How did Arabs move out when Israel was created?

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mark

"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.

Mr. X

all arabs living in the new state of israel were invited to stay and be citizens. many did, and now there are over a million arab citizens of israel, who enjoy full civil and political rights, and do not engage in terrorism.
some arabs coudn't stand the idea of a jewish state and left. some started fighting and were defeated. some left after the surrounding arab countries told them to get out of the way while they fight israel, and those people expected to return after israel was destroyed.

it's also important to remember that just as many jews were expelled from the surrounding countries where they had lived for generations. they were forced to leave without anything. israel welcomed these jews in and helped them get a fresh start. unfortunately, arabs who left israel were not allowed into the arab countries, but were forced into camps by their arab brothers.

also remember that the region of palestine was much bigger than israel, consisting of modern day israel AND jordan. both jews and arabs were living there, and 2 states were created, israel and jordan, one jewish and one arab. there is already a palestianian arab state; jordan.

thanks for your interest.

paperback_writer

Here are some links and some info that illustrate why the Palestinians fled. And before anyone screams that I am using a 'biased' source, I used several, and all of this info can be found at:

http://www.hirhome.com/israel/pal_nov3.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/causes_of_the_1948_palestinian_exodus

I don't mean to negate or belittle what the Palestinians have experienced. I've said before and I will say it again now: they have suffered a lot.

But let's just be clear about who has caused most of that suffering.

LINKS ETC

The former prime minister of Syria, Khalid al-Azm said in his memoirs:
'Since 1948 it is we who have demanded the return of the refugees, while it is we who made them leave. We brought disaster upon one million Arab refugees.'

The Arab National Committee of Haifa, the Arab leadership in that town in 1948, wrote and delivered a report on the flight of 60,000 Arabs and said: 'The removal of Arab inhabitants from this town was voluntary and carried out at our request.'

TIME magazine, May 3, 1948, reports on the broadcasts made by the neighbouring Arab countries, demanding that all the Arabs in Palestine/Israel get out, so that they could attack Israel.

Similarly the Economist magazine at that time also reported that in Haifa, 56,000 Palestinians left 'because of announcements made over the air by the Higher Arab Executive, urging them to leave.'

Sir John Troutbeck, a British diplomat went on a fact finding mission to Gaza in 1949. He reported: 'Palestinian Arabs expess no bitterness towards the Jews. But they speak with the utmost bitterness of Egyptians and other Arab states.'

edit Haman,

The Haganah was created purely to DEFEND the Jews from the Arab attacks and you know it. Many of the members were still teenagers; that's how desperate the Jews were.

I will get hold of Rabin's memoirs tomorrow, because of course it's possible you are just misquoting or paraphrasing; it is fact that 68 % of Palestinians fled without seeing an Israeli IDF member.

I am not disputing that the Palestinians weren't scared, I'm sure they were! They knew that the Arab armies were preparing to attack Israel and they knew they would get caught in the cross fire. So I don't even blame them for fleeing! I'm just saying: at least acknowledge that the Jews publicly asked them to stay, and the Arabs publicly ordered them to leave.

edit for Haman

I do not condone terrorism, whether it is organised by the Irgun or Hezbollah. So let's get that straight.

As for you dismissing the 'quotes' I provided: what a cop out! I referenced them all. All you did was throw in a name of a book. But in the interests of fairness, and because I like to know the truth, I will be getting Rabin's memoirs. I have read a biography of him but not anything he himself wrote.

I think that if you were a fair person, you would in fact agree that as I said, the Palestinians were told to leave by some Arab leaders and also of course I realise they must have been terrified of all the fighting that was imminent. You can't just dismiss fact by declaring 'case closed'. Is that how you deal with facts you don't like....? Most unimpressive. At least I have a sufficiently open mind to consider other opinions!

comment for 'haman', what about the eye-witness accounts of Israelis that I have heard? Rather than debating the issues you are just attacking me now, nice try but it won't cut any ice. You won't even open your mind enough to admit that one factor in the Palestinian people evacuating was the pressure placed on them by the neighbouring Arab countries. The admission by Syria's prime minister at the time means nothing to you? Why would he lie? That's the question you put to me about Rabin, now I throw it back to you.

