truth_seeker227@yahoo.com wrote:

Bernardz <Bernard_zzz@REMOVEhotmail.com>wrote:

pfrank@christfirst.com wrote:

The question remains: While the Germans are sorry, ashamed and repentant
of what they did to the Jews, why should Jews who are proud of having killed
the entire original population of what they call "the promised land" have
any regrets or inhibition of killing non-Jews, children included?

Which they would be if they had done anything like that!

The fact is that they have not done anything bad.

Anything?

Lydda death march fatalities: 335

The following was scanned from Benny Morris's: The Birth of the Palestinian
Refugee Problem, 1947-1949. ISBN # 0-521-33028-9

Evictions from Lydda-Ramle

Operation Dani was the linchpin of the "Ten Days." The aim was to relieve the
pressure on semi-besieged Jerusalem, secure the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem road and
neutralize the potential threat to Tel Aviv itself from the Arab Legion,
whose forward units, in Lydda and Ramle, were less than 20 kilometres from
the Yishuv's capital city. Before the First Truce the IDF General Staff and
Ben-Gurion had already begun to think offensively about Ramle and Lydda,
which for a long time had acted as bases for attacks on Jewish traffic and
settlements. On 30 May the Defence Minister told his generals that the two
towns "might serve as bases for attack on Tel Aviv" and other Jewish
settlements. Their conquest by the IDF would gain new territory for the
state, release forces tied up in the defence of Tel Aviv and the highway, and
sever Arab transportation lines. While the Arab Legion had in fact only one,
defensively-oriented company (about 12150 soldiers) in Lydda and Ramle
together, and a second-line company at Beit Nabala to the north, IDF
intelligence and Operation Dani OC General Yigal Allon believed at the start
of the offensive that they faced a far stronger Legion force and one whose
deployment was potentially aggressive, posing a standing threat to Tel Aviv
itself.14 Allon was appointed OC Operation Dani only on 7 July, some 48 hours
before battle was joined. Neither his operational orders for Operation Dani,
nor the operational orders for Operation Ludar and Operation LRLR, earlier
plans upon which Dani was based, dealt with the prospective fate of the
civilian population of the two towns and the surrounding villages. In July
1948 the two towns had a population of roughly 50,000-70,000 together, of
whom 15,000 or so were refugees from Jaffa and its environs. The inhabitants'
morale was relatively robust:

the two towns lay outside the Partition Plan Jewish State's territory and the
presence in them of the Arab Legion troops implied a solid commitment by
Abdullah to their defence. (Conversely, the withdrawal of the Legion troopers
over 11-13 July was to have a devastating effect on morale in the towns.)
Unlike Haifa or Jaffa (where the feeling of isolation and siege had been
severe), the two towns were contiguous with the heavily populated Arab
hinterland of the Triangle. And there had been the month of quiet during the
First Truce (11 June - 9 July). "The civilian population has not left the
cities, and they do not believe that we will succeed in conquering the two
towns because they are well-fortified," an IDF intelligence officer concluded
on 28 June. 15

But there were serious demoralizing factors. There had been two
(unsuccessful) Jewish - mainly IZL - ground attacks on Ramle on the nights of
21-22 May and 24-25 May. The Haganah air arm had bombed Lydda on 25 May,
flattening one house, killing three and wounding eight. Taken together, these
attacks had certainly reminded the two towns' inhabitants that they were
targeted. The presence in the towns over weeks and months of the thousands of
refugees from areas already conquered by the Jewish forces must certainly
have had a destabilizing effect on the locals. The refugees were hungry and
desperately short of money; braving possible IDF fire, they made foraging
raids into the fields in no-man's land "to gather the stalks of wheat and
vegetables." Moreover, the two towns had suffered from major unemployment
since the start of the hostilities (many townspeople had been employed in
Jewish settlements) and from occasional food shortages, which in turn had
triggered sharp price increases. Some wealthy families had fled to the
Triangle or Transjordan in the previous months.16

