The people are in great need of a "myth" to fill their
consciousness and imagination....
-- Musa Alami, 1948
Since 1948 Arab leaders have approached the Palestine problem
in an irresponsible manner.... they have used the Palestine
people for selfish political purposes. This is ridiculous and,
I could say, even criminal.
-- King Hussein of Jordan, 1960
Since
1948 it is we who demanded the return of the refugees... while it is
we who made them leave.... We brought disaster upon ... Arab refugees,
by inviting them and bringing pressure to bear upon them to leave.... We
have rendered them dispossessed.... We have accustomed them to
begging.... We have participated in lowering their moral and social
level.... Then we exploited them in executing crimes of murder, arson,
and throwing bombs upon ... men, women and children-all this in the
service of political purposes .... [36]
-- Khaled Al-Azm, Syria's Prime Minister after the 1948 war
The nations of western Europe condemned Israel's position
despite their guarantee of her security.... They understood
that ... their dependence upon sources of energy precluded
their allowing themselves to incur Arab wrath.
-- Al-Haytham Al-Ayubi, Arab Palestinian military strategist, 1974
At
the time of the 1948 war, Arabs in Israel were invited by their fellow
Arabs -- invited to "leave" while the "invading" Arab armies would purge
the land of Jews.1 The invading Arab governments were certain of a
quick victory; leaders warned the Arabs in Israel to run for their
lives.2
In response, the Jewish Haifa Workers' Council
issued an appeal to the Arab residents of Haifa: [See Official British
Police Report ]
For years we have lived together in our
city, Haifa.... Do not fear: Do not destroy your homes with your own
hands ... do not bring upon yourself tragedy by unnecessary evacuation
and self-imposed burdens.... But in this city, yours and ours, Haifa,
the gates are open for work, for life, and for peace for you and your
families."3
While the Haifa pattern appears to have
been prevalent, there were exceptions. Arabs in another crucial
strategic area, who were "opening fire on the Israelis shortly after
surrendering,"4 were "forced" to leave by the defending Jewish army to
prevent what former Israeli Premier Itzhak Rabin described as a "hostile
and armed populace" from remaining "in our rear, where it could
endanger the supply route . . ."5 In his memoirs, Rabin stated that
Arab control of the road between the seacoast and Jerusalem had "all but
isolated" the "more than ninety thousand Jews in Jerusalem," nearly
one-sixth of the new nation's total population.
If
Jerusalem fell, the psychological blow to the nascent Jewish state would
be more damaging than any inflicted by a score of armed brigades.6
According
to a research report by the Arab-sponsored Institute for Palestine
Studies in Beirut, however, "the majority" of the Arab refugees in 1948
were not expelled, and "68%" left without seeing an Israeli soldier.7
After
the Arabs' defeat in the 1948 war, their positions became confused:
some Arab leaders demanded the "return" of the "expelled" refugees to
their former homes despite the evidence that Arab leaders had called
upon Arabs to flee. [Such as President Truman's International
Development Advisory Board Report, March 7, 1951: "Arab leaders summoned
Arabs of Palestine to mass evacuation... as the documented facts
reveal..."] At the same time, Emile Ghoury, Secretary of the Arab Higher
Command, called for the prevention of the refugees from "return." He
stated in the Beirut Telegraph on August 6, 1948: "it is inconceivable
that the refugees should be sent back to their homes while they are
occupied by the Jews.... It would serve as a first step toward Arab
recognition of the state of Israel and Partition."
Arab
activist Musa Alami despaired: as he saw the problem, "how can people
struggle for their nation, when most of them do not know the meaning of
the word? ... The people are in great need of a 'myth' to fill their
consciousness and imagination. . . ." According to Alami, ar
indoctrination of the "myth" of nationality would create "identity" and
"self-respect."8
However, Alami's proposal was
confounded by the realities: between 1948 and 1967, the Arab state of
Jordan claimed annexation of the territory west of the Jordan River, the
"West Bank" area of Palestine -- the same area that would later be
forwarded by Arab "moderates" as a "mini-state" for the "Palestinians."
