historians

http://www.1948.org.uk/plan-dalet-and-the-nakba/

http://www.voltairenet.org/article160069.html

Nakba historians

Re: Israel's right to exist:.
In 1948 Israeli forces systematically set about emptying Palestinian villages . In what they claimed to be self defence they drove out three quarters of the Palestinians from their homes and land, bombed to rubble (400+) their villages and denied them any right to go home afterwards or ever since . Most of the Palestinians in the villages were farming communities totally unprepared for the catastrophe that was visited on them. Many of them left with cooked food still on the table. Many also were assured by UN staff wherever they landed that they would be back home within weeks. Over two thirds of Gazan’s are refugees from 1948 living often within view of their old villages and farms in Israel.

Many Jews in Israel in 1948 had only just escaped annihilation by Europe’s fascists and believed they were in a fight for survival in Palestine. However as Ilan Pappe, the Israeli historian sets out in his book “The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine” the Zionist leaders were bent on fulfilling their dream, a state for all the Jews of the world- a state which couldn’t be possible without clearing out most of the Palestinians. Israel’s right to exist endorses Israel’s gain at the expense of the Palestinians. It is a denial of Palestinian right to live in their own homes, in their own land and in their own country. Whats more they have been demonised ever since by Israel & the West as the nazi like intent to exterminate the Jews of Israel

Today western governments consider that the denial of Israel’s right to exist to be extremist and evil. They deny the Palestinians even the possibility of having a different story to tell or to holding a negotiating claim counter to Israel’s right to exist.

Re the use of the word systematic: Avi Schlaim, another Israeli historian who at one time served in the Israeli army has said in his book ‘The Iron Wall’ about the Spring of 1948
“Plan D (The Jewish leadership plan for the clearing of Palestinian Villages and towns) was not a blueprint for the expulsion of Palestinian Arabs; it was a military plan with military objectives. However, by ordering the capture of Arab cities and the destruction of villages it both permitted and justified the forcible expulsion of Arab civilians.

By the end of 1948 the number of Palestininan refugees had swollen to about 700,000. But the first and largest wave of refugees occurred before the official outbreak of hostilities on the 15th May ”

Sorry if my figures have mislead or confused. I believe the numbers (may not be too accurate) to be as follows.

After 1948 120,000 Palestinians remained in Israel and this has now grown to 1.2million.( a bit more than your figure). The number of Palestinians worldwide is 8 million plus . Some 3.4 million of these are still looked after by UNRWAA the special UN refugee organisation in the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Egypt.
Daniel refers to “the call by Arab leaders at the time for all Palestinian Arabs to leave so that they can push the Jews into the sea?”

Three Israel historians Ilan Pappe’s “The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine” and Avi Schlaim’s the “Iron Wall” and Benny Morris’ “ The Birth of the Palestinian refugee problem revisited “ have studied in depth papers released by the Israeli Government covering 1948 . They all arrive at the same conclusions:

1) The story that Palestinians fled on the the orders on the Arab states or Arab command in order to push the Jews into the sea was false .

2) Most Palestinians who fled were expelled or fled many whilst Britain governed Palestine & before the war between the Arab & Israeli armies had started

3) The Israeli army destroyed hundreds of the emptied villages usually by bombing them to rubble. The Israeli army also shot as infiltrators any of the Palestinians trying to return

Benny Morris, himself an ardent Zionist, established 24 instances of Israeli soldiers massacres of Palestinian villagers which triggered panic and flight. He also said "There is no evidence to show that the Arab states and the AHC wanted a mass exodus or issued blanket orders or appeals to the Palestinians to flee their homes”.

Nevertheless the false version has persisted . This shows how succesful Israel has been in blaming the Palestinians for their plight.This story was promoted by Israeli leaders at the time in 1948 and is still in vogue today. For the Jewish population in Israel at the time, who had fled persecution and the Holocaust and feared annihilation again, this was a highly creditable & terrifying version of events around them.

However the evidence of these modern Israeli historians shows that the Palestinian too have a story to tell . It contradicts the version of 1948 that has demonised them and helped negate their rights for so long.

Benny Morris is professor of History in the Middle East Studies department of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel and is author of 'The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited'. This book of 639 pages shows in the first few pages maps and lists of villages destroyed and the reasons for villagers fleeing.

Avi Schlaim is a professor of International Relations at the University of Oxford and a fellow of the British Academy.and is author of 'The Iron Wall'.

Ilan Pappé is professor of History at the University of Exeter and is author of 'The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine'.

All three are Israeli historians who looked in depth at the events of 1948 especially by studying Israeli state archives from that period.

They all arrive at the same conclusions:

1) The story that Palestinians fled on the the orders on the Arab states or Arab command in order to push the Jews into the sea was false .

2) Most Palestinians who fled were expelled or fled impending attacks.

3) The Israeli army destroyed hundreds of the emptied villages usually by bombing them to rubble.

However there ia a variety of observations among them about the expulsion of the Palestinians.

Benny Morris :

"A Jewish state would not have come into being without the uprooting of 700,000 Palestinians. Therefore it was necessary to uproot them. There was no choice but to expel that population. It was necessary to cleanse the hinterland and cleanse the border areas and cleanse the main roads. It was necessary to cleanse the villages from which our convoys and our settlements were fired on".
And

“Jews, a people that suffered for 2,000 years, that went through the Holocaust, arrives at its patrimony but is thrust into a renewed round of bloodshed, that is perhaps the road to annihilation. In terms of cosmic justice, that's terrible. It's far more shocking than what happened in 1948 to a small part of the Arab nation that was then in Palestine."

Avi Schlaim :

“Plan D (The Jewish leadership plan for the clearing of Palestinian Villages and towns) was not a blueprint for the expulsion of Palestinian Arabs; it was a military plan with military objectives. However, by ordering the capture of Arab cities and the destruction of villages it both permitted and justified the forcible expulsion of Arab civilians.

By the end of 1948 the number of Palestininan refugees had swollen to about 700,000. But the first and largest wave of refugees occurred before the official outbreak of hostilities on the 15th May ”

Ilan Pappe:

”And definitely when you start looking at exactly what had been done to the Palestinians and what is being done to the Palestinians nowadays you can see, I think there is no resemblance there to the genocide phase of the Holocaust.
However I am a great believer that in order to further the chances of reconciliation, you have to have a kind of link, an association between the ability of the Israelis to stop denying the Nakbah ( the catastrophe visited on the Palestinians in 1948) , and the Palestinians accepting that the Holocaust plays a role in the life of Jews in Israel, and the life of Jews everywhere.”

Are you saying that Ben-Gurion was personally responsible for a deliberate and systematic policy of mass expulsion?
From April 1948, Ben-Gurion is projecting a message of transfer. There is no explicit order of his in writing, there is no orderly comprehensive policy, but there is an atmosphere of [population] transfer. The transfer idea is in the air. The entire leadership understands that this is the idea. The officer corps understands what is required of them. Under Ben-Gurion, a consensus of transfer is created.
Ben-Gurion was a “transferist”?
Of course. Ben-Gurion was a transferist. He understood that there could be no Jewish state with a large and hostile Arab minority in its midst. There would be no such state. It would not be able to exist.
I don’t hear you condemning him.
Ben-Gurion was right. If he had not done what he did, a state would not have come into being. That has to be clear. It is impossible to evade it. Without the uprooting of the Palestinians, a Jewish state would not have arisen here.