Zionist FAQs: Isn't it true that Palestinians abandoned their homes during the 1948 war because their leaders asked them to do so?

June 17, 1967. Note the Israeli officer to the left directing Palestinians out of their village 'Imwas

For the moment, let's assume that the Palestinian refugees were not terrorized out of their homes and Israeli leaders didn't ask Palestinians to leave (as is currently the case in the Gaza Strip for 2.2 million Palestinians), else they will be targeted as enemy combatants (watch this playlist if you care). Let us assume also Palestinians in 1948 left their homes based on their free will and heeded their leaders' advice (as often Jews claim). The questions that many Palestinians ask:

•  Haifa, Palestinians are crowded on ships to take them to Acre soon after they were ethnically cleansed by Zionist Jewish forces in April 1948.
  Is that a good reason for Zionist Jews to loot their homes, farms, and businesses? Palestinians never gave any Jew permission to use their so-called "abandoned" homes, farms, lands, and businesses!
• Is that a good reason to block their return to their homes?
• Is that a good reason to nullify their citizenship in their birth country?
• Honestly, do you think Zionist Jews give a good name for refugees when they reduced majority of citizens from 90% to under 15%?
• A Playlist Of Short Clips Of Jews Sharing Their DNA Test Results
  When Zionist Jews replaced the indigenous majority, how does such action make more friends for the Jews around the world? How does such an act make fewer enemies? How does such an act make Jews safer? It should be noted that to most Palestinians, the Great Replacement isn't a theory. To Palestinians, the Great Replacement has been a reality, more like a nightmare, since Nakba of 1948.

Residence of al-Ramla being ethnically cleansed based on the orders from Rabin; July 1948

The just and fair answer to all of these questions is a big fat no. Nobody has the right to usurp the political and civil rights of another citizen PERIOD, regardless of the circumstances.

To quickly debunk the Zionist narrative, here is one of the most senior Zionist historians (Benny Morris who is known to be a hard-core Zionist) debunking the claim that Palestinians heeded the advice of their leaders and left their homes. Mr. Morris inspected the Zionist and Haganah archives, and found ZERO evidence of such claims. Please pay attention to Benny's body language; he reluctantly shared the truth. We often see the same body language once when we burst Zionist Jews' bubbles about the the Israeli-Palestinian conflict:

Albert Einstein's letter dated April 10th, 1948, predicted that the Zionists who committed the massacre at Deir Yassin would bring a Nakba upon Jews

Much to our surprise, Albert Einstein used the word catastrophe (a.k.a Nakba in Arabic) way before it was coined by Arabs a day after the Deir Yassin massacre on April 10^th, 1948. That said, Albert used the word catastrophe not in the Palestinian context, but rather in the Jewish context. YES, Herr Einstein predicted that Zionists would bring a Nakba upon Jews! In other words, Einstein knew that Zionists fomented antisemitism by design! Please allow Einstein's framing of the conflict to sink for a minute and then reflect: when antisemitism was ever bad for Zionism!

Remind us, please: who shall push who into the sea? Jaffa May 1948, Palestinians were being pushed into the sea by Zionist Jewish forces.

Now, let us pose the question the other way around. For a very long time, the Zionist movement encouraged Jews from Europe and the Middle East (evidence shows many were terrorized and coerced into nudging them to do the so-called Aliyah) to emigrate to Israel:

• Is that a good reason to confiscate their homes, farms, and businesses in their respective countries?
• Is that a good reason to block their return to their homes if they choose to do so?
• Is that a good reason to nullify their citizenship in their birth countries?

Acre May 1948, Palestinians were being pushed into the sea by Zionist Jewish forces.

The Evidence From Israeli & Zionist Sources

Neither the Israeli Army boot camps nor the Israeli schools dare to disclose the truth to its subjects. The truth is most Palestinians were terrorized out of their homes, farms, and businesses. PalestineRemembered.com is fortunate to receive pictures portraying the terror that came upon the Palestinian people; click here to witness the ethnic cleansing and destruction of 'Imwas. It should be noted that what happened to 'Imwas by the Israeli Army was a copycat war crime to what already happened to other 500 Palestinian towns during the 1948 war. The destruction humanity witnessed lately in Gaza, after the October 7th Raid, is the norm; what we saw was not the exception. The only difference this time was that the genocide was live-streamed; that is all.

