3rd part of 3
Conclusion
The Arab refugee problem was created by the belligerent Arab states that defied the UN, invaded
The problem was maintained intentionally by the Arab states through their refusal to abide by the UN resolutions and the Geneva convention, refusal to integrate any refugees into under-populated Arab countries (except for Jordan), refusal to enter into peace negotiations with Israel, and refusal to countenance ANY steps toward resolution by Israel or others.
By maintaining the problem, the Arab leaders sought to gain pseudo-moral leverage against Europe and
The abuses, exaggerations, lies, and distortions perpetrated by Arab governments, UNWRA and the refugee spokespersons made it impossible, even back in 1949, to identify a bona fide refugee populace.
The Palestinian population of the
The Palestinian population under the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) from 1994 to the present has declined precipitously, the standard of living eroded, GDP is one-tenth of what it was under Israeli control; all due to mis-appropriation of approximately $5.2 billion by the PNA into personal wealth and weapons stock-piling, and due to Arafat's terror war against which Israel must exercise defensive controls and deterrents.
Justice for Jewish and Arab refugees could have been part of a peace settlement, if the Arab states had been willing. Today the same is true, if the Palestinian National Authority would stop the terror war and fulfill the obligations to which it committed at
Appendix: Quotes confirming that Arab leaders told Arabs to flee:
1. "The first group of our fifth column consist of those who abandon their homes…At the first sign of trouble they take to their heels to escape sharing the burden of struggle" -- Ash-Sha'ab,
2. "(the fleeing villagers)…are bringing down disgrace on us all… by abandoning their villages" -- As-Sarih,
3. "Every effort is being made by the Jews to persuade the Arab populace to stay and carry on with their normal lives, to get their shops and businesses open and to be assured that their lives and interests will be safe." -- Haifa District HQ of the British Police, April 26, 1948, (quoted in
Battleground by Samuel Katz).
4. "The mass evacuation, prompted partly by fear, partly by order of Arab leaders, left the Arab quarter of
5. "The Arab streets (of
6. "The Arab civilians panicked and fled ignominiously. Villages were frequently abandoned before they were threatened by the progress of war." -- General John Glubb "Pasha," The
7. "The fact that there are these refugees is the direct consequence of the act of the Arab states in opposing partition and the Jewish state. The Arab states agreed upon this policy unanimously and they must share in the solution of the problem." – Emile Ghoury, secretary of the Palestinian Arab Higher Committee, in an interview with the Beirut Telegraph 9/6/1948. (same appeared in The London Telegraph, 8.48)
8. The most potent factor [in the flight of Palestinians] was the announcements made over the air by the Arab-Palestinian Higher Executive, urging all Haifa Arabs to quit... It was clearly intimated that Arabs who remained in
--
9. "It must not be forgotten that the Arab Higher Committee encouraged the refugees' flight from their homes in
10. "[The Arabs of Haifa] fled in spite of the fact that the Jewish authorities guaranteed their safety and rights as citizens of
11. "The military and civil (Israeli) authorities expressed their profound regret at this grave decision (taken by the Arab military delegates of
-- Memorandum of the Arab National Committee of Haifa, 1950, to the governments of the Arab League, quoted in J. B. Schechtman, The Refugees in the World, NY 1963, pp. 192f.
12. Sir John Troutbeck, British Middle East Office in Cairo, noted in cables to superiors (1948-49) that the refugees (in Gaza) have no bitterness against Jews, but harbor intense hatred toward Egyptians: " They say 'we know who our enemies are (referring to the Egyptians)', declaring that their Arab brethren persuaded them unnecessarily to leave their homes…I even heard it said that many of the refugees would give a welcome to the Israelis if they were to come in and take the district over".
13. "The Arab states which had encouraged the Palestine Arabs to leave their homes temporarily in order to be out of the way of the Arab invasion armies, have failed to keep their promise to help these refugees." – The Jordanian daily newspaper Falastin, Feb. 19, 1949.