Thus, that area was, between 1948 and 1967, called "Arab land," the
peoples were Arabs, and yet the "myth" that Musa Alami prescribed-the
cause of "Palestine" for the "Palestinians" -- remained unheralded,
unadopted by the Arabs during two decades. According to Lord Caradon,
"Every Arab assumed the Palestinians [refugees] would go back to
Jordan."9
When "Palestine" was referred to by the
Arabs, it was viewed in the context of the intrusion of a "Jewish state
amidst what the Arabs considered their own exclusive environment or
milieu, the 'Arab region.' "10 As the late Egyptian President Gamal
Abdel Nasser "screamed" in 1956, "the imperialists' 'destruction of
Palestine' " was "an attack on Arab nationalism," which " 'unites us
from the Atlantic to the Gulf.' "11
Ever since the 1967
Israeli victory, however, when the Arabs determined that they couldn't
obliterate Israel militarily, they have skillfully waged economic,
diplomatic, and propaganda war against Israel. This, Arabs reasoned,
would take longer than military victory, but ultimately the result would
be the same. Critical to the new tactic, however, was a device designed
to whittle away at the sympathies of Israel's allies: what the Arabs
envisioned was something that could achieve Israel's shrinking to
indefensible size at the same time that she became insolvent.
This
program was reviewed in 1971 by Mohamed Heikal,12 then still an
important spokesman of Egypt's leadership in his post as editor of the
influential, semi-official newspaper Al Ahram. Heikal called for a
change of Arab rhetoric -- no more threats of "throwing Israel into the
sea" -- and a new political strategy aimed at reducing Israel to
indefensible borders and pushing her into diplomatic and economic
isolation. He predicted that "total withdrawal" would "pass sentence on
the entire state of Israel."
As a more effective means
of swaying world opinion, the Arabs adopted humanitarian terminology in
support of the "demands" of the "Palestinian refugees," to replace
former Arab proclamations of carnage and obliteration. In Egypt, for
example, in 1968 "the popularity of the Palestinians was rising," as a
result of Israel's 1967 defeat of the Arabs and subsequent 1968 "Israeli
air attacks inside Egypt."13] It was as recently as 1970 that Egyptian
President Nasser defined "Israel" as the cause of "the expulsion of the
Palestinian people from their land." Although Nasser thus gave
perfunctory recognition to the "Palestinian Arab" allegation, he was in
reality preoccupied with the overall basic, pivotal Arab concern. As he
continued candidly in the same sentence, Israel was "a permanent threat
to the Arab nation."14 Later that year (May 1970), Nasser "formulated
his rejection of a Jewish state in Palestine," but once again he
stressed the "occupation of our [Pan-Arab] lands," while only
secondarily noting: "And we reject its [Israel's] insistence on denying
the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people in their country."15
Subsequently the Arabs have increased their recounting of the
difficulties and travail of Arab refugees in the "host" countries
adjacent to Israel. Photographs and accounts of life in refugee camps,
as well as demands for the "legitimate" but unlimited and undefined
"rights" of the "Palestinians," have flooded the communications media of
the world in a subtle and adroit utilization of the art of professional
public relations.16
A prominent Arab Palestinian
strategist, AI-Haytham Al-Ayubi, analyzed the efficacy of Arab
propaganda tactics in 1974, when he wrote:
The image of
Israel as a weak nation surrounded by enemies seeking its annihilation
evaporated [after 1967], to be replaced by the image of an aggressive
nation challenging world opinion.* 17
[* As Rosemary
Sayigh wrote in the Journal of Palestine Studies, "a strongly defined
Palestinian identity did not emerge until 1968, two decades after
expulsion." It had taken twenty years to establish the "myth" prescribed
by Musa Alami.18]
The high visibility of the sad
plight of the homeless refugees -- always tragic -- has uniquely
attracted the world's compassion.19 In addition, the campaign has
provided non-Arabs with moral rationalization for abiding by the Arabs'
anti-Israel rules, which are regarded as prerequisites to getting Arab
oil and the financial benefits from Arab oil wealth. Millions of dollars
have been spent to exploit the Arab refugees and their repatriation as
"the heart of the matter," as the primary human problem that must be
resolved before any talk of overall peace with Israel.
