Replies

I didn’t read the paper but as reported it seems a very exaggerated and one-sided view. As a “legal argument” there are many factors to consider.

First there were always Jews living on that land. When the Turks controlled it there were many different ethnic and religious groups. Second, the Jews of Europe began migrating into the British Mandate since the end of WW1. The numbers were not very large each year but eventually it grew to about 600,000 total (on a land that now houses over 12 million people - so resources was never really a question). Jews and Jewish groups bought up a lot of land from Arabs and Turks and others to create their own settlements. There were a lot of cultural clashes between the Arabs and Jews including many massacres - mostly of Jews but also of Arabs and British - in the populated areas between WW1 and WW2. All the Arabs had to do was accept a division of land when Israel declared its independence - something the Jews perceived necessary to organize and defend themselves. Instead, the combined Arab armies of many countries moved in.

It should be noted that these Arab armies didn’t move in to liberate the Palestinians, they wanted that land for themselves. And the Arabs who were living there, most sensibly, decided to get out of the way - they weren’t going to be protected by the Arab armies or the Jews so they fled to safer areas outside of the territory Israel declared for itself. That is the “Nakhba”. How many people, and who is at fault for each of them, is a large question but it doesn’t fall solely on the shoulders of the Jews. I have no doubt there were some Jewish independence groups that committed crimes against some Arabs and/or forced them to leave. But this was in a climate of war and chaos that had been building up for the last several decades with all sides, including the British, involved in conflict prior to 1948. The Arabs had the luxury of being able to flee the conflict - the Jews were the targets of the conflict, they had no choice but to stand and fight.

Yes, the author is right that there was an enthnonationalist fervor but the Jews of Israel were not the only ones. The Baathists in Syria and the other Pan-Arabists and Pan-Islamists who invaded were also ethnonationalists. This Pan-Arabist ideology lived on all the way through the era of Saddam Hussein and Hafez Assad. Arafat himself was a Pan-Arabist. Contrast, Hamas and Hezbullah are Pan-Islamist. Two sides of the same coin the latter just want Islamic law to govern society.

Then of course, you have the “legal question” of all the Jews from Arab lands who were more or less forced out of their homes, dispossessed, lost wealth and assets under threat of violence and other discrimination. Many of them, some 750,000, went to Israel after 1948.

To discuss this topic devoid of context and full of omission is a disservice to a very complicated situation - and sort of pointless now 75 years later.