Talk:1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight/Archive 11

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Source

Wikifan, this is not an acceptable source:

Philip Mendes, A historical controversy : the causes of the Palestinian refugee problem; retrieved from the Australian Jewish Democratic Society website on 1 November 2007.

Who is Philip Mendes? Also, if you use a website, please link to it, but it's best not to use websites (except as courtesy links) for an article like this. Please use academic texts, or involved primary sources (with care). SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 02:45, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

I stole the source from similar Palestinian/Israel article (I think it was the Israel/Palestinian conflict). I really don't why it isn't reliable. [1] isn't any less reliable then the extremely partisan and highly POV Constantin Zureiq and Nur-eldeen Masalha.

We know who they are, and they know about the issues we used them as sources for. POV isn't the issue, because everyone has a POV. We need sources who are specialists in their subject. Who is Philip Mendes? SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 03:44, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

POV is the issue slim. There are hundreds of moderate historians, you or whoever has been editing the article selected two of some of the most partisan palestinian historians to provide valuable information in the lead. Two rely solely on them is unacceptable. They are specialist in the Palestinian POV. I don't understand why are you so stubborn in their inclusion. Wikifan12345 (talk) 04:09, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

The current lead is again not only POV but also slightly misleading. I really wish you would consult at talk before totally removing references and then claiming they are unreliable when the original sources in the lead do not qualify as neutral.

Here is the current lead:

Nur-eldeen Masalha writes that over 80 percent of the Arab inhabitants of the area that became Israel left their towns and villages. Israeli advances, fears of a massacre after Deir Yassin, and a collapse in Palestinian leadership caused many to leave out of panic, while the majority of those who remained were expelled by Jewish soldiers. A series of laws passed by the first Israeli government prevented them from returning to their homes, or claiming their property. They and many of their descendants remain refugees..

Problems:

• Not all of the refugees who fled during the war remained refugees.

Can you say what you mean? SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 03:47, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Sentences like "they and many of their descendants" is woefully misleading. The majority of refugees during the period are either dead or have settled elsewhere, while most of their descendants remain refugees. However, not all of them.

It doesn't say all of them, but I think all of them are refugees (descended from Palestinian father, I believe is the criterion). SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 03:47, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

No, not all of them are refugees. Not all Palestinians are refugees, the line is simply inaccurate. Some became citizens of Jordan, others moved to neighboring countries, a few even made it into Israel. The vast majority remained as refugees however. Wikifan12345 (talk) 04:09, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

• I don't really see the pertinence of including a single massacre like the Deir Yassin. Many massacres occurred and it is undue weight to list that one as if it had a huge impact on the hundreds of thousands of people

who left. Israeli advances is certainly enough, Arab forces did enough massacring themselves.

Wikifan, please read the sources. They cite Deir Yassin massacre and Haifa. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 03:47, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm not disputing the source. I'm disputing the weight, the Deir Yassin invokes strong emotion and has very little to do with the large exodus. Many massacres occurred, some with even greater death tolls. It is simply undue to list the event in the lead. Wikifan12345 (talk) 04:09, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

• Relies on extremely pro-Palestinian academics. I have no issue with that specifically but I felt we needed to trim their bloated POV and balance it with more neutral and less emotional language.

Here is my balanced version:

Israeli advances and a collapse in Palestinian leadership forced many Arab communities to leave out of fear, while the majority of those who remained were forcibly expelled by Jewish soldiers. Nur-eldeen Masalha writes that over 80 percent of the Arab inhabitants of the area that became Israel left their towns and villages.. A series of laws passed by the Israeli government prevented most of these Palestinians from returning to their homes, and many of their descendants have since become refugees..

That paints a far more neutral picture. Try to use talk before totally removing entire leads. Wikifan12345 (talk) 03:42, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

The problem is that you're writing from your own opinion, and we can't use random websites as sources. Please use historians. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 03:47, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

No, I'm not. I'm writing based on explicit sources and neutrality laws. Dismissing the information as simply opinion is fallacious and wrong. Wikifan12345 (talk) 04:09, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Can you say who Philip Mendes, your source, is please? SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 04:12, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

He is in the citation. He has written for The Australian, has written a book on Jews in Australia google link, and is a lecturer at Monash University. Please don't accuse me of writing out of "opinion" when you habitually select POV and biased language in the lead. Mendes is certainly reliable enough. He may not reflect your opinion but fortunately that is irrelevant. Wikifan12345 (talk) 04:33, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Who is he, though? What is his specialism?

Uh, he is an author on Palestinian/Jewish history in regards to the 1948 exodus and many other events. His also a professor/college lecturer. No, he is not a Palestinian activist/historian. Sorry. Wikifan12345 (talk) 04:41, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

He's a social worker. Come on, please, use academic sources who specialize. No more websites. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 08:15, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Now you have used Mitchell Bard. You're giving the impression that you're just searching around on the Web for sources that agree with you. Why won't you use regular historians? SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 04:35, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm giving you that impression because from the get-go it has been clear that you want to promote a highly partisan and pro-Palestinian POV. Please define "regular historians." Michael G Bard is an expert, a recognized author, and is certainly as notable and as reliable as the Palestinian teachers you dubiously claim to be neutral. There is no rule on wikipedia that demands all sources be "historians" and for this specific subject it is hard to give so much credence by an occupation without considering dependence on area of study (in your case, Palestinian leanings). Find me a wikipedia rule, and stop the removing of CITED material. I also responded to your claim the Mendes was not notable unreliable. It seems anything that is moderate is apparently unreliable according to you Slim. Truly bizarre. Wikifan12345 (talk) 04:39, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

From the policy: "In general, the most reliable sources are peer-reviewed journals and books published in university presses; university-level textbooks; magazines, journals, and books published by respected publishing houses; and mainstream newspapers ... Academic and peer-reviewed publications are highly valued and usually the most reliable sources in areas where they are available, such as history, medicine and science. Material from reliable non-academic sources may also be used in these areas, particularly if they are respected mainstream publications." SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 08:17, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Mitchell G. Bard and Mendes are both academics and have published books. They are no less reliable or partisan than the Palestinian sources you include. I was very explicit in my responses, I am going to restore the information Halfacanyon immaturely removed. He is started to wikihound me and accusing me of things I am not going. Wikifan12345 (talk) 08:33, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Also, the paragraph is sourced by Avraham Sela which is used in the more general Israel-Palestinian conflict article several times. The sources meet the V policy requirements, certainly more so than the Palestinian activist/historians you have relied on. Hopefully this is a fair compromise. Wikifan12345 (talk) 08:44, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Source request

Can we have a better source for this section, please, than Myths and Facts? This is fine for anything uncontentious, but for something like this, we need an academic historian who specializes. Also, could you post here what Sela says, please, and who are you quoting? SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 02:16, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

In 1949 the Israeli government offered to allow Palestinian families that had been separated during the war to return, pay compensation for ceased land, and "repatriate" 100,000 refugees. The Arab leadership at the time rejected the compromise as they believed it would be "construed as a recognition of Israel."

SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 02:16, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

The source is being carried from Jewish Virtual Library which is perfectly acceptable considering Mitchell G. Bard is the director of said organization. Here is the original source: JVL. Bard is a qualified academic and has written more than a dozen books as well as being published in a variety of mainstream academic journals. Much of this can also be found in his popular book which is also cited in the first paragraph. As far as the Avraham Sela source is considered, I discovered it at the History of I/P conflict - reference #4. More or less exact sentence. Avraham Sela is an academic/professor/historian. I really don't see the problem with JVL considering the article relies on Badil, IPS, all of which do not qualify as reliable sources but are acceptable academics/historians/etc. There really was no reason to shelve the paragraph when we could have very well discussed it without deletion. IT wasn't OR. Wikifan12345 (talk) 02:54, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

What does Sela say exactly? SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 02:57, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

At this point it doesn't really matter but: (reasoning behind rejection) "an end to Jewish immigration and land sales to Jews, calling for independence of Palestine as an independent Arab state." Sela is simply affirming Bard's analysis, though his agreement isn't necessary source-wise. Bard says the same thing more or less, he later goes in-depth with the Israel offer of reparations and how the Arab leadership wouldn't give a counter-offer mostly on the basis of being forced to recognize the state but it is very long and would distract from the core of the article. Wikifan12345 (talk) 03:01, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't understand. You used Sela as a source, so my question is what does he say about the issue you used him as a source for? The phrase, "an end to Jewish immigration and land sales to Jews, calling for independence of Palestine as an independent Arab state" doesn't mean anything on its own. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 03:41, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Also, what page of Sela is it on? You've given a page range of 58-121. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 03:43, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

It's an exact quotation from the article I listed above. Scroll the reference #4, it is used a couple of times. It talks about the Israeli offer of reparations and why the Arabs rejected it. Sela's book is used a lot in the other article so I'm guessing the original editor gave it that range instead of going to meticulous route. Either way, the whole paragraph is paraphrased with word quotations - all of it could be sourced from either Bard or Sela. Both are academic, historians, published authors, etc. That was your original complaint. I'm restoring the paragraph temporarily because your questions don't threaten the integrity of the information. Wikifan12345 (talk) 04:24, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't think you understand what I'm asking, so I will rephrase. You used Sela as your source for the compensation paragraph. Therefore, you must have read him. We can't use sources we haven't read. I am therefore asking you to type on this page what Sela says about the compensation, and to give us a book/paper title and a page number, so that we can check it. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 04:55, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

The source and exact information is directly from History of the Arab–Israeli conflict. Source #4. After the war, "the Arab states insisted on two main demands", neither of which were accepted by Israel: 1. Israel should withdraw to the borders of the UN Partition Plan — Israel argued "that the new borders—which could be changed, under consent only—had been established as a result of war, and because the UN blueprint took no account of defense needs and was militarily untenable, there was no going back to that blueprint."2. The Palestinian refugees deserved a full right of return back into Israel — Israel argued that this was "out of the question, not only because they were hostile to the Jewish state, but they would also fundamentally alter the Jewish character of the state.". You are simply looking for problems, the information is right there. Your original complaint over the reliability has been resolved, your copy and paste of the V - historian/academic qualifications has also been resolved, and the questionable use of the Jewish-ish site has also been resolved. Wikifan12345 (talk) 05:03, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

You are quoting from a Wikipedia article. You can't do that. If you cite a source, you must have read him. I am asking you to quote Sela and to give me a page number. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 05:06, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

No, I am demonstrating Sala's same information is used in another wikipedia article. Same exact information. Why not use the same source? Makes perfect sense. We are not quoting Sala anyways. Regardless, looks like User:GHcool has saved the day. Check the new reference, and feel free to harass him. Wikifan12345 (talk) 05:17, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Why were you not able to quote Sela? You can't use material as a source if you've not even seen it. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 07:50, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Who wrote this exactly, "Israel was willing to allow an agreed number of [refugees] to return (the figure of 100,000 was proposed) and to pay compensation for land and housing left behind .... The Arab states rejected Israel's arguments and proposals on both moral and political grounds," and what is the name of the article/chapter? Can we also be told what was left out by the ellipsis? SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 07:53, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Sela, obviously. Considering half this article is cited by page numbers, perhaps we should start moving all those paragraphs here for analysis. If Slim can't find the page number, DELETE! XDWikifan12345 (talk) 08:01, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Why is it obvious? He is the editor. You need to cut this out, and if you don't, I'm going to request a topic ban. You're using source material that you've never even seen, which is fraudulent. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 08:26, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Uh? The source comes from the other article that had a paragraph on the VERY same topic. GHCool added the page numbers and verified the book (he owns it). And don't forget Mitchell G. Bard. There are two very reliable sources supporting a single paragraph and you claiming that I'm committing fraud is abhorrent. anyways. Wikifan12345 (talk) 08:40, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