14. "The Secretary General of the Arab League, Azzam Pasha, assured the Arab peoples that the occupation of Palestine and of Tel Aviv would be as simple as a military promenade...Brotherly advice was given to the Arabs of Palestine to leave their land, homes, and property to stay temporarily In neighboring fraternal states, lest the guns of invading Arab armies mow them down." --Al Hoda (a New York-based Lebanese daily) June 8, 1951.
15. "Who brought the Palestinians to
16. "We will smash the country with our guns and obliterate every place the Jews seek shelter in. The Arabs should conduct their wives and children to safe areas until the fighting has died down."
-- Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Said, quoted in "Sir An-Nakbah" (The Secret Behind the Disaster) by Nimr el-Hawari,
16. "The Arab Exodus …was not caused by the actual battle, but by the exaggerated description spread by the Arab leaders to incite them to fight the Jews. …For the flight and fall of the other villages it is our leaders who are responsible because of their dissemination of rumors exaggerating Jewish crimes and describing them as atrocities in order to inflame the Arabs ... By spreading rumors of Jewish atrocities, killings of women and children etc., they instilled fear and terror in the hearts of the Arabs in Palestine, until they fled leaving their homes and properties to the enemy."
– The Jordanian daily newspaper Al Urdun, April 9, 1953.
17. The Arab governments told us: Get out so that we can get in. So we got out, but they did not get in. (Quoting a refugee) -- Al Difaa (
18. "The wholesale exodus was due partly to the belief of the Arabs, encouraged by the boasting of an unrealistic press and the irresponsible utterances of some of the Arab leaders that it could be only a matter of some weeks before the Jews were defeated by the armies of the Arab states, and the Palestinian Arabs enabled to re-enter and re-take possession of their country". -- Edward Atiyah (Secretary of the Arab League, London, The Arabs, 1955, p. 183)
19. "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 UN and as a weapon against
20. "As early as the first months of 1948, the Arab League issued orders exhorting the people to seek a temporary refuge in neighboring countries, later to return to their abodes ... and obtain their share of abandoned Jewish property." -- Bulletin of The Research Group for European Migration Problems, 1957.
21. "Israelis argue that the Arab states encouraged the Palestinians to flee. And, in fact, Arabs still living in
22. "The 15th May, 1948, arrived ... On that day the mufti of
23. In listing the reasons for the Arab failure in 1948, Khaled al-Azm (Syrian Prime Minister) notes that "…the fifth factor was the call by the Arab governments to the inhabitants of
24. "The Arab states succeeded in scattering the Palestinian people and in destroying their unity. They did not recognize them as a unified people until the states of the world did so, and this is regrettable." -- Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas), from the official journal of the PLO, Falastin
el-Thawra ("What We Have Learned and What We Should Do"),
25. "Since 1948, the Arab leaders have approached the Palestinian problem in an irresponsible manner. They have used to Palestinian people for political purposes; this is ridiculous, I might even say criminal..." -- KING HUSSSEIN, Hashemite
26. "Abu Mazen Charges that the Arab States Are the Cause of the Palestinian Refugee Problem" (Wall Street Journal; June 5, 2003):
· Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) penned an article in March 1976 in Falastin al-Thawra (cf. supra), the official journal of the PLO in Beirut: "The Arab armies entered Palestine to protect the Palestinians from the Zionist tyranny, but instead they abandoned them, forced them to emigrate and to leave their homeland, imposed upon them a political and ideological blockade and threw them into prisons similar to the ghettos in which the Jews used to live in Eastern Europe" (emphasis added).
· As Abu Mazen alluded, it was in large part due to threats and fear-mongering from Arab leaders that some 700,000 Arabs fled
· In 1950, the UN set up the United Nations Relief and Works Agency as a "temporary" relief effort for Palestinian refugees. Former UNRWA director Ralph Galloway stated eight years later that, "the Arab states do not want to solve the refugee problem. They want to keep it as an open sore, as a weapon against
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