'haman', so now I am a liar? Cheap shot. If you choose to think I lie about being British, so be it. If you prefer to think I lie about condemning all terrorism, your choice. You can't debate the facts properly so instead you just call me a liar.
I expected better, somehow.

As for your comment that Hezbollah are angels when compared with Irgun, it's mad. The Irgun existed for a limited period of time and while I do not condone what they did, at least ultimately the Israeli government forced them to disband. At one point, the Haganah even opened fire on them, because the Irgun's actions were not sanctioned by Israel. Whereas Hezbollah, they are backed and funded by Iran, I don't notice anyone pressuring them to disband.

haman, I think you might find that was more because Hizbollah have a horrible habit of using innocent Lebanese people as human shields.

comment for haman, let me guess, you are a Hizbollah commander currently residing in Britain? Or maybe just a staunch supporter?

Lila tov.

I don't need to translate that now, do I :) You seem to know enough about Israel, Hebrew and so on...

Michael J

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.

Ultra N

The Arabs left on their own accord. In no example, were Arabs physically removed by Jewish forces, even by the most right-wing organizations.
Before Israeli independence in 1948, the Arabs living in Israel had an instable political system. Even after WWI, when Israel began being ruled by the British, large parcels of land were still owned by Turkish Effendis, or lords. On these often “enormous” swaths of land, Arabs lived in a loose “federation” of villages, consisting of the various assortments of tribes, clans, families, etc. Often the leader of these little towns would be a muhktar, or mayor. A mukhtar of a particularly influential village might also preside over several other villages. There really was no voting for this leader. It really was just dog-eat-dog, survival of the fittest, became leader. Anyway, many villages made up a district. Often times, the ruler of the district was called the sheikh, or chief. The sheikh reported directly to the Effendi, who was the “land owner.”
Ok enough background info.
At the time of Israeli Independence War of 1948, Israel was invaded by 7 Arab armies. Those of Egypt, Syria, Transjordan, Lebanon, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq. In addition, the Arabs in Israel formed their own militias and gangs to fight the Jews. There were also to some extent, Arab mercenaries that formed part of no army in the beginning stages of the war, such as Kaukji’s Irregular Milita.
As these armies and militias rolled into town, they came to the muhktars of the little villages. The Arab political and military leaders, such as militia leader Kaukji, ordered the muhktars to move their people out of their towns and seek refuge elsewhere. The little towns, the Arab leaders argued, would be the base for attacks on Israel and once the Israelis were supposed to have been defeated, they can return to their villages.
The Arab leaders told grisly stories to the villagers, “If you remain here and the Jews take this village, you will be killed and the women raped, then killed.” The incident at Deir Yassin, in which a battle took place between Jewish partisans and Arab militas and many Arab civilians were killed in the crossfire, then the Jews were blamed of “a massacre”, only spurred the Arabs’ fear. Horrible stories began circulating of how the Jews supposedly threw elderly civilians down wells, cut fetuses out of pregnant women and used it for target practice, then had all the men and boys shot in mass ditches. These stories made up by the Arab leaders had an impact on the psyche of the Arabs and caused them to flee on their own will. Many also believed they were leaving for a short while, and would return, “Once the Jews were pushed into the sea.”

PROOF

Sir John Troutbeck, a British diplomat in Cairo, went to Gaza on a fact-finding mission in June 1949. He reported that while the Arab refugees "express no bitterness against the Jews …. they speak with the utmost bitterness of the Egyptians and other Arab states. 'We know who our enemies are,' they will say, and they are referring to their Arab brothers who, they declare, persuaded them unnecessarily to leave their homes.”
The Arab Higher Committee ordered the evacuation of “several dozen villages, as well as the removal of dependents from dozens more in April-July 1948. "The invading Arab armies also occasionally ordered whole villages to depart, so as not to be in their way.”
“The Arab refugees were not driven from Palestine by anyone. The vast majority left, whether of their own free will or at the orders or exhortations of their leaders, always with the same reassurance-that their departure would help in the war against Israel.”