Palestinian Refugees on their way to Lebanon, Oct. 1948.

Since the inception of Zionism, its leaders have been keen on creating a "Jewish State" based on a "Jewish majority" by mass immigration of Jews to Palestine, primarily European Jews fleeing from anti-Semitic Tsarist Russia and Nazi Germany. When a "Jewish majority" was impossible to achieve, based on Jewish immigration and natural growth, Zionist leaders (such as Ben Gurion, Moshe Sharett, Ze'ev Jabotinsky, and Chaim Weizmann) concluded that "population transfer" was the only solution to what they referred to as the "Arab Problem." Year after year, the plan to cleanse Palestine of its indigenous people became known as the "transfer solution." David Ben-Gurion, the first Israeli Prime Minister, eloquently articulated the "transfer solution" as the following:

• In a joint meeting between the Jewish Agency Executive and Zionist Action Committee on June 12th, 1938:
  
  "With compulsory transfer, we [would] have a vast area [for settlement] .... I support compulsory transfer. I don't see anything immoral in it." (Righteous Victims p. 144).
  
• In a speech addressing the Central Committee of the Histadrut on December 30, 1947:
  
  
  NY Times Oct 22nd, 1979: Successive Israeli Governments censoring Yetshak Rabin's admission that he ethnically cleansed Palestinians based on Ben-Gurion's orders.
  "In the area allocated to the Jewish State, there are not more than 520,000 Jews and about 350,000 non-Jews, mostly Arabs. Together with the Jews of Jerusalem, the total population of the Jewish State at the time of its establishment will be about one million, including almost 40% non-Jews. Such a [population] composition does not provide a stable basis for a Jewish State. This [demographic] fact must be viewed in all its clarity and acuteness. With such a [population] composition, there cannot even be absolute certainty that control will remain in the hands of the Jewish majority .... There can be no stable and strong Jewish state so long as it has a Jewish majority of only 60%." (Expulsion Of The Palestinians, p. 176 and Benny Morris p. 28)
  
• In early December 1947, David Ben-Gurion was known to have said soon after the UN Partition plan was passed:

  “Only a state with at least 80% Jews is a viable and stable state,” (Illan Pappe was cited in "Where Now for Palestine?: The Demise of the Two-State Solution, 2007, p. 48, and Ezra Klein cited similar quotation).

  Thus, it is safe to assume the Zionist dream of replacing the indigenous people succeeded. Since Nakba, Palestinians have been kept at 20% or less of the population.
• 'Imwas-al-Ramla, June 1967, The village was completely ethnically cleansed and then destroyed.
  And on February 8th, 1948, Ben-Gurion also stated to the Mapai Council:
  
  "From your entry into Jerusalem, through Lifta, Romema [East Jerusalem Palestinian neighborhood]. . . there are no [Palestinian] Arabs. One hundred percent Jews. Since Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans, it has not been Jewish as it is now. In many [Palestinian] Arab neighborhoods in the west, one sees not a single [Palestinian] Arab. I do not assume that this will change. . . . What had happened in Jerusalem. . . . is likely to happen in many parts of the country. . . in the six, eight, or ten months of the campaign, there will certainly be great changes in the composition of the population in the country." (Expulsion Of The Palestinians, p. 180-181)
  
• Palestinians were ethnically cleansed out of al-Ramla & al-Lydd in July 1948 by Zionist Jewish forces on direct orders from Ben-Gurion and executed by Yitzhak Rabin
  In a speech addressing the Zionist Action Committee on April 6th, 1948:
  
  "We will not be able to win the war if we do not, during the war, populate upper and lower, eastern and western Galilee, the Negev and Jerusalem area ..... I believe that war will also bring in its wake a great change in the distribution of Arab population." (Expulsion Of The Palestinians, p. 181)
  
• In a speech to the Jewish Agency on June 12, 1948, Ben-Gurion stated:
  
  "I am for compulsory transfer; I don't see anything immoral in it." For tactical reasons, he was against proposing it at the moment, but "we have to state the principle of compulsory transfer without insisting on its immediate implementation." (Simha Flapan, p. 103)
  
• Just in case you think those quotes were isolated and off-the-cuff remarks; please think twice. Here is a collection of "Transfer" (Ethnic Cleansing) quotes from Zionist leaders that spans decades before Nakba that proves Zionist leaders' intentions to replace the native people.

