146/http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2000/476/op5.htm |archive-date=5 June 2011 |url-status=dead}}</ref>
[[Perry Anderson]] writes that "the Nakba was so swift and catastrophic that no Palestinian political organization of any kind existed for over a decade after it."<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Anderson |first1=Perry |author-link1=Perry Anderson |title=The House of Zion |journal=[[New Left Review]] |date=November–December 2015 |issue=96 |pages=5–37 |url=https://newleftreview.org/II/96/perry-anderson-the-house-of-zion |access-date=15 September 2016 |archive-date=1 May 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210501112400/https://newleftreview.org/issues/ii96/articles/perry-anderson-the-house-of-zion |url-status=live }}</ref>
=== Israeli narrative ===
The approach of the State of Israel and of Israeli-Jews to the causes of the exodus is divided into two main periods: 1949 – late 1970s and late 1970s – present (a period characterized by the advent of the [[New Historians]]).
Beginning in 1949, the dominant Israeli narrative was presented in the publications of various Israeli state institutions such as the national Information Center, the Ministry of Education (history and civic textbooks) and the army (IDF), as well as in Israeli-Jewish societal institutions: newspapers, memoirs of 1948 war veterans, and in the studies of the research community.<ref>Nets-Zehngut, Rafi. (2008). "The Israeli national Information Center and collective memory of the Israeli-Arab conflict". ''The Middle East Journal'', 62 (4), 653–670; Nets-Zehngut, Rafi. (2011). "Origins of the Palestinian refugee problem: Changes in the historical memory of Israelis/Jews 1949–2004." ''Journal of Peace Research'', 48 (2), 235–248; Nets-Zehngut, Rafi. (2012). Overview of the Israeli memory of the Palestinian refugee problem. ''Peace Review''. 24 (2), 187–194.</ref>
There were some exceptions: the independent weekly ''[[Haolam Hazeh]]'', the [[Maki (historical political party)|Communist Party]]'s daily/weekly ''[[Kol HaAm]]'', and the socialist organisation [[Matzpen]] presented the Palestinian and the balanced/critical narratives.{{citation needed|date=April 2017}} A number of Jewish scholars living outside of Israel – including Gabbay and Peretz – since the late 1950s have also presented a different narrative. According to this narrative, some Palestinians left willingly while others were expelled by the Jewish and later Israeli fighting forces.<ref>Nets-Zehngut, Rafi. (2011). "Origins of the Palestinian refugee problem: Changes in the historical memory of Israelis/Jews 1949–2004". ''Journal of Peace Research'', 48 (2), 235–248.</ref>
====Changes from the late 1970s====
The dominance in Israel of the willing-flight Zionist narrative of the exodus began to be challenged by Israeli-Jewish societal institutions beginning mainly in the late 1970s. Many scholarly studies and daily newspaper essays, as well as some 1948 Jewish war veterans' memoirs have begun presenting the more balanced narrative (at times called the "[[Post-Zionism|post-Zionist]]" view). According to this narrative, some Palestinians left willingly (due to calls of Arab or their leadership to partially leave, fear, and [[societal collapse]]), while others were expelled by the Jewish/Israeli fighting forces.<ref>Nets-Zehngut, Rafi. (2011). "Origins of the Palestinian refugee problem: Changes in the historical memory of Israelis/Jews 1949–2004". ''Journal of Peace Research'', 48 (2), 235–248; Nets-Zehngut, Rafi. (2012). "Overview of the Israeli memory of the Palestinian refugee problem". ''Peace Review'', 24 (2), 187–194.</ref>
From the late 1970s onwards, many newspaper articles and scholarly studies, as well as some 1948 war veterans' memoirs, began to present the balanced/critical narrative. This has become more common since the late 1980s, to the point that since then, the vast majority of newspaper articles and studies, and a third of the veterans' memoirs, have presented a more balanced narrative. Since the 1990s, also textbooks used in the educational system, some without approval of the Ministry of Education, began to present a balanced narrative.<ref>Nets-Zehngut, Rafi. (2008). "The Israeli National Information Center and collective memory of the Israeli-Arab conflict". ''The Middle East Journal'', 62 (4), 653–670; Nets-Zehngut, R. (2011). "Origins of the Palestinian refugee problem: Changes in the historical memory of Israelis/Jews 1949–2004". ''Journal of Peace Research'', 48 (2), 235–248; Nets-Zehngut, Rafi. (2012); Podeh, Eli. (2002). "The Arab-Israeli conflict in history textbooks (1948–2000)." Westport, Conn.: Bergin & Garvey. Overview of the Israeli memory of the Palestinian refugee problem. ''Peace Review''. 24 (2), 187–194.</ref>