100,000 refugees

I am puzzled by the following sentence. Does it mean that only 1/7th of the refugees were offered the chance to return, including families that had been separated during the war? It isvery unclear at the moment. "In 1949 the Israeli government offered to allow Palestinian families that had been separated during the war to return, pay compensation for siezed land, and "repatriate" 100,000 refugees." 93.96.148.42 (talk) 10:09, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

You have to read the book. At the time it was not understood just how many people were actual refugees as the process was extremely corrupt and not well-organized. As far as I know Israel offered to unfreeze bank accounts and return recoverable assets to Palestinians, allow those who were separated from family to return, while also creating a system that would help better able to identify and relocate Arabs without compromising the integrity of the state. Even though the Arabs rejected the offer some money (in the high millions of $) was returned. Estimates for actual refugees range from ~350-well over a million by Arab accounts. It's become more difficult to retrace the math because the population has grown exponentially and without control. GH probably is more informed than I am. Wikifan12345 (talk) 10:26, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

This offer is more accurately discussed in the section "The Lausanne Conference of 1949". Zero^talk 21:44, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

I tried to fix it here, but Wikifan12345 keeps reverting. It's difficult to work seriously on articles he is editing. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 09:35, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes, your text is much better. Zero^talk 09:45, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

I disagree. I responded to everyone of your disputes and I believe it is an unfair act to rewrite everything whereas you put the disputed version in talk. You didn't respond to the latest post, so I assumed you were no longer involved. I posted a more thorough and revised draft that incorporates your edits as well as new and deleted references (the ones you deleted). I've also provided a brief rationale and response to the factual errors in your draft that will hopefully suffice. Wikifan12345 (talk) 09:50, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Revised paragraph discussion and others

• As a condition (hopefully), can we revert to the original paragraph that was last edited by User:GHcool? Slim essentially wrote out Bard and Sela's analysis without going to talk or posting her version here. After doing tiny rephrasing. which she also added to, she restored the version back to her's twice, twice 2. This was in spite of my request that she move her version here. Considering Slim moved my extensive edits to talk and insisted I provide extensive reasoning, I would hope that she would reciprocate and do the same herself.

During the 1949 Lausanne conference, Israel agreed to "repatriate" 100,000 of the refugees to return to the area, though not necessarily to their homes, including 25,000 who had returned surreptitiously and 10,000 family-reunion cases. Israel also agreed to resettle the total "Arab population existing at the end of the hostilities, increasing the maximum number of refugees to 250,000." These reparations would later be merged with a general plan for resettlement of refugees lead by an "established" special organ by the United Nations. The proposal itself was conditional on a "meaningful" peace treaty that would enable Israel to retain the territory it had captured, and on the Arab states absorbing the remaining 550,000–650,000 refugees. The Arab states believed that reparations should be a precondition before any peace treaty. They also argued that Israel should withdraw to the borders of the UN Partition Plan, and all of the Palestinian refugees be given full right of return. Israel insisted that the new borders had been established as a result of war, and because the UN proposal did not consider the effects there was no justification in "going back to it." Israel argued that the Palestinian right of return was "out of the question, because they were hostile to the Jewish state" and that it would "fundamentally alter the Jewish character of the state." The Arab states ultimately rejected the proposal based on both "moral and political grounds."

Little info:

• I added the tag per the dispute (involving whatever) and to give attention. Very temporary until this is settled or a more appropriate tag can be found.

• I really don't see the validity or helpfulness in these kinds of edits. I asked Roland if he could restore the text to the original paragraph that I thought was a compromise and direct future edits here.

___________________________________________________________________________

• Mitchell G. Bard is only used to support the word reparations which is not in the Morris quote. I just don't want editors mixing up the two authors.

• The MFA link is an abbreviated version of the UN link.

• Israel never proposed a concrete peace treaty as implied in Slim's version. - i.e, if you sign this here there is peace END OF STORY. Rather, the agreement was supposed to set a precedent for future negotiations and end active hostilities. Others argue Israel removed its offer after the state was admitted into the UN and given privileges and no Arab response would change the decision (essentially, Israel wouldn't have followed through with any deal.)

• Arab leadership were very insistent that any reparations be a precondition to peace or recognizing Israel. this isn't mentioned at all and out of everything here I think it is the most crucial piece of information.

• Even though the proposal went nowhere, Israel did eventually allow ~35,000 refugees in addition to already declared Arab citizens of Israel to return their homes as well as unfreezing various bank accounts/assets. This was supposedly intended to be an act of good will towards the Palestinians blah blah but that is a lot of history to debate.

I really think this can be reduced in size but for now I feel what is above represents the most accurate portrayal of the events that occurred. Wikifan12345 (talk) 09:47, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

No way would Mitchell Bard be quoted as any kind of serious source. Even that very article starts with "Myth:Israel refused to allow Palestinians to return to their homes so Jews could steal their property" and "Fact:Israel could not simply agree to allow all Palestinians to return, but consistently sought a solution to the refugee problem." His writing is a constant stream of outrageous propaganda fabrication, obviously false on two counts just in that one short sentence, 86.151.134.93 (talk) 18:16, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Discussion

Comments

Wikifan's edits repeatedly replaced a citation from Nadav Safran with one from Mitchell Bard. Safran was a lecturer in government studies and for many years director of the Harvard University Center For Middle East Studies. Bard is Executive Director of the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise (AICE), director of the Jewish Virtual Library, a former editor of the Near East Report, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee's weekly newsletter and formerly a senior analyst for the George (H.W.) Bush for President Survey Research Group. That is the difference between an academic and a propagandist. RolandR 11:20, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

If you were involved in the discussion and perhaps flipped through the diffs, you'd know Bard only sourced a partial sentence while the remainder was cited by Avraham Sela. Though I'm guessing he too is a propagandist? For what it's worth, Bard meets WP:ACADEMIC standards and considering the article is heavily cited by what many may consider propagandists (Nur-eldeen Masalha and Constantine Zureiq, as well much of the article relying on memorial-ish websites) I can't say your criticism is very relevant. If you have a specific question or concern in regards to the above draft, which is thoroughly cited and the sources connect well, please list so here. And as I requested, can you please restore the original version. the new one was never agreed on and was added unilaterally by Slim. Wikifan12345 (talk) 11:36, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

(moved here from SV talk) I see that you are actively editing 1948 Palestinian exodus but not referring to Talk:1948 Palestinian exodus. I request again that you restore the original paragraph that was debated between us and move your version back to talk. Edit warring your version in is not right and certainly does not compare well when I allowed you to move my version to talk. Your edits are resembling more that of ownership than collaboration, so please do what should be done. Wikifan12345 (talk) 11:52, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

It's best to keep all posts here. I agree with Roland's comment. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 11:55, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Well that certainly helps. Roland's comments have absolutely nothing to do with the above draft. And his comments were pure SOAP anyways. I would prefer we move the discussion to pertinent sections to improve efficiency and cooperation. Please restore the original and disputed draft. And BTW - Bard passes reliability standards. Meaning we can cite use books (he has many), propagandist or not. But that's a separate issue. Wikifan12345 (talk) 11:59, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Three editors agree that the current version is better. Not that numbers alone matter, but the crux is that the current version uses better sources (Safran, Sela, Morris), whereas yours relied initially only on Bard, then someone else added Sela. In addition yours was written oddly e.g with "repatriate" in inverted commas, as though they weren't really being repatriated. But the key thing is to use academic sources, and preferably academics who have specialized in this particular area, then stick closely to what they say. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 12:09, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

this is not a consensus. You moved a perfectly sourced paragraph to talk and initiated an unnecessary dispute which I spent a lot of time responding to. The current paragraph is factually inaccurate, period. I was very meticulous in explaining the above draft and is it thoroughly cited by the United Nations. You need to explain your paragraph and respond to the criticisms I made.

During the 1949 Lausanne conference, Israel proposed allowing 100,000 of the refugees to return to the area, though not necessarily to their homes, including 25,000 who had returned surreptitiously and 10,000 family-reunion cases.[7] The proposal was conditional on a peace treaty that would allow Israel to retain the territory it had taken, and on the Arab states absorbing the remaining 550,000–650,000 refugees. The Arab states rejected the proposal because it would have had the effect of recognizing Israel's existence.

• Israel proposed allowing 100k refugees to return in addition to resettling the total refugees who remained after the hostilities which would have been 250,000. This is what the UNITED NATIONS has recorded. The first sentence has either been fact-picked out of the book or the analysis did not consider the widely-available UN press releases.

• The proposal was NOT conditional on any peace treaty. There was no peace treaty, the refugee exchange was meant to end hostilities and facilitate a relationship that would ultimately lead to peace. Sentence #2 is not accurate. The Arab states rejected the proposal not simply based on Israel's existence (in fact, many Arab leaders in rivaling countries were more than willing to settle) but the belief that any reparations would be a precondition before concessions, peace, or recognizing Israel. And they wanted a full right of return.

The sentence from the second paragraph is also incorrect: by the first Israeli government prevented them from returning to their homes, or claiming their property. They and many of their descendants remain refugees.

• Not true. Throughout the 1950s increments (commonly in the low 1,000s) were allowed to return without any Arab concessions and the larger 35,000 came later. Palestinian bank accounts were unfrozen and a series of marginal financial reparations were given but nothing particularly spectacular.

Please cooperate. The opinion of editors < Basic facts. Wikifan12345 (talk) 00:40, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

You've reverted again. Could I ask you please not to post messages about this on my talk page? Others need to see them too. Posting the latest below. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 06:06, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

(moved from SV talk) You continue to say per talk in your rationales yet I see nothing in talk that demonstrates a willingness to collaborate. You rewrite the paragraph without discussion and remove any edits that aren't your own. I am moving YOUR version to talk like you did to mine, per talk. I am instating the thoroughly and UN-supported paragraph. Wikifan12345 (talk) 05:58, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

No, you've reverted again. "per talk". I posted a very lengthy and well-reasoned explanation for my draft, which I shouldn't have had to anyways since it was thoroughly cited by reliable sources including the official United Nations press release. You must have seen it, because then you went to the article and simply rewrote the paragraph once more after I asked you to move it. You barely responded to the draft. You have edited warred out all of my additions and references, and then moved my paragraph to discussion while demanding I prove the sources are reliable. I did that. If you wish to not discuss your edits and prefer to own the article please let me know. Wikifan12345 (talk) 06:20, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Hi Wikifan. The reasonning is an intersting pilpull but we are on wikipedia, not on a forum. Provide wp:rs secondary sources that support your point. Read books on the topic and come back after. 81.244.182.215 (talk) 15:35, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Moved Slim's paragraph

I've moved SlimVirgin's paragraph so we can discuss it.

During the 1949 Lausanne conference, Israel proposed allowing 100,000 of the refugees to return to the area, though not necessarily to their homes, The figure included 25,000 who had returned surreptitiously and thousands of special family-reunion cases, reducing the offer to 65,000–70,000. The proposal was conditional on allowing Israel to retain the territory it had taken, and on the Arab states absorbing the remaining 550,000–650,000 refugees. The Arab states rejected the proposal because it was "less than token," and because they argued the "Jews cannot oppose large numbers of refugees on economic grounds while encouraging mass immigration of Jews [to Israel]."

There is a simplified and brief bullet-type response in the above section explaining the inaccuracies in several of the sentences inside the paragraph and in the article lead. Slim has continually avoided talk discussion, so I waited until she rewrote the paragraph again to finally move everything here.