Operation Dani, which involved three to four IDF brigades and began on the
night of 10 July, was swiftly to demoralize the inhabitants of Ramle and
Lydda, and within days to result in the almost complete exodus of their
inhabitants to Arab-held territory. From the start, the operations against
the two towns were designed to induce civilian panic and flight - as a means
of precipitating military collapse and possibly also as an end itself. After
the initial air attacks on the towns, Operation Dani headquarters at 11:30
hours on 10 July informed the General Staff: there was a "a general and
considerable (civilian) flight from Ramle. There is great value in continuing
the bombing." During the afternoon, the headquarters asked the General Staff
for renewed bombing, and informed one of the brigades: "Flight from the town
of Ramle of women, the old and children is to be facilitated. The (military
age) males are to be detained."17

The bombings and shellings of 10 July were successful. The following day
Yiftah Brigade's intelligence officer reported: "The bombing from the air and
artillery [shelling] of Lydda and Ramle caused flight and panic among the
civilians [and] a readiness to surrender." Operation Dani headquarters that
day repeatedly asked for further bombings, "including [with] incendiaries."18
Civilian morale (and the military will to resist) was further dented by the
raid on 11 July of the 89th armoured Battalion (commanded by Lt Colonel Moshe
Dayan) on Lydda and along the Lydda-Ramle road. How many civilians fled Lydda
and Ramle over 11 July, before the towns' capture, is unclear. But the flight
gained momentum during the night of 11-12 July after the withdrawal from
Ramle of the Arab Legion company based there. During the night, some of
Ramle's fleeing notables were detained at an IDF checkpoint near Al Barriya.
They were brought to Yiftah Brigade's headquarters at Kibbutz Na'an, where in
the early hours of 12 July they signed a formal instrument of surrender,
which went into force in Ramle at 10:00 hours. The instrument guaranteed the
lives and safety of the inhabitants, the right to leave the town of persons
of nonmilitary age and the hand-over to the IDF of arms and non-local
irregulars.19 The Kiryati Brigade's 42nd Battalion entered the town during
the morning and a curfew was imposed. In Lydda, where no formal surrender
instrument was signed, events proceeded differently. Elements of the Yiftah
Brigade's 3rd Battalion entered the town on the evening of 11 July. Supported
by a company from the brigade's 1st Battalion, the 3rd Battalion the
following morning fanned out around the centre of the town. A small force of
Arab Legionnaires and irregulars continued to hold out at the police fort. A
curfew was imposed and the IDF began rounding up able-bodied males and
placing them in temporary detention/identification centres in mosques and
churches.

The calm in Lydda was shattered at 11:30 hours on 12 July when two or three
Arab Legion armoured cars, either lost or on reconnaissance, entered the
town. During the 30-minute firefight which ensued, apparently two 3rd
Battalion soldiers were killed and twelve wounded. The scout cars withdrew,
but the noise of the skirmish sparked sniping by armed Lydda townspeople
against the occupying Israeli troops. Some of the townspeople probably
believed that the Legion was counter-attacking and wished to assist it. The
30,400 Israeli troops in the town, dispersed in semi-isolated pockets in the
midst of tens of thousands of hostile townspeople, some still armed, felt
threatened, vulnerable and angry: they believed that the town had
surrendered. 3rd Battalion OC Moshe Kelman immediately ordered his troops to
suppress the sniping - which Israeli historians and chroniclers were later to
describe as an "uprising" - with the utmost severity. The troops were ordered
to shoot at "any clear target" or, alternatively, at anyone "seen on the
streets."20

Some townspeople, shut up in their houses under curfew, took fright at the
sounds of shooting outside, perhaps believing that a massacre was in
progress. They rushed into the streets - and were cut down by Israeli fire.
Some of the soldiers also fired and lobbed grenades into houses from which
snipers were suspected to be operating. In the confusion, dozens of unarmed
detainees in the mosque and church compounds in the centre of the town were
shot and killed. Perhaps some of these had attempted to escape, also fearing
a massacre.21

