Palestinian exodus of 1948

The Palestinian exodus of 1948 (Arab: الهجرةالفلسطينية Al-Hijra Al-Filasteeniya ) refers to the Exode of the Palestinian Arab population during the Guerre of Palestine of 1948.

During this conflict, more than 700.000 Palestinian Arabic left or were expelled of their cities and villages and are transfered to refuse straight to the return on their grounds so much while after the conflict.

The proportion between the Palestinians having fled or having been driven out, the causes and the responsibilities for the exodus, its accidental or intentional character, as well as the refusal of their right to the return after the engagements are a subject highly discussed as well between the commentators of the israélo-Palestinian Conflit as between the historians specialists in the events of this time.

This exodus is also at the base of the current problems of the Palestinian Réfugiés which constitutes one of the dispute of the Israeli-Arab Conflit and israélo-Palestinian.

Context

Zionism, side-Arabism and nationalisms

Historically, the conflict lies within the scope of an antagonism growing between the Jewish community and the Arab community of Palestine.

From 1920 and control of the Palestine agent by the British, this one knows an increasing immigration of Jews having for aspiration the foundation of a Jewish State in Palestine. Vis-a-vis those, the Arab leaders post their own nationalism, often side-Arabic and carry out an increasingly strong opposition, marked by riots in 1920 and 1929 which make several hundreds of deaths.

They are two types of companies (one mainly industrial and the other mainly agricultural and pastoral), two cultures (one Western and the other Eastern one) and two nationalisms irreconcilable which clash and which also face l'" occupant" British. According to the historian Henry Laurens, the problems are all the more delicate as in spite of the economic advancement caused by the establishment Zionist the protagonists are confronted with a " play with nap nulle" , in the sense that the capacity of reception of the territory is fully used and that consequently any increase in the vital space of the one can be done only with the detriment of that of the other. The Arab opposition culminates with the Grande revolt of 1936-1939. Carried out by the Palestinian nationalists, she is opposed at the same time to the Zionism, the British presence in Palestine and to the politicians asserting itself of a nationalism side-Arabic. British repression is bloody and the violent reaction of the organizations Zionists. In its term, the Palestinian Arab nationalists obtain however British a drastic diminuation of the Jewish immigration represented by the White paper of 1939. But the consequences are heavy. The revolt made nearly 5000 died Arab side and 500 Jewish side. Different the paramilitary organizations Zionists was reinforced and the majority of the members of the Palestinian Arab political elite were stopped and constrained with the exile. Among those, the chief of the Arab High committee, Hadj Amin Al-Husseini takes refuge in Nazi Germany where he will seek support for his cause.

After the Second world war, following the Shoah and with the problem of the displaced persons in Europe, the movement Zionist attracts the sympathy of the Occident. In Palestine, the groups of the right-hand side Zionist, the Irgoun and the Lehi, lead to their tower a violence campaign against l'" occupation" British. The Palestinian Arab nationalists reorganize but remain very late compared to the Jews. However, the weakening of the colonial powers reinforced the Arab powers and the Arab Ligue recently formed took again on its account the Palestinian nationalist claims and is used to him as spokesperson.

The diplomacy does not manage to reconcile the points of view. In February 1947, the British announce that they decided to give up their mandate on the area. The November 29th 1947, the General meeting of the United Nations votes a Plan of division of Palestine with the support of the great powers but without the support of the British and against the worldwide Arab.

The war of Palestine of 1948

Controversies on the context

To make a synthesis of the principal elements of the context which would make it possible to have a clear and objective reading events related to the exodus is not simple because the Polémique between Historien S also carries on the importance even the reality which it is necessary to bring to such or such element context.

The historian Benny Morris considers that the Palestinian exodus was almost “inevitable”. He advances the following contextual causes: tangle geographical of the Jewish and Arab populations; history of their antagonism since 1917; the rejection by the two parts of any solution binationale; depth of Arab animosity towards the Jews and their fear to be subjected to the authority Zionist; weaknesses structural of the Palestinian Arab company (disorganized, without social cohesion, leader, national structure, shared nationalist aspiration,…) contrary to the Yichouv.