Reflecting on the oil weapon's influence in the aftermath of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Al-Ayubi shrewdly observed:
The
nations of western Europe condemned Israel's position despite their
guarantee of her security and territorial integrity. They understood
that European interests and their dependence upon sources of energy
precluded their allowing themselves to incur Arab wrath.20
Thus
Al-Ayubi recommended sham "peace-talks," with the continuation,
however, of the "state of 'no peace,'" and he advocated the maintaining
of "moral pressure together with carefully-balanced military tension..."
for the "success of the new Arab strategy." Because "loss of human
life remains a sore point for the enemy," continual "guerrilla"
activities can erode Israel's self-confidence and "the faith" of the
world in the "Israeli policeman."
Al-Ayubi cited, as an example, "the success of Arab foreign policy maneuvers" in 1973, which was
so
total that.... With the exception of the United States and the racist
African governments, the entire world took either a neutral or pro-Arab
position on the question of legality of restoring the occupied
territories through any means -- including the use of military force.
As
Al-Ayubi noted, "The basic Arab premise concerning 'the elimination of
the results of aggression' remains accepted by the world." Thus the
"noose" will be placed around the neck of the "Zionist entity."
But
the Arabs' creation of the "myth" of nationality did not create the
advantageous situation for the Palestinian Arabs that Musa Alami had
hoped for. Instead, the conditions he complained of bitterly were
perpetuated: the Arabs "shut the door" of citizenship "in their faces
and imprison them in camps."21
Khaled Al-Azm, who was
Syria's Prime Minister after the 1948 war, deplored the Arab tactics and
the subsequent exploitation of the refugees, in his 1972 memoirs:
Since
1948 it is we who demanded the return of the refugees ... while it is
we who made them leave.... We brought disaster upon ... Arab refugees,
by inviting them and bringing pressure to bear upon them to leave.... We
have rendered them dispossessed.... We have accustomed them to
begging.... We have participated in lowering their moral and social
level.... Then we exploited them in executing crimes of murder, arson,
and throwing bombs upon ... men, women and children-all this in the
service of political purposes .... 22
Propaganda has
successfully veered attention away from the Arab world's manipulation of
its peoples among the refugee group on the one hand, and the number of
those who now in fact possess Arab citizenship in many lands, on the
other hand. The one notable exception is Jordan, where the majority of
Arab refugees moved,* and where they are entitled to citizenship
according to law, "unless they are Jews."23
Palestinian
leadership will not let the refugee problem be solved In 1958, former
director of UNRWA Ralph Galloway declared angrily while in Jordan that
The
Arab states do not want to solve the refugee problem. They want to keep
it as an open sore, as an affront to the United Nations, and as a
weapon against Israel. Arab leaders do not give a damn whether Arab
refugees live or die.
Prittie, "Middle East Refugees," in Michael Curtis et al., eds., The Palestinians:
People, History, Politics (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Books, 1975), p. 71.
Palestinians burn effigy of Canadian minister
January 17, 2001
Reuters
Palestinians
burned an effigy of Canadian Foreign Minister John Manley on Thursday
in a protest against Canada's offer to accept Palestinian refugees as
part of a Middle East peace plan. Hooded gunmen fired into the air
during the protest in Balata refugee camp near the West Bank town of
Nablus and hundreds of demonstrators shouted slogans demanding the right
of return to former homes. "We refuse resettlement of refugees," they
shouted.
Manley told the Toronto Star newspaper in an
interview published on January 10, "We are prepared to receive refugees.
We are prepared to contribute to an international fund to assist with
resettlement in support of a peace agreement." Manley said there had
been no discussion on the number of refugees to be resettled outside the
Middle East.
Canada heads the multilateral Refugee
Working Group, a committee charged with trying to resolve the plight of
Palestinian refugees.