By 14:00 hours it was all over. Yeruham Cohen, an intelligence officer at
Operation Dani headquarters, later described the scene: "The inhabitants of
the town became panic-stricken. They feared that. . . the IDF troops would
take revenge on them. It was a horrible, earsplitting scene. Women wailed at
the top of their voices and old men said prayers, as if they saw their own
deaths before their eyes." 22 The fire of the Yiftah Brigade's troops caused
"some 250 dead... and many wounded." 23 Yiftah Brigade's casualties in the
skirmish with the armoured cars and from the sniping in the town were between
two and four dead and about a dozen wounded. The ratio of Arab to Israeli
casualties was hardly consistent with the later Israeli (and Arab)
descriptions of what had happened as an "uprising." In any event, the Israeli
officers in charge were later to regard the suppression of the "uprising"
(and the subsequent expulsion of the townspeople) as a dismal episode in
Yiftah Brigade's history. 3rd Battalion was withdrawn from the line on the
night of 13-14 July and spent 14 July in a collective "soul-searching
assembly" in the near-by Ben-Shemen wood. "There is no doubt that the
Lydda-Ramle affair and the flight of the inhabitants, the uprising and the
expulsion [geirush] that followed cut deep grooves in all who underwent
[these experiences]," Yiftah Brigade OC Mula Cohen was later to write.24

While some IDF officers began advising people in Lydda to leave the town
during the morning of 12 July, before the shooting,25 the mass exodus of the
inhabitants of Ramle and Lydda, which began a few hours later, must be seen
against the backdrop of that slaughter. The shooting in the centre of Lydda
seems to have sealed the fate of the inhabitants of the two towns. The
sniping had scared the 3rd Battalion; it had also apparently shaken Operation
Dani headquarters, where, until then, it was believed that the two towns had
been subdued and were securely in IDF hands. The unexpected outbreak of
shooting highlighted the simultaneous threat of a Transjordanian
counter-attack coupled with a mass uprising by a large Arab population behind
Israeli lines, as Allon's brigades continued their push eastwards, towards
the operation's second-stage objectives, Latrun and Ramallah. The shooting
focused minds at Operation Dani headquarters at Yazur. A strong desire to see
the population of the two towns flee already existed: the shooting seemed to
offer the justification and opportunity for what the bombings and artillery
barrages, insubstantial by World War II standards, had in the main failed to
achieve. Ben-Gurion spent the early afternoon of 12 July at Yazur. According
to the best account of the meeting, at which Generals Yadin, Ayalon and
Allon, Israel Galilee and Lt Colonel Yitzhak Rabin (Chief of Operations
Operation Dani) were present, someone, possibly Allon, after hearing of the
start of the shooting in Lydda, proposed expelling the inhabitants of the two
towns. Ben-Gurion said nothing, and no decision was taken. Then Ben-Gurion,
Allon and Rabin left the room. Allon asked: "What shall we do with the
Arabs?" Ben-Gurion made a dismissive, energetic gesture with his hand and
said: "Expel them [garesh otam]."26

At 13:30 hours, 12 July, before the shooting had completely died down in
Lydda, Operation Dani headquarters issued the following order to Yiftah
Brigade headquarters: "I. The inhabitants of Lydda must be expelled quickly
without attention to age. They should be directed towards Beit Nabala. Yiftah
[Brigade headquarters] must determine the method and inform [Operation] Dani
RQ and 8th Brigade HQ. 2. Implement immediately." The order was signed
"Yitzhak Rabin."27 A similar order, concerning Ramle, was apparently
communicated to Kiryati Brigade headquarters at the same time. During the
afternoon of 12 July Kiryati Brigade officers began organizing transport to
ferry Ramle's inhabitants towards Arab Legion lines. Local, confiscated Arab
transport and the brigade's own vehicles proved insufficient. During the
night of 12-13 July, Kiryati Brigade OC Michael Ben-Gal asked General
Staff/Operations for more vehicles.28 During the afternoon and evening of 12
July, thousands of Ramle's inhabitants streamed out of the town, on foot or
in trucks and buses. In Lydda, with the troops recovering from the
afternoon's shooting and burying the corpses, and the inhabitants under
curfew shut away in their houses, the expulsion order was not immediately
implemented. During the night of 12-13 July, two companies from Kiryati
Brigade's 42nd Battalion arrived in Lydda to reinforce the 3rd Battalion.

