How did Arabs move out when Israel was created?

Question

When the nation of Israel was created, did the Jews really kick out the Arabs?
What exactly (and historically) happened when Israel was created? Were homes seized? Private property seized? Families evicted? There seems to be a lot of stories about displaced Palestinians, but what actually happened? I'm not against Israel, I love the Jewish people but I like to know the real history.

Answer 1

"We must do everything to ensure they [the Palestinian refugees] never do return... The old will die and the young will forget."-David Ben-Gurion, in his diary, July 18, 1948, quoted in Michael Bar Zohar's "Ben-Gurion: the Armed Prophet," Prentice-Hall, 1967, p. 157.


This is how the Zionists leaders did it by their own words.
"We must use terror, assassination, intimidation, land confiscation, and the cutting of all social services to rid the Galilee of its Arab population." - David Ben-Gurion, May 1948, to the General Staff. From Ben-Gurion, A Biography, by Michael Ben-Zohar, Delacorte, New
York 1978.

"The state of Israel must invent dangers, and to do this it must adopt the methods of provocation and revenge.... And above all, let us hope for a new war with the Arab countries so that we may finally get rid of our troubles and acquire our space." -From the diary of Moshe Sharett, Israeli's first Foreign Minister from 1948-1956, and Prime Minister from 1954-1956.
"[The Palestinians] are beasts walking on two legs."-Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, speech to the Knesset, quoted in Amnon Kapeliouk, "Begin and the 'Beasts,"' New Statesman, June 25, 1982.

"(The Palestinians) would be crushed like grasshoppers ... heads smashed against the boulders and walls." - Isreali Prime Minister (at the time) Yitzhak Shamir in a speech to Jewish settlers New York Times April 1, 1988
"Our race is the master race. We are divine gods on this planet. We are as different from the inferior races as they are from insects. In fact, compared to our race, other races are beasts and animals, cattle at best. Other races are considred as human excrement. Our destiny is to rule over the inferior races. Our earthly kingdom will be ruled by our leader with a rod of iron. The masses will lick our feet, and serve us as our slaves."
Menachem Begin.

Answer 2

Throughout the period that preceded the May 15 invasion of the Arab regular armies, large-scale military engagements, incessant sniping, robberies and bombings took place. In view of the thousands of casualties that resulted from the pre-invasion violence, it is not surprising that many Arabs would have fled out of fear for their lives.

The second phase of the Arab flight began after the Jewish forces started to register military victories against Arab irregulars. Among the victories were the battles for Tiberias and Haifa, which were accompanied by the evacuation of the Arab inhabitants.

During the years that Israel controlled the Gaza Strip, a consistent effort was made to get the Palestinians into permanent housing.

The Palestinians opposed the idea because the frustrated and bitter inhabitants of the camps provided the various terrorist factions with their manpower. Moreover, the Arab states routinely pushed for the adoption of UN resolutions demanding that Israel desist from the removal of Palestinian refugees from camps in Gaza and the West Bank. They preferred to keep the Palestinians as symbols of Israeli “oppression.”

Now the camps are in the hands of the Palestinian Authority (PA), but little is being done to improve the lot of the Palestinians living in them. Netty Gross of the Jerusalem Report (July 6, 1998) visited Gaza and asked an official why the camps there hadn't been dismantled. She was told the Palestinian Authority had made a “political decision” not to do anything for the nearly half a million Palestinians living in the camps until the final-status talks with Israel took place. In fact, between June 2000 and June 2003, the number of Palestinians living in camps in the PA has increased by nearly 50,000 (8 percent) and the overall number of refugees has grown by 11 percent.

Answer 3

This gives us an opportunity to show up a favorite trick of the Arabs, and that is to make up quotes and then plaster them all over the Internet.

An Arab apologist, calling himself Mark here, copies one of them as follows:

'"(The Palestinians) would be crushed like grasshoppers ... heads smashed against the boulders and walls." - Isreali Prime Minister (at the time) Yitzhak Shamir in a speech to Jewish settlers New York Times April 1, 1988'

What he did not realize is that the word "Isreali" is misspelled. So that if we look for that false quote on the Web, we find it over 100 times with the same misspelling.

In other words, we see clearly here how the Arabs make up a sinister quote and then use it on unsuspecting readers to convince them of alleged Israeli evil.

In fact, such things were never uttered. And in fact, the Arab leaders in 1948 told the poor Arab peasants in what was then Palestine to flee, and the return after the backward Arab armies had conquered the territory from the Jews.

But they made a big mistake, and have been paying for it ever since.

Answer 4

At the urging of the Mufti, Amin al-Huesseni, the Arabs in the area partitioned by the UN for the Jewish state left.

There were about 600,000 Arabs in this category...they basically moved down the road a few miles to wait for the combined Arab armies to "finish Hitler's work."