The Israeli-Jewish societal change intensified in the late 1980s. The publication of balanced/critical newspaper essays increased, the vast majority, along with balanced 1948 war veterans' memoirs, by about a third. At the same time, Israeli NGOs began to present the balanced and the Palestinian narratives more significantly in their publications.<ref>Nets-Zehngut, Rafi. (2012). "Overview of the Israeli memory of the Palestinian refugee problem". ''Peace Review'', 24 (2), 187–194.</ref>
Moreover, Israel opened up part of its archives in the 1980s for investigation by historians. This coincided with the emergence of various Israeli historians, called [[New Historians]], who favored a more critical analysis of Israel's history. The Arab/Palestinian official and historiographical versions hardly changed,<ref>Khalidi, Walid (1961)</ref> and received support from some of the New Historians. Pappé calls the exodus an ethnic cleansing and points at Zionist preparations in the preceding years and provides more details on the planning process by a group he calls the "Consultancy".{{r|Pappe2006}} Morris also says that ethnic cleansing took place during the Palestinian exodus, and that "there are circumstances in history that justify ethnic cleansing... when the choice is between ethnic cleansing and genocide—the annihilation of your people—I prefer ethnic cleansing."<ref name="Shavit"/>
Pappé's scholarship on the issue has been subject to severe criticism. [[Benny Morris]] says that Pappé's research is flecked with inaccuracies and characterized by distortions.<ref>{{cite news |title=The Liar as Hero |url=http://spme.net/cgi-bin/articles.Mcgi?ID=7814 |author=Benny Morris |date=21 March 2011 |work=SPME }}{{Dead link|date=August 2018 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>
[[Ephraim Karsh]] refers to Pappé's assertion of a master plan by Jews to expel Arabs, as contrived.<ref>{{cite news |title=Pure Pappe |url=http://www.meforum.org/897/a-history-of-modern-palestine-one-land-two-peoples |author=Ephraim Karsh |date=Winter 2006 |work=The Middle East Quarterly |access-date=29 May 2018 |archive-date=9 October 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211009195139/https://www.meforum.org/897/a-history-of-modern-palestine-one-land-two-peoples |url-status=live }}</ref> On his part, [[Avi Shlaim]]—who has been described by ''[[The Economist]]'' as "the most classical" and "the most mainstream" of the New Historians<ref>{{cite news|newspaper=The Economist|url=https://www.economist.com/books-and-arts/2009/09/24/distilled-history|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20210304163613/https://www.economist.com/books-and-arts/2009/09/24/distilled-history|archivedate=2021-03-04|url-status=live|title=Distilled history|date=26 September 2009}}</ref>—has been critical of Benny Morris, saying that, since the beginning of the [[Second Intifada]], Morris's scholarship has "veered from the leftwing to the rightwing end" and that "racist undertones" against Arabs and Palestinians has become a characteristic of his work.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/may/31/history1|last=Shlaim|first=Avi|website=The Guardian|date=31 May 2008|title=No sentiments in war|access-date=26 March 2022|archive-date=3 July 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240703040610/https://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/may/31/history1|url-status=live}}</ref> Of Karsh, Shlaim has written that he gives "a selective and tendentious account designed to exonerate the Jewish side of any responsibility" for some of the events that took place in 1948 and that he engages in "distort[ion] and misrepresent[ation of] the work of his opponents".<ref>{{cite journal|title=A Totalitarian Concept of History|last=Shlaim|first=Avi|journal=Middle East Quarterly|volume=3|issue=3|date=September 1996|url=https://www.meforum.org/92/a-totalitarian-concept-of-history|pages=52–55|access-date=26 March 2022|archive-date=24 September 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210924183153/https://www.meforum.org/92/a-totalitarian-concept-of-history|url-status=live}}</ref>
