The Truth About Why and How Many Arabs Became Refugees in Palestine

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                 

"The fact that there are these refugees is the direct consequence of the action of the Arab States in opposing PARTITION and the JEWISH STATE.  The Arab States agreed upon this policy unanimously and they must share in the solution of the problem."  Emil Ghoury, September 6, 1948 to the Beirut Daily Telegraph.  "(Arabic: إميل الغوري‎, alternatively spelled Emil Ghoury) (1907–1984), a Palestinian Christian, was Secretary of the Arab Higher Committee (AHC), the official leadership of the Arabs in the British Mandate of Palestine. He was also the general secretary of the Palestine Arab Party.

In May 1947 Ghouri was nominated by the AHC as a member of its delegation to represent it before the United Nations in its special session for Palestine. 

In 1947 there were about 1 million Arabs in all of western Palestine. After the War of Independence that started on November 29, 1947 when Arabs responded with violence to the UN resolution on Palestine and the partion, the war lasted until the signing of the Armistice Agreements in 1949.  Then there were only 140,000 Arabs in Israel.  The total number of Arabs who left and became refugees couldn't have been more than some 420,000.  (p. 22) 

The partition plan had been a result of military operation and was different from the original scheme;  Jewish Jerusalem and the Jerusalem Corridor, western Galilee including Nazareth, Jaffa and certain sections of the Negev were incorporated into Israel.  The Arabs refused the deal so the proposed Arab state never came into being.  The  Arab areas were taken over by Jordan and Egypt, and a recommended economic union was not implemented, most likely due to the immediate attack on Israel as an answer to the partition.  All this had been started as far back as 1937 by the Peel Commission.  10 years of planning didn't get the result because the Arabs had wanted more, actually, as we have discovered later,  the whole state of Israel.  

Heads of state later inflated numbers; even Emil Ghoury was caught doing that, but records show what original facts were.  

Nearly half of the refugees were in the Gaza Strip; 155,000 out of 367,000.  The control of the Strip was in the hands of Egypt.  Jordan, Lebanon and Syria never restricted the movement of refugees or stopped them from trying to rehabilitate themselves as long as they didn't give up their refugee status.  Egypt, however, maintained a strict separation between "refugees" and the population of the area.  

This remained a refugee problem with a difference. Many of the Arabs who were in western Palestine had their neighborhoods annexed by Jordan in 1950.  In Syria and Lebanon the refugees took their support into their own hands and became fairly self supporting while continuing to supplement their earnings with free food, free medical supplies and shelter provided by UNRWA.  Those who were either unwilling or unable to work or who were forcibly prevented as those were in Gaza numbered less than 400,000 on the eve of the Six Day War, June 4, 1967.  The war lasted from June 5th to June 11th.  

I note this has been a huge problem today for Syrian refugees from their own Civil War with Assad.  Those that fled to Egypt had been promised refugee status by Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood in order to garner more votes for himself, but he was kicked out and the refugees could then no longer sign up as refugees.  Some didn't even want to sign on as a refugee because then their movement was curtailed.  They would then be forced into refugee camps.  Those who didn't sign up were able to try to find jobs, though they were as hard to find as jobs are in the USA today.  With a Syrian passport they were only able to travel to Muslim countries.  Now UNRWA is faced with Palestinian refugees from 1948, the longest period of time for anyone to be on refugee status, and the newer refugees from today's wars in the Middle East.

In 1952, Jordan, Egypt and Syria all signed agreements with UNRWA to execute a plan for integration which was to cost the UN $200 million.  It was adopted by the General Assembly of the UN on January 26, 1952.  They never took any steps to implement the plan.  Not one single project was ever started.  The UN Secretary General at that time had been Norway's Trygve Lie.( b: July 6, 1896-d: December 30, 1968 at age 72.)    "As Secretary General, Lie supported the foundations of Israel.  His passionate support for Israel included passing secret military and diplomatic information to Israeli officials."  Being he was the first to this post, and there were many other problems in the world at the same time, this was left on the table. 