Current paragraph is supported by UN releases documenting the actual processes. Please don't replace UN sources with historians, this isn't an interpretation. Wikifan12345 (talk) 06:09, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Only historians can give the real value of documents. Using primary sources is not acceptable on wp:rs. I reverted to SV version and will do it again, again and again. 81.244.182.215 (talk) 15:34, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't have time to study the details, however Wikifan12345's principle "don't replace UN sources with historians" is quite incorrect. The only exception would be if we are quoting the original source of some document, but the yearbook cited is only making a paraphrase from an intermediate source. A historian will (we hope) have consulted all the primary documents before summarising, including documents (like Israeli archives cited by Morris) that were not available to the UN authors. Zero^talk 02:35, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

First phase misstatement

One thing mentioned early on in this article is an outright lie:

"The Zionist groups of Irgun and Lehi reverted to their 1937–1939 strategy of indiscriminate attacks by placing bombs and throwing grenades into crowded places such as bus stops, shopping centres and markets."

The disturbances in that period were Arab pogroms against Jewish neighborhoods. To implicitly blame the trouble on Jewish groups is just plain wrong. In fact, LEHI didn't even exist until 1940. Irgun was founded after the Arab massacre in Hebron in 1929. Its strategy in the late 1930's was strictly one of reprisals for Arab attacks.

Irgun
1936–1939_Arab_revolt_in_Palestine
1929_Palestine_riots
1929_Hebron_massacre

74.107.100.142 (talk) 18:39, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

In fact the sentence is completely true. Go to the Palestine Post archive and look at Dec 14, 1947 for a start. Zero^talk 00:39, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Try reading it again: "Irgun and Lehi reverted to their 1937–1939 strategy of indiscriminate attacks...." LEHI did not exist until 1940. During 1937-39 the Irgun responded to Arab attacks. The article calls this "strategy ... indiscriminate". The article is clearly wrong and substantially misleading.

74.107.100.142 (talk) 06:24, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

My point is, if you leave out the clause about the 1937-39 "strategy", I would accept it as not being outright false, although it is still misleading because it omits any historical blame on the Arab side. To blithely extrapolate that Irgun and LEHI were responsible for "indiscriminate attacks" in the earlier period when the indiscriminate attacks were all on the Arab side (and LEHI didn't yet exist), is misleading enough to appear to be a lie.

74.107.100.142 (talk) 06:36, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

You are right that Lehi shouldn't be mentioned in relation to 1937-1939. However to decribe Irgun's behavior as merely reactive is quite a distortion. The word "indiscriminate" refers to the choice of target, which in the case of bombs in public places is a good description. Zero^talk 07:45, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

I assume you can point to contemporaneous documentation for the late 30's, as you were able to do for December 1947? Or are you resorting to hand-waving? I submit you are completely wrong, and that no Jew on earth would have contemplated "indiscriminate" terrorist actions against civilians prior to the experience of the Holocaust, which changed everything.

74.107.100.142 (talk) 16:53, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

File:PP26Jul1938.jpg Sorry to disillusion you, but there were many such incidents. This is all well known and not disputed. Many Irgun people have written about it, see for example Y. Ben-Ami, Years of Wrath, Days of Glory; Memoirs of the Irgun, Speller and Sons, NY 1982 (who thinks that bombing markets was justified because Arabs were smuggling weapons in vegetable trucks!). Zero^talk 00:39, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Using sources

"In the book River without Bridges, Peter Dodd and Halim Barakat surveyed 37 Palestinian refugee families who fled during the 1947-1949 conflict and found that 68% of them did not so much as see any Israelis during the conflict."
--This claim first appeared in From Time Immemorial and is a good illustration of why that book can't be trusted. The number refers to families which fled to the West Bank in 1948 and then fled to Jordan in 1967. Amongst the 37 families surveyed, 68% did not encounter an Israeli soldier in 1967. Peters' blunder (let's be generous) was to claim they didn't see any Israelis in 1948. But the source does not say that. Zero^talk 06:28, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Let me take the opportunity to remind editors that we are supposed to cite the place we actually got the material from. We are not allowed to copy a citation from an unmentioned third party. Zero^talk 06:28, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

the term "cleansing"

The term Ben Gurion used was bi ur, which means "cleansing the leaven", "root out", "eliminate".--Dailycare (talk) 10:14, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

The entire article is written to make it appear the victims were either to blame, or at any rate were not the victim of a barely concealed conspiracy of 30 years and more. Back in 1947, the word "Exodus"may have meant expulsion, but now it means escape. Using it here comes across as a ridiculous (not to say insulting) appellation to descriebe what we know was really going on. 86.151.134.93 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 17:47, 15 August 2009 (UTC).

use of "Nakhba"

I removed: "However, the ter did not enter popular usage until the 21st century.<ref> You Can Teach Everything, Barring a ‘Disaster’, Philologos, The Forward, Sept. 9, 2009 [http://www.forward.com/sections/philologos/]</ref>", because I looked in a standard newspaper archive (Factiva) and found 530 articles using the term from 1988 onwards. And that's just in English, major newspapers like WP, NYT, Guardian, CSM, JP, AFP, etc etc. Zero^talk 02:39, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Section "First stage of the flight, December 1947 - March 1948"

Here I would like to introduce another quote after the last paragraph in the section (Morris' opinion):

Glazer (1980, p.109) quotes the testimony of Count Bernadotte, the UN mediator in Palestine, who reported that "the exodus of the Palestinian Arabs resulted from panic created by fighting in their communities, by rumours concerning real or alleged acts of terrorism, or expulsion. Almost the whole of the Arab population fled or was expelled from the area under Jewish occupation".

That is my proposal for this section. Thank you for your feedback.--Jorditxei 10:40, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Discussion on the proposal

I do not think this addition is necessary. Glazer is discussing a cause behind the exodus, which is perhaps best placed in "Causes of the Palestinian Exodus." Also, there is already a reference in this section making the same argument (Morris in the last paragraph). I don't think Glazer has anything much to add. Screen stalker 15:38, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you on the fact that Morris makes the same claim as Count Forke Bernadotte. But the point, in my opinion, is to cite different sources that arrive at the same conclusion and in particular when they cite another primary source (Count Folke Bernadotte's opinion in this case) which are of some importance and value on the issue. The point is that these primary sources are the ones that justify the claims of the different authors and therefore are needed to understand whether those authors have or do not have reliability. In my opinion my proposal would add value to the article because in this particular issue, with so much propaganda, I think that primary sources, declassified documents, etc. or very important, this is the reason why I proposed the text. Thank you for your feedback in any case.--Jorditxei 16:38, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

This article is already incredibly long. While I am entirely in favor of including valid information in the article, we must be careful to avoid repetition. You are right in saying that this article is full of propaganda. That is why there is no space to fit multiple sources on the same issue. In this case, in particular, what Glazer is saying is said by many authors later on in the article. We already have multiple sources, and I see no reason for another. I think there are two things we should aspire to avoid in this article at the moment: (1) Placing so many quotations that they take up more volume than the actual article, and (2) Lengthening the article to the point where few people would want to read it. Screen stalker 15:00, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't see that the article is increadibly long, to the contrary is quite short in my view and is based in very few sources. What Glazer says points in the same direction that other authors, in the same way that what Karsh says is a repetition of what other authors said in the 50s. The point here is that the text of Glazer points to Count Folke Bernadette, which you will agree with me is an extremely important personality in those days of the Mandate. I think his point of view should clearly be in the text, and correct me if I am wrong, I haven't seen this declaration of Bernadette in the text. Once again, I think that quotation is unavoidable in such a controversial article as this one but once again I completely agree with you that avoiding quotations would be much better. In any case, I don't see why we shouldn't introduce the text and then discuss how to change the "quotation system". Cheers--Jorditxei 19:13, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Section "Second stage of the flight, April 1948 - June 1948"

My proposal in this section is to add the following text after the paragraph starting with: "By mid-May only 4000 Arabs remained in Haifa." After this paragraph I would add:

According to Glazer (1980, p.111), from May 15, 1948 onwards, expulsion of Palestinians became a regular practice. Avnery (1971), explaining the Zionist rationale, says,

I believe that during this phase, the eviction of Arab civilians had become an aim of David Ben-Gurion and his government .... UN opinion could very well be disregarded. Peace with the Arabs seemed out of the question, considering the extreme nature of the Arab propaganda. In this situation, it was easy for people like Ben-Gurion to believe the capture of uninhabited territory was both necessary for security reasons and desirable for the homogeneity of the new Hebrew state.

Edgar O'Ballance, a military historian, adds,

Israeli vans with loudspeakers drove through the streets ordering all the inhabitants to evacuate immediately, and such as were reluctant to leave were forcibly ejected from their homes by the triumphant Israelis whose policy was now openly one of clearing out all the Arab civil population before them .... From the surrounding villages and hamlets, during the next two or three days, all the inhabitants were uprooted and set off on the road to Ramallah.... No longer was there any "reasonable persuasion". Bluntly, the Arab inhabitants were ejected and forced to flee into Arab territory.... Wherever the Israeli troops advanced into Arab country the Arab population was bulldozed out in front of them.

That is all for this section so far. Opinions? --Jorditxei 11:22, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Section "Third stage of the flight, July-October 1948"

After the first sentence in the section and before Rabin's quote I would like to add the following:

According to Flapan (1987, pp. 13-14) in Ben-Gurion's view Ramlah and Lydda constituted a special danger because their proximity might encourage cooperation between the Egyptian army, which had started its attack on Kibbutz Negbah, near Ramlah, and the Arab Legion, which had taken the Lydda police station. However the author considers that, Operation Danny, by which the two towns were seized, revealed that no such cooperation existed.

In the opinion of Flapan, "in Lydda, the exodus took place on foot. In Ramlah, the IDF provided buses and trucks. Originally, all males had been rounded up and enclosed in a compound, but after some shooting was heard, and construed by Ben-Gurion to be the beginning of an Arab Legion counteroffensive, he stopped the arrests and ordered the speedy eviction of all the Arabs, including women, children, and the elderly". In explanation, Flapan cites that Ben-Gurion said that "those who made war on us bear responsibility after their defeat."

Flapan maintains that events in Nazareth, although ending differently, point to the existence of a definite pattern of expulsion. On 16 July, three days after the Lydda and Ramlah evictions, the city of Nazareth surrendered to the IDF. The officer in command, a Canadian Jew named Ben Dunkelman, had signed the surrender agreement on behalf of the Israeli army along with Chaim Laskov (then a brigadier general, later IDF chief of staff). The agreement assured the civilians that they would not be harmed, but the next day, Laskov handed Dunkelman an order to evacuate the population.

My proposal is to also add (at the end) the following text:

Glazer (1980, p. 112) critices writers who, in his opinion, either ignore the expulsions completely or try to explain them away. He cites the comment by Harry Sacher that "all the inhabitants of both Lydda and Ramleh, as of all the captured villages, chose evacuation and took the road to Ramallah, carrying with them such belongings as they could". Also cited is the statement by Syrkin that, "it should be noted that while it was not Haganah policy to encourage the exodus, some hostile villages threatening the road to Jerusalem were evacuated by individual Haganah commanders ... a number of villages which served as bases for the enemy camped in the surrounding hills were forcibly cleared, and their inhabitants joined the exodus. But these were isolated instances, occurring late in the fighting, and involving numbers too small to affect the scope of the mass flight or to explain it". Finally, the author cites Schectman who in his opinion attributes Arab flight to "atrocity propaganda" and thus does not even address the numerous instances of Zionist attacks and expulsions of Palestinian civilian when arguing that,

...the Arab population was particularly susceptible to such attrocity propaganda, to dire prophecies that the advancing Jewish forces would extermine them without mercy.