Shitrit arrived in Ramle in the afternoon of 12 July - and almost halted the
exodus in both towns before it was well under way. The Cabinet knew nothing
of the expulsion orders. Shitrit, as was his wont, had come to look over his
new "constituency"; he was responsible for the welfare of the Arab minority.
He was shocked by what he heard and saw; Kiryati's troops were in the midst
of preparations to expel the inhabitants. Brigade commander Ben-Gal told him
that "in line with an order from Paicovitch [i.e., Allon] the IDF was about
to take prisoner all males of military age, and the rest of the inhabitants -
men, women and children -were to be taken beyond [sic] the border and left to
their fate." The army intends to deal in the same way" with the inhabitants
of Lydda, Shitrit reported.29 Upset and angry, Shitrit returned to Tel Aviv
and that evening went to see Foreign Minister Shertok, reporting on what he
had seen and heard. Later that night, Shertok went to see Ben-Gurion and the
two men hammered out a set of policy guidelines for IDF behaviour towards the
civilian population of Lydda and Ramle. Ben-Gurion apparently did not inform
Shertok (or Shitrit) that he had been the source of the original expulsion
orders.

The guidelines agreed between the two senior ministers, according to
Shertok's letter to Shitrit of 13 July, were: "1. It should be publicly
announced in the two towns that whoever wants to leave - will be allowed to
do so. 2. A warning must be issued that anyone remaining behind does so on
his own responsibility, and the Israeli authorities are not obliged to supply
him with food. 3. Women, children, the old and the sick must on no account be
forced to leave [the] town[s]. 4. The monasteries and churches must not be
damaged 4." Shertok's letter ended with a caveat: "We all know how difficult
it is to overcome [base] instincts during conquest. But I hope the
aforementioned policy will be proof against malfunctions."30

These guidelines were passed on by Ben-Gurion to IDF Genera Staff
Operations, which duly transmitted them to Operation Dani headquarters at
23:30 hours, 12 July, in somewhat abridged form: " All are free to leave,
apart from those who will be detained. 2) To warn that we are not responsible
for feeding those who remain. 3) Not to force women, the sick, children and
the old to go/walk [lalechet - an ambiguity, possibly deliberate, which left
Operation Dani headquarters free to bus or truck out these categories of the
populace]. 4) Not to touch monasteries and churches. 5) Searches without
vandalism. 6) No robbery."' Shitrit came away from his talk with Shertok on
the night of 12 July and from his reading of Shertok's letter of 13 July
believing that he had averted a wholesale expulsion from the two towns. He
was wrong. The Arabs were being ordered and "encouraged" to leave. At the
same time, by 13 July, the inhabitants - especially of Lydda - probably
needed little such "encouragement." Within a 72-hour period, they had
undergone the shock of battle and unexpected conquest by the Jews,
abandonment by the Arab Legion, a slaughter (in Lydda), a continuous curfew
with house-to-house searches, a round-up of able-bodied males and the
separation of families, lack of food and medical attention, the flight of
relatives, continuous isolation in their houses and general dread of the
future. News of what had happened in Lydda in the afternoon of 12 July
probably reached Ramle, three kilometres away, almost immediately, triggering
fright. During the night of 12-13 July, most of the remaining inhabitants of
the two towns probably decided that it would be best to leave and not to
continue living under Jewish rule. The fall of the Lydda police fort on the
moring of 13 July, may, for some, have clinched the issue.

