Palestinian Exodus Of 1948
The Palestinian exodus of 1948 refers to the exodus of the Palestinian Arab population that occurred during the period that historians call the Palestine War of 1948 and covers the last six months of the British mandate of Palestine and the Israeli War- Arabic.
During that conflict, about 700 000 Palestinian Arabs left or were expelled from their towns and villages and were denied any right of return to their lands during and after the conflict.
Israeli and Western historiography has long erased these events, while the Palestinians have always referred to as' al-Nakba (, sometimes erroneously spelled Nakba): the disaster.
The proportion of Palestinians who fled or were driven out, the causes and responsibilities of the exodus, his character accidental or intentional, and denial of their right to return after the fighting are highly debated topics among both commentators Israeli-Palestinian conflict between historians of the events of that time. This exodus is causing the current problem of Palestinian refugees which is one of the contentious Arab-Israeli conflict and Israeli-Palestinian.
Summary |
Background
Nationalism Zionist and Palestinian Arab
Historically, the conflict is part of a growing antagonism between the Zionist Jewish community and Arab community in Palestine.
From 1920 and control of the Palestine Mandate by the British, it is experiencing increasing immigration of Jews whose aspiration to found a Jewish state in Palestine. Faced with these Arab leaders display their own nationalism, often pan-Arab opposition and lead a more strong, marked by riots in 1920 , 1921 and 1929 that are several hundred deaths.
These are two types of companies (one primarily industrial and other predominantly agricultural and pastoral), two cultures (one West and the other Eastern) and two irreconcilable competing nationalisms and also face the "occupier" British. According to historian Henry Laurens , the problem is even more difficult, despite the economic boom caused by the Zionist settlement protagonists are faced with a "zero sum game" , in that the ability host of the territory is fully used and therefore any increase in living space for one can not be done at the expense of another.
Arab opposition culminated in the Great Revolt of 1936-1939. Led by Palestinian nationalists, it opposes both to Zionism, the British presence in Palestine and politicians claiming to be a pan-Arab nationalism. British repression was bloody and violent reaction of the Zionist organizations. At term, the Palestinian Arab nationalists, however, the British get a drastic reduction of Jewish immigration led to the 1939 White Paper. But the consequences are heavy. The rebellion has claimed nearly 5,000 lives on the Arab side and 500 on the Jewish side. The various paramilitary Zionist organizations were strengthened and most members of the Palestinian Arab political elite have been arrested and forced into exile. Among these, the leader of the Arab Higher Committee , Haj Amin al-Husseini fled to Nazi Germany where he sought support for his cause.
After the Second World War , following the Holocaust and the problem of displaced persons in Europe , the Zionist movement drew the sympathy of the West. In Palestine, the Zionist right groups, the Irgun and Lehi , in turn lead a campaign of violence against the "occupation" British. Palestinian Arab nationalists reorganize but remain far behind the Jews. However, the weakening of the colonial powers strengthened the Arab powers and Arab League was formed recently taken over the Palestinian nationalist claims and serves as its spokesman.
Diplomacy fails to reconcile the points of view. In February 1947 , the British announced that they decided to abandon their mandate over the region. On 29 November 1947 , the General Assembly of United Nations vote on a Partition Plan for Palestine with the support of major powers but without the support of the British and against all Arab countries.
The Palestine War of 1948
The day after the vote, the civil war broke out between Jewish and Arab community in Palestine. May 15, after the British withdrawal, civil war becomes a war between Israel and neighboring Arab states.
It was during these conflicts as the Palestinian exodus occurs.
The controversy over the context
There is a controversy among major historians on the importance or the reality that must be made to any element of context. Let the exodus must be placed primarily in the context of the war, which would result directly, or it must be placed in the context of Zionist and Israeli desire to see the Jewish state emptied to the maximum of its Arab minority and the war was a pretext for a forced transfer.
Israeli historian Benny Morris believes that the Palestinian exodus was almost "inevitable." He advances the following contextual causes: the intermingling of geographical Jewish and Arab populations, the history of antagonism since 1917, and the rejection by both parties of any state solution and the depth of Arab animosity toward the Jews and their fear be subject to the authority Zionist structural weaknesses of the Palestinian Arab society (disorganized, without cohesion, without leader, without a national structure, without nationalist aspiration shared, ...) instead of the Yishuv .