Former Prime Minister of Syria Khalid al-Azm recalled in his memoirs:
“Since 1948 it is we who demanded the return of the refugees to their country, while it is we who made them leave it….
We brought disaster upon one million Arab refugees, by inviting them and bringing pressure to bear upon them to leave their land, their homes, their work and their industry. We have rendered them dispossessed, unemployed, whilst every one of them had work or a trade by which he could gain his livelihood.”
The Arab National Committee of Haifa, the Arab leadership in Haifa in 1948, wrote and delivered a report on the flight of roughly 60,000 Arabs from Haifa. The report said, “The removal of the Arab inhabitants from the town was voluntary and carried out at our request.”
Mahmoud Abbas, the “moderate” (LOL) at the time Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority, would later recall: "The Arab armies entered the area to protect us from the Zionist tyranny but, instead, they abandoned us, forced them to emigrate and to leave, and threw us into prisons similar to the ghettos in which the Jews used to live."

tal

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.

vvhiitefang

Go to a library and read the papers from then. You'll find that the Arabs fled on their own volition (like 98% or more), and Israel didn't "chase" anyone out. Arab governments called for their "brothers" to flee certain destruction and murder, and then refused to integrate those same "brothers" into their own society.

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

Mimi-מימי- ميمي

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

Ivri Anokhi

In 1945 there were more than 870,000 Jews living in the various Arab states. Many of their communities dated back 2,500 years. Throughout 1947 and 1948 these Jews were persecuted. Their property and belongings were confiscated. There were anti-Jewish riots in Aden, Egypt, Lybia, Syria, and Iraq. In Iraq, Zionism was made a capital crime. Aproximately 600,000 Jews sought refuge in the State of Israel.

The number of Arab so-called refugees that left Israel in 1948 is estimated to be several hundreds of thousands, while the Jewish refugees that were forced out from Arab lands was considerably more than that.

The Arabs left their homes in 1947-48 for a variety of reasons. Thousands of wealthy Arabs left in anticipation of a war, thousands more responded to Arab leaders' calls to get out of the way of the advancing armies, but most simply fled -- either because their leaders told them to or to avoid being caught in the cross fire of a battle. Had the Arabs accepted the 1947 UN resolution, not a single Palestinian would have become a refugee and an independent Arab state would now exist beside Israel.

On January 30, 1948, the Jaffa newspaper, Ash Sha'ab, reported: “The first of our fifth column consists of those who abandon their houses and businesses and go to live elsewhere....At the first signs of trouble they take to their heels to escape sharing the burden of struggle.”

Another Jaffa paper, As Sarih (March 30, 1948) excoriated Arab villagers near Tel Aviv for “bringing down disgrace on us all by 'abandoning the villages.“

John Bagot Glubb, the commander of Jordan's Arab Legion, said: “Villages were frequently abandoned even before they were threatened by the progress of war” (London Daily Mail, August 12, 1948).

Jewish forces seized Tiberias on April 19, 1948, and the entire Arab population of 6,000 was evacuated under British military supervision. The Jewish Community Council issued a statement afterward: “We did not dispossess them; they themselves chose this course....Let no citizen touch their property.”

Nevertheless, the UN has never demanded from Arab states to receive the Jews that were settled there for many generations and to restore their property and to provide them employment. Meanwhile, the so-called Palestinian "refugees" were intentionally not absorbed or integrated into the Arab countries to which they fled, despite the vast Arab territory (Israel's extension is less than 1% of the territory of all Arab lands). Out of the 100,000,000 refugees worldwide since World War II, the so-called Palestinians are the only refugee group in the world that has never been absorbed or integrated into their own peoples' lands. On the contrary, Jewish refugees were completely absorbed into Israel.

The truth is that the Arab League keeps the Palestinian refugees issue as a political weapon against Israel, with which they continue to fool the United Nations and propagate their perfidious policy. The proofs of such intention are given by Arab sources themselves: At a refugee conference in Homs, Syria, the Arab leaders declared that «any discussion aimed at a solution of the Palestine problem which will not based on ensuring the refugees' right to annihilate Israel will be regarded as desecration of the Arab people and an act of treason».

In 1958, former director of UNRWA Ralph Galloway declared angrily while in Jordan that «the Arab states do not want to solve the refugee problem. They want to keep it as an open sore, as an affront to the United Nations, and as a weapon against Israel. Arab leaders do not give a damn whether Arab refugees live or die».