Palestinian refugees on the run to Lebanon, Oct. 1948

For now, assume that the above evidence is only Arab propaganda. We ask the reader to contemplate what Yitzhak Rabin, one of Israel's Prime Ministers, had written in his diary soon after the occupation of Lydda and al-Ramla on July 10^th-11^th, 1948. Pay attention Rabin executed Ben-Gurion's order reluctantly; that's double the crime:

"After attacking Lydda [later called Lod] and then Ramla, .... What would they do with the 50,000 civilians living in the two cities ..... Not even Ben-Gurion could offer a solution .... and during the discussion at operation headquarters, he [Ben-Gurion] remained silent, as was his habit in such situations. Clearly, we could not leave [Lydda's] hostile and armed populace in our rear, where it could endangered the supply route [to the troops who were] advancing eastward.
Ben-Gurion would repeat the question: What is to be done with the population?, waving his hand in a gesture which said: Drive them out! [garesh otem in Hebrew]. 'Driving out' is a term with a harsh ring, .... Psychologically, this was on of the most difficult actions we undertook". (NY Times Oct. 22nd, 1979, Soldier Of Peace by Yizhak Rabin, p. 140-1 & Benny Morris, p. 207) .

Later, Rabin underlined the operation's cruelty, which was mirrored in his soldiers' reaction. He stated during an interview (which is still censored in Israeli publications to this day) with David Shipler from the NY Times on October 22, 1979:

Haganah (IDF) ordered for the destruction of Palestinian villages in Nov. 1948

"Great Suffering was inflicted upon the men taking part in the eviction action. [They] included youth-movement graduates who had been inculcated with values such as international brotherhood and humaneness. The eviction action went beyond the concepts they were used to. There were some fellows who refused to take part. . . Prolonged propaganda activities [Rabbin here referred to what Israelis call Hasbarah; a.k.a. (gaslighting] were required after the action . . . to explain why we were obliged to undertake such a harsh and cruel action." (NY Times Oct. 22nd, 1979, Soldier Of Peace By Yizhak Rabin, p. 140-1 and Simha Flapan, p. 101)

Palestinians were ethnically cleansed out of al-Ramla & al-Lydd in July 1948 by Zionist Jewish forces on direct orders from Ben-Gurion, and executed by Yitzhak Rabin

[PLEASE NOTE how Mr. Rabin documented two significant crimes here. The first one is, of course, against Palestinian civilians. But the other crime was against Israeli Jews who were forced to execute his orders. What was very revealing is how Zionists often "cure" the inconvenient truth with massive doses of brainwashing and gaslighting, which is what Israelis refer to by Hasbarah. Literally, as if Rabin was copying from Joseph Goebbels' propaganda playbook. Birds of a feather flock together!]

To paint picture of what happened in Lydda and al-Ramla during Nakba of 1948, we ask the read to watch this 14-seond clip for the ethnic cleansing of Khan Younis in the Gaza Strip. Pay attention to the Israeli tank stationed on the left starting from the 7th second. What you see below was repeated hundreds of times against Palestinian civilians since the Oct. 7th Raid, and much of it what documented by Israelis themselves (as if there is nothing to be ashamed of). This is exactly how Palestinians were forced to leave their homes during Nakba, and to this date it is being denied by most Zionist Jews. That is exactly how the minority of citizens (who were under 8% of citizens but 33% of the population 1948) became 85% of citizens during the war of Nakba:

Here a similar short clip depicting the ethnic cleansing of North Gaza recently. Note that this clip was recorded and release by the Israeli Occupation Forces to encourage Palestinians to leave homes and lands. What happened during the war of Nakba was very similar to what we see here but at a much larger scale:

Residence of Wadi Hunayn being ethnically cleansed out, march 1948

Just before the 1948 war, the residents of the twin cities, Lydda and al-Ramla, almost constituted 20% of the total urban population in central Palestine, inclusive of Tel-Aviv. Currently, the former residents and their descendants number at least half a million, who mostly live in deplorable refugee camps in and around Amman (Jordan) and Ramallah (the occupied West Bank). According to Rabin, the decision to ethnically cleanse the twin cities was an agonizing decision, however, his guilty conscious did not stop him from placing a similar order against three nearby villages ('Imwas, Yalu, and Bayt Nuba ) 19 years later. The exodus from Lydda and al-Ramla was portrayed firsthand by Ismail Shammout, the renowned Palestinian artist from Lydda itself, here is Ismail's exodus gallery. To learn more about the ethnic cleansing of Lydda and al-Ramla based on declassified Israeli archives, we suggest this exhaustive research as well.

