For the Palestinians who left Israel -- whether by force or voluntarily -- Israel's War of Independence was a nakba (catastrophe). The war's end in 1949 left over 720,000 Palestinian refugees. Why they left, what happened to them, and how much responsibility Israel bears is the focus of today's episode.
THE PLOT
There are two over-arching narratives here. One is that the Palestinians left Israel of their own volition, either encouraged by Arab leaders or because they refused to live in a Jewish State. Israel actually encouraged them to stay on as full citizens but most Palestinians chose not to, or were forced out by the Arab armies to make way for the invasion. To the extent that Israel may have expelled a few Palestinians here and there, it was only for military purposes. The real problem with the Palestinian refugees, according to this view, is the Arab countries that refused to absorb them, instead keeping them destitute and angry to use as propaganda against Israel.
The other end of the spectrum argues that Israel ethnically-cleansed the Palestinians in a colonialist land grab, resorting to war crimes and genocide to systematically eliminate the Arab population from the boundaries it illegally seized during the nakba (Arabic for “catastrophe,” what the Palestinians call Israel’s independence). This is the Israeli Occupation — not just certain pieces of territory but the entire area that used to be Palestine and which is today known as Israel. This fact delegitimizes Israel from any moral right to exist, and therefore all of its land today rightfully belongs to the Palestinians, who have a right to return to their former lands.
Neither narrative is correct, but neither are they both totally wrong.
The Palestinian civil war in 1947-48 began the exodus of the Palestinian Arabs; Israel’s War of Independence completed it by 1949. Around 720,000 Palestinian refugees were the result.
THE BIG IDEAS
The question of the Palestinian refugees isn’t just an argument over facts and figures with readily accepted statistics. This is primarily an argument about deeply held narratives and national identity, powerful stories that have a vested political and moral interest in maintaining their righteousness and proving the other guy not just wrong but morally irredeemable.
Why Palestinians left can be understood as having happened in multiple ways: they left voluntarily in trying to get away from the war; they left thinking it was only temporary and they would soon return; they left due to both Arab and Israeli psychological propaganda that played up fears of violence and terror; they were expelled by Israeli forces; they were expelled by Arab forces.
The right of return is one of the key sticking points in the prospect for peace. Simply put, the right of return means that the Palestinians demand that in any peace deal with Israel, the 5 million Palestinian refugees alive today (comprising the original refugees and all of their descendants) should have to right to go back to their original homes. This would overwhelm Israel’s population, ensuring that Jews would no longer be a majority in the Jewish State.
FUN FACTS
By Israel’s declaration of independence in May, 1948, some 200,000 Palestinians had already left Palestine.
Abu Ghosh, an Arab town along the road to Jerusalem, refused to attack Jewish forces during the war and its Palestinian population was thus allowed to remain in Israel.
Palestinians are the only refugee group recognized by the UN as inheriting their refugee status. Descendants of the original Palestinian refugees are still considered refugees, even though they were born and raised in other countries.
© Jason Harris 2020