                                                                                   

The land of Palestine had been promised through the English Balfour Doctrine to become the Jewish Homeland, but before the ink on the paper was dry, England had given away 80% of the land to become Transjordan-later just Jordan-to Abdullah of Saudi Arabia who had been cheated out of his kingship there.  His reward for fighting was to be King of Transjordan.                                             

He was the one in the British made movie, Lawrence of Arabia,  who joined up with the British to fight against the Germans in the First World War (1914-1917).  The movie had Peter O'Toole as TE Lawrence, Alec Guinness as Prince  Feisal, and Omar Sharif playing as Sherif Ali, a fictional character in the movie.  I thought he was Abdullah. ( Between 1916 to 1918, working with the British guerrilla leader T. E. Lawrence, Abdullah played a key role as architect and planner of the Great Arab Revolt against Ottoman rule, leading guerrilla raids on garrisons).  Emir Feisal was the one brilliant Arab leader who was for Jews creating a state.  He hoped his own Arab people would benefit from them as they were skilled people who could uplift their status, and after all, they were cousins who also believed in one G-d. In real life,  "Abdullah's relations with the British Captain T. E. Lawrence were not good, and as a result, Lawrence spent most of his time in the Hejaz serving with Abdullah's brother Faisal who commanded the Arab Northern Army."

Out of the 20% left which is western Palestine, the Israelis are expected to allow enough land to become a Muslim -Only -Palestine for the Arab refugees.  Other Arabs, 1.7 million, are already full citizens of Israel who didn't flee from the Jews at the sign of Arab attack, but stayed and held onto their homes regardless.  Those who became refugees had been promised by their Arab leaders not only their own homes back but those of the Jews also, so wound up with nothing.  Here, greed (coveting) did not pay off at all.  

Resource: Battleground by Samuel Katz, p. 22, 26-27, etc.   

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emil_Ghuri

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056172/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_of_Arabia_(film)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdullah_I_of_Jordan
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia on partition

Israel's Flood of Jewish Immigrants From Arab Countries

Nadene Goldfoot
Why are there still Arab refugees in camps all over the Middle East since 1948 living on the the money from the UN?  Why haven't they become citizens of the Arab country that they came from?  It's been 64 years.

In May 1948  Israel was created through the United Nations with 650,000 people for a Jewish Homeland   It had been 2,000 years that they had gone without a homeland of their own.   Jews had been suffering from anti-Semitic activities since 70 CE through the present time with pogroms in Russia and the Holocaust that killed 6 million of them.   Jews were forced out of their Middle East homes and had to emigrate to Israel as soon as it was created.  Given a choice, they might have wanted to wait for the fighting to stop, first.

Besides fighting for their life the minute they announced the recognition of their state, they had to deal with immigration, which meant housing, feeding and clothing people coming into the country.  They received refugees from the Holocaust in Europe.  Many were the remnants of the Jewish communities in Poland, Bulgaria and Czechoslovakia.  They came on ships.

Entire Jewish communities came from Arab countries including 121,000 out of the 130,000 Jews of Iraq; 44,000 out of the 45,000 Jews of Yemen of which Ofra Haza, the singer, was one; and  30,500 out of 35,000 Jews of Libya.   Often tents had to be put up for a temporary housing.

Between 1955 and 1957 there were 165,000 Jews that came from Morocco, Tunisia, Poland and other countries.  A large number of Jews from Romania arrived in Israel under a family reunification plan.    Between 1961 and 1964 there were 215,000 Jews that came, mainly from Eastern Europe and North Africa.

Since the Six-Day War in 1967, there has been a new wave of immigration, mainly from countries in North and South America, Western Europe and the Soviet Union.  By the end of 1972, about 200,000 immigrants had arrived.  Russian immigrants were settled on the Sinai Desert and Ethiopians were settled in Safed, which was cold in the winter.  It all depended on where housing existed.

This ended the life of ancient Jewish communities of Iraq, Yemen, Egypt and Libya who all had a history of of living there for the past 2,000 years. They were the Sefardi and Mitzraim Jews.   They had lived as 2nd class citizens with rules and regulations to follow because they were Jewish.  They had been held back and came with a completely different culture from the Eastern European Ashkenazi Jews.  That was an adjustment that Jews of Israel had to make.  Altogether nearly 700,000 immigrants, almost half the total -came as destitute refugees from Moslem countries.  That number matches that of the Palestinian Arabs who became refugees in 1948.    Israel had to manage 1,400,000 immigrants over their first 24 years along with the wars of :

