"Israel is so racist that it does not expel people of other faiths from Israel."
My response to the above, at least in respect to the early years (1947-48) is as follows-
UN Resolution 194 [December 1948]
"That the [Palestinian] refugees be allowed to return to their homes and live in peace with their neighbours. [They] should be permitted to do so at the earliest practical date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for the loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good."
"An Irish journalist found not a single appeal or order broadcast on radio from Arab leaders [asking Palestinians to leave Israel in 1948]. However, evidence was found that Zionist stations broadcast in Arabic urging Palestinians to leave their homes." (The Spectator, 12th May 1961)
On 20th May 1948 the UN appointed Count Folke Bernadotte as mediator between Palestinians and Israelis. He made the following remarks-
"It would be an offence against the principle of elementary justice if these innocent [Palestinian] victims of the conflict were denied the right to return to their homes while Jewish immigrants flow into Palestine, and indeed at least offer the threat of permanent replacement of Arab refugees who have been rooted in the land for centuries." (16th September 1948)
Bernadotte was assassinated on 17th September 1948 (the following day) by the Stern Gang, a Jewish terrorist organisation. The person in charge of the killing, Nathan Friedman, was elected to the Knesset (Israeli Parliament) in 1950.
David Ben Gurion, the first Prime Minister of Israel wrote in 'rebirth and Destiny of Israel',
Until the British left, no Jewish settlement however remote was seized by the Arabs, while the Haganah [Jewish terrorists] captured many Arab positions and liberated Tiberias, Haifa, Jaffa and Safad'.
The following places in 1947-8 witnessed organised killings of Palestinians by Jewish terrorists.
Village of Yehiday, Jerusalem and Jaffa (13th December 1947) 3 separate attacks led to 19 Palestinian civilians killed
Village of Khisas (18th December 1947) The Haganah drove through the village and using machine guns killed ten people.
Village of Qazaza (19th December 1947) Jewish terrorists blew up the home of an Arab killing five children.
Al Sheikh Village (1st January 1948) 200 Jewish terrorists armed with hand grenades and machine guns attacked the homes of Palestinians in the middle of the night killing 40 people, mostly women and children.
Village of Naser Al-Din (13th-14th April 1948). Two Jewish terrorist groups Lehi [led by future Israeli PM Menachem Begin] and Irgun entered the village dressed as Arabs and when the Palestinians went to greet them, the two groups opened fire and killed virtually the entire population there. All houses were burnt to the ground.
Village of Beit Daras (21st May 1948) Jewish soldiers from the newly created Israeli Defence Forces [IDF] surrounded the village and seeing women and children trying to leave opened fire until they were all killed.
Dahmash Masjid (11th July 1948) Moshe Dayan, a celebrated Israeli soldier and later a government minister, occupied Lydia and told the Palestinians via loudspeakers that they should proceed to a certain masjid where they would be safe. As they did so, the Israelis opened fire killing 80-100 Palestinian civilians.
The Palestinian populations of Lydda and Ramle were later ordered to march out after they had been stripped of all personal belongings by the IDF.
Future Israeli PM, Yitzhak Rabin, then the Brigade Commander in charge that day, recorded that day-
'There was no way of avoiding the use of force and warning shots in order to make the inhabitants march ten to fifteen miles to the point where they met up with
the legion [Israeli soldiers].'
Most of the 60, 000 inhabitants of Lyda and Ramle came to refugee camps near Ramallah and around 350 lost their lives on the way through dehydration and sunstroke.
Village of Dawayma (29th October 1948). The following is a personal record by an Israeli soldier present at the village that day-. It reads-
"They killed between 80 to 100 Palestinian men, women and children. to kill children they fractured their heads with sticks. There was not one home left without a corpse...
One commander ordered a soldier to bring two women into a building he was about to blow up....
Another soldier prided himself on having raped a Palestinian woman before shooting her dead."
Other places where similar atrocities occurred included Acre, Beisan, Beersheba, Haifa, Jaffa and Jenin.
After the UN asked Israel to allow Palestinians to return to their homes, the Israeli government passed the 'absentee law' which allowed immigrant Jews to occupy the homes of those Palestinians who had been forced out. The law placed the onus on Palestinians to prove that they were not absent. Note it did not say to prove they had lived there, only that they had not left in the first place.
As mentioned in an earlier post, the 'Law of Return' (1950) gives automatic rights of citizenship to all Jews from anywhere across the globe to Israel, but denies the same right to those Palestinians who had lived there before the war ended. This also includes those Palestinians who could and did prove they were owners of property, land, deed, farms and other places in addition to living there as permanent residents.
Moshe Dayan, who as mentioned before, was present at the time wrote about the events and recorded the following-
"We came to this country which was already populated by Arabs, and we are establishing a Hebrew, that is a Jewish, state here....Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages... There is not a single community in the country that did not have a former Arab population." (Original Sins)