That is all so far. Opinions? Thank you.--Jorditxei 11:43, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

There are many problems and disagreements regarding this subject. However at present the article is a bad joke: "According to Flapan (1987, pp. 13-14) in Ben-Gurion's view Ramlah and Lydda constituted a special danger because their proximity might encourage cooperation between the Egyptian army, which had started its attack on Kibbutz Negbah, near Ramlah"

Ramlah is nowhere near Negba. Negba is not far from Gaza. Ramla is in central Israel. What could possibly be meant by the above statement? As for Nazereth, the article forgets to explain how it is that despite the order, much of the Arab population of Nazareth remained in Israel and their descendants are still there. Mewnews (talk) 19:19, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

The Forth Stage

The clean up expulsions and transferral of IDPs. Majdal 1950, Galilee transferrals 1948 and again 1951, Galilee expulsions 1956.

17th August 1950: Majdal’s inhabitants are served with an expulsion order (The Palestinians were held in a confined area since 1948) and the first group of them were taken on trucks to the Gaza Strip. Majdal is renamed Ashkelon by the Israelis. As regards the expulsion of civilian Arabs from Majdal and other areas, Egypt had accepted them on humanitarian grounds as they would otherwise have been exposed to "torture and death". That however did not mean their voluntary movement. Furthermore, testimony of the expelled Arabs and reports of the Mixed Armistice Commission clearly showed that they had been forcibly expelled.

http://domino.un.org/unispal.nsf/9a798adbf322aff38525617b006d88d7/ffeaceabb01e7a04852562cb00569dae!OpenDocument

30th March 1951: Israeli police (illegally evacuated) the Arab inhabitants of the village of Baqqara, numbering, with the neighbouring refugees living in the same village, about 980. The village of Baqqara is situated within the demilitarised zone on the western side of the Jordan River in the Huleh area. It goes without saying that such an action is a flagrant violation of article V, paragraph 2 of the General Armistice Agreement, which stipulates that no hindrance to the restoration of normal civilian life by the inhabitants could be allowed in the demilitarised zone.

http://domino.un.org/unispal.nsf/181c4bf00c44e5fd85256cef0073c426/a75451c1745d5941052567230071172f!OpenDocument

The title of the article is incorrect. It should read the Palestinian Exodus. No year should be attached as it occured over several years.Ashley kennedy3 (talk) 23:48, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Section "The "Master Plan" Theory"

I propose to introduce the following text after the first paragraph in the section:

In the opinion of Glazer (1980, p.113), there is evidence that Zionist leaders were already thinking about removal of the indigenous population before the actual occurrence. On February 7, 1948, Ben-Gurion told the Central Committee of Mapai (the largest Zionist political party in Palestine) "it is most probable that in the 6, 8 or 10 coming months of the struggle many great changes will take place, very great in this country and not all of them to our disadvantage, and surely a great change in the composition of the population in the country".

Glazer considers that "it is clear that by the 1930's and into the 1940's, calls for the forcible transfer of Arabs out of Palestine were being made by the Zionist Revisionists and may well have been considered by the more moderate factions too".

Glazer (1980, p.113) states that the 1947 Partition Resolution awarded an area to the Jewish state whose population was 46 percent Arab and where much of this land was owned by Arabs. He considers that "it has been argued by the Zionists that they were prepared to make special accommodations for this large population; yet it is difficult to see how such accommodations could have coalesced with their plans for large-scale Jewish immigration; moreover, by August 1, 1948, the Israeli government had already stated that it was "economically unfeasible" to allow the return of the Arabs, at the very time when Jewish refugees were already entering the country and being settled on abandoned Arab property".

That is all. Opinions? Thank you. --Jorditxei 12:03, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Section "The "Master Plan" Theory" 2

Once again in this section, I would like to add the following text after Benny Morris' quote:

Flapan (1987, p. 6) agrees with Morris in that the israeli tactics were not part of a deliberate Zionist plan, as the Arabs contended. He claims that "it must be understood that official Jewish decision-making bodies (the provisional government, the National Council, and the Jewish Agency Executive) neither discussed nor approved a design for expulsion, and any proposal of the sort would have been opposed and probably rejected. These bodies were heavily influenced by liberal, progressive labor, and socialist Zionist parties. The Zionist movement as a whole, both the left and the right, had consistently stressed that the Jewish people, who had always suffered persecution and discrimination as a national and religious minority, would provide a model of fair treatment of minorities in their own state". The author latter maintains that "once the flight began, however, Jewish leaders encouraged it. Sharett, for example, immediately declared that no mass return of Palestinians to Israel would be permitted". In Flapan's view Cohen insisted in October 1948 that "the Arab exodus was not part of a preconceived plan." But, he acknowledged, "a part of the flight was due to official policy...Once it started, the flight received encouragement from the most important Jewish sources, for both military and political reasons."

Opinions? --Jorditxei 13:36, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

I find it hard to understand how "Sharett's declaration that no mass return of Palestinians to Isralel would be permitted," can be construed as an example of Jewish leaders' encouragement of Palestinian flight, as the above paragraph states. Telling people (women with children particularly) that if they leave they cannot return does not, I think, encourage them to leave. Quite the opposite, I think.

Opinions? --User:JudithRhoades 21:37, 4 September 2009

I think Sharett's "declaration" was secret, not open. Not sure that helps to clarify it. Zero^talk 14:44, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Section "The "Transfer principle" Theory"

I would like to propose the following text after the paragraph starting with "The idea of population transfer was first placed on Palestine's political agenda in 1937...":

Flapan (1987, p.4) cites further evidence which in his opinion supports the idea of an israeli will towards transfer policy. According to Ben-Gurion's biographer, Michael Bar-Zohar, "the appeals of the Arabs to stay, Golda's mission, and other similar gestures were the result of political considerations, but they did not reflect [Ben-Gurion's] basic stand. In internal discussions, in instructions to his people, the 'old man' demonstrated a clear stand: it was better that the smallest possible number of Arabs remain within the area of the state". Flapan considers that Ben-Gurion himself wrote in his diary after the flight of the Arabs began, "We must afford civic and human equality to every Arab who remains," but, he insisted, "it is not our task to worry about the return of the Arabs". Flapan (1987, p.12) also claims that during the early years of the state, Ben-Gurion stated that "the Arabs cannot accept the existence of Israel. Those who accept it are not normal. The best solution for the Arabs in Israel is to go and live in the Arab states-in the framework of a peace treaty or transfer."

In Flapan's (1987, p.12) view, with the proclamation of the birth of Israel and the Arab governments' invasion into the new state, those Arabs who had remained in Israel after 15 May were viewed as "a security problem," a potential fifth column, even though they had not participated in the war and had stayed in Israel hoping to live in peace and equality, as promised in the Declaration of Independence. In the opinion of the author, that document had not altered Ben-Gurion's overall conception: once the Arab areas he considered vital to the constitution of the new state had been brought under Israeli control, there still remained the problem of their inhabitants. On 11 May Ben-Gurion noted that he had given orders "for the destruction of Arab islands in Jewish population areas".

After the paragraph starting: "All of the other members of the JAE present, including..." I would like to include also:

According to Flapan (1987, p.16), "Ben-Gurion appointed what became known as the transfer committee, composed of Weitz, Danin, and Zalman Lipshitz, a cartographer. At the basis of its recommendations, presented to Ben-Gurion in October 1948, was the idea that the number of Arabs should not amount to more than 15 percent of Israel's total population, which at that time meant about 100,000". The author cites that a week after he created the committee, Ben-Gurion told the Jewish Agency: "I am for compulsory transfer; I don't see anything immoral in it."

Flapan (1987, p.17) considers that "hand in hand with measures to ensure the continued exodus of Arabs from Israel was a determination not to permit any of the refugees to return. He claims that all of the Zionist leaders (Ben-Gurion, Sharett, and Weizmann) agreed on this point".

After the paragraph starting with: "While not discounting other reasons for the exodus, the 'transfer principle' theory suggests that this prevalent..." I would like to add:

In the view of Flapan (1987, p. 7) records are available from archives and diaries which while not revealing a specific plan or precise orders for expulsion, they provide overwhelming circumstantial evidence to show that a design was being implemented by the Haganah, and later by the IDF, to reduce the number of Arabs in the Jewish state to a minimum and to make use of most of their lands, properties, and habitats to absorb the masses of Jewish immigrants.

After the paragraph starting with: "The 'transfer principle' theory came under attack from several historians, notably Efraim Karsh, ..." I would like to include the arguments made by Karsh on the issue in the article already cited in the text:

Karsh has criticised Morris accusing him to "seek to create an impression that Ben-Gurion endeavored to expel the Arabs out of Palestine when, what he discussed, was resettlement within Palestine". The author cites evidence supporting the idea that Ben-Gurion and the Jewish Agency Executive did not agree on transfer of palestinian arabs but rather had a much more tolerant vision of Arab-Jewish coexistence. For example, at the November 1, 1936 Jewish Agency Executive meeting, Karsh considers that Morris ignores Ben-Gurion's statement, "We do not deny the right of the Arab inhabitants of the country, and we do not see this right as a hindrance to the realization of Zionism." The author accuses Morris of omitting Ben-Gurion's assertions, in an October 1941 internal policy paper, that "Jewish immigration and colonization in Palestine on a large scale can be carried out without displacing Arabs," and that "in a Jewish Palestine the position of the Arabs will not be worse than the position of the Jews themselves."

Karsh has also criticised the fact that while Morris concedes that "the Yishuv and its military forces did not enter the 1948 war, which was initiated by the Arab side, with a policy or plan of expulsion," he argues that lack of an official policy made little difference, since "thinking about the possibilities of transfer in the 1930s and 1940s had prepared and conditioned hearts and minds for its implementation in the course of 1948." In Karsh view, "Morris cites no evidence to support this claim nor could he, for there was never any Zionist attempt to inculcate the "transfer" idea in the hearts and minds of Jews. He could find no evidence of any press campaign, radio broadcasts, public rallies, or political gatherings, for none existed". Furthermore, in his opinion, Morris virtually ignores that the idea of transfer was forced on the Zionist agenda by the British (in the recommendations of the 1937 Peel Royal Commission on Palestine) rather than being self-generated. The author considers that Morris downplays the commission's recommendation of transfer, creates the false impression that the Zionists thrust this idea on a reluctant British Mandatory power (rather than vice versa), and misleadingly suggests that Zionist interest in transfer long outlived the Peel Commission.

In contrast to Morris's thesis Karsh cites what Ben-Gurion told his party members, "In our state there will be non-Jews as well—and all of them will be equal citizens; equal in everything without any exception; that is: the state will be their state as well." Further, the author cites the explicit instructions of Israel Galili, the Haganah's commander-in-chief, on the "acknowledgement of the full rights, needs, and freedom of the Arabs in the Hebrew state without any discrimination, and a desire for coexistence on the basis of mutual freedom and dignity."

Karsh considers that the "mass of documentation also proves beyond any reasonable doubt that, far from being an act of expulsion, the mass Arab flight was a direct result of the fragmentation and lack of cohesiveness of Palestinian society, which led to its collapse under the weight of the war it had initiated and whose enormity it had failed to predict". Further, the author considers that a number of scholars have already done outstanding work showing the faults of the new history. In his opinion, Itamar Rabinovich (of Tel Aviv University, currently Israel's ambassador to the United States) has debunked the claim by Shlaim and Pappé that Israel's recalcitrance explains the failure to make peace at the end of the 1947-49 war. Again, he claims that Avraham Sela (of the Hebrew University) has discredited Shlaim's allegation that Israel and Transjordan agreed in advance of that war to limit their war operations so as to avoid an all-out confrontation between their forces. The author claims that Shabtai Teveth (David Ben-Gurion's foremost biographer) has challenged Morris's account of the birth of the Palestinian refugee problem. In his opinion, Robert Satloff (of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy) has shown, on the basis of his own research in the Jordanian national archives in Amman, the existence of hundreds of relevant government files readily available to foreign scholars, thereby demolishing the new historians' claim that "the archives of the Arab Governments are closed to researchers, and that historians interested in writing about the Israeli-Arab conflict perforce must rely mainly on Israeli and Western archives" and with it, the justification for their almost exclusive reliance on Israeli and Western sources.

The arguments made by Karsh again came under attack by the New Historians. Morris admits that "Karsh has a point, but it is not the one he makes. It is true that my treatment in Birth of pre-1948 "transfer thinking" among the Zionist leaders was superficial and restrictive. The subject requires a full-scale inquiry, covering the period from the 1880s until 1947, to determine the importance of the transfer idea in evolving Zionist thought at different points in time. Birth does not undertake such an inquiry, mainly because that was not the book's subject. Perhaps I erred in not attributing enough weight to the Zionists' "transfer" predisposition in explaining what actually happened in Palestine in 1948". Nevertheless the author still criticises Karsh for his conclusions on the jewish tolerant vision towards palestinian arabs, he claims that "the author [Karsh] reaches this conclusion by quoting extensively from a number of Ben-Gurion's speeches and memoranda. But Karsh appears unaware of the fact that politicians say different things to different audiences at different times and that what distinguishes good from bad historians is the ability to sort out the (heartfelt) wheat from the (propagandistic) chaff. Karsh also fails to take note of that fundamental rule that what statesmen, politicians, and generals do is far more telling Ben-Gurion was both more than what they say and a more certain indicator of devious and more their real desires and intentions". Morris claims that "it is true that Ben-Gurion did occasionally say that the Zionist movement must be careful not to go on public record in support of transfer, because doing so could cause the movement political harm, and occasionally expressed doubt whether the idea was practicable". Further critics of Karsh thesis include Nur Masalha, David Capitanchik and Husam Mohamad.

Opinions?--Jorditxei 12:41, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Section "Absentee" property

I would like to merge the following text with the first paragraph:

Flapan (1987, p.18) claims that "a more sophisticated form of pressure was achieved by legislation regarding property, particularly the Absentees' Property Law of 1950. This law, first promulgated in December 1948, stated that any Arabs not at their places of residence on 29 November 1947 would be considered absentees and their property subject to appropriation by the custodian of enemy property (an office soon replaced by the custodian of absentee property). Even Arabs who had traveled to a neighboring town to visit relatives for the day were considered absentees. As a result, two million dunams were confiscated and given to the custodian, who later transferred the land to the development authority. This law created the novel citizenship category of "present absentees" (nifkadim nohahim), that is, Israeli Arabs who enjoyed all civil rights-including the right to vote in the Knesset elections-except one: the right to use and dispose of their property".

According to Flapan, "a detailed account of exactly how "abandoned" Arab property assisted in the absorption of the new immigrants was prepared by Joseph Schechtman, an expert on population transfer who helped create the myth of "voluntary" exodus".

It is difficult to overestimate the tremendous role this lot of abandoned Arab property has played in the settlement of hundreds of thousands of Jewish immigrants who have reached Israel since the proclamation of the state in May 1948. Forty-seven new rural settlements established on the sites of abandoned Arab villages had by October 1949 already absorbed 25,255 new immigrants. By the spring of 1950 over 1 million dunams had been leased by the custodian to Jewish settlements and individual farmers for the raising of grain crops.

Large tracts of land belonging to Arab absentees have also been leased to Jewish settlers, old and new, for the raising of vegetables. In the south alone, 15,000 dunams of vineyards and fruit trees have been leased to cooperative settlements; a similar area has been rented by the Yemenites Association, the Farmers Association, and the Soldiers Settlement and Rehabilitation Board. This has saved the Jewish Agency and the government millions of dollars. While the average cost of establishing an immigrant family in a new settlement was from $7,500 to $9,000, the cost in abandoned Arab villages did not exceed $1,500 ($750 for building repairs and $750 for livestock and equipment).

Abandoned Arab dwellings in towns have also not remained empty. By the end of July 1948, 170,000 people, notably new immigrants and ex-soldiers, in addition to about 40,000 former tenants, both Jewish and Arab, had been housed in premises under the custodian's control; and 7,000 shops, workshops and stores were sublet to new arrivals. The existence of these Arab housesvacant and ready for occupation-has, to a large extent, solved the greatest immediate problem which faced the Israeli authorities in the absorption of immigrants. It also considerably relieved the financial burden of absorption.

That is all for this section. Opinions welcomed.--Jorditxei 14:58, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

info

• Fifth Phase of the Exodus; Consolidation of Israel.

On 30 May 1948 Yossef Weitz, head of the Settlement Department of the Jewish National Fund (JNF) recorded in his Diary:

"We have begun the operation of cleansing, removing the rubble and preparing the villages for cultivation and settlement. Some of these will become parks"

Immediately after the Arab-Israeli conflict, Israel started on a process of Nation building with General elections held in January 1949. Chaim Weizmann was installed as Israel's first President and Ben-Gurion as head of the Mapai party attained the position he had held in the provisional Government of Israel that of Prime minister of Israel. Ben-Gurion emphatically rejected the return of refugees in the Israeli Cabinet decision of June 1948 reiterated in a letter to the UN of 2 August 1949 containing the Text of a statement made by Moshe Sharett on 1 August 1948

The village of Kafr Bir'im was entered by IDF forces on October 31, 1948 during Operation Hiram. The village was located in an area which the Israeli forces wanted, for security reasons, populated primarily by Jews. On 13 November 1948 most of the inhabitants were requested to evacuated by the IDF "temporarily" in expectation of an Arab counter-attack. The villages initially sought protection in a near by cave. The then Minister of Police Bechor Shitrit on seeing the elderly, women and children living in the cave suggested that the villagers move to the town of Jish further south "until the military operations are over". Archbishop Elias Chacour relates in his autobiography how IDF in the spring of 1949 rounded up all the men and older boys in the village (including his own father and three eldest brothers), and trucked them to the border with Jordan. There they were let out and ordered to go to Jordan. The soldiers opened fire, aiming just above their heads, meaning to drive them from their homeland for good. However, Chacour's father and brothers managed to make it back three months later.

In 1953 the (by now former) inhabitants of Kafr Bir'im pleaded to the Supreme Court of Israel to allow them to return to their village. Early in September 1953 the Supreme Court decided that the authorities had to answer to why the inhabitants were not allowed to return home. The result was devastating: on September 16, 1953 the Israeli air force and army in a joint operation bombed the village until it was completely destroyed. At the same time it was announced that 1,170 hectares of land belonging to the village had been expropriated by the state. (Ref. given by Sabri Jiryis: "Kouetz 307 (27. Aug. 1953): 1419")

On 17 August 1950 the remaining Palestinian Arab population of Majdal were served with an expulsion order (The Palestinians had been held in a confined area since 1948) and the first group of them were taken on trucks to the Gaza Strip. Majdal was then renamed Ashkelon by the Israelis in an on going process of de-Arabisation of the topography as described by Meron Benvenisti. Egypt accepted the expelled civilian Palestinian Arabs from Majdal on humanitarian grounds as they would otherwise have been exposed to "torture and death". That however did not mean their voluntary movement. Furthermore, testimony of the expelled Arabs and reports of the Mixed Armistice Commission clearly showed that the refugees had been forcibly expelled.

From the statistics taken from the official records of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan/Israel Mixed Armistice Commission for the period of June 1949 through December 1952 it is found that Jordan complained of 37 instances of expulsion of Arabs from Israel. For the period 1 January 1953 through to 15 October 1953 it is found that Jordan complained of 7 instances of expulsion of Arabs from Israel involving 41 people.

Ilan Pappé reports that the last gun-point expulsion occurred in 1953 where the residents of Umm al-Faraj were driven out and the village destroyed by the IDF. "

In 1954 Israel "evacuated" the Palestinian villages of Baqqara and Ghannama in the central sector of the Israel/Syria demilitarized zone the Chief of Staff of the UNTSO made a report in January 1955 to the United Nations where it was decided that:-

• "(a) Decides that Arab civilians who have been removed from the demilitarized zone by the Government of Israel should be permitted to return forthwith to their homes and that the Mixed Armistice Commission should supervise their return and rehabilitation in a manner to be determined by the Commission; and
• "(b) Holds that no action involving the transfer of persons across international frontiers, armistice lines or within the demilitarized zone should be under-taken without prior decision of the Chairman of the Mixed Armistice Commission..."

30 October 1956 When Israel attacked Egypt across the Sinai peninsula in co-ordination with an Anglo-French attack on Suez. The remainder of the Palestinians living in the DMZs were driven into Syria. The villages of Baqqara and Ghannama now lie as rubble and are empty.

• The es-Sani returned to Israel

From the signing of the General Armistice Agreements in 1949, Jordan and Egypt had complained on many occasions that Israel had been reducing the Arab population of the Negeb by driving Bedouins and even Arab villagers across the cease fire lines into the Egyptian Sinai and the Jordanian held West Bank. Israel had been condemned by the United Nations Truce Supervision Organisation (UNTSO) in some instances but had taken no steps to allow the return of the Arabs. On 17 September 1952, the senior Jordan Military Delegate to the Mixed Armistice Commission, Major Itzaq, inform the MAC that the Israelis had expelled ten families of the es-Sani tribe and that they were now situated inside the Jordan border south of Hebron. On 22 September Commander Hutchison USNR of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan/Israel Mixed Armistice Commission (HKJMAC) went into the area and counted over 100 families, nearly 1,000 members of the es-Sani tribe. Sheikh El Hajj Ibrahim informed the MAC that the es-Sani had been forced off their cultivated lands southeast of Beersheba, at El Sharia, to El Laqiya, north-east of Beersheba. On the new area at El Laqiya, for the next three years the es-Sani had made it productive to the extent that Israel then declared a quantity of their grain as surplus crop and demanded that it be sold to the Israeli government at a fixed price. The Military Governor of Beersheba, Lt. Colonel Hermann, informed Sheikh El Hajj Ibrahim that Israel was going to establish a settlement at El Laqiya and that his tribe would have to move to Tel Arad. Sheikh El Hajj Ibrahim had then led the es-Sani over the Jordan/Israel cease fire land rather that move to the inferior land around Tel Arad.

The Sheikh's story of the court action was true. On September 28, 1952, under the heading, * 'Bedouin Tribe Moved/' the Israel press announced that "Tribesmen of the Kiderat El Sana Teljaha tribe were last week moved from their former homes at El Laqiya, east of the Beersheba-Hebron road, to a new site at Tel Arad. ... On September 15, the High Court in Jerusalem issued an order 'nisi* against the Military Governor and the Ministry of Defence against the enforced move of the tribe."

After negotiations lasting days it was arranged for the es-Sani to return to Israel; although the Israelis wanted the es-Sani transported inside Jordan to a point opposite and closer to Tel Arad which the Jordanians refused to do this and it was finally settled that the transfer would be made at the original point of crossing, on the Hebron-Beersheba road.

Expelled

The lead says:

The 1948 Palestinian exodus (Arabic: الهجرة الفلسطينية‎, al-Hijra al-Filasṭīnīya), also known as Nakba (Arabic: النكبة‎, an-Nakbah), meaning the "disaster", "catastrophe", or "cataclysm",[1] occurred when between 650,000 and 750,000 Palestinian Arabs were expelled from their homes by Yishuv or Israeli forces, during the creation of the state of Israel and the civil war that preceded it.