1. November 29, 1947- 1949:   War of Independence: Arabs responded with war to the UN resolution on Palestine and continued until the Armistice Agreement  By April 1948 the land was invaded from Syria, Lebanon and Egypt to reinforce local Arabs attacking communities and blocking main roads.  Then on May 14, 1948 Israel was invaded by the armies of Egypt, Transjordan, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and a Saudi-Arabian contingent.  The next day the head of the Arab League,  Azzam Pasha,  proclaimed from Cairo that "This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and Crusades."  They're still in the attempt.
2. October 29 1956-November 5, 1956:   The Sinai War (Suez crisis) 
3. June 4-11, 1967:  The Six Day War
4. August 7,1968- August 7-8, 1970  The War of Attrition
5. October 6-25,  1973 The Yom Kippur War

There was an armistice and a cease fire between wars.  Even times between wars were filled with clashes along the frontier lines.  Arab terrorists, known as fidayun who were supported by Arab governments, made forays into Israel committing acts of terrorism and sabotage.

Several Eastern European countries also saw the removal of the remnant of Jews not killed in the Holocaust like Poland, Hungary and Romania where Jews had lived for centuries.  Today only a small number of Jews are there.  As a result, most Jews today live in Israel with 6 million and the United States with 6 million and 2 million more scattered through the world in places like France, England, South Africa, Canada and such.  Many from Russia were able to finally leave Russia well into the 1980's and had not been allowed to practice any religion at all.  In 1980 I was in Hebrew classes in Haifa with many Russian teachers, making up a class of 40.  I must admit that they were far more capable than I of learning a new language.

Talk about a melting pot!  This was more than the vast USA had ever thought of handling.  All these people coming in this short period of time and all speaking different languages with one common denominator, Hebrew.  The problem was that they all used it in synagogue services but not for daily communication.  Ulpans had to be set up where they went to school and learned to speak Hebrew.  Immigrants keep coming in.  Wars keep rising.  Remnants of the 10 Lost Tribes of Israel are reuniting and coming to Israel.

My 2nd cousin, Stanley Goldfoot, graduated from a high school Yeshiva in Johannesburg, South Africa and boarded a ship in 1933 at age 18 for "Palestine."  In the middle of the ocean a swastika flag went up, and he didn't know if he'd make it or not.  When he did, he was greeted by members of the Stern Group just like in the movie, "Exodus" starring Paul Newman, Eva Marie Saint and Sal Mineo.  I believe Sal was playing the part of a Stern Group member. The only difference was that Stanley was very tall and Sal was short.    He was immediately indoctrinated and given work to do.  He became a news reporter, as he had a gift of writing, and  somehow wound up in prison in Acco, having been arrested by the British.  Stanley wound up finally living in Jerusalem and was one of the fighters for Israel, having served as the group's Chief of Intelligence.

Resource: Facts About Israel 1973 booklet published by the division of Information, Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Jerusalem, Israel.
Genesis 1948 by Dan Kurzman

Gaza's Weapons Store is Sudan: Mysterious Attack On It

Nadene Goldfoot
Sudan, in Africa, is the 8th largest Muslim-majority country in the world with 43,939,598 people who happen to have 70% of the population as Sunni Muslims following the Maliki fiqh like most African states.  Islam is not considered the state religion, though.  Way back in 1885, the Mahdi "compelled" Jews and Christians there to convert to Islam.  Sudan had a Jewish community  dating from the end of the 19th century, but few if no Jews live there today. In 1991 Sudan became the vanguard of Islam revolution  on the African continent with Hasan al Turabi's help.  From 1992-1996 he invited  al-Qaeda which was  then based here.

After a coup d'etat by Colonel Omar al- Bashir who executed it for the sake of Muslim values, bin Laden helped Sudan by setting up businesses and camps.  According to Pakistani Ijaz, the Sudanese government offered Madeline Albright chances to arrest bin laden which she wanted to do, but Susan Rice and Richard Clarke were against the idea.

Weapons have been going from the Sudan, defined as a hostile state by Israel,  to Gaza to use against Israel.  Sudan's government have accused Israel of attacking their convoys in 2009 and last December 2011.  Last Spring they accused Israel of targeting a car carrying a high-ranking Hamas official there.  It has become a transit spot for weapons smuggling, going through Egypt to get to Gaza.  Also,Sudan  has become a center for al-Qaida terrorists.

