Did the Isarelis burn down Arab villages during the 1948 war?

Question

During their "war of independence", the Israelis pushed beyond the British and UN-determined frontier lines to get greater amounts of land. The battles were fierce and villages changed hands between Arabs and Jews many times. Many foreign reports surfaced of attrocities committed by each side. But Israel denies doing any harm to villagers. Israel denies it to this day, while Arab countries claim they burned down some villages. Does anyone have any facts on this?

To 'cepern': I am sure they did too. The US supports them because of Jews in high positions in the country. Not to mention a big Jewish population, profitable Jewish businesses (like Hollywood). Many countries in the past who had Jews used their talents to strengthen their country. Problem in the USA is that ever since WW2 and the Holocaust, the Jews are even more paranoid that the world is out to get them. The way they disturb the peace of the world, its little wonder they aren't very popular people (except to themselves).

To Kobaincino: Great!! That's a perfect answer and exactly what I was looking for. It gives an accurate example of why the Arabs to this day want to 'eradicate Israel from the face of the earth', as they often say. Kind of an extreme view, but under the circumstances, understandable. No one ever seems to consider for one second why the Jews are so hated in that area. For nothing? They had to do something to get that kind of hatred thrown at them. And yes, they certainly suppress their memory of conquering Palestine, which goes against everything in the Old Testament. Guess they never figured "Gods chosen people" would have to kill Arabs by the thousands. Instead of being more kind and forgiving that the Nazis who tried to kill them, they turned around and became a militaristic state themselves! Human nature is fascinating...and scary.

Answer 1

Let me quote Shlomo Ben Ami in a debate with Norman Finklestein. Both are scholars of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, but Finklestein is a critic and an outsider. Ben Ami is not only a distinguished chronicler, he is also an outstanding witness and participant of the founding of Israel and its government, which he represented in Camp David.
I tried to find evidence that villages were burned, to answer your question specifically. Maybe i will find something late, but so far, i can point you to an important israeli figure accepting that yes, attrocities, ethnic cleansing, was in fact committed. You can find it in Democracy Now! and watch or read the whole thing.
Shlomo Ben Ami says: "We have prevailed over the invading Arab armies and the local population, which was practically evicted from Palestine, from the state of Israel, from what became the state of Israel, and this is how the refugee problem was born"

Quoted from his book by Amy Goodman: “The reality on the ground was that of an Arab community in a state of terror facing a ruthless Israeli army whose path to victory was paved not only by its exploits against the regular Arab armies, but also by the intimidation and at times atrocities and massacres it perpetrated against the civilian Arab community. A panic-stricken Arab community was uprooted under the impact of massacres that would be carved into the Arabs' monument of grief and hatred.”

And: “Israel, as a society, also suppressed the memory of its war against the local Palestinians, because it couldn't really come to terms with the fact that it expelled Arabs, committed atrocities against them, dispossessed them. This was like admitting that the noble Jewish dream of statehood was stained forever by a major injustice committed against the Palestinians and that the Jewish state was born in sin.”

ANd: "as a whole, I think that not more than 6 or 7% of the entire surface of the state of Israel was bought. The rest of it was either taken over or won during the war."

Hope this helps!

Answer 2

Yep, Israel with its 600,000 citizens and immigrants in 1948
posed a huge threat to the 2-5 million Arabs - no doubt. If Israel would not have fought so fiercely the Arabs would have killed all of the Jews, or most of them. Israel never denied that some of the Palestinian villages were evacuated and the people fled to Jordan and Lebanon. Israel did not burn alive any village nor any person. In a war there are casualties, always. No war is an exception. To blame Israel for all atrocities and cry for the Poor Arabs and go over these claims again and again? Wake up man, get a life without hatred.

Answer 3

The Israeli War of Independence can be divided into two distinct phases:in the first, from Nov.1947 to May 1948 the Jews and local Arabs (Palestinians) fought it out in the wake of the UN partition plan, which the Jews on the whole accepted and the Arabs rejected and tried to prevent it's implementation by force. In the second phase, from May 1948 until the end of the war in early 1949, the newly declared State of Israel faced multiple invasions by the regular armies of Egypt Syria Transjordan and Iraq.
Throughout the entire war the Israelis were vastly outnumbered but were highly motivated , they felt that they were fighting for survival, fighting for their lives and that's what you should take into account above all.
During the war the Israelis indeed destroyed some Arab villages.

Answer 4

I personally doubt that they made a deliberate effort to burn down Arab villages. They were fighting for their survival, and I'm sure in the ensuing carnage several villages were destroyed as a result. But to set out to burn a village you have to have control of the area, and you have to want to just inflict pain, not gain anything. Why burn down a village that you plan to capture and possibly occupy.

Also, at that time the nation of Israel had a perceived morality, and given the recent events of the second world war, I think they would have avoided any overt atrocities.

It was later, after so many invasion attempts and decades of unrest that Israel as a nation became the "survive and all costs and make no apologies for it" place it is today.

Answer 5

there develop into no Israel in 1948. the country develop into called the mandate government of Palestine. The UN created the two Palestine and Israel in one decision called 181 the place Israel have been given greater effective than fifty 5% of the land and Palestine have been given the rest. The conflict started whilst the hot Israeli occupied element of the Palestinian state. the hot Israel have been given seventy 8% of the mandate government of Palestine after the conflict. submit to in suggestions the united kingdom which created the hot Israel in the mandate government of Palestine develop into controlling all the Arab countries who declared conflict on the hot Israel and the Arab armies have been led by English generals, what a comedian tale. The English generals deafened Jerusalem from the Israelis military and that's how Jerusalem develop into no longer element of the hot Israel and not in any respect would be Its an English regulation . The conflict develop into made to confirm that the hot Israel is created.

Answer 6

The Zionists always burned down villages. They are still destroying villages by means other than burning. A lot of killing is usually involved as well. You can see the abundant examples in this page
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_villages_depopulated_during_the_1948_Arab-Israeli_war

Answer 7

Of course they did - the Israelis were the first terrorists in the region; makes you wonder why the US supports them.