Would it more neutral to say "Palestinian Arabs were expelled from their homes by Yishuv or Israeli forces or fled of their own will"? Was there any discussion that led to the current phrasing?Bless sins (talk) 04:23, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

RollandR, Do you mean that the sentence i've altered is a full quote ? Then it should be in brackets. Any way, the opening paragraph should obtain a background info about Arab-Israeli war as the main cause behind the events, not Palestine Civil War alone or "the creation of the state of Israel", which is a political statement. In addition, other sources for the number of Palestinian refugees should be brought since the numbers are not exact, such as 711,000 census of 1950, 600-760 thousand estimation by B.Morris.Greyshark09 (talk) 06:13, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

McDowall writes: "The most authoritative Israeli work shows beyond doubt that the Palestinian Arabs abandoned their homes unwillingly under the pressure of events, and that it was Israeli government policy to reduce the Arab population left inside its borders as much as possible". He footnotes this to Erskine Childers in The Spectator and to several articles by Benny Morriss. McDowall then writes "The refugees fled with what they could carry. Altogether they numbered approximately 725,000, according to UN estimates". However, he does not footnote this. He gives a breakdown (Lebanon 100,000, Syria 75,000 Jordan 70,000, West Bank 280,000, Gaza 190,000), which on inspection proves to add up to 715,000. I don't whether the error is in his total or one of the elements (or possibly there were a further 10,000 elsewhere); but in any case this does arouse sufficient doubt to make his total questionable. The formulation you use in 1948 Palestine war might be the best way to address this. RolandR (talk) 08:11, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Some went to other countries, such as Egypt and Iraq. A recent paper says "The overall number of Palestinians in Egypt after the 1948 war did not exceed 13,000 people." So I think it is not a mistake. I expect his numbers come ultimately from here (page 23) which have Egypt=7000, Iraq=4000, total=726000 otherwise the same.Zero^talk 12:20, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Then this is McDowall quote, not an original source of UN commission. The original source is more credible, than a single author alone and the use of single author source might not apply to W5P. I offer rather to use the official estimate of UN census, or bring at least one more estimate, such as B.Morris'. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Greyshark09 (talk • contribs) 09:33, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

'The formulation you use in 1948 Palestine war might be the best way to address this.' What do you mean ?Greyshark09 (talk) 12:50, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

I prefer the wording used by Greyshark in the article 1948 Palestine War. Selecting Morris's mind is not necessarely the most appropriate but Morris gives a range (from 600k to 750k) that covers all the census that were made at the time of the events and gives a fair mind (fair estimate is around 700k) which means exactly the same as 711k or 725k in practice. 81.244.175.25 (talk) 20:38, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

I would like to ask everybody if there for an agreement to use either 725,000 figure (which is probably very close to reality), but to note that opinion vary on the numbers and add link to 'Estimates of the Palestinian Refugee flight of 1948'. Or else use an estimation instead, and i propose the B.Morris figure of 600-760 thousand, which covers enough range for most estimates and UN census. Greyshark09 (talk) 08:44, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

My mind is that both means the same but that 600-760 is more accurate and reflects more what the community of scholars think. 81.244.174.220 (talk) 16:25, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Greyshark09, since the opinions are unifield in this case, there is a need to post both opinions for a balanced perspective of the reader of the article, or to post the more creditable opinion wich is the UN's. other than that, I think there is a need to publish traditional historians opinions, as I said in the section below. the article is unbalanced and we must be concerned that Wikipedia will not be used as a political website.--Yamisrael (talk) 10:51, 30 June 2010 (UTC) I will add that the use of the word authoritative in the sentence is rather unobjective in my eyes. jobs of Efraim Karsh can be seen as just as authoritative as Benny Morris's jobs, while in fact Benny Morris were cought not once as showing half truths.and I'm not trying to imply that he is not a good historian, or less authoritative than Efraim Karsh. just I don't thnk that one man can decide what is authoritative and what is less. on wich base he claims so?--Yamisrael (talk) 11:01, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Hello Yamistrael,

In fact, Benny Morris is today the leader of the "traditional Israeli point of view", even if he is not followed at 100% by all of his Israeli peers. Efraim Karsh, in the 90ies, tried to take the leadership of the "former Israeli point of view" but he was not followed by any current historian, Israeli or not. Karsh didn't read the archives but based his work only on Morris's work and on works published by historians who had no access to the archives.

To give a big summary, the only global question that seems to remain today without answer is to know if the expulsion of the Palestinians was planned, or if it can be considered as a "normal result of any equivalent situation of war". There is also some debate about the real proportion between those who fled and those who were expelled, having in mind that most of those who didn't flee, were expelled.

81.244.175.25 (talk) 20:38, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

I must disagree with you friend. the fact there is more "pro-Palestnian", if I can call them so, don't make Benny Morris a traditional Historian. the "mainstream" in Israel, and around the world mostly too (not in Arab states), is the "traditional historians", not the "new" ones. the fact there were expolsion is a fact, so Efraim Karsh says too. the question is the number of the expelled people and those who flighted. while Morris claims that half were expelled, Karsh claims that the most runed. the two versions and scholars are highly respected in historian community. regards, --Yamisrael (talk) 14:14, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

missing source

"while most of those who remained were expelled by Jewish soldiers or, later, the Israeli government" is there a source of wich this statment came from? if there is, can someone tell me wich exacly? thank you. --Yamisrael (talk) 08:27, 30 June 2010 (UTC) well, if there is no source, I'm earasing it. I hope you will restore the sentence only when there will be a source for that thing (wich seems unlogical to me that there will be)regards. --Yamisrael (talk) 06:57, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

another missing source- link number 10 is broken.--Yamisrael (talk) 07:09, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

not balanced

I think there is a need to balance the article, wich is inclined to be based on new historians and Palestinian historians, rather than traditional historians. in fact, there is almost no reference to traditional historians opinions and articles. I suggest, for articels balanced point of view, to eaqual the use of quotes,sources and data of traditional historians to the new and Palestinian historians, maybe to bring two opinions (one of a traditional historian and one of a new) on each subject.--Yamisrael (talk) 08:54, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Hi, balance or neutrality doesn't mean that all viewpoints should be given the same amount of space in the article. How much weight is given to each is rather decided based on the rough proportion that each viewpoint has in the best sources. It may be that the article reflects the current proportions that the viewpoints have among serious historians, but this is of course open to discussion. Cheers, --Dailycare (talk) 20:47, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Hello Dailycare. I do agree, but I must say that I didn't saw one quote of Efraim Karsh in the article, and he is a serious Historan and crditable in the eyes of Hisotioans community just as Benny Morris. this is an example to the tendency of the article to trust Palestinian and Arabic historians, togther with Anti,post Zionists and new historians. I still think that there is a need for the article's balanced point of view that there is a need to add traditional Historians, wich again, aren't less creditable. regards, --Yamisrael (talk) 22:44, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Hi Yamisrael,

What quote of Karsh do you think could be appropriate in the article ? 81.244.175.25 (talk) 20:44, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

hello mate, well, I think in everything, since he is not a less important scholar than the ones wich the article is based on, but the most important is that there will be his opinion on the numbers of the expelled Palestinians and the Palestinians who runed. I think also we can, although it will make some people here boil, that we can post some of Joan Peters opinions and quots from her book, because I don't see her a less trustfull source than any Arab scholar. the opposit- she backup her sayings with a lot of facts and reserches. Wikipedia is trying to put the most balanced point of view, so I think it's not so balanced for a reader to read an article that is based only on new historians (Benny Morris, Ilan Pape) and Arabic historians that I question their creditability. regards, --Yamisrael (talk) 18:52, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Let's start by Karsh rather than by Peter's :-)

What quote do you have in mind precisely ? 81.244.174.220 (talk) 16:23, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

fine, but I do want the book of Peters to have an representation, and I think it should. I think rather than quoting him (Karsh), it would be preferd to write just write information from his reserches, like the fact (that is based on his reserch) that 300,000- 330,000 Palestinians had flight until 14 in may, 1948, before the Jews got to their cities, and the fact that there were a delegations of Jews and Arabs to Arabic cities to convince the Arabs to stay. and some other intresting facts that he wrote in his book- I will find a good link with his findings and will write what I think should be represented in the article later. regards, --Yamisrael (talk) 10:23, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

another missing source

"While expulsion of the Palestinians had been contemplated by some Zionists from the 1890s" since there is no source for this statment, it should be earased. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Yamisrael (talk • contribs) 12:15, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

I restored the sentence with a source. — Malik Shabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 20:12, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

I checked the book "Palestinian refugee problem revisited", 2004, and saw no sentence of that kind. --Yamisrael (talk) 07:16, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Probably you were looking too closely. All of chapter 2 "The idea of 'transfer' in Zionist thinking before 1948" is devoted to this subject. Zero^talk 08:23, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

And Morris says a very different thing that is misquoted (1890s ??) - no transfer ideas existed "as is" in the Zionist establishments prior to 1930s, when they began to emerge following arab violence of 1921 and 1929. Here i bring the original quote from Morris 2004, page 44 "Hence, if during the last decades of the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th century Zionist advocacy of transfer was uninsistent, low-key and occasional, by the early 1930s a full-throated near-consensus in support of the idea began to emerge among the movement leaders. Each major bout of arab violence triggered renewed Zionist interest in a transfer solution.". It clearly says a very different thing, than "quoted" by Malik. Greyshark09 (talk) 18:39, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Your quote is not in disagreement with the claim that "expulsion of the Palestinians had been contemplated by some Zionists from the 1890s". Also see page 41 (the page Malik referred to) with Herzls diary entry from 1895 where he writes about how to "spirit the penniless population across the border". --Frederico1234 (talk) 20:07, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Frederico, your citation is not academic (you have fallen for misquoting too). I advise you to read the full paragraph "When we occupy the land, we shall bring immediate benefits to the state that receives us. We must expropriate gently the private property on the estates assigned to us. We shall try to spirit the penniless population across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while denying it any employment in our country. The property owners will come over to our side. Both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discretely and circumspectly … It goes without saying that we shall respectfully tolerate persons of other faiths and protect their property, their honor, and their freedom with the harshest means of coercion. This is another area in which we shall set the entire world a wonderful example … Should there be many such immovable owners in individual areas [who would not sell their property to us], we shall simply leave them there and develop our commerce in the direction of other areas which belong to us." There is a big difference between reading what you want and what there really is in Herzl's quote, by omitting sentences you can completely change the meaning. Greyshark09 (talk) 21:10, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Please avoid bolding. And please read WP:AGF. --Frederico1234 (talk) 05:11, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

No, problem. WP:AGF is not relevant here, since we are having a proper civil discussion. I just think you might have not read the full paragraph, but a part of it. I could be mistaken in my opinion, and bringing the full quote helps to find out, whther i'm right or not.Greyshark09 (talk) 07:43, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

it is wreeten on the idea in Zionist thinking, not that it actualy had been done sciense 1890. if there is any sentence talking about expulsion that were occured "sciense 1890", I would be happy to see a quote. if there isn't, i think that the sentence should be remove, though in either way I think the sentence should be changed- even if Benny Morris says so, and I didn't find any saying of him that points that he thinks that an expulsion occured in those times, other prominent historians are heavily disagreeing with that statement, so I think it should be changed to "according to Bennt Morris", and then the sentence.--Yamisrael (talk) 11:36, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

But, as you note above, the sentence in question states "While expulsion of the Palestinians had been contemplated by some Zionists from the 1890s" (my italics), not that expulsion had occurred. A reliable source for this fact has been cited, and the statement is relevant and appropriate. RolandR (talk) 12:33, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Another source is Masalha, Nur-eldeen (1992), Expulsion of the Palestinians: The Concept of "Transfer" in Zionist Political Thought, 1882-1948, Institute for Palestine Studies. nableezy - 20:17, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

RolandR, wich reliable resource had been found? as Greyshark09 has wroten here, Benny Morris had not found thoughts on expulsion of Zionists until 1930. the sentence "quoted" from Hertzel is a distortion too. wich reliable source had been cited? --Yamisrael (talk) 22:18, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Please re-read the passage from Morris that is in bold italicized. Morris clearly says that there were Zionist supporters of transfer in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. — Malik Shabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 22:37, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

If that is what you assume out of the quotation of B.Morris - let's just put the full quote in the text, and present the orig. text to the reader. Current formulation im my opinion is quiet different in the meaning than the quote itself (...,by the early 1930s a full-throated near-consensus in support of the idea (transfer) began to emerge among the movement leaders.).Greyshark09 (talk) 07:43, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

I support Greyshark09's suggestion, --Yamisrael (talk) 08:19, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

It's unfortunate that MOrris is distorted to this extent. He makes is quite clear that the idea of transfer was a unpopular superminority position until the riots in the 20's and 30's.--brewcrewer (yada, yada) 13:43, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

a) Morris says no such things. b) Morris's writings have not been distorted here. --Frederico1234 (talk) 15:00, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

This sentence doesn't give a fair idea of what Morris (and even Masalha) conclude. It sounds as if the idea of transfer was adopted in 1890's. And it would be no sense. 1895 was 22 years before Balfour's declaration ! Zionism project was still an utopy.