---
1. Habib
Issa, ed., Al-Hoda, Arabic daily, June 8, 1951, New York; see Economist
(London), May 15, 1948, regarding "panic flight"; also see Economist,
October 2, 1948, for British eyewitness report of Arab Higher Committee
radio "announcements" that were "urging all Arabs in Haifa to quit."
2.
Near East Arabic Radio, April 3, 1948: "It must not be forgotten that
the Arab Higher Committee encouraged the refugees to flee from their
homes in Jaffa, Haifa and Jerusalem, and that certain leaders . . . make
political capital out of their miserable situation . . ." Cited by
Anderson et al., "The Arab Refugee Problem and How It Can Be Solved," p.
22; for more regarding Arab responsibility, see Sir Alexander Cadogan,
Ambassador of Great Britain to the United Nations, speech to the
Security Council, S.C., O.R., 287th meeting, April 23, 1948; also see
Harry Stebbens, British Port Officer stationed in Haifa, letter in
Evening Standard (London), January 10, 1969.
3. April
28, 1948; according to the Economist (London), October 1, 1948, only
"4000 to 6000" of the "62,000 Arabs who formerly lived in Haifa"
remained there until the time of the war; also see Kenneth Bilby, New
Star in the Near East (New York: Doubleday, 1950), pp. 30-31; Lt. Col.
Moshe Pearlman, The Army of Israel (New York: Philosophical Library,
1950), pp. 116-17; and Major E. O'Ballance, The Arab-Israeli War of 1948
(London, 1956), p. 52.
4. David Shipler, New York
Times, October 23, 1979, p. A3. Shipler cites Larry Collins and
Dominique Lapierre, 0 Jerusalem, and Dan Kurzman, Genesis 1948.
5. New York Times, October 23, 1979.
6. Yitzhak Rabin, The Rabin Memoirs (Boston and Toronto: Little, Brown, 1979), p. 23, pp. 22-44.
7.
Peter Dodd and Halim Barakat, River Without Bridges.- A Study of the
Exodus of the 1967Arab Palestinian Refugees (Beirut: Institute for
Palestine Studies, 1969), p. 43; on April 27, 1950, the Arab National
Committee of Haifa stated in a memorandum to the Arab States: "The
removal of the Arab inhabitants ... was voluntary and was carried out at
our request ... The Arab delegation proudly asked for the evacuation of
the Arabs and their removal to the neighboring Arab countries.... We
are very glad to state that the Arabs guarded their honour and
traditions with pride and greatness." Cited by J.B. Schechtman, The Arab
Refugee Problem (New York: Philosophical Library, 1952), pp. 8-9; also
see Al-Zaman, Baghdad journal, April 27, 1950.
8. Musa Alami, "The Lesson of Palestine," The Middle East Journal, October 1949.
9.
Lord Caradon, "Cyprus and Palestine," lecture at the University of
Chicago, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, February 17, 1976. Similar
statement by Folke Bernadotte, To Jerusalem, p. 113.
10. P.J. Vatikiotis, Nasser and His Generation (London: Croom Heim, 1978), pp. 256-57.
11.
Ibid. p. 234, quoting a speech by Nasser at Suez, July 26, 1956; in
1952, Sheikh Pierre Gemayel, then leader of the Lebanese National Youth
Organization "Al Kataeb," wrote: "Why should the refugees stay in
Lebanon, and not in Egypt, Iraq and Jordan which claim that they are all
Arab and beyond that, Moslem? ... Isn't it for that alone that these
so-called nationalist elements are demanding to resettle the refugees in
Lebanon because they are themselves Arab and Moslems?" Al-Hoda,
Lebanese journal, January 3, 1952, cited in Schechtman, Arab Refugee
Problem, p. 84; also see Ibrahim Abu-Lughod, "Quest for an Arab Future,"
in Arab Journal, 1966-67, vol. 4, nos. 2-4, pp. 23-29.
12.
"Mohammed Hassanein Heykal Discusses War and Peace in the Middle East,"
Journal of Palestine Studies, Autumn 197 1. Heykal thus joined the Arab
chorus heard after the 1967 war.
13. Vatikiotis, Nasser, p. 257; also see Mohamed Heikal, The Road to Ramