How Palestinians were expelled from their homes

And it faces the main road to Jerusalem. This is a story of what happened here in 1948. We are only 750 people. And everyone knows each other. It was a black spot in history. That history has been carefully hidden...deliberately distorted and, in the West, largely forgotten. They put our people as an example of what they can do. The massacre in this village was one of many in a series of catastrophic events... that became known as the Nakba. When hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were violently displaced from

their

homeland... to create the State of Israel. “In May 1948, a new Jewish state, Israel, was born in a bloodbath.” Palestine's borders have changed dramatically over time.

But historically, this region has been home to Palestinians for centuries with hundreds of thriving towns and cities. One of them is the central city of Jerusalem... with sacred sites important to Jewish Christians and Muslims. By the end of the Ottoman Empire, the Palestinians living here were overwhelmingly Muslim, with native Christian and Jewish minorities as well. But regardless of

their

religion, Palestinians were often called Arabs. People from the Arabic speaking world despite their distinctive culture. Palestinians have long distinguished themselves as Ahl Filastīn... or the people of Palestine. They developed a distinctive Arabic accent. They developed regional food, regional clothing, and family ties.

But when World War I began... several key political forces were competing for control of these lands. First, there was a growing Arab political movement... that sought independence from the Ottoman Empire in the hope of a unified Arab state that would include Palestine. Then there were the Zionists, a political group that had one main goal: the creation of a Jewish state. Zionism was a response to an increasingly brutal climate for the Jewish people, particularly in Europe and Russia...where there was a massive wave of anti-Semitism...including large-scale attacks in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. After briefly considering other areas for a new state, including Uganda and Argentina...

Zionist leaders settled on Palestine because of its connection to early religious history. But here was a third key group with political interests. The British. Control of the region would allow them to expand their spheres of influence and protect trade routes to India. During World War I, since both the British and Arab independence movements wanted Palestine... they decided to go after the Ottomans along with an important promise. Through a series of letters in 1916, an Arab leader and a British official agreed that if the Arabs would help the British fight the Ottomans and grant the British economic and other foreign privileges in Arab lands... in return , the British would recognize and support an independent Arab state.

Soon the Arabs began to do their part in the rebellion against the Ottomans, facilitating the entry of the British. But the following year the British issued a new declaration and betrayed the Arabs. "In 1917, Lord Allenby conquered the Holy Land...and the Jews were promised a national home in Palestine." Without consulting the native Palestinian population...the British issued what is known as the Balfour Declaration: Supporting the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people. So, instead of supporting the idea of ​​Palestine as part of a unified, independent Arab state... the British pledged to help secure this land for the Zionists.

It was a strategic move. This declaration opened a way for Britain to gain power in Palestine. Under the pretext that he supported the self-determination of another people... of a people in Palestine... that does not yet reside there. As for the majority Arab population of Palestine, the declaration referred to them as non-Jewish communities... who would be granted civil and religious rights... but not political rights. A few years later, after the end of World War I, Britain gained control of Palestine through a mandate... which also required them to implement the Balfour plans for Jewish settlement. And they did it.

Between 1922 and 1931 the Jewish population more than doubled. Migration helped the Zionist movement gain strength. And a slogan took off. “A land without people, a town without land.” And it sends a message to Western leaders... that people who had been living in Palestine for generations... could simply be easily moved elsewhere. The idea was that these inhabitants were not a people linked to that land. Palestine was, of course, a land with a people. In 1931, there were more than 850,000 Palestinian Arabs in the region, and they remained the vast majority. But with the rise of Hitler and the Nazi Party in particular... “Hatred became a call for mobilization.” The flight of the Jews from Europe became even more urgent.

And Palestine began to see the largest wave of Jewish emigration yet. Violence broke out, rooted in tensions over land. Jewish settlers purchased tracts of fertile land and evicted tenant farmers, creating a crisis of hundreds of thousands of landless and dispossessed Palestinian Arabs. Although the Palestinians rebelled fiercely against the British colonial forces and Jewish settlers, they were brutally crushed by the British. They sent more troops to Palestine to suppress that rebellion than they had stationed in India at the time. All India. These troops killed thousands of Palestinians, including many of their leaders, and the British began training and arming Zionist militias to suppress the rebellion as well.

But the rebellion continued. So, in an attempt to prevent further Palestinian resistance... the British began to limit Jewish immigration to Palestine. This ended up angering Zionist extremists and causing more violence. So in 1947, after decades of trying to manipulate both the Palestinian Arabs and the Zionists to maintain their control over Palestine... Britain gave up... and handed the question of Palestine over to someone else. “The problem of Palestine also reached the United Nations.” "In recent years, this small country had been the scene of disorder and bloodshed." They thought here's this new thing called the United Nations. Here. On your lap.

Palestine. First present. So the United Nations now has to figure out how to unravel this thing... that the British helped create. A special UN committee proposed that the land be divided into two states... a Jewish state and an Arab state, with Jerusalem as a separate entity controlled by the UN. It was called the Partition Plan of 1947. The plan shocked the Palestinians. We could not accept the partition plan because at that time the population was almost 2 to 1. But the plan proposed giving more than half of the land and often the most fertile areas to the Jewish state.