The late King Hussein of Jordan, the sole Arab leader who directed integration of the Arabs, in 1960 stated: «Since 1948 Arab leaders have approached the Palestine problem in an irresponsible manner.... They have used the Palestine people for selfish political purposes. This is ridiculous and, I could say, even criminal».

Since the rebirth of Israel, hundreds of thousands of Jews from Arab lands have swarmed into the new state. In 1948 more than 850,000 Jews lived in the Arab world. Today there are fewer than 29,000, a shadow of the former ancient community. Most of those Jewish refugees fled to Israel. Where did they come from with such urgency -- and why?

Contrary to the myth that Jews lived in harmony with the Arabs before the Zionist state, innumerable authoritative works document decisively the subjugation, oppression, and spasmodic anti-Jewish eruptions of violence that darkened the existence of the Jews in Muslim Arab countries.

.

Gam Zo Letovah

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.

ellengerman

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.

Jdriven

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.

Paperback Writer (real JPAA)

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.

mo mosh

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.

jojo

at first jews lived in europe especially in spain and britain but they were treated badly called the marranos(pigs) and prevented to get in resturants or shops they were hated just as they are now....then belfore who was a british prime minister promised them to establish their own lands in palastine here we arabs call this act "the promise of who does not own to whom does not deserve" and that's how israeliens got in palastine started to extend their lands kill kids like they killed our beloved mohammed el dora they raped women and destroyed houses....they are monsters they are sick people who only want to take our lands....but i swear we will take back our lands and you do know that because justice always wins....with love

G?ldie:MJ's angel*

You really shouldn't know about their history,its too violence I tell ya.

NYC Chutzpah

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.

Duke of Tudor

Please check these links below. Peace.

EU Citizen

Although alot of Palestinians left of their own free will, i would not be straying to far from the truth to say for example that Israel ethnically cleansed some parts of the "Palestinian mandate".

In 1948 there where over 400 Palestinain muncipalities in what is today "Israel proper".

Do you mean to tell me that they the Palestinains simply just got up and left of their own accord because some people said head for "the hills"?

Mr. Pitiful (was Gonzo)

i can not tell you more then was told here
but i have seen footage of Israeli soldiers "kicking" out arabs from their homes.
i can remember clearly the soldier with the machine gun shooting at a village... i saw it in an Israeli documentary on the Israeli TV.
i am an Israeli and i am sorry for what we done and do to the Palestinian people...and hope some day it would not be so.

HopelessZ00

Well...many families did not leave on their own accord...if many families had sold their land they would not have ended up in cramped refugee camps for 60 years with no electricity or water. My husbands family was forced to go, no choice. Cheers!

Maya

Some were massacred as at Deir Yassin but primarily they were terrorized. They fled into the west bank,at that time part of Jordon but in 1967 they again came under the heel. Others fled to the Gaza Strip then a protectorate - more or less - of Egypt; today they are desparately surrounded by IDF forces. Their shoreline is blockaded,they have little water,their airport was bombed - it is very much like the Warsaw Ghetto. Their resistance is comparable to the Warsaw uprising in 1943 and perhaps just as futile.

BUSH/ISRAEL =warcriminal

ALRIGHT WOW THERE ARE ALOT OF LIERS OUT HERE .
ISRAEL WAS ILLEGALLY CREATED IN 1948 (NO OFFENSE TO THE JEWS).UN PROPOSED A LIL BIT OF PALESTANIAN LAND BUT THE PALESTINE REFUSED. THEY FORCEFULLY CHASED ARABS(BOTH MUSLIMS AND CHRISTIANS OUT) AND LET THE JEWISH ARABS STAY.
SINCE THEN THERE WERE MANY CONFLICTS AND ISRAEL STOLE MORE AND MORE LAND NOW THEY SEEM TO OWN MORE THAN 90% OF PALESTANIAN LAND AND EVEN JORDAN AND SYRIA.THIS IS A SHORT STORY U CAN CHECK OUT ISRAEL ON WIKI TO GET THE FULL PICTURE.