..But that's not what happened. The Jews won.

In the 1970s these Arabs and their descendants became "The Palestinians". They have been made to live in slums by their Arab brethren ever since as a "weapon" against the Jews.

Unlike Israel, who took in nearly 1 million Jewish refugees kicked out of their homes in Arab lands.

The Arabs who stayed in what-became-Israel were granted Isreaeli citizenship, and today about 1/5 of Israelis are Arabs. ...the descendants of these Arabs who stayed.

Answer 5

May I suggest a short, intense book to start with? Rabbi Michael Lerner's "Healing Israel/Palestine" includes probably the most well-balanced history of the region that I have read. I obtained my copy from tikkun.org.
I'm an atheist, by the way, so I'm not swayed by any religious propaganda.
It's very important to read the history and make up your own mind.

Answer 6

Israel today has a very sizable Arab minority numbering in the millions. Clearly then Israel had no global eviction plan. There is no strong evidence that Israel actively evicted the numbers who ended up refugees, while there is strong evidence that the Arab armies encourage this emigration to make their slaughtering job easier. We should keep in mind that this was a war, and not just any war but a war over independence and founding of a state. Similar to every other war over independence, either you were for it or an enemy, and thus those Arabs not pro the new country were enemies. The only villages that were cleared were those who were hostile to Israel, while those who were not were left where they are (hence the Arab minority). This means that even if there was some eviction (and we're talking about small scale at this point), it was justified under the constraints of the time. This is the way of the world.
Interestingly enough, as I said above Israel has a sizable Arab minority. Yet the various Arab countries who've hosted sizable Jewish populations for centuries curiously do not have any Jewish community left to speak of. Simply put, while people bluster about the Palestinian refugees they ignore the Jewish refugees who were certainly evicted from their homes and had their personal property seized in countries such as Syria and Egypt. The reason that we don't hear today about these refugees is because they were absorbed and integrated into Israel, something that the Arabs have been loathe to do with the Palestinians. In fact, the number of Jewish refugees and Arab refugees is near identical, making this difference in fates all the more interesting as Israel is a tiny country while the Arab countries are quite large. Seeing this, can anyone really believe that the Arab armies cared about the Palestinian Arabs in 1948? Seems unlikely.

EDIT: Very well Haman, just as your namesake you twist facts to cause harm to the Jews. The operation to airlift Yemenite Jews was indeed carried out by Israel, however you fail to mention the context and circumstances. In 1947 after the partition plan was declared Yemenite Muslims rioted, killing 82 Jews. The following year, the accusation of murder of 2 Muslim girls lead to looting and destruction of Jewish business, effectively cutting off any chance for Jews to make a living. This is remarkably similar to Nazi Germany in the late 30's in fact, and is very reminiscent of Kristalnacht. Either way, the Yemenite Jews fled to Israel, mostly leaving whatever property they had after the looting behind. Your second example, Syria, is more of the same. In 1947, rioters looted and burned the Jewish quarter, killing 75. Syria placed severe restrictions on Jews, including outlawing emigration. The net result was that Jews who fled could not keep their property or sell it, and it effectively led to an exodues of Jews who had everything stripped from them.

Answer 7

The arabs inhabitants of Israel were lied to by their arab brethren and encouraged to leave their homes with promises that they could return to their former homes after the arab league destroyed Israel. We all know who won and the arab league instead of helping their arab brethren who left their homes at their urging have been used as pawns and kept in misery. I suggest you might to read a historical novel written in 1984 by Leon Uris called "Haj" about the war of 1948-49. It is so sad that some people allow themselves to be pawns and refuse to do anything to help themselves.

Answer 8

Those that remaind in Israel are full citizens enjoying a democratic life style large percent in pure luxury. .Those that were told to leave by the Arabs neighbours in 1948 now live in countries where chaos is the norme. These Palistinians who were invited or told by their neighbouring to run away from Israel and come to their countries were never ever given citizenship in those countries even after all these years.

Answer 9

There are three main reasons.
1) The Arab leaders promised the Palestinians that it will be only a few days and they will return to their homes and they asked them to leave "temporarly".
2) The bad conditions that the Palestinians were put under due to the fighting (including fear and poverty) forced them to leave.
3) The UN gave 56% of the land to the Jews and 54% to the Arabs although the population at the time was mainly 80% Arabs and 20% jews. Therefore, about 30% of the Palestinians lost their houses due to the division.
About 700000 palestinians became refugees and my parent's grandparents were among them.

I am palestinian

Peace

Answer 10

See what you started. It's like being in a child care center. Can't argue an issue without screaming.
Paper back why do you let that clown Haman lead you like a fish on a hook?
He would rather tell a lie than a truth just to start an argument.

Answer 11

The Arabs that stayed became citizens, thus known as Israeli Arabs. The Arabs that fled became "Palestinians"