From a purely pragmatic perspective... the partition plan did not make much sense to the Palestinian Arabs. That wasn't the only problem with the plan. Within this proposed area of ​​the Jewish State... there were hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Arabs... including Muslims and Christians who had lived there for generations. On a moral level...the idea of ​​turning hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Arabs into minorities in their own homeland...seemed unjust and unjust. In November 1947, the UN put the plan to a vote. After the Holocaust and after lobbying by American and Zionist leaders, the UN voted in favor of partition. “And finally, a momentous decision to divide the 10,000 square miles of the Holy Land.” Britain announced that its mandate over Palestine would end on May 15, 1948.

Even as the Palestinians continued to reject the UN decision to divide the land. After partition happened, you know, in 1947... you know, we were really afraid that something might happen to us. By the end of 1947, the Zionists had several well-developed paramilitary forces... the largest known as the Haganah. And more extremist militias like Irgun. On March 10, a couple of months before the British mandate ended, the Haganah adopted what was called the Dalet Plan. Or Plan D. On paper, the main objective was to gain control of the Jewish State as established in the partition plan, while at the same time defending Jewish settlements outside the borders.

Actually, that's where most of these operations took place... outside the UN's proposed Jewish state. Some carried out by the Haganah and others by more radical militias. Many of these operations focused on isolating Jerusalem and the roads to it. A series of brutal instructions called for the destruction of Arab villages by setting fires, exploding them and planting mines. Especially those population centers that were difficult to control. In case of resistance, he called for the population to be

expelled

outside the borders of the state... villages emptied and the occupation and control of Arab villages along the main transport arteries.

One of the most publicized village massacres occurred here in Deir Yassin. We live in Deir Yassin, which is about 4 miles west of Jerusalem. Dawud Assad, 91, was there on the day of the massacre and was 18 at the time. On April 9, 1948, extremist Zionist forces carrying out Plan D approached Deir Yassin... even though the village had made a local peace pact with neighboring Jewish settlements. On Friday morning they attacked us. Dawud escaped through a trench. I came down here, like this. So about 4 hours walking to Jerusalem. To this day, the Israeli army archive refuses to release many of the images and intelligence reports on Deir Yassin.

But a UN report details circumstances of great savagery... including women and children stripped naked, lined up... photographed and massacred. About 100 people died in the town, mostly children and the elderly. As for Dawud, he later joined the group of Deir Yassin captives in Jerusalem, including his sister and his mother. My mother says... So everywhere there's a commotion, you know? News of what happened in Deir Yassin spread quickly and had far-reaching effects. Zionist militias used it as a propaganda tool to tell people everywhere. The idea was that if you don't leave... we will do to you what happened in Deir Yassin.

Stories of raped women and murdered babies emerged and induced much fear among the Palestinian Arab population, many of whom fled as a result. "Jewish troops surrounded Arab forces from the city of Haifa." After taking Deir Yassin, Zionist paramilitary groups cleared major cities, including Haifa and Jaffa, and also took hundreds of smaller villages and towns. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were forced to flee and reach neighboring states as refugees. Plan D became the model for carrying out the ethnic cleansing of historic Palestine to make room for a new state. And on May 14, the day before the British mandate ended... the Zionists declared the state to be Israel.

But the creation of Israel did not end the Nakba. Neighboring Arab countries that were overwhelmed by Palestinian refugees immediately went to war with Israel. “Now united and forming a league of Arab states…they insist that the entry of refugees into Palestine must be put to an end.” The fighting lasted for months. The Arab armies ultimately lost, while the Palestinians continued to be killed and

expelled

all the while. Palestinians who fled often carried only enough to stay away for a few weeks in the hope of returning home. Many of them locked their doors, put the key in their pocket, and then moved to a safer place.

When you leave the house and take the keys with you, it is because you plan to return home. In the case of the Palestinians, those refugees were not allowed to return. Refugees attempting to return were often shot at. Zionist paramilitary operations also attempted to prevent their return by destroying villages. This act of preventing his return aggravated the Nakba. So the Nakba is both the forced displacement of Palestinians from their

homes

, lands and countries... as well as preventing them from returning once the fighting has ended. Palestinian society was dismembered, crushed. More than half of the Palestinian people became refugees, stateless and dispossessed of their land.

Over time, the State of Israel hid the physical evidence of an Arab Palestine. Place names were often changed from Arabic to Hebrew. The Jewish National Fund embarked on a massive effort to plant thousands of acres of pine forests and recreational areas over hundreds of ruined Palestinian villages. Although these forests have now grown into large pine trees, the Palestinians have not forgotten their countries of origin. While we know that approximately 6,000 Israelis lost their lives in the Nakba violence... no records were kept of Palestinian deaths. It is estimated that there are around 15,000. By the end of the Nakba, approximately 750,000 Palestinians had been forcibly expelled... and more than500 villages destroyed.

Although the UN partition plan allocated Israel 56% of the territory through the Nakba, Israel captured 78% of the territory. It was anything but what is now known as the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. Today this represents at least 85% of the total area. Turn 6 million Palestinians into stateless refugees. That's why around the same time Israelis celebrate Independence Day... Palestinians protest on May 15. Holding keys as a symbol of the

homes

they lost and the hope of returning. For them, the Nakba is not just a moment in history. It is a catastrophe that never really ended.