Thus, at this point, there was dovetailing, as it were, of Jewish and Arab
interests and wishes - an IDF bent on expelling the population and a
population ready, perhaps even eager, to move to Arab-held territory. There
remained, however, one problem: the detained able-bodied Ramle and Lydda
menfolk, whom their parents, women and children were loathe to abandon. The
stage was set for the "deal" struck on the morning of 13 July and for the
mass evacuation of the two towns that followed.

The "deal" was apparently struck that morning in "negotiations" between IDF
intelligence officer Shmarya Guttman and other Palmah officers and some of
the Lydda notables. The IDF said they wanted everyone to leave. The Arab
notables said there could be no exodus so long as thousands of townspeople
(many of them heads of families) were incarcerated in the detention centres.
The officers agreed that the detainees would be freed and would leave the
town with the rest of the population. Guttman then proceeded to the mosque,
where his announcement that the detainees could leave was greeted with cries
of joy. Town criers and IDF soldiers then went about the town telling the
inhabitants they were leaving and where to muster.32 The bulk and end of the
exodus from Ramle and Lydda took place on 13 July. Many of the inhabitants of
Ramle were trucked and bussed out by Kiryati troops to Al Qubab, from where
they made their way on foot to Arab Legion lines in Latrun and Salbit. Others
walked all the way. All Lydda's inhabitants walked, making their way to Beit
Nabala and Barfiliya.

To judge from the IDF signals traffic of 13 July, the commanders involved
understood that the operation was an expulsion rather than a spontaneous
exodus. Operation Dani headquarters informed General Staff/Operations around
noon: "Lydda police fort has been captured. [The troops] are busy expelling
the inhabitants [oskim begeirush hatoshavim]." At the same time, the
headquarters informed Yiftah, Kiryati and 8th brigades that "enemy resistance
in Ramle and Lydda has ended. The eviction/evacuation [pinui] of the
inhabitants . . . has begun."33 Operation Dani headquarters apparently
expected the removal of Lydda's inhabitants to have been completed by the
evening. At 18:15 hours, the headquarters asked Yiftah Brigade: "Has the
removal of the population [hotza'at ha'ochlosiah] of Lydda been completed?"34

Through 12-14 July, some Yiftah and Kiryati soldiers remained unaware of the
expulsion orders and believed that they were witnessing a spontaneous or
semi-spontaneous exodus. The eagerness of some of the population in both
towns to get out supported this. Moreover, IDF announcements to the
populations were informative and instructive rather than imperative in tone:
"You will assemble at such and such points," "you will walk towards Beit
Nabala," and so on. Indeed, most of the soldiers involved probably had no
need to say anything; the inhabitants understood what was expected of them.
In Lydda, however, some Arab families were ordered to "get out" by soldiers
who went from house to house.

All the Israelis who witnessed the events agreed that the exodus, under a hot
July sun, was an extended episode of suffering for the refugees, especially
from Lydda. Some were stripped by soldiers of their valuables as they left
town or at checkpoints along the way.35 Guttman subsequently described the
trek of the Lydda refugees: "A multitude of inhabitants walked one after
another. Women walked burdened with packages and sacks on their heads.
Mothers dragged children after them . Occasionally, warning shots were heard
. . . Occasionally, you encountered a piercing look from one of the
youngsters... in the column, and the look said: 'We have not yet surrendered.
We shall return to fight you." For Guttman, an archaeologist, the spectacle
conjured up "the memory of the exile of Israel [at the end of the Second
Commonwealth, at Roman hands]. "36

One Israeli soldier (probably 3rd Battalion), from Kibbutz Em Harod, a few
weeks after the event recorded vivid impressions of the thirst and hunger of
the refugees on the roads, and of how "children got lost" and of how a child
fell into a well and drowned, ignored, as his fellow refugees fought each
other to draw water.37 Another soldier described the spoor left by the
slow-shuffling columns, "to begin with [jettisoning] utensils and furniture
and in the end, bodies of men, women and children, scattered along the way."