Scholars agree that the Zionist leaders only became fully aware of the "Arab problem" after the 1920 and 1921 riots. In any case, the "transfer idea" grew step by step in all Yishuv leaders mind to become an evidence. It started from an optimization in the theoretical approach of Hertzl in 1895 and according to most scholars, it became an open and clear policy at the latest in July 1948 when Tsahal expelled Arab population out of Lydda and Ramle.

We should find a quote in the conclusions of the "transfer idea" chapter of Morris 2004 book that fits Masalha book conclusions and that is not controversial with other analysis on the topic. (Stating that there was an expulsion policy, even at Lydda and Ramle, is controversial and should be attributed).

The current one, which is not a quote, is misleading. 91.180.115.223 (talk) 15:29, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Morris states that the idea of transfer began taking root after the Arab riots in the 20's and 30's. Your arguments to the contrary are original research.--brewcrewer (yada, yada) 15:39, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

"taking root" is not the same as "contemplated by some Zionists". The only misrepresentation being done here is by users claiming that the text says something it does not. The text clearly says that some Zionists had supported the idea of forced transfer of the native population as early as the late 1800s. That is supported by both Morris and Masalha. The text does not say that this was a widely accepted aim of the Zionists as a whole as the users pretending the sources dont support the sentence are making believe. How anybody can in good faith argue that the sources dont support the sentence as written is not something I can explain. The sources clearly support the sentence as written and the attempts to say otherwise are either based in a lack of understanding of the source or the sentence in the article or the deliberate misrepresentation of either. Who disputes that the sources provided support the sentence that expulsion of the Palestinians had been contemplated by some Zionists from the 1890s? What would you require a source to say to support that sentence? nableezy - 16:41, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Like nableezy, I'm having a hard time understanding the argument that Morris is being misinterpreted here. "[D]uring the last decades of the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th century Zionist advocacy of transfer was uninsistent, low-key and occasional." That clearly says that some Zionists advocated transfer during the late 1800s and early 1900s. But our article doesn't even say that; it only says transfer was contemplated by some Zionists during that period. To argue otherwise is to ignore what Morris says altogether. — Malik Shabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 17:40, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

And that is exactly the problem, that you force a subjective understanding of Morris to the reader. I go back to my suggestion - if we cannot agree on the meaning of the quote, let's just bring the quote in the text, without interpretation (something like - Morris opinion of the genesis of transfer ideas is the following "quote"). The interpretation so far was one way by 3 people and another interpretation by other 4 people in this discussion. You must see there is a problem here.Greyshark09 (talk) 18:42, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm guessing that English may not be your first language, but there's no "subjective understanding" of Morris. His meaning is clear. — Malik Shabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 20:06, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Oh, please Malik, you are not a superior English speaker. Do not try to make it into insults and irony. What you make out of Morris is distortion of quoting, by using partial sentences and taking it out of context. W5P clearly says that a veriety of views should be presented in the text (like mine as much as yours), and a correct quotation should be used. In order to avoid misunderstanding i've already announced that i agree on the incorporation of the original quote of Morris. In addition, you are asked to apply to the WP:AGF.Greyshark09 (talk) 08:01, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Nableezy, I can agree that what is written in the article is not in contradiction with what Morris says~punctually. But this is not a quote of something in his book and is not a fair interpretation of what he says globally. And this also apply for what Masalha says. There are numerous pages dedicated to the "transfer idea" (forced or not). Nor Morris or Masalha focus on the 1890s. Giving only this sentence in the article to "summarize" the "transfer idea" concept is in contradiction with what Morris and Masalha say globally.

In term of wikipedia jargon, the use of this idea (contemplation of transfer as soon as 1890s) is an undue:weight whereas what Greyshark suggests (acceptance by most zionist leaders after the 20s and 30s riots that the zionist project was only achievable with the transfer of Arab population) is more (fully ?) in accordance with both what Morris and Masalha points out and even with what other historians of the zionism, such as Laqueur underline (in fact, they globally say the same but didn't link this with the '48 events ; what both other scholars did).

In term of wikipedian practice, we must find a quote from the conclusions of Morris and/or Masalha that is a fair summary of their points. What is done currently is a little wp:synth of a few pages to which an wp:undue weight are given.

87.65.201.81 (talk) 07:00, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

I would not be opposed to including more information, specifically how this idea was received by the majority of Zionists and how it developed later in the 20th century. But the idea of forced transfer was contemplated by at least a minority within the Zionism movement and that should be documented. How it was perceived by others and how it took hold in the 20s and 30s should also be documented. We should better cover how the concept of "transfer" developed over time, but that includes how it was advocated by some in the late 19th century. nableezy - 07:32, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Who then developed the transfer idea in the 19th century? Names? Morris writes "began to emerge in 1930s", following arab nationalist violence, and that is the bottom line. The Zionist establishment, ever since 1897 was majorly socialist and could had not and had not supported the ideas of transfer. That is Morris, the new historian.Greyshark09 (talk) 08:01, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

The first chapter of Masalha's book is titled "Zionist Transfer Ideas and Proposals, 1882-1936" He details, with quotes, proposals by Theodor Herzl, Israel Zangwill, Arthur Ruppin, Nahman Syrkin, Leo Motzkin, Aaron Aaronsohn and others. These were central figures in the early Zionist movement, not marginal mavericks. This information is extremely well sourced. I don't propose to quote the whole chapter, you can easily consult it yourself. RolandR (talk) 09:22, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

We were not dealing with Masalha in the first place, since the sentence was credited to Morris, and Morris didn't write that. You can cite Masalha, fine with me, but don't try to distort Morris, just bring what he says exactly. And add Karsh.Greyshark09 (talk) 11:34, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

if so, I suggest to write that when and if the idea of transfer had developed is unkown- sciense Efraim Karsh claim there were no idea of transfer at all, Morris claims it start to developed in 1930's and Masalha claims it were in the last centuries of 19th century. if the historical comunity is divided in it's opinion about it, there is a need to show all sides (and criticism of the sides) and not only one side, that in my eyes at least, is the side with the least folowers. --Yamisrael (talk) 10:02, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

If that is really what Karsh stated (source, please), he is simply wrong. Morris writes that the idea "developed" during the 1930's; this is not inconsistent with the original statement that the idea had been "contemplated by some Zionists" in the 19th century. The detaoiled statements by Morris and Masalha are adequate to verify this. RolandR (talk) 10:13, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Why not Maslaha is wrong ? I've already discredited the claim that T.Herzl was in favor of the transfer (or forced transfer). Masalha was just discussing a partial quote of Herzl's diaries. You are not a historian to decide who is right and who is wrong, you are just a wikipedian. If you choose to show just what you want (Masalha - Yes, Morris - only some of it, Karsh - no), then perhaps we should all abandon W5P and go home.Greyshark09 (talk) 11:30, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

You have not "discredited" any statement about Herzl; you have just disagreed. Masalha was not just "discussing a partial quote of Herzl's diaries". As I note above, he discusses in detail proposals by many early Zionist leaders. I have added a reference to this book to the article. RolandR (talk) 14:31, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Fine, i have edited the rest of the sentence according to Morris that the expulsion policy was not accepted by the Yishuv until arab riots of 1920s and 1930s (instead of "during that time was not official policy of the Yishuv"). And regarding Herzl - he clearly says we shall respectfully tolerate persons of other faiths and protect their property, their honor, and their freedom with the harshest means of coercion. This is another area in which we shall set the entire world a wonderful example..., so any forced expulsion idea based on this is simply imaginary. Greyshark09 (talk) 15:56, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

What part of Herzl's statement that "We shall try to spirit the penniless population across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while denying it any employment in our country" is unclear to you? — Malik Shabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 16:10, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Herzl argued to improve the economic status of penniless Arab population. You cannot twist this into "violent expulsion", no matter how hard you try. Anyway it is completely different approach comparing to the the dhimmi policy for Middle Eastern jews by muslim authorities in that time, not speaking of later antisemitic treatment during 20th century.Greyshark09 (talk) 16:54, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Proposition 2...RolandR (talk) 17:05, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

RolandR, forgive me if I heart you, but I just have to ask- from where is the nerve to decide whatever is right or wrong in a disscution that continues years without a prefered side (and if there is, it would be Karsh's side, sciense he have more followers, not including the Arabian states)? as Greyshark said, maybe Mashala and Morris are wrong? Morris had been coughted "cheating" by diffrent historians, among them Karsh, and you don't need to be a historian to find Mashala disorting sentences, as the full quote, published by Greyshrk09, finds. so I think that Karsh is much more creditable- if someone is wrong, it's Morris and Mashala. and if I'll bring a source of Karsh saying it, would you stop this censorship of traditional historians (wich I think is placed in dictatories rather than in wikipedia, wich one of it's motos is being natural) and accept that I'll publish it? --Yamisrael (talk) 23:00, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

I have asked for a source for Karsh stating that "there was no idea of transfer at all". Without a verifiable citation, we can't even begin to discuss his position. But since Morris and Masalha, and most other historians, agree that by the 1930s there were well-developed plans; and since both agree that the idea was comntemplated by "some Zionists" in the late 19th century; and since Masalha quotes extensively from several of these, then the phrase in contention ("While expulsion of the Palestinians had been contemplated by some Zionists from the 1890s") has been reliably sourced, and can be included. If, as you state, Karsh challenges this, then please cite his exact words, with a source, so that we can consider this. RolandR (talk) 00:14, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Roland, Morris doesn't agree there were "well-developed plans". He says the "idea of transfer" was well developed in their thoughts and even in some of their speeches and that Zionists dreamt of/expected/promoted/? (read contemplate) a transfer, forced or not. Masalha goes further, but still doesn't talk about a "plan". He says that the transfer/expulsion was inherent to Zionism and that the latter could not exist without the former. Khalidi claims there was a plan during the war, plan D. Pappé fuses everything and claim there was a well-developed plan since the Arab Revolt. Only first two are historians. Last two are considered as politicians or propandists by their opponents.

Yamisrael, Morris was never caught cheating, even by Karsh. The complain on his work mainly refer to his (alleged ?) cautious not to make obvious conclusions on one side or on the other side on the overinterpretation he (allegedly) makes from documents. It is rather Morris and some others who pointed out that Karsh has a special way of working : using "one" (1) document to write a full story and rejecting those that are in disagreement with his thesis.

Anyway, Karsh is considered as a wp:rs source for wikipedia. So if you have a quote where he rejects the idea of transfer, that is to be taken into account. I don't have his last book published some months ago but it is fully dedicated to the topic.

I confirm that Masalha in the conclusions of his book refers to Herzl to claim/state the fact that the idea of transfer was born in parallel with the zionist idea.