Sudan is threatening to strike Israel over a recent bombing on Wednesday of a weapons factory in Khartoum. Two were killed in the attack.   By doing this they are admitting to making weapons.  They say they have the right to strike back, remarked their Information Minister Ahmed Belal Osman on Wednesday. They immediately asked the US Security Council to condemn Israel.  Their complaint cited that the attack was a violation of peace and security.  How do you like that?

To top it off, our present US government thinks that Sudan is a partner in the War on Terror and thinks they cooperate with us.

Because of the violence in Sudan, 2 million people were displaced and 450,000 have died.  By 2004 the American Jewish World Service was there helping out in camps in Sudan and Chad.  A complication has been the tens of thousands of refugees that swarmed into Israel from 2005 on  because of all the fighting from a civil war going on there. Refugee status has been given to 650.   In 2008 4,000 infiltrated into Israel through Egypt of which 1,200 alone came from Darfur.  The rest of the refugees were Christians from southern Sudan. Not all were found to be political refugees.   The flood has continued but in February of this year, the conditions changed for the better in Sudan so that Israel told them they must repatriate,  go back home.  Israel would give each $1,300 and a plane ticket back or risk being deported. Most have been refusing to leave.  This is certainly a situation that Israel hadn't thought of in the midst of all their other threats to their existence.

Resource:  The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
http://www.jta.org/news/article/2012/10/25/3110286/sudan-threatens-to-strike-back-at-israel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Qaeda, Sudan section
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/10/25/iran-al-qaeda-and-obamas-farcical-blood-on-his-hands-defense-policy/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rebecca-tinsley/our-friends-and-enemies-i_b_1947510.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudanese_refugees_in_Israel
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4233020,00.html
http://ajws.org/where_we_work/africa/sudan/
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=255335

Ganging up on Israel

Nadene Goldfoot

Europe, Russians and Palestinians are ganging up on Israel and the USA. Saeb Erekat, Phd, an important Palestinian negotiator who lectures at An Najah U. in Nablus in Political Science, is pushing Israel to accept 7 million Palestinians in the "Right of Return" deal of Arabs who fled the area in 1948 when 7 Arab armies attacked Israel when it first declared itself a state. The fact that the number has gone from around 600,000 to 7 million does not deter him. Nor does the fact that they were not forced to leave by the Israelis but told to do so by their Arab leaders. Nor does he ever bring up the fact that a like number of Jews were forced out of the Arab countries and had to flee to Israel minus all their possessions. This is part of history that the Arabs want to forget about.

This admirer of Arafat has credentials in "Peace." How can he think that what he is demanding is a peaceful action? I guess it depends on what side of the fence you sit on as to how you view the world, no matter what you have studied in college. It's all how to use your learning to suit your personal needs.

Not only do they want to flood the country with Arabs, but they want all of Jerusalem for themselves. One can see why Netanyahu expects to have a pow wow with Abbas, even though Abbas is threatening to go to the UN to declare Palestine a state. Perhaps this is why Abbas is not bothering to come to the table. What he is demanding is out of line and he knows it. I think he is even embarrassed to demand in person such things. It's like the Middle Eastern way of shopping. One asks for a very high price and then both negotiate down to an amount that both can live with. I see Abbas starting at a ridiculous price that cannot even be considered.

http://www.debka.com/article/20451/

http://www.nad-plo.org/main.php?view=nav_about-us2
http://www.palestinehistory.com/biography/palestine/palbio47.htm

Isrmail Haniya's Chutzpah

Nadene GoldfootI have never read such Chutzpah from Hamas in my life as what is found in the reference below.

In 2006, Abbas was defeated in an "election" and the Hamas terrorists won in Gaza. By June 2007 they forced out Abbas who found refuge in Samaria.

Hamas terrorists are about to celebrate their 23rd anniversary of the birth of their group, said Ismail Haniya. They repeated their aim to recover all of Palestine from the Mediterranean Sea to Jordan". Ismail will accept a peace deal with Israel only if the Palestinian people approve it in a referendum, he says. However, in the same breath, he says they will cede nothing. They will not ever recognize Israel. Their intention is to make all of Jerusalem their capital of Palestine. They will have no Jewishness in Jerusalem.