To excuse themselves from any responsibility for war crimes, Zionists have concocted a myth that Palestinians were ordered by their leaders to abandon their homes. As it will be proven below, this version of events was conclusively proven wrong based on Israeli declassified documents. According to the Israeli historian Benny Morris:

• 
  Faluja-Gaza, 1949, Ethnically Cleansed Palestinians on their way to Hebron
  "In general, during the first months of the war until April 1948, the Palestinian leadership struggled, if not very manfully, against the exodus: "The AHC [Arab Higher Committee] decided .... to adopt measures to weaken the exodus by imposing restrictions, penalties, threats, propaganda in the press [and] on the radio .... [The AHC] tried to obtain the help of neighboring countries in this context ..... [The AHC] especially tried to prevent the flight of army-age young males," according to IDF intelligence. (Benny Morris, p. 60). Click here if you wish to see the exact order from AHC.
  
• "Whatever the reasoning and attitude of the Arab states' leaders, I have found no contemporary evidence to show that either the leaders of the Arab states or the Mufti [Hajj Amin al-Husseini] ordered or directly encouraged the mass exodus during April [1948]. It may be worth noting that for decades, the policy of the Palestinian Arab leaders had been to hold fast to the soil of Palestine and to resist the eviction and displacement of Arab communities. (Benny Morris, p. 66)
  
• 
  Four Before & After Picture that Documents Palestinian Replacement
  "In Kafr Saba [early May 1948], the locals, under threat from Haganah attack, wanted to leave, but were ordered to stay by the ALA [Arab Liberation Army] garrison. According to Haganah sources, the ALA, with the population of Ramallah about to take flight, blocked all roads into the Triangle: "The Arab military leaders are trying to stem the flood of refugees and taking stern and ruthless measures against them." Arab radio broadcast, picked up by the Haganah, conveyed orders from the ALA to all Arabs who had left their homes to "return within three days. The commander of Ramallah assembled the mukhtars [official leaders] from the area" and demanded they strengthen morale in the their villages. The local ALA commanders turned back trucks which were coming to take families out of Ramallah. .... Haganah intelligence on May 6 reported that "Radio Jerusalem in its Arabic broadcast (14:00 hours, 5 May) and Damascus [Radio] (19:45 hours, 5 May) announced in the name of the Supreme Headquarters: 'Every Arab must defend his home and property .... Those who leave their places will be punished and their homes will be destroyed.'. The announcement was signed by [Fawzi al-]Qawukji." (Benny Morris, p. 68-69)
  
• 
  Who shall push who into the sea? Haifa's Palestinians are being loaded onto ships out of their homes, April 1948

  Similarly, Simha Flapan (the Israeli writer and politician) stated, according to a declassified Israeli document and to the November 6th, 1948 edition of the Israeli newspaper Davar:
  
  ". . . after April 1948, the flight acquired massive dimensions. Abd al-Rahman Azzam Pasha, secretary general of the Arab League, and King Abdullah both issued public calls to the Arabs not to leave their homes. Fawzi al-Qawukji, commander of the Arab Liberation Army, was give instructions to stop the flight by force and to requisition transport for this purpose. The Arab government decided to allow entry only to women and children and to send back all men of military age (between eighteen and fifty). Mohammad Adib al-Umri, deputy director of Ramallah broadcasting station, appealed to the Arabs to stop the flight from Jenin, Tulkarm, and other towns in the Triangle that were bombed by the Israelis. On May 10, Radio Jerusalem broadcasted orders on its Arab program from Arab commanders and AHC to stop the mass flight from Jerusalem and the vicinity." (Simha Flapan, p. 86-87)
  
  Here is an original letter sent by the Arab Higher Committee [AHC] on March 8, 1948, urging the Egyptian government to deny entry for the Palestinian refugees unless in emergencies.