It also developed a thesis according to which a fundamental aspect of the context of the Palestinian exodus is the idea of the transfer in the thought Zionist . He considers that the events of the time must be read while keeping in mind which a viable Jewish state could not see the day and remain with a too important Arab minority and thus that its transfer out of the State was essential. However, he insists that according to its work, if the support of the authorities Zionists for the idea of transfer is “undeniable”, “connections between this support and what really occurred during the war is held much more than than the Arab propagandists lets think”.

In the essential components to include/understand the context, it adds “that one cannot underline of too that the events (...) with the Palestinian Arab exodus occurred in period of war (...)”. It goes further and insists as well in the introduction of its work as into its conclusion on a discussed contextual aspect: “fear of the Yichouv that the Arab Palestinians and States, if it to them were given by it the opportunity, intended to reproduce a version of the Holocauste on a scale the Middle East and that “the invasion of mid-May 1948 threatened the Yichouv of extinction”, which influenced certain decisions of the Jewish authorities.

This context is called in question by other historians post-Zionists such Ilan Pappé and Avi Shlaim like by the Palestinian historians of which for example Walid Khalidi and Nur Masalha. They consider that the second point is inaccurate and that Jewish community confronted forever with a true danger of extermination because the Jewish army, the Haganah, had an undeniable superiority. According to them also, Morris does not go rather far in the development of his thesis concerning the transfer. Beyond of a thought , they estimate that the idea of the transfer was actually a pillar in the ideology Zionist.

Criticisms go also diametrically in the other direction. According to Shabtai Teveth, a biographer of David Ben Gourion like according to the Israeli historian Anita Shapira, never this last did not support the idea of transfer. Efraïm Karsh division this point of view and considers that the work of Morris was not honest on this subject. On the level of the context, he insists rather on the reality of the danger of extermination to which would have was confronted the Yichouv and on the fact that it acted, above all, of a war and that the exoduses are specific to any war. The Israeli historian Yoav Gelber also considers that it is important to have at the head that it was about a war and he underlines the brittleness of the Palestinian company to face there. However, it does not refer any pro or countered the idea of transfer. He also criticizes the new historians who according to him make absraction in their theses of the conflict relations that the Zionists and Arabic knew before 1948.

Chronology of the events

The structure with which the facts are presented also varies according to the historians.

Benny Morris distinguishes four vague from refugees to which it gives different causes. Ilan Pappé analyzes the facts into two phases : the first coincides with that of Morris and it includes the three others in only one and single phase. Yoav Gelber also uses only two phases but different from those of Pappus: the first coinciding overall with the two first of Morris and the second with the two last. The majority of the commentators speak about the Palestinian Réfugiés and include the whole in only one problems .

There is however no polemic around these cuttings.

First wave (December 1947 - March 1948)

Rise of violence

As of the shortly after the vote of the Plane of partition to UNO, the outburst of joies in the Jewish community are counterbalanced by the expression of dissatisfaction within the Arab community. Quickly violence bursts and will be growing: attacks, reprisals and against-reprisals making of tens of victims will follow one another without nobody managing to control them.

Over the period of December 1947 and January 1948, one counts nearly 1000 dead and 2000 wounded. End March, a report/ratio makes state of more than 2000 died and 4000 wounded.

As of January, under the indifferent eye of the British authorities, the operations take a more military turning with the entry in Palestine several regiments of the Armée with Arab release which are distributed in the various coastal towns and reinforce the Galileo and the Samarie. Abdel Kader Al-Husseini also arrives at the head of several hundreds of men of the Jihad Al-Muqadas and after having recruited several thousands of others the blockade of Jerusalem organizes of them where of violent one engagements take place.

While the Jewish population received strict instructions obliging it to hold at all costs on all the grounds, the Arab population is subjected to the situation of insecurity than knows the country.

The exodus of the higher classes

“Panic grows in the Arab easy classes and one attends a regular exodus on behalf of those which can be offered to leave the country”.

Of December 1947 with January 1948, they are 70.000 Arabs approximately who will flee the insecurity and the agglomerations. End March, the total of the refugees will be assembled to approximately 100.000.