He also developed a theory that a fundamental aspect of the context of the Palestinian exodus is the idea of transfer in Zionist thinking . He considers that the events of the day should be read bearing in mind that a viable Jewish state could be created and exist with a too large Arab minority and therefore that his transfer out of state was essential. However, he insists that according to his work, if the support of the Zionist idea of transfer is "indisputable", "connections between this support and what really happened during the war are much more tenuous than the Arab propagandists suggest " .
In the essential elements to understand the context, he adds "we can not emphasize too much that happened (...) . It goes further and insists both in the introduction to his book that in its conclusion on a controversial aspect of pop: "fear of Yishuv that Palestinians and Arab states, if their was an opportunity, had the intention to reproduce a version of the Holocaust throughout the Middle East and that "the invasion from mid-May 1948 threatened the Yishuv extinction " , which influenced some decisions Jewish authorities.
This context is questioned by other historians post-Zionist Israeli as Ilan Pappe and Avi Shlaim and by Palestinian historians whose example Walid Khalidi and Nur Masalha. They consider that the second point is incorrect and that the Jewish community has never faced a real risk of extermination as the Jewish army, the Haganah , had an indisputable superiority. According to them also, Morris does not go far enough in developing his thesis about the transfer. Beyond thinking, they believe that the idea of transfer was really a pillar in Zionist .
Critics are also diametrically in the other direction. According to Shabtai Tevet , a biographer of David Ben Gurion as well as the Israeli historian Anita Shapira , the latter has never supported the idea of transfer. Efraim Karsh share this view and considers that the work of Morris has not been honest about it. In terms of context, he insists instead on the reality of the danger of extermination which would have faced the Yishuv and the fact that it was, above all, war and the exodus are inherent in any war . Israeli historian Yoav Gelber also considers it important to keep in mind that this was a war and highlights the fragility of the Palestinian society to cope. However, it makes no reference pro or contra the idea of transfer. He also criticized the new historians who in his disregard their theories of conflictual relations experienced by Zionists and Arabs before 1948 .
Population affected by the exodus
Between November 1947 and late 1949, about 750,000 Palestinian Arabs out of a total of 900,000 fled or were expelled from territories that were controlled by Israel at the end of the war.
Between December and March 1948, about 100,000 Palestinians, mostly members of the urban middle and upper classes, usually voluntarily left their homes, hoping to return once the Arab armies have taken control of the country .
When the Haganah went on the offensive in early April, and during the fighting that followed the intervention of Arab armies until the first truce of July, between 250,000 and 300,000 Palestinian Arabs fled more fighting or were expelled. They were mainly from the cities of Haifa, Tiberias, Beisan, Safed, Jaffa and Acre, which lost more than 90% of the Arab population during this period . Expulsions occurred in many towns and villages, particularly along the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem road and in the eastern Galilee .
After the truce, the Israeli army took the initiative and the Arab armies sent against them a number of military operations over the last 6 months of 1948. When Operation Dani , 50 000-70 000 towns of Lydda and Ramle were forcibly expelled to Ramallah while cities were made . Other expulsions occurred during cleanup operations in rear areas . During the Operation Dekel , the Arabs of Nazareth and the Galilee south were allowed to stay home. They are the basis of the current Arab population of Israel . Between October and November, the IDF launched the Operation Yoav to drive the Egyptians from the Negev and Operation Hiram to chase the Arab Liberation Army in northern Galilee during which at least nine massacres of Arabs were perpetrated by Israeli forces . These events gnrrent exodus of 200 000 to 220 000 Palestinians who fled in fear of atrocities or were expelled when he had not fled .
After the war until 1950, the IDF cleared the border, which led to the expulsion of some additional 30 000 to 40 000 Arabs .
Causes of migration
Causes
The assessment of the causes of this second wave is the episode about the most controversial and contentious of the war of 1948. It is no consensus among historians and even less among reviewers pro-Palestinian or pro-Israeli. The controversy was brought in front of the stage late 1980s with the publication of the work of the new school of historians, also called post-Zionists.
In 1988 , following the opening of military archives Israeli historian Benny Morris has published a study on the subject he has completed thereafter: The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited. Morris lists will include all the facts relating to the Palestinian exodus which he has read and list all the causes that led to the exodus by its research. If the conclusions and some of his analysis is controversial, the facts he reports are not doing the subject.
