The Truth About Palestinian Refugees

Nadene Goldfoot

1800's -Jews started returning to Eretz Israel and had to drain the land as so much was swampy. They planted eucalyptus trees to soak up the water. Trees are continuallyy being planted. Never has so much been done to such undeveloped impossible land. They've invented scientific ways of farming this impossible land which they now have passed on to other undeveloped countries.

1880-1947 Arabs came into Palestine from surrounding areas such as Greece and neighboring Arab areas seeking work with Jews who were building a country.

1945 End of World War II leaving about 100,000 Jewish refugees.
EXODUS by Leon Uris is a story about getting to Israel. It was also made into a movie. “Exodus” is the story of Kitty Fremont, a Christian nurse, and her love for Ari Ben Canaan, a leader of the Jewish underground set against the background of the struggle for a Jewish homeland in Israel. They meet when he comes aboard a ship filled with refugee Jewish children trying to run a British blockade to reach Palestine in order to organize a hunger strike.

1947 The United Nations partitioned mandated Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state. The Arabs rejected this. Israel is now a little smaller than New Jersey. Israel absorbed all Jewish refugees from WWII.

1948 Birth of Israel and immediate War of Independence: 7 Arab states started the war to drive Jews into the sea. They were Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Transjordan (now called Jordan).

200,000 to 570,000 to 630,000 Arabs left Palestine's area so they would not be in the way of the victorious Arab armies in their planned massacre of the Jewish defenders. Many were told by their leaders to leave.

Arab armies lost war; Arabs who fled did not return, also on advice of their leaders but settled in refugee camps. This was INTENTIONAL NOT TO BE ABSORBED OR INTEGRATED INTO ARAB LANDS. The lost war was used as a club against Israel.

They are the only refugee group in the world that has never been absorbed or integrated into their own people's lands.

British counted Arabs and kept the records. If Arabs had only been in Palestine for 2 years they were called "refugees". Most were new immigrants to Israel. Only a few had been their previously with any history, and then most had not owned land but had been more migratory.

Arab countries kicked out 700,000 Jews who came into Palestine-same number of Arabs who left. This number was more than Arabs who left Palestine.

160,000 Arabs stayed in Israel. Many of the successful Palestinian Arabs are the Christians who live in Haifa. They are not terrorists.

1949 Israel's border now left 9 miles between the eastern border and the Mediterranean Sea. The distance from Gresham to Portland's Ladd's Addition is about that. From my house in Gresham to SE 12th and Division is about 12 miles.

1956 The Suez War: Israel again attacked.

1967 Six Day War: Israel won again and gained the Gaza Strip, Sinai Peninsula and Golan Heights, repossessed the provinces of Judea and Samaria (The West Bank) and the eastern part of Jerusalem which had been occupied by the Jordanians 19 years earlier when they invaded Israel in 1948.

1973 Yom Kippur War: Egypt and Jordan, the closest Arab neighbors, begrudgingly accepted Israel's presence, much to the horror of their Arab brothers.

1979 Israel signed a peace treaty with Egypt returning the Sinai Desert to them

1980-1985 I moved to Israel. Two weeks before I moved, a rocket landed behind an apartment building in Safed " Zfat" in the upper Galilee where I was going to live.

1981-1982 Christian Lebanese were in trouble. Israel had good relations with them. Major Hadad, Christian leader, came to Israel for R&R to our hospital. We have agreement to care for his family. Arab income is the highest in Israel compared to the rest of the Arab world.
1982 Lebanon War: Lebanon Muslims had been attacking Northern Israel. Sharon of Israel had allowed Major Hadad's Christian Militia to go into the camps of Muslims and didn't know they meant to slaughter them. Sharon was held responsible. I lived very close to the action in Safed and witnessed our army going up the hill to Safed and how our army was deployed.

Israel has given the Palestinians most of the West Bank and autonomy under the Palestinian authority and has supplied their police and security forces with weapons. Sharon was Prime Minister of Israel but had a stroke, so Olmert took over. His convergence plan means the evacuation of tens of thousands of Jewish settlers from the West Bank and the establishment of new borders between Israel and the Palestinians by the year 2010. Olmert means to relocate isolated West Bank settlements in existing large settlement blocs closer to the pre-1967 border between Israel and the West Bank. 50,000 to 80,000 settlers will be affected in the move. This is to create a separation between Israelis and Palestinians with Israelis to the west of the barrier so that it's easier for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to defend. IF Israel does this alone, we would still need international approval for the new lines it sets on its own. This plan is different from Sharon's "Disengagement" as the scale is much larger.

The evacuation of Gaza of all Jews affected about 9,000 settlers. Olmert had to decide on either full withdrawal as Gaza had or continued presence as in the northern West Bank. A continued military presence in the evacuated area could make it easier to fight terror and to minimize firing of rockets across the border.

A one state solution was decided to be out of the question as the Palestinians would become a majority. We cannot allow a situation such as a terrorist government which rejects Israel like Hamas or a weak Palestinian leader like President Mahmoud Abbas. We need a clear-cut Jewish majority in a smaller Israel. Palestinians and the Arab states all strongly oppose the Convergence plan. They fear they could be marginalized and left facing a fait accompli which serves Israeli rather than their interests. Jordan and Egypt do not want war to come into their territories which might happen. Jordan's King Abdulla complained that the plan could sound the death knell for the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Settlers are strongly resisiting. The disengagement plan could cost Israel as high as $18 billion dollars.

2005 Israel gave up Gaza Strip. Terrorists have used it to fire Kassam rockets against Israel.

2006 On May 23, 33 visiting Oregonians were on a ridge overlooking the strip and witnessed an attack. Earlier that day the rockets had hit a school in Sderot, an Israeli town near the Gaza border. The classroom was empty because the children were in another room saying their morning prayers. Other rockets landed outside the town and two people were treated for shock. Israel did not initiate any attacks.

Palestinians are demanding a full right of return of Palestian refugees who have been living in refugee camps from 1948. They practice polygamy and have multiplied many times over. They want full control of East Jerusalem or now, all of Jerusalem.. They want the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. we keep making offers and they keep refusing but then asking for more.
2008 Operation Cast Lead War December 27th Israel attacked Gaza Hamas terrorists after years of being shelled by them. They previously warned them and the world what the results of their constant shelling would lead to. Southern Israel took thousands of rockets, especially the town of Sderot. Far more Palestinians died than Israelis. Again, this is being used against Israel who works at trying to protect it's people, both IDF and civilians. Thousands of Israelis now suffer from PTSD from the constant bombardment. This was inevidable war as the constant shelling had to be stopped by Israel. No American community could take such treatment for so long. One shelling would be sufficient anywhere else.