Independence and first years

Main articles: 1948 Arab-Israeli War and Declaration of Independence (Israel)
See also: Israel and the United Nations, Jewish exodus from Arab lands, Palestinian exodus, and Sh'erit ha-Pletah

David Ben-Gurion proclaiming Israeli independence on May 14, 1948 below a portrait of Herzl
David Ben-Gurion proclaiming Israeli independence on May 14, 1948 below a portrait of Herzl

In 1947, the British government withdrew from commitment to the Mandate of Palestine, stating it was unable to arrive at a solution acceptable to both Arabs and Jews.[49] The newly-created United Nations approved the UN Partition Plan (United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181) on November 29, 1947, dividing the country into two states, one Arab and one Jewish. Jerusalem was to be designated an international city – a corpus separatum – administered by the UN to avoid conflict over its status.[50] The Jewish community accepted the plan,[51] but the Arab League and Arab Higher Committee rejected it.[52]

Regardless, the State of Israel was proclaimed on May 14, 1948, one day before the expiry of the British Mandate for Palestine.[53] Not long after, five Arab countries – Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq – attacked Israel, launching the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.[53] After almost a year of fighting, a ceasefire was declared and temporary borders, known as the Green Line, were instituted. Jordan annexed what became known as the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and Egypt took control of the Gaza Strip. Israel was admitted as a member of the United Nations on May 11, 1949.[54] During the course of the hostilities, 711,000 Arabs, according to UN estimates, fled from Israel.[55] Arab persecution of Jewish communities precipitated a similar Jewish exodus from Arab lands.[56] The fate of the Palestinian refugees today is a major point of contention in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.[57][58]

In the early years of the state, the Labor Zionist movement led by Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion dominated Israeli politics.[59][60] These years were marked by mass immigration of Holocaust survivors and Jews fleeing Arab lands;[56] the population rose from 800,000 to two million between 1948 and 1958.[61] Most arrived as refugees with no possessions and were housed in temporary camps known as ma'abarot. By 1952, over two hundred thousand immigrants were living in these tent cities. The need to solve the crisis led Ben-Gurion to sign a reparations agreement with West Germany that triggered mass protests by Jews angered at the idea of Israel "doing business" with Germany.[62]
Adolf Eichmann on trial in Jerusalem
Adolf Eichmann on trial in Jerusalem

During the 1950s, Israel was frequently attacked by Arab fedayeen, mainly from the Egyptian-occupied Gaza Strip.[63] In 1956, Israel joined a secret alliance with Great Britain and France aimed at recapturing the Suez Canal, which the Egyptians had nationalized (see the Suez Crisis). Despite capturing the Sinai Peninsula, Israel was forced to retreat due to pressure from the United States and the Soviet Union in return for guarantees of Israeli shipping rights in the Red Sea and the Canal.[64] At the start of the following decade, Israel captured Adolf Eichmann, an implementer of the Final Solution hiding in Argentina, and brought him to trial.[65] The trial had a major impact on public awareness of the Holocaust[66] and to date Eichmann remains the only person sentenced to death by Israeli courts.[67]

Conflicts and peace treaties

In 1967, Egypt, Jordan, and Syria massed troops close to Israeli borders, expelled UN peacekeepers and blocked Israel's access to the Red Sea. Israel saw these actions as a casus belli for a pre-emptive strike that launched the Six-Day War, during which it captured the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Sinai Peninsula and Golan Heights.[68] The 1949 Green Line became the administrative boundary between Israel and the occupied territories. Jerusalem's boundaries were enlarged, incorporating East Jerusalem. The Jerusalem Law, passed in 1980, reaffirmed this measure and reignited international controversy over the status of Jerusalem.
Prime Minister Golda Meir, who resigned following the Yom Kippur War
Prime Minister Golda Meir, who resigned following the Yom Kippur War

In the early 1970s, Palestinian groups launched a wave of attacks against Israeli targets around the world, including a massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Summer Olympics. Israel responded with Operation Wrath of God, in which those responsible for the Munich massacre were tracked down and assassinated.[69] On October 6, 1973, Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, the Egyptian and Syrian armies launched a surprise attack against Israel. The war ended on October 26 with Israel successfully repelling Egyptian and Syrian forces but suffering great losses.[70] An internal inquiry exonerated the government of responsibility for the war, but public anger forced Prime Minister Golda Meir to resign.