Among the causes and triggers and accelerators of the second wave of refugees, Morris reported its findings in :
- The offensive Jewish. According to him, the main factor as demonstrated by the fact that each exodus occurred in the immediate moment of a military assault to both cities, none of which was abandoned before the main assault of the Haganah and the Irgun , for the villages.
- A collapse of Palestinian society. Particularly in cities, the collapse of the administration, law and order, supply problems, isolation and harassment by Jewish forces helped to demoralize the people and push start.
- The resignation of the heads. The departure of the approach to fighting political and military leaders gave a (bad) example for the people who did the same. This phenomenon occurred mainly in the cities, not villages.
- A snowball effect. More cities had previously fallen and the cities fell easily. The effect was accentuated when the surrounding villages had already fallen for the isolation created undermined the morale of people.
- Factor atrocity. The impact of the massacre at Deir Yassin and the exaggerated description that was made by Arab radio stations for weeks undermined the morale of the Arabs, especially in the countryside.
- Evictions. According to Morris, no operational order of deportation has been given by the Haganah and its leaders during this period but the operations called for the destruction of villages or groups of villages, which involved the. In the countryside, by the greater freedom of action given to military commanders, the guidelines of Plan Dalet gave them the opportunity to carry out evictions and razing of villages.
- Evacuation orders. The Arab Higher Committee and the Arab states at that time urged women, children and old to take refuge in a safe place and local commanders ordered on several occasions the evacuation of villages (such as around Jerusalem and along the border of Syria ), but according to Morris, no evidence indicates a call to escape from them or will cause a mass exodus.
Controversies and Analysis
- See also: Plan Dalet
Benny Morris puts no particular cause forward to this second wave of the Palestinian exodus. It is considered as due to a combination of all these factors simultaneously. Moreover, he categorically excludes a possible cause. He said the second wave "was not the result of a general policy, predetermined, the Yishuv " although he stresses that "it was immediately seen as a phenomenon exploited" in the context the "idea of transfer in Zionist thinking" .
These tests are not shared for all historians and commentators. These are usually before a cause they consider dominant among those quoted. Moreover, the vision that the Morris Plan Dalet and the theory of transfer is very questionable.
In his book The 1948 war in Palestine , Ilan Pappe this controversy and points of disagreement between the views of Morris, one of the traditional Israeli historiography and the Arab historians. Like Morris, he opposed the version of the traditional Israeli historians who saw as the main cause and preponderance of the Palestinian exodus orders leakage from the Arab Higher Committee and leaders of Arab countries. He also shared the view of Morris regarding opportunism gave proof Jewish authorities following the departure of the flight but only as regards the first wave of refugees. According to him, "the exodus of Palestinians . He shared the view that historians and especially Palestinian Walid Khalidi under which the Plan Dalet was "a project of destruction of Palestinian society" .
In his book Palestine 1948: War, Space And The Emergence Of The Palestinian Refugee problem Yoav Gelber considers in turn the main cause of the second wave of refugees was the collapse of the Palestinian Arab society without administrative support the British were too fragile to withstand the conditions of civil war. He also challenges the traditional view of Israeli historians, but he rejects the vision of the Arab historians Plan Dalet.
The French historian Henry Laurens share fairly the views of Yoav Gelber. "The departure of the British authorities and the flight of Palestinian notables accelerate the breakdown of Palestinian society. (...) In cities, the collapse of the economy and the end of the public increase the distress of the people". He too does not consider the Plan Dalet as a plan to expel Arab . When assessing the work of Morris , Dominique Vidal believes on him that the authorities of Yishuv have direct responsibility for the depopulation during this period .
This analysis, which largely reflect the debate within the school of revisionist historians are challenged by other historians, as Efraim Karsh. According to the latter in particular, "Morris gives a poor presentation of the documents, gives only partial documents, filed false allegations and rewrites original documents" .
The position of historians supporting the thesis of a sustained commitment of the Yishuv to expel the Palestinians has hardened in recent years. Ilan Pappe is now talking about ethnic cleansing , a term which, he said, has a precise legal definition and that it combines all of the Palestinian exodus Schedule Works published before the opening of Israeli archives Works published after the opening of Israeli archives Literature on the consequences Main articles published before the opening of Israeli archives Main articles published after the opening of Israeli archives Debates around the work of Benny Morris Documents Testimonials Articles and books on the historiography of the exodus War of 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict History of the Palestinian people History of Israel Documentation
Articles dealing directly with the subject
Official documents and press articles Vintage
Historiography
News articles on the exodus
Filmography and iconography
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