In March 2015, [[Shai Piron]], Yesh Atid party MK, and former education minister of Israel, called for Israel to have all schools include the Nakba in their curriculum. "I'm for teaching the Nakba to all students in Israel. I do not think that a student can go through the Israeli educational system, while 20% of students have an ethos, a story, and he does not know that story." He added that covering the topic in schools could address some of the racial tensions that exist in Israeli society. His comments broke a taboo in the traditional Israeli narrative, and conflict with efforts on the part of some Israeli lawmakers to defund schools that mark Nakba.<ref>[http://www.timesofisrael.com/ex-education-minister-calls-for-nakba-studies-in-school/ "Ex-education minister calls for Nakba studies in school"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210501085737/https://www.timesofisrael.com/ex-education-minister-calls-for-nakba-studies-in-school/ |date=1 May 2021 }}. ''The Times of Israel''. 24 March 2015.</ref>
The 1948 Palestinian exodus has also drawn comparisons with the [[Jewish exodus from Arab and Muslim countries]], which involved the departure, flight, migration, and expulsion of 800,000–1,000,000 Jews from [[Arab countries|Arab]] and [[Muslim countries]] between 1948 and the 1970s. In three resolutions between 2007 and 2012 ({{USBill|110|hres|185}}, {{USBill|110|sres|85}}, {{USBill|112|hr|6242}}), the US Congress called on the [[Presidency of Barack Obama|Barack Obama administration]] to "pair any explicit reference to Palestinian refugees with a similar reference to Jewish or other refugee populations".<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.jpost.com/JewishWorld/JewishFeatures/Article.aspx?id=279865 | title=Congress considers recognizing Jewish refugees | work=Haaretz | agency=JTA | date=2 August 2012 | access-date=22 September 2012 | archive-date=12 May 2021 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210512041820/https://www.jpost.com/Jewish-World/Jewish-Features/Congress-considers-recognizing-Jewish-refugees | url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/jewish-world-news/jewish-refugees-bill-being-considered-by-u-s-house-of-representatives-1.455503 | title=Jewish refugees bill being considered by U.S. House of Representatives | work=Haaretz | agency=JTA | date=2 August 2012 | access-date=22 September 2012 | archive-date=26 May 2021 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210526080150/https://www.haaretz.com/jewish/u-s-lawmakers-push-jewish-refugees-bill-1.5275904 | url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite news | url=http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4262885,00.html | title=House members seek recognition for Jewish refugees from Arab countries | newspaper=Yedioth Ahronot | date=31 July 2012 | access-date=22 September 2012 | archive-date=7 May 2021 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210507095733/https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4262885,00.html | url-status=live }}</ref>
Israeli historian [[Yehoshua Porath]] has rejected the comparison, arguing that the ideological and historical significance of the two population movements are totally different and that any similarity is superficial. Porath says that the immigration of Jews from Arab countries to Israel, expelled or not, was from a Jewish-Zionist perspective the fulfillment of "a national dream" and of Israeli national policy in the form of the [[One Million Plan]]. He notes the efforts of Israeli agents working in Arab countries, including those of the [[Jewish Agency for Israel|Jewish Agency]] in various Arab countries since the 1930s, to assist a Jewish "[[aliyah]]". Porath contrasts this with what he calls the "national calamity" and "unending personal tragedies" suffered by the Palestinians that resulted in "the collapse of the Palestinian community, the fragmentation of a people, and the loss of a country that had in the past been mostly Arabic-speaking and Islamic".<ref>{{cite news |first=Ada |last=Porath |title=What about Jewish Nakba? |url=http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1986/jan/16/mrs-peterss-palestine/?pagination=false |work=YnetNews |date=16 January 1986 |access-date=19 February 2012 |archive-date=24 October 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151024105951/http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1986/jan/16/mrs-peterss-palestine/?pagination=false |url-status=live }}</ref>