Quite a few refugees died - from exhaustion, dehydration and disease - along
the roads eastward, from Lydda and Ramle, before reaching temporary rest near
and in Ramallah. Nimral Khatib put the death toll among the Lydda refugees
during the trek eastward at 335; Arab Legion commander John Glubb Pasha, more
carefully wrote that "nobody will ever know how many children died."38

*The creation of the refugee columns, which for days cluttered the roads
eastwards, may have been one of the motives for the expulsion decision of 12
July by Ben-Gurion, Allon and Rabin. The military thinking was simple and
cogent: the IDF had just taken its two primary objectives and had, for the
moment, run out of offensive steam. The Arab Legion was expected to
counter-attack (through Budrus, Jimzu, Nil'in and Latrun). Cluttering the main
axes, deep into Transjordanian-held territory, with refugees would severely
hamper such a counter-attack. And, inevitably, the large, new wave of refugees
would sap Transjordanian resources at a crucial moment. A Palmah report,
probably written by Allon soon after Operation Dani, stated that the exodus of
the Lydda and Ramle inhabitants, beside relieving Tel Aviv of a potential,
long-term threat, had "clogged the routes of advance of the Legion" and had
foisted upon the Arab economy the problem of maintaining another 45,000 souls

Moreover, the phenomenon of the flight of tens of thousands will no doubt
cause demoralization in every Arab area [the refugees] reach . This victory
will yet have great effect on other sectors."39 Ben-Gurion, in his wonted
oblique manner, had also referred to the strategic benefits that had sprung
from setting loose the inhabitants of Lydda and Ramle on the roads east. "The
Arab Legion cables that on the road from Lydda and Ramle some 30,000 refugees
are on the move, who are angry with the Legion [because the Legion had lost
the two towns]. They demand bread. They must be transferred to Transjordan.
In Transjordan there are anti-government demonstrations," he recorded in his
diary on 15 July.40

In the debate in Mapam on policy towards the Arabs in the following weeks and
months, some criticism focused on Allon's use of tens of thousands of
refugees to achieve strategic aims. Party co-leader, Meir Ya'ari, said: "Many
of us are losing their [human] image... How easily they speak of how it is
possible and permissible to take women, children and old men and to fill the
roads with them because such is the imperative of strategy. And this we say,
the members of Hashomer Hatzair, who remember who used this means against our
people during the [Second World] war . . . I am appalled."41 After the dust
of battle and flight settled, about 1,000 inhabitants remained in the two
towns together, their number growing to some 2,000 by the beginning of 1949.
Meanwhile, Lydda and Ramle were settled with new Jewish immigrants and became
mainly Jewish towns.

Meanwhile, to the east, as part of Operation Dani, the Palmah's Harel Brigade
and elements of the Jerusalem-based Etzioni Brigade launched a number of
local attacks aimed at expanding the Jewish-held corridor to Jerusalem and at
relieving the direct pressure on the city's western and southern
neighbourhoods. In the Jerusalem sector, Etzioni Brigade units on 15 July
captured part of the village of Beit Safafa, which was abandoned
(temporarily) by most of its inhabitants. Further to the east, on 14-15 July
IZL and LHI units took the already semi-abandoned village of Al Maliha, held
by irregulars. The large village of 'Em Karim, some of whose population had
fled in April following the attack on Deir Yassin two kilometres to the
north, was completely abandoned on 11 July after Jewish forces captured the
two dominating hilltops of Khirbet Beit Mazmil and Khirbet al Hamama and
shelled the village.