• David Ben-Gurion: we're the aggressors; Arabs defend themselves. (Righteous Victims, p. 652)
  "The various National Committees issued bans on flight. The Ramle National Committee set up pickets at the exits to the town to prevent Arabs departing. The inhabitants of the villages east of Majdal (Beit Daras, the Sawafirs, ..etc) were warned not to allow in with their belongings. On 15 May [1948], Faiz Idris, AHC's "inspector for public safety," issued ordered to militiamen to help the invading Arab armies and to fight against " the Fifth column and the rumor-mongers, who are causing the flight of the Arab population" (Benny Morris, p. 69)
  
• Abla Mohamad Daoud Dajani outside here families' looted house in Baq'ah neighborhood - Jerusalem. Click the image for more such pictures that document Palestinians' dispossession.
  "On 10-11 May [1948], the AHC [Arab Higher Committee] called on officials, doctors, and engineers who had left the country to return on 14-15 May, repeating the call, warned the the officials who did not return would lose their" moral right to hold these administrative jobs in the future." Arab governments began to bar entry to the refugee -as happened, for example, on the Lebanese border in the middle of May." (Benny Morris, p. 69)
  
• 'The fall of Safad and the flight of its inhabitants shocked the [Palestinian] Arab villagers of the Hula Valley, to the north. [Yegal] Allon launched a psychological warfare campaign ("If you don't flee immediately, you will all be slaughtered, your daughters will be raped," are the like), and almost all the villagers fled to Lebanon and Syria.' (Righteous Victims, p. 213)
  
• 
  Who shall push who into the sea? Haifa's Palestinians are being loaded onto ships out of their homes, April 1948
  According to a Jewish Agency's Arab section report from January 3, 1948, at the beginning of the flight:
  
  "The Arab exodus from Palestine continues, mainly to the countries of the West. Of late, the Arab Higher Executive has successfully scrutinized those leaving for Arab countries in the Middle East." Before the declaration of the "Jewish state," the Arab League's political committee, meeting in Sofar, Lebanon, recommended that the Arab states " the doors to . . . women and children and old people if events in Palestine make it necessary." (Simha Flapan, p. 85)

Tantura-Haifa, May 1948, Note how men, women & children were separated just before the massacre

Professor Erich Fromm, a noted Jewish writer, social psychologist, and thinker, has this to say on the Zionist argument that the Arab refugees left of their own accord:

"It is often said that the Arabs fled, that they left the country voluntarily, and that they therefore bear the responsibility for losing their property and their land. It is true that there are some instances (in Rome and in France during the Revolutions) when enemies of the state were proscribed and their property confiscated. But in general international law, the principle holds true that no citizen loses his property or his rights of citizenship; and the citizenship right is de facto a right to which the Arabs in Israel have much more legitimacy than Jews. Just because the Arabs fled? Since when is that punishable by confiscating of property and by being barred from returning to the land on which a people's forefathers have lived for generations? Thus, the claim of the Jews to the land of Israel cannot be a realistic political claim. If all nations would suddenly claim territories in which their forefathers had lived two thousand years ago, this world would be a madhouse."

Dr. Fromm goes on to say:

"I believe that, politically speaking, there is only one solution for Israel, namely, the unilateral acknowledgment of the obligation of state toward the Arabs; not to use it as a bargaining of the Israeli state to its former inhabitants of Palestine." (Bitter Harvest p. 95; printed in Jewish Newsletter on Feb. 9th, 1959)

Faluja-Gaza, 1949, Ethnically Cleansed Palestinians on their way to Hebron

Further proof of ethnic cleansing (as if more evidence is needed) comes from Glubb Pasha, the British officer of the Jordanian army during the 1948 war, who was on the spot at the time and, therefore, was in a position to know what was going on. He said:

"The story which Jewish publicity at first persuaded the world to accept , that the [Palestinian] Arab refugees left voluntarily, is not true. Voluntary emigrants do not leave their homes with only the clothes they stand in. People who decided to leave house do not do so in such a hurry that they lose other members of their family -- husband losing sight of his wife, or parents of their children. The fact is that the majority left in panic flight, to escape massacre. They were in fact helped on their way by the occasional massacres--not of very many at a time, but just enough to keep them running." (Bitter Harvest, p. 95)

Who shall push who into the sea? Haifa's Palestinians are being loaded onto ships out of their homes, April 1948

