Essay on the Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Crisis

Introduction

The war of 1948 was between the Arabs and the Jews in Palestine. This happened because the United Nations wanted to resettle the Jew immigrants into Palestine and give them a new state that they will have to share with the Arabs. According to Efraim (2000 p.30), he says that the Arabs had started evacuating their loved ones from Haifa to other Arab countries as there were rumors that disturbances were near after the British Mandate was over. As more Arabs acted on the assumptions of nearing violence, the Arab leader was preparing to attack the newly formed Jewish state with an aim to destroy it before it has a chance to thrive.

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Benny (1948 p.98) talks about how the expulsion of the Arabs from Palestine led to the death of many people especially during the curfew. According to the book, we are informed that as the Arabs were being escorted out of their homes; they were robbed off their jewelry, money, and other valuables by the Jewish soldiers. In doing this, the refugees did not have any means of supporting themselves and were going to be a burden to the other Arab nations. During the expulsion, the soldiers were being ordered to separate the able-bodied men from the women and children and hold them as prisoners. These individuals were living under unhealthy conditions with inadequate food, water, and proper healthcare.

Back in Palestine, old men, the disabled and young children who were Arabs were left behind by their loved ones as they fled from the war. These people had to be fed by the Jews even though they were considered outcasts since all the Arabs who fled their homes were not allowed to return even after the war. This is because the Arabs failed to sign a truce with the Jews to cohabitate in the same region (Efraim 2000 p.32). Other rumors came about claiming that the Jewish group called the 'Jewish Propaganda Blitz' had planned to scare the Arabs away though there is no concrete evidence of this being true.

An article was written by Avi (1995 p. 288) mainly talks about the debate on the birth of the Palestinian Refugee Crisis. In the book, she talks about how the old history differs from the new one in regards to the birth of the Palestinian Refugee Crisis. In the old history, the book talks about how the Arabs lost the war to the Jews when the Arabs had planned to attack the new state and destroy it at birth. After the Arabs lost the war, they were encouraged by their leaders to flee from their homes and relocate to other Arab countries even though the Jews requested them to stay back and agree to live in peace and harmony.

We are informed that the literature was not written by professional historians but rather by soldiers, participants, biographers, and many other individuals hence "it is not history in the proper sense of the world" as the writer says. Another feature of the old history is that the literature is very short on the political analysis of the war, but it has very long archives of the military operations. Third, the literature maintains that the conduct of Israel was influenced by having high moral standards than her enemies.

Over the years, new books have been published that challenge the aspects of the old history. Avi (1995 p. 288) goes ahead and lists some books that exposed myths that were forged by the Israelites during the building of the nation, and they were the foundation of their policies and propaganda. Books such as The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem 1947-1949 by Benny Morris and Avi's own Collusion across the Jordan: King Abdullah, the Zionist Movement and the Partition of Palestine are considered as new historians as they concentrate on dismissing things that were written in the past.

On the Arabs side, there is very little access to the 1948 war materials that are allowed, and this makes it hard for the researchers. Some have argued that there is no particular account of the war let alone what happened behind the scenes on the Arabs perspective. Arguments that have arisen with this debate is that new historiography is politically motivated, and aims at delegitimizing old history and Israel. Another attack is that new historiography has serious professional flaws, and partly has defective evidence.

Teveth, Ben-Gurion's biographer even supported his attacks with evidence from Benny Morris's book but failed to find any evidence about the new historiography being politically motivated. The weakness of this argument is that he is unable to differentiate between history and propaganda.

The findings of the new historiography were responded to by the scholars with enormous patience. The scholars admitted that Israel did exile the Palestinians and the country even regretted that she did not get into exile more Palestinians. This is because they are the ones who started the war against Israel.

In my opinion, the Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Crisis is full of different literature written by various historical writers. Some of the literature contains bias and lack evidence as seen in the book written by Nur Masalha, A Critique of Benny Morris who talks about how Benny Morris writes his books. The writer lists five things that Benny does, and they include misinterpretation of documents, withholding evidence, distortion, rewrite original documents, and resorts to partial quotes.

Although there may be critiques about how some of the literature is written, all of the books that talk about the Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Crisis have the same story about how the war started with the United Nations wanting to separate the Palestine country into two parts. One of the parts will be a Jewish state and the other an Arab state. Since the Arabs did not want the Jews in their country, they decided to attack them, and they lost the war which forced them to go into exile.

Conclusion

The birth of the Palestinian Refugee Crisis teaches us about the rich history of the olden times. The crisis also helps us to understand how the Palestinians came to be in exile for all those years. Also, the crisis has enabled historians to learn about how the country Israel came to be. The Palestinian Refugee Crisis has been faced with numerous debates about its ethnicity. Some scholars say that the old history was not well explained and the Israelites created some of the information and they stuck with it even if it never happened in real life. Some scholars criticize the articles written by the new historiographers claiming them to be politically motivated and they fail to provide proof to support their claims.

I agree with the Jews for exiling the Arabs from their homes after the war since they instigated the war. They were given a choice to stay and live in peace with the Jews but they declined the offer and decided to go away. The Jews won the war and acted in a mature manner by offering refuge to the old, children, and disabled where they asked them to go back to Israel and be looked after despite the fact that the other Arabs decided not to return.

Works Cited

Shlaim, Avi. "The debate about 1948." International Journal of Middle East Studies 27.3 (1995): 287-304.

Morris, Benny. Revisiting the Palestinian exodus of 1948. na, 1948.

Karsh, Efraim. "Were the Palestinians expelled?." Commentary 110.1 (2000): 29.

Karsh, Efraim. "Benny Morris and the Reign of Error." Middle East Quarterly (1999).

Masalha, Nur. "A critique of Benny Morris." Journal of Palestine Studies 21.1 (1991): 90-97.