These people constitute the first wave, that one mainly voluntary, of the Palestinian refugees of the conflict. The engagements between Jews and Arabs are only one aspect. The chaos which settles following the gradual collapse of the public services, the insecurity and the disappearance of the Rule of law consequently of the resignation of the British makes only worsen the things. The escape of the middle-classes and higher involves the closing of the schools, the private clinics, the hospitals, the trade… and generates unemployment and impoverishment. According to Gelber, this wave is at the base, with the departure of the British, the collapse of the Palestinian social structure which announces the second wave of refugees.

Among those one finds mainly the members of the middle-classes and higher, of which majority of the families of the representatives of the Arab High committee or the local leaders. Also the Arab foreigners installed in Palestine leave. Via the ports of Haïfa and Jaffa or the airport of Lydda, all these families will settle in the close capitals. They hope certainly to once turn over the finished hostilities as it was the case at the time of the Grande Revolt of 1936-1939 ^,.

These figures are nevertheless too important to concern only the Arab foreigners and the rich person Palestinians. It is necessary to add the fallahin there having recently migrated from their villages close and not yet completely installed as well as the inhabitants to certain villages located in the zone allotted to the Jews by the plane of division.

to add some words on the urban centres

Rural migration

The departure starts in December in some villages to become constant in January and February although always of low scale. Into March, in certain localities as in the north of Tel-Aviv, it is transformed into a true exodus. Most of the time, the emigration is confined at the adjacent zones in the centers of principal Jewish concentrations.

The causes are the attacks of reprisals of the Haganah (and to a small extent of the Irgoun and Lehi) or the fear of such attacks. The orders of the Arab authorities (the Arab Army of Release) to evacuate certain villages also contribute to the departures. Several communities are also encircled and expelled by units of Haganah although the policy of Haganah is not to expel. Intimidations coming from troops of Irgoun as of irregular Arabic precipitate also certain departures. During this period, the rural migration occurs mainly along the coastal plain. It particularly concerns the Bedouins of which several tens of campings are evacuated, like several villages

In February, Yossef Weiz, a discussed personality, takes initiatives with the military and civil capacities local in the valley of Beissan to support the eviction of Bedouins who squattent there grounds had by the Jews. End March, it makes pressure on Israel Galili and David Ben Gourion to implement a national policy of expulsion on the territory allotted to the Jews by the plan of division but its proposals is rejected.

Expulsions

During this period, according to Morris, only one expulsion was authorized. The December 31st, following an attack of the Lehi which makes 2 dead and 8 wounded, the inhabitants of Qisarya (Césarée) in the south of Haïfa leave the village. Haganah then decides to occupy the site (of which the grounds are Jewish properties and of the orthodoxe Church). Nevertheless, the commanders fear to be driven out by the Britannique S and ask for the authorization of shave the village. Yitzhak Rabin, the chief of the operations of the local Palmach is opposed to it but its opinion is not followed by the command. The February 20th, the 4th battalion of Palmach demolishes the houses after the last 20 inhabitants of the village are evacuated. In 1947, the village counted more than one thousand of inhabitants.

Synthesis

There is no polemic on the analysis of the events which pushed the Palestinians of the first wave to the exodus. The historians describe a whole an exodus mainly " volontaire" in the chief of Palestinian Arabic.

They are thus approximately 100.000 Palestinian Arabic, mainly members of the easy classes of the agglomerations involving with them a certain proportion of fellahins which have flees of their own boss between December 1947 and March 1948.

Gelber gives the following causes to explain this exodus " volontaire" : the deterioration of the general terms of life (p.76), the terror caused by the attacks of the Haganah, the Irgoun and the Lehi (p.77), the presence of uncontrolled Arab bands which generates an atmosphere of not-right (p.77), the bad example given by the Arab leaders (p.77), the fear of reprisals of the Haganah following attacks (p.78), the escape vis-a-vis combat (p.78), the fact that the civilians are priss for target by the belligerents (p.79), the difficult economic situation (p.79), an effect of the propaganda of the Haganah (p.80), evacuation of certain villages by the Armed with Arab release (p.80) and the expulsion of Césarée (p.80).