91.180.110.41 (talk) 06:08, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

RolandR, maybe most of Historians that you read says so. there is enough historians that reject this claim. 91.180.110.41, what with the letter, that Ben-Gurion suposdly send to his son, from where the qupte "we shall expell them and should take their place and" is taken, (in Hebrew, where the readers could eassily check the source, Morris wrote the real and undisorted version of the quote) and it had been find out as a distortion by Efraim Karsh when investigating the source and compering it to the quote used by Morris? isn't that called cheating? did you ever read fabricating Israel's history of Karsh? anyhow, there is no doubt that Morris is a respected historian, although coughted cheating a number of times. I don't claim that he isn't, I just said that Karsh is not a less respected historian and Morris could had been mistaken just as Karsh could, and considering that Morris cheated, I'd give more creditabillity to the saying of Karsh. I didn't said he should be removed, but only that he should be added. a special way is not always a wrong way, and most of his work is just like other historians- opening sources, reading them, and writing what they say.--Yamisrael (talk) 08:34, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Efraim Karsh finds that Ben-Gurion and other Zionist accepted the transfer idea as a part of the Peel commitee solution plan, that they accepted, yet dissmised the idea quickly. "The Peel report suggested the partition of Mandatory Palestine into two states, Arab and Jewish; to reduce frictions between the two communities, the commission also suggested a land and population exchange, similar to that effected between Turkey and Greece after the First World War. See Palestine Royal Commission, Report, Presented by the Secretary of State for the Colonies to Parliament by Command of His Majesty, July 1937, Cmd. 5479 (London: HMSO, 1937), pp. 291-95. There being far more Arabs in the Jewish state-to-be than the other way around (225,000 vs. 1,250), Ben-Gurion and some other Zionist proponents of partition viewed this exchange (or transfer, as it came to be known) as a partial compensation for the confinement of the prospective Jewish state to a tiny fraction of the Land of Israel. Yet they quickly dismissed this idea, as shown by the fact that not one of the 30-odd submissions the JAE made to the Palestine Partition Commission (the Woodhead Commission, 1938) suggested population exchange and transfer." --Yamisrael (talk) 08:54, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

and this is another quote, from an interview. it has a nice mentioning on Morris's new book, wich got to a conclusion as same as Karsh did- the only side who supported transfer was the Arabs, wich oppose the saying of him that you took.if Morris himself admits he were wrong, so who are we to say he were right? again, I didn't read the book so I'm not sure. I'm counting though on Karsh's and the interviewer knowledge, and maybe I'll investigate Morris's new book too after. anyhow, I don't ask anything but to add Karsh's opinion. : "

In Palestine Betrayed you come to essentially the same conclusion as does Benny Morris in his recent book 1948: namely, that the only party systematically interested in "transfer" or "expulsion" in this period was the Arabs.

Morris does seem to have tacitly disowned his early writings, not least by acknowledging that the underlying cause of the Arab-Israeli conflict was and is the adamant Arab and Muslim refusal to accept the idea of Jewish statehood in any part of Palestine. Millions of Arabs, Jews, and foreign observers of the Middle East fully recognized these facts as early as 1948; at that time, the collapse and dispersion of Palestinian Arab society were nowhere described as a systematic dispossession of Arabs by Jews. Regrettably, this historical truth has been erased from public memory.

Where would this be written in Morris book 1948 ?

91.180.110.41 (talk) 15:59, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

But in the case of the town of Lydda, the Haganah did drive out Arab residents.

The Lydda expulsion of July 1948 was the only instance where a substantial urban population was driven out during the course of the war. It stemmed not from a pre-existing plan but from a string of unexpected developments. Only when Israeli forces encountered stiffer resistance than expected was the decision made to "encourage" the population's departure to Arab-controlled areas a few miles to the east. The aim was to avoid leaving a hostile armed base at the rear of the Israeli advance and, by clogging the main roads, to forestall a possible counterattack by the Arab Legion.

This is not to deny that Israeli forces did on occasion expel Palestinian Arabs. But these were exceptions that occurred in the heat of battle and were uniformly dictated by ad-hoc military considerations-notably the need to deprive the enemy of strategic sites where no Jewish forces were available to hold them." --Yamisrael (talk) 12:18, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

1) Source? 2) The phrase under question is "While expulsion of the Palestinians had been contemplated by some Zionists from the 1890s". Your quote, however interesting and relevant to other sections of this article, tells us nothing about this. The phrase is reliably sourced and extensively documented, and should stay in the article. RolandR (talk) 12:43, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Yamisrael, did the women, children and elderly who were expelled from Lydda and Ramle constitute "a hostile armed base at the rear of the Israeli advance" ? And what about women who were raped ? And why were all these people dispossed from their belongings ? And why were they prevented to come back after the fights, 7 days later ? You see, the way Karsh sees events is... particular. Not to say more, given 1000 Arab Palestinians and a handful of Jews died during these 10 days. This men should be sued by the Palmah veterans for diffamation to picture them as such cowards and to make believe that they were so afraid and terrorized by this situation (4 brigades among which one armoured vs less than 1 Arab Legion retreating regiment supported by 1,000 irregulars and 69,000 civilians).

And Karsh doesn't seem to be aware that during Operation Hiram more than 10 massacres of Palestians occured, and that most of those who had not fled were expelled, and he forgot also the events that occured during Operation Yoav where a village without any fighter were surrounded and hundreds (200 to 500 unhabitants, all civilians) were massacred. And according to Karsh, what did Yigal Alon mean when, referring to Operation Yiftah, he said he had succeeded in terrorizing the Arab population in order to jump them on the road to Syria and therefore making the invasion more difficult. And why did a report of the Haganah written in July give the responsibility of the "Arab exodus" mainly (I think more than 80%) to the Haganah ? Oh. And what does Karsh say about the Arab villages along the Israeli borders whose Arab (then Israeli) unhabitants were expelled after the war ?

Anyway, that is not important : as RolandR points out : "What is the link with the current issue ?".

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.180.110.41 (talk) 15:26, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

most of that you said are nonsence, but I don't think this is the place to start arguing on politics or who is the Historian that is right, either I don't think that you are in a standart to criticize Karsh's work. if you really want to know the answers for your questions I suggest you to read Karsh's book "Palestine betrayed" rather than to read only one or two new historians and then laugh at every sentence that is against their sayings, bringing their sayings as proof to that. I also recomend you to read the book "fabricating Israeli history: the new historians" since there is no better book than this to show what is the "cheatings" I talk about. I don't say that Karsh is right in everything and clear of influence of his political point of view, but to know the truth or to prefer a version rightly, you need to get information from both sides, wich clearly you don't. --Yamisrael (talk) 17:36, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Books and authors sourced under the Israeli Narrative section

Is it the place of Wikipedia editors to take sides as to which historians/researchers in a controversial such as this one are considered better or more correct/appropriate/scholarly than others? All the authors used here have been criticized by another in the field. Karsh has made some serious accusations against Morris. Other authors are critical of Peters. I think it is inappropriate to dismiss an accepted, qualified source (even if it has mistakes) since no historian is perfect. If what Peters said is generally accepted by those who believe the Israeli view, then it is appropriate to add it here, I would think. Snakeswithfeet (talk) 03:42, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

This article is 100% totally slanted toward one perspective. I don't have to tell you which one. There is a huge reliance on Morris and contemporary political-activist scholars. Everyone acknowledges that there are no Arab archives or documents to see how things really were at that time. I would like to see more reliance on mainstream historians, and on periodicals and newspapers from the time. In fact, you all seem to be arguing about allowing anything at all to be put under the Israeli Narrative section. A whole different article could be written from the Israeli, Jewish, & mainstream perspective of historians at the time. Perhaps those who want to collaborate on that section should do so separately and then come back and add it in, fully formed like the Goddess Athena from the forehead of Zeus. Of course that would make the article very long. But maybe one could have two articles, the 1948 Palestinian Exodus (Palestinian view), that is, this one, and the 1948 Palestinian Exodus (Israeli-Jewish view) one. Two different articles? Why not? Snakeswithfeet (talk) 04:11, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

On page 68 of Morris' Birth Revisited he says "The Yishuv entered the war without a plan or policy regarding the Arab civilian population in its midst." No one would realize this from reading the article. In this article, very little is made of the fact that there was much Arab fighting against the Jews, and that leaving a war-torn area is standard fare for most civilians. I found this line interesting : "Muhammad Nimr al-Hawari also used the term Nakba in the title of his book Sir al Nakba (The Secret of the Defeat) written in 1955." If that is the correct translation of that book, why is not the word "defeat" mentioned as a meaning in the lead? Lots of questions here. Snakeswithfeet (talk) 04:31, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

* Who is Peters?

* Morris is not an activist scholar but a mainstream historian. His political views are considered right-wing in the Israeli sense of the word.

* A POV-fork is not the way to do it. Please see WP:CFORK.

* Please read the section Criticisms of Master Plan explanation for what Morris says about the existence of a plan or policy regarding the Arab civilian population. --Frederico1234 (talk) 05:57, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Joan Peters. I disagree that Morris' views are considered right-wing by the Israelis. Do you have a source for that? I did not call Morris a political-activist scholar. I wrote "There is a huge reliance on Morris and contemporary political-activist scholars." The contemporary political-activist scholars include Khalidi, Masalha, & Pappe. Certain historians are referred to in the article as "Zionist historians" and seem to be put up as straw men to be destroyed by the opinions/views of those who support the "Palestinian narrative." The article barely discusses the active warfare that preceded. Initially the Arabs (of which the local Palestinian population was a part) were successful in their attack against Israel, particularly Jerusalem. Fighting was often hand-to-hand. There were many situations in which the Arabs had the upper hand. This does not appear to be acknowledged in this article. As in all wars, people flee and are expelled from areas where the opposition considers them a threat. Had the Arabs won that war, of course the situation would be different. Where would the remnant of the Jews be living then, I wonder? At any rate, that is a different article altogether. Not sure if I agree about a WP:CFORK since it says this: "Different articles can be legitimately created on subjects which themselves represent points of view, as long as the title clearly indicates what its subject is, the point-of-view subject is presented neutrally, and each article cross-references articles on other appropriate points of view." At least that was what I had in mind. Considering that everyone agrees that there is a distinct Palestinian and a distinct Israeli/Jewish/Zionist position on virtually everything to with the ME, I think you could make better and more cohesive statements separately, and it would be a lot less disruptive. As it stands this and many articles in this area are a mish-mash of information and opinion. IMHO. Snakeswithfeet (talk) 07:37, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

• Joan Peters is not an expert in the field. Her book, "From Time Immemorial", has, to put it very mildly, received mixed reviews. We can't use her as a source.
• Morris work is cited in numerous history books written by professional historans. If historians rely on his work, so should we. --Frederico1234 (talk) 07:55, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

• Footnotes 8a &b ,74, &90 refer to Morris 2006 but Morris 2006 is not part of the Bibliography. This is an important fix. Snakeswithfeet (talk) 04:16, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

This reference was first inserted by SlimVirgin in September 2009, when she amended an earlier reference to a different page in Morris 2004.[2] I don't know whether this is an error, or she is using a different edition of the same book; I am seeking her input. RolandR (talk) 08:58, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps it is the book "1948"? I'll check it out when I get back home. --Frederico1234 (talk) 11:12, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

A source is Benny Morris, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited, 2004, p.573. But it is certainly in 1948 too.

Noisetier (talk) 19:26, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

All four citations were from "Birth of...". It was the publishing year which was wrong. I updated the citations. --Frederico1234 (talk) 21:32, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

There is a Morris 2006 that's an article, but if you're sure that the material is from the Birth of, the year should be 2004. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 22:54, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Thank you Frederico for finding and fixing some of those references. While you are looking could you check footnote 8? ^ Kodmani-Darwish, p. 126; Féron, p. 94. This is another source without a match in the bibliography. I don't have anything by this author so I can't check it. Snakeswithfeet (talk) 02:46, 25 November 2010 (UTC)