As Moshe Sharett was ending his career in the mid-1950s, he concluded that Israel cannot be ruled without deceit as if it's essential for the Jewish state's survival. He wrote just before resigning:

"I have learned that the state of Israel cannot be ruled in our generation without deceit and adventurism. These are historical facts that cannot be altered. . . In the end, history will justify both the stratagems and deceit and the acts of adventurism. All I know is that I, Moshe Sharett, am not capable of them, and I am therefore unsuited to lead this country" (Simha Flapan, p. 52-53). In other words, what Moshe Sharett is saying is that the "Jewish state" is incapable of surviving without lying to its citizens and the rest of the world; in fact it has been national security for the "Jewish state" to do so. This form of carefully crafted deception and lies is known in Israel by its Hebrew name: The art of Hasbarah.

Sadly, Jews, between all people, have six million reasons not to do such acts. For Nakba to happen by those representing "the Jews" three years after Shoah ended is the best proof that the "never again" slogan is a ruse; this slogan has been used as smokescreen (by Jews and Europeans alike) to mask shameful war crimes from day one!

Just in case we failed to make our case (that ethnic cleansing is intrinsic to Zionism), we urge you to watch Professor John Mearsheimer making our case in under a minute:

Adolf Eichmann & company coined a special Gold Medallion in honor of the Nazis' Haavara relationship with Zionists! When he visited Palestine in 1937, was he there to meet with Mufti Haj Amin? or to coordinate with Haganah?

Finally, it must be emphasized that Israel tried Adolf Eichmann for atrocities committed as a Nazi leader; it included charges of forcible expulsion (ethnic cleansing), which were classified as war crimes and crimes against humanity. It's ironic how often Israelis and Zionists are selective in the interpretation of war crimes against humanity in a way that fits their political agenda.

Related Links

• Playlist of Short Clips: The most moral army is documenting itself while ethnically cleansing North Gaza and Khan Younis of its Palestinian population (A MUST WATCH)
• Short Clip: President Truman explains Nakba and Americans' role in making it possible in 50 seconds. Duration: 50 sec
• Gallery: Hundreds of pictures showing how Zionist Jewish forces are ethnically cleansing Palestinians.
• Gallery: Hundreds of pictures showing Zionist Jews looting Palestinian properties.
• Video: US Media's Gaza Coverage Hits Dismal New Low (11 minutes) A must-watch, see for yourself how US media is engaged in covering up Nakba and watering down Israeli wae crimes
• Jewish Current: A Jewish Case for Palestinian Refugee Return By Peter Beinart
• The Ethnic Cleansing Of Palestine By Ilan Pappe (PDF)
• Zionist Quotes: "Transfer" (Ethnic Cleansing)
• Video: The Land Speaks Arabic
• Zionist Quotes: LOOTING, Plunder, & Destruction
• Listen to an interview with the former Israeli Foreign Minister (Shlomo Ben-Ami) admitting that it is a concocted myth that Palestinians willingly left their homes, farms and businesses during the 1948 war (starting from minute 49:20).
• In Search of Palestine - Edward Said's Return Home (BBC)
• Ha'aretz: It took a village: Haganah collected detailed intelligence information about hundreds of Arab villages
• Short Clip: Chines Gen-Z youngsters explain Nakba in less than 45 seconds  Duration: 42 sec
• Short Clip: Ilan Pappé explains psychopathic delusions of Zionists who've no connection to Jews of the Bible and invented a doctrine of a master race of chosen people who will rule over the Earth. Hitler's model for Nazism he stole from the Zionists #ZionismExplained  Duration: 2 min 23 sec
• Ha'artz: Ben-Gurion's Dark Side By Gideon Levy
• Washington Times: When Israel expelled Palestinians
• Zionism, Antisemitism, and the People of Palestine By Noel Ignatiev
• Israeli textbook offers Palestinian view
• Cleansing Jaffa: Detailed eyewitness account By Shukri Salameh
• Video: An Israeli's eye witness account proving how Palestinians were ethnically cleansed out of their homes, farms, and businesses
• This land was theirs By Hannah Mermelstein (Jewish American)
• Ha'aretz Daily: Survival of the fittest, an interview with Benny Morris
• Testimony of Amnon Neumann, a 948 Palmach soldier describing the occupation of the Negev villages Duration: 13 min 53 sec