As if that will ever happen, they also demand a solution to the Arab refugees. Of course he wants all of them to return and live there.

The author of this article sees a shift from never accepting a peace treaty to an acceptance of one. I say, look at his stipulation and demands. He's asking Israel to give up as if it is a beaten country. He's asking for the moon! This is not going for any sort of peace treaty, but it's a statement of absolute war! Nothing has changed Gaza's stand of attacking Israel.

Mahmud al Zahar, another Hamas terrorist leader, showed his distain and hatred of Israel by burning the Israeli flag at a rally in Gaza City. At the Jebaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza, they also celebrated wildly at another rally. Masked terrorists marched in the Nusseirat refugee camp's rally in Central Gaza.

I note that these people have remained in refugee camps willingly or by the directions of their leaders since 1948. They have continued to be surviving on the assistance of the U.N. They are people on assistance for the longest time for the U.N. The aim was not to get on with their life after making such a blunder as to follow their leaders in the first place, but to remain a pitiless group used as a weapon against Israel. For 62 years these refugees have not worked, have not tried to make something out of Gaza, but have become fodder for the terrorists. Keeping them helpless and angry has been a campaign of hatred against Israel.

Now I see that the younger generation of terrorists have such radical hate for Israel without even knowing where it has come from, other than their teachings in their Koran. For it's not what Israel has done to them, but what their leaders teach them that they are completely immersed in Jihad.

http://www.demotix.com/hub/hamas-celebration
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20101213/wl_mideast_afp/israelpalestiniansconflicthamasanniversary

Palestine Refugee Problem, Not Israel's

Nadene Goldfoot

I remember what propaganda is from WWII. That is exactly what's happening right now about Israel. The big lie that young people are swallowing is that the Arabs were forced to leave Israel in 1948 at the creation of our state. This is a huge lie.

Shmuel Katz, or rather, Samuel Katz, is the author of Battleground; fact and fantasy in Palestine. I read this book ages ago to be knowledgable about the actual events. Shmuel was a member of the first knesset and died in May 2008. He was a biographer and essayist.

The period of 1948 was well documented by many reporters. No one spoke about Arabs being forced to leave by Jews. Neither did any Arab spokesmen comment about such a thing. Why did they leave? George Hakim, Greek bishop of the Galilee told a Beirut newspaper that the refugees would return in a week or two because their leaders promised them that the Arab armies woud crush the "Zionist gangs" very quickly and there was no need for panic or fear of a long exile. Iraq's prime minister, Nuri Said said, "We will smash the country with our guns and obliterate every place the Jews seek shelter in. The Arabs should conduct their wives and children to safe areas until the fighting has died down." An Arab commented in the Jordanian newspaper Al-Difaa, "The Arab governments told us, get out so that we can get in. So we got out, but they didn't get in."

No one expected the ragtag group of Jews to win, but they did! The fact that there are these refugees is the consequence of the action of the Arab states in opposing partition and the state of Israel. The Arab states must share in the solution of this situation and they never have. Instead they have used it as a ploy against Israel. The only state that has taken in refugees has been Jordan, and that was not an easy feat for them.

There were two bad incidents; at Ramle and Lod where Arab civilians were driven out of their homes by Israeli soldiers. At the village of Deir Yassin, we had a massacre created by novice Israelis fighting for their lives, also. That was it during the whole period.

Arabs evacuated numbered 420,000, confirmed by the UN and Arab sources as well as by Jews. The UN provided them with food, shelter, clothing and medical assistance. Because of this, Arabs from all over the area arrived for the handout. The UN had no way to identify people. Everyone signed as refugees to get the free aid. By December 1948 the relief agency was feeding 750,000 and by July 1949 they were feeding a million. Then the Red Cross International Committee joined the group and recognized any destitute Arab in Palestine as a refugee, so 100,000 were added to the list. Now we have a 3rd generation of Arabs all together as "victims of Israeli aggression" and demanding the right of return."

The Arab invasion of Israel at its creation of May 1948 was a crime. It was unprovoked except by its creation by the U.N. 6,000 Israeli citizens were killed then. Thousands were injured. Arabs have not taken any responsibility. Asking Israel to discuss or pay for the refugee problem is Hutzpa.

Resource: The Great Refugee Scam by Shmuel Katz

Battleground Fact and Fantasy in Palestine by Samuel Katz