Israeli academic [[Yehouda Shenhav]] has written in an article entitled "Hitching A Ride on the Magic Carpet" published in the Israeli daily ''[[Haaretz]]'' regarding this issue. "[[Shlomo Hillel]], a government minister and an active Zionist in Iraq, adamantly opposed the analogy: "I don't regard the departure of Jews from Arab lands as that of refugees. They came here because they wanted to, as Zionists."{{full citation needed|date=January 2020}} In a Knesset hearing, [[Ran Cohen]] stated emphatically: "I have this to say: I am not a refugee." He added: "I came at the behest of Zionism, due to the pull that this land exerts, and due to the idea of redemption. Nobody is going to define me as a refugee."<ref>{{cite news |first=Yehouda |last=Shenhav |url=https://www.haaretz.com/1.5361803 |title=Hitching a Ride on the Magic Carpet |work=[[Haaretz]] |date=15 August 2003 |access-date=24 April 2016 |archive-date=26 October 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211026024806/https://www.haaretz.com/1.5361803 |url-status=live }}</ref>
====Criticism of the Israeli approach====
An ongoing scholarly critique of the Israeli narratives about the events of 1948 is the overreliance of Israeli historians on Israeli official documents and archival sources.{{efn|Israeli historians generally believe they are both ideologically and empirically impartial, and that the only reliable sources for the reconstruction of the 1948 war are in Israeli official documents and the archives of the Israel Defense Forces.<ref name="Masalha-2009"/>}} American historian [[Rosemarie Esber]], an expert on Arab oral history, has argued that the often "excessive or even exclusive reliance on Israeli archives", even by the New Historians, with the exception of Ilan Pappé, has "limited their narratives and conclusions".<ref name="Masalha-2009"/>
In response, [[Benny Morris]] has pointed out that the archives of the Arab states, including those of the main Arab political parties, royal courts, and armies, all remain closed and that historians are forced to rely primarily on Western and Israeli documentation.<ref>{{Cite speech |first=Benny |last=Morris | title="1948 as Jihad" |event=The Second Annual Professor William Prusoff Honorary Lecture |___location=[[Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy|ISGAP]] |date=3 February 2009 |url=https://isgap.org/media/2009/02/benny-morris-1948-as-jihad/ |quote="Several methodological problems arise here. The first and most obvious is that the archives of the Arab states, of the main Arab political parties, royal courts, and armies are all closed – all the Arab states are dictatorships of one sort or another, and dictatorships, as is well known, do not open archives. This means that anyone interested in understanding the Arab side in the 1948 War is forced, in the main, to view it through the eyes and documentation of Western and Israeli diplomats, analysts, and intelligence officers."}}</ref><ref>{{cite interview |last=Morris |first=Benny |interviewer=Niram Ferretti |date=21 August 2019 |title=Covering and uncovering history: An interview with Benny Morris |publisher=L'informale |url=https://www.linformale.eu/covering-and-uncovering-history-an-interview-with-benny-morris/ |quote=The first thing I would say is that those who say this are completely hypocritical, because when you look at Arab archives they are ''all'' closed. They haven’t opened anything. So, here they are criticizing Israel for having opened certain documents and then having closed them again, while the Arabs and the Palestinians have closed everything and have been hiding everything from researchers.}}</ref>
==Films==
* ''[[Al-Nakba: The Palestinian Catastrophe 1948]]'' (1997), a documentary film by Benny Brunner and Alexandra Jansse that follows the events surrounding the creation of the Palestinian refugee problem.