The second vagueness (April-June 1948)

Offensive of Haganah

The third vagueness (July-October 1948)

The fourth vagueness (October-November 1948)

The cleaning of the borders (November 1948 - 1950)

Solutions with the problem of the refugees

Causes of the exodus

Causes

The appreciation of the causes of this second wave is the episode most prone to controversies and polemics of the war of 1948. It is not the subject of any consensus between historians and even less between the pro-Palestinian commentators or pro-Israelis. The polemic was brought back to the front of the scene end of the year 1980 by the publication of work of the school of the new historians , also called post-Zionists.

In 1988, following the opening of the Israeli military files, the historian Benny Morris published a study on the subject which it supplemented thereafter: The Birth off the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited . Morris indexes there in particular all the facts related to the Palestinian exodus of which it could take note and list the whole of the causes having caused the exodus according to his research. If the conclusions and some of its analyzes are prone to controversies, the facts that it brings back are not the object of it.

Among the causes and the elements releases and accelerators of the second wave of refugees , Morris pays in his conclusions:

* the Jewish offensive . It is according to him factor principal as shows it fact that each exodus occurred at the immediate times of a military attack so much for the cities, of which none was abandoned before the principal attack of the Haganah or the Irgoun, that for the villages.

* a collapse of the Palestinian company . In particular in the cities, the collapse of the administration, of the order and the law, the problems of provisioning, insulation and harassings by the Jewish forces contributed to demoralize the inhabitants and to push them at the beginning.

* the resignation of the chiefs. The departure with the approach of the combat of the political leaders and soldiers gave one (bad) example to be followed to the population which imitated them. This phenomenon took place mainly in the cities and not the villages.

* an effect snowball . The more cities had previously fallen and the more the following cities fell easily. The effect was still accentuated when the villages in the neighborhoods had already fallen because generated insulation mined moral inhabitants.

* the factor atrocity . The impact of the Massacre of Deir Yassin and the exaggerated description which was made by it by the Arab radio stations during weeks mined moral Arabs, in particular in the campaigns.

* Of expulsions . According to Morris, no operational order of expulsion was given by the Haganah or its leaders during this period but the operations called with the destruction of villages or groups of villages; what implied it. In the campaigns, of share the greatest liberty of action given to the military chiefs, the guiding lines of the Plan Daleth gave them the possibility of carrying out expulsions and to shave villages.

* Of the orders of evacuation . The Arab Arab High committee and states at that time encouraged women, children and old men to be taken refuge in sour places and the local commanders ordered on several occasions the evacuation of villages (as around Jerusalem or along the border Syria) but according to Morris, no obviousness indicates a call to the escape of their share or a will to cause an exodus of mass.

Analyzes and controversies

See also: Plane Daleth

Benny Morris does not put any particular cause ahead for this the second vagueness of the Palestinian exodus. He simultaneously regards it as due to the conjunction of all these factors. Moreover, it excludes a possible cause categorically. According to him, this second " wave; was not the result of a general policy, predetermined, Yichouv " although it underlines qu'" she was immediately seen like a phenomenon with exploiter" in the context of the " idea of the transfer in the thought sioniste".

These analyzes are not shared for all the historians or commentators. The latter put a cause generally ahead that they regard as dominating among those quoted. Moreover, vision that to Morris on the Plane Daleth and the thesis of the transfer is very called in question.

In its work the war of 1948 in Palestine , Ilan Pappé presents the controversy and the points of disagreement between the point of view of Morris, that of traditional Israeli historiography and that of the Arab historians. Just like Morris, it is opposed to the version traditional Israeli historians who saw like main cause and dominating Palestinian exodus of the orders of escape coming from the Arab High committee or of the leaders of the Arab countries. He shares also the point of view of Morris with regard to the opportunism of which made preuvent the Jewish authorities following the departure of the exodus but only with regard to the first wave of refugees. Indeed, according to him, " the exodus of the Palestinians, the second wave, results from an action deliberated on the leaders Zionists on Palestine". It divides in that the opinion of the Palestinian historians and in particular of Walid Khalidi according to which the Plan Daleth would be " a project of destruction of the company palestinienne".

In its work Palestine 1948: war, space and the emergence off the Palestinian refugee problem Yoav Gelber considers as for him that the main cause of the second wave of the refugees was effrondrement of the Palestinian Arab company which without the administrative support of the British was too fragile to resist the living conditions of a civil war. He also question the vision of the Israeli historians tradionnels but it rejects the vision of the Arab historians on the Plan Daleth.