Further to the east, Harel Brigade units expanded the corridor southwards, on
13-14 July taking the chain of small villages of Suba, Sataf, Khirbet al
Lauz, Khirbet Deir 'Amr and 'Aqqur, and Sar'a (held by the Egyptians), and on
17-18 July taking Kasla, Ishwa, 'Islin, Deir Rafat and Artuf. Much of the
population of these villages, which had been on the front line since April,
had left the area previously. Most of the remaining population fled with the
approach of the Harel columns and with the start of the mortar barrages. The
handful of people who remained at each site when the Israelis entered were
expelled.42

Benny Morris is a fine one to quote. Some example would further be.

"I revealed to the Israelis the truth of what happened in
1948, the historic facts. But the Arabs are the ones who
started the fighting, they started the shootings. So why
should I take responsibility? The Arabs started the war,
they are responsible... We need to give some kind of a
solution to the Palestinians but we must not recognize
the right of return."

- Benny Morris, 23 Nov 2001

"Critics of Israel subsequently latched on to those findings
that highlighted Israeli responsibility while ignoring the fact
that the problem was a direct consequence of the war that
the Palestinians - and, in their wake, the surrounding Arab
states ? had launched...

"Israel exists. Like every people, the Jews deserve
a state, and justice will not be served by throwing
them into the sea. And if the refugees are allowed
back, there will be godawful chaos and, in the end,
no Israel. Israel is currently populated by 5m Jews
and more than 1m Arabs (an increasingly vociferous,
pro-Palestinian irredentist time bomb). If the refugees
return, an unviable binational entity will emerge and,
given the Arabs' far higher birth rates, Israel will quickly
cease to be a Jewish state. Add to that the Arabs in the
West Bank and Gaza Strip and you have, almost
instantly, an Arab state between the Mediterranean and
the Jordan river with a Jewish minority.

Jews lived as a minority in Muslim countries from the
7th century - and, contrary to Arab propaganda, never
much enjoyed the experience. They were always
second-class citizens and always discriminated-against
infidels; they were often persecuted and not infrequently
murdered. Giant pogroms occurred over the centuries.
And as late as the 1940s Arab mobs murdered hundreds
of Jews in Baghdad, and hundreds more in Libya, Egypt
and Morocco. The Jews were expelled from or fled the
Arab world during the 1950s and 60s. There is no reason
to believe that Jews will want to live (again) as a minority
in a (Palestinian) Arab state, especially given the tragic
history of Jewish-Palestinian relations. They will either
be expelled or emigrate to the west.

It is the Palestinian leadership's rejection of the Barak-
Clinton peace proposals of July-December 2000, the
launching of the intifada, and the demand ever since
that Israel accept the "right of return" that has
persuaded me that the Palestinians, at least in this
generation, do not intend peace: they do not want,
merely, an end to the occupation - that is what was
offered back in July-December 2000, and they
rejected the deal. They want all of Palestine and
as few Jews in it as possible. The right of return
is the wedge with which to prise open the Jewish
state."

- Benny Morris, 21 Feb 2002

He has also documented instances where Palestinians were expelled, also
found that Arab leaders encouraged their brethren to leave. The Arab
National Committee in Jerusalem, following the March 8, 1948,
instructions of the Arab Higher Committee, ordered women, children and
the elderly in various parts of Jerusalem to leave their homes: "Any
opposition to this order...is an obstacle to the holy war...and will
hamper the operations of the fighters in these districts" (Middle
Eastern Studies, January 1986).

Morris also said that in early May units of the Arab Legion reportedly
ordered the evacuation of all women and children from the town of
Beisan. The Arab Liberation Army was also reported to have ordered the
evacuation of another village south of Haifa. The departure of the
women and children, Morris says, "tended to sap the morale of the
menfolk who were left behind to guard the homes and fields,
contributing ultimately to the final evacuation of villages. Such
two-tier evacuation-women and children first, the men following weeks
later-occurred in Qumiya in the Jezreel Valley, among the Awarna
bedouin in Haifa Bay and in various other places."