* ''[[500 Dunam on the Moon]]'' (2002), a documentary film directed by [[Rachel Leah Jones]] about [[Ein Hod|Ayn Hawd]], a Palestinian village that was captured and depopulated by Israeli forces in the 1948 war.
* ''[[The Sons of Eilaboun]]'' (2007), a documentary film by [[Hisham Zreiq]] that tells the story of the exodus and return of a small Palestinian village called [[Eilaboun]] in 1948.
* ''[[The Promise (2011 TV mini-series)|The Promise]]'' (2011), a British mini-series written and directed by [[Peter Kosminsky]] that deals with a young woman going to Israel in the present day and using her visit to investigate her soldier grandfather's part in the post-war phase of the [[Mandate Palestine|British Mandate of Palestine]].
* ''[[Farha (film)|Farha]]'' (2022), a historical drama film directed by [[Darin J. Sallam]] about a Palestinian girl's experience during the Nakba, based on a true story she was told as a child about a girl named Radieh.
==Gallery==
<gallery>
File:Woman nakba dress jug.jpg|Palestinian woman, a child and a jug{{cn|date=September 2024}}
File:Oldman girl nakba.jpg|Refugees in the open, 1948{{cn|date=September 2024}}
File:Olddman boy nakba.jpg| Old and young in the entrance of a tent, 1948{{cn|date=September 2024}}
</gallery>
==See also==
{{portal|Palestine}}
{{columns-list|
* [[Jewish exodus from Arab and Muslim countries]]
* [[1949–1956 Palestinian exodus]]
* [[1967 Palestinian exodus|1967 Palestinian exodus (Naksa)]]
* [[Arab diaspora]]
* [[Ethnic conflict]]
* [[Flight and expulsion of Germans (1944–1950)]]
* [[Palestinian diaspora]]
* [[Palestinian exodus from Kuwait (Gulf War)]]
}}
==References==
===Notes===
{{notelist}}
===Citations===
{{reflist}}
===Sources===
{{refbegin|2}}
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{{refend}}
==External links==
{{Wikisource|Cablegram from the Secretary-General of the League of Arab States to the Secretary-General of the United Nations}}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20120609143404/http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/561c6ee353d740fb8525607d00581829/08e38a718201458b052565700072b358 The Peel Commission Report from the United Nations]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20120609143429/http://domino.un.org/unispal.nsf/9a798adbf322aff38525617b006d88d7/5fbced3943293bbd0525656900654aa6 UN report on pre-war non-Jewish population]
* [https://archive.org/details/sands_of_sorrow Sands of Sorrow—Film on refugees]
* [http://www.papp.undp.org/ United Nations Programme of Assistance to the Palestinian People] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/19970704102838/http://www.papp.undp.org/ |date=4 July 1997 }}
* [http://www.sonsofeilaboun.com/ The Nakba in Eilaboun (Eilabun)"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200201104731/http://www.sonsofeilaboun.com/ |date=1 February 2020 }}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20140808051016/http://mondoweiss.net/2012/03/we-must-expel-arabs-and-take-their-place-institute-for-palestine-studies-publishes-1937-ben-gurion-letter-advocating-the-expulsion-of-palestinians.html Institute for Palestine Studies publishes 1937 Ben-Gurion letter]
* [https://archive.today/20150925094605/http://inakba.org/ iNakba is a mobile app enabling users to locate, learn and contribute information about Palestinian localities destroyed in 1948]
{{Nakbaend}}
{{Palestinian refugee camps}}
{{Palestinian Arab villages depopulated during the 1948 Palestine War}}
{{Cold War}}
{{Religious persecution}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:1948 Palestinian Exodus}}
[[Category:1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight| ]]
[[Category:1948 Arab–Israeli War|Palestinian Exodus, 1948]]
[[Category:Forced migration in Asia]]
[[Category:Palestinians]]
[[Category:Palestinian diaspora]]
[[Category:Ethnic cleansing in Asia]]
[[Category:1940s in Islam]]
[[Category:Human rights abuses in Israel]]
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