The 1977 Knesset elections marked a major turning point in Israeli political history as Menachem Begin's Likud party took control from the Labor Party.[71] Later that year, Egyptian President Anwar Al Sadat made a trip to Israel and spoke before the Knesset in what was the first recognition of Israel by an Arab head of state.[72] In the two years that followed, Sadat and Menachem Begin signed the Camp David Accords and the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty.[73] Israel withdrew from the Sinai Peninsula and agreed to enter negotiations over an autonomy for Palestinians across the Green Line, a plan which was never implemented.

In 1982, Israel intervened in the Lebanese Civil War to destroy the bases from which the Palestine Liberation Organization launched attacks and missiles at northern Israel. That move developed into the First Lebanon War.[74] Israel withdrew from most of Lebanon in 1986, but maintained a borderland buffer zone until 2000. The First Intifada, a Palestinian uprising against Israeli rule,[75] broke out in 1987 with waves of violence occurring in the occupied territories. Over the following six years, more than a thousand people were killed in the ensuing violence, much of which was internal Palestinian violence.[76] During the 1991 Gulf War, the PLO and many Palestinians supported Saddam Hussein and Iraqi missile attacks against Israel.[77][78]
Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat shake hands, presided over by Bill Clinton, at the signing of the Oslo Accords, September 13, 1993
Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat shake hands, presided over by Bill Clinton, at the signing of the Oslo Accords, September 13, 1993

In 1992, Yitzhak Rabin became Prime Minister following an election in which his party promoted compromise with Israel's neighbors.[79][80] The following year, Shimon Peres and Mahmoud Abbas, on behalf of Israel and the PLO, signed the Oslo Accords, which gave the Palestinian National Authority the right to self-govern parts of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, in return for recognition of Israel's right to exist and an end to terrorism.[81] In 1994, the Israel-Jordan Treaty of Peace was signed, making Jordan the second Arab country to normalize relations with Israel.[82] Public support for the Accords waned as Israel was struck by a wave of attacks from Palestinians. The November 1995 assassination of Yitzhak Rabin by a right-wing Jew, as he left a peace rally, shocked the country. At the end of the 1990s, Israel, under the leadership of Benjamin Netanyahu, withdrew from Hebron[83] and signed the Wye River Memorandum, giving greater control to the Palestinian National Authority.[84]

Ehud Barak, elected Prime Minister in 1999, began the new millennium by withdrawing forces from Southern Lebanon and conducting negotiations with Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat and U.S. President Bill Clinton at the July 2000 Camp David Summit. During the summit, Barak offered a plan for the establishment of a Palestinian state, but Yasser Arafat rejected it.[85] After the collapse of the talks, Palestinians began the Second Intifada.

Ariel Sharon soon after became the new prime minister in a 2001 special election. During his tenure, Sharon carried out his plan to unilaterally withdraw from the Gaza Strip and also spearheaded the construction of the Israeli West Bank barrier.[86] In January 2006, after Ariel Sharon suffered a severe hemorrhagic stroke which left him in a coma, the powers of office were transferred to Ehud Olmert. The kidnappings of Israeli soldiers by Hamas and Hezbollah and the shelling of settlements on Israel's northern border led to a five-week war, known in Israel as the Second Lebanon War. The conflict was brought to end by a ceasefire brokered by the United Nations. After the war, Israel's Chief of Staff, Dan Halutz, resigned.[87]

THERE WAS PALESTINE ON THE MAP B4 1948, BUT ITS GONE NOW

Ultra N

the answer is YES to all of your question, this is documented history. OF COURSE the Palestinians were evicted from their homes, what else do you think happened to all of the palestinians who once lived in ALL of Palestine. actually the first thing that israel did upon it's creation was to kill 200 Palestinian men,women, and children... and seize their homes.

I love jews too but that doesn't mean i love evil politicians, actually alot of jews in israel have refused to live in these homes that were seizeed from palestinians, that's how horrible these massacres were...

Research the ''Deir Yassin'' Massacre

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