The French historian Henry Laurens division enough the point of view of Yoav Gelber. " The departure of the British authorities and the escape of notable Palestinian accelerate the decomposition of the company palestienne. (...) In the cities, the collapse of the economy and the end of the law and order increase the distress of the habitants". He either does not regard the Daleth Plan as a plan of expulsion of Arabic. In its appreciation of the work of Morris, Dominique Vidal estimates as for him that the authorities of the Yichouv have a direct responsibility in the exodus during this period.

These analyzes, which reflect of good part the debate within the school of the new historians, are disputed by other historians, such Efraïm Karsh. According to this last in particular, " Morris gives a bad presentation of the documents, gives only partial quotations, product of false allegations and rewritten documents originaux".

The position of the historians supporting the thesis of a given will of Yishuv to expel the Palestinians hardened these last years. Ilan Pappé now speaks about ethnic Nettoyage , a term which, it underlines, with a definition legal and precise and which it associates with the whole of the Palestinian Exode. Dominique Vidal also leans in this direction. According to Benny Morris, this hardening from the points of view has in the chief of Pappus in any case, an only political character and does not base itself on any historical material; argument which however Pappé returns to him by declaring that its comments as for them are justified by " its abominable racist sights about the Arabs in general and of the Palestinians in particular " and implying that Morris is good only to excavate the files.

Conclusions

External bonds

Translation by Philippe Bourmaud of " The debate butt 1948" of Avi Shlaim (according to International Newspaper off Middle East Studies, vol. 27, n° August 3rd, th and th 1995, pp. 287-304), in the review Labyrinthe. Workshop interdisciplinaire.
Presentation of the contreverses between historians
Article of Erskine Childers
Stakes of the exodus presented by Mathieu Bouchard, author of " The Palestinian exodus: Construction of a Western representation of the conflict israelo-arabe" with the editions Harmattah
Article of Amnon Kapeliouk of December 1986 presenting the first revelations of the new historians on the exodus
Presentation by Dominique Vidal of work of the new historians
Bonds towards 5 articles of historians on the subject
interview of Benny Morris by Danny Rubinstein
Karsh, 1996
Shlaim, 1996
Karsh, 1996
Morris, 1996
Karsh, 1999
re-examined Pappus by Karsh
mutual Opinions between Morris and Pappé
Analysis of Morris on Pappus
Answer of Pappus to Morris
Analysis of Morris after survival off the fittest
Analysis of the historians revisionists and the exodus by Michael Palumbo

Sources and references

Yoav Gelber, Palestine 1948 , Sussex Academic Near, Brighton, 2006, ISBN 1845190750
Ilan Pappus, the war of 1948 in Palestine , the factory editions, 2000, ISBN 226404036X
Efraïm Karsh, The Arab-Israeli Conflict - The Palestine War 1948 , Osprey Publishing, 2002, ISBN 1841763721
Alain Gresh and Dominique Vidal, '' Palestine 47, a division fallen through '', Editions Complexes, 1994.
Dominique Lapierre and Larry Hakes, O Jerusalem , Robert Laffont, 1971, ISBN 2266106988
Benny Morris, The Birth Off The Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited , Cambridge University Near, 2003, ISBN 0521009677
Benny Morris, Righteous Victims, has History off the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881,2001 , Vintage, 2001, ISBN 0679744754
Benny Morris, Victims. Revisited history of conflict arabo-Zionist , Editions Complex, 2003, ISBN 2870279388
Henry Laurens, Peace and war in the Middle East , Armand Colin, Paris, 2005, ISBN 2200269773
L' general introduction of the Daleth plan, represented by Walid Khalidi and published by Yehuda Slutsky, Sefer Toldot Hahaganah (History of Haganah), Volume 3, Appendix 48, Tel Aviv, Zionist Library, 1972, pp.1956-1960, is taken again on mideastweb.org
United Nations Special Commission, special First Carryforward to the Security Council: The Problem off Security in Palestine, April 16th, 1948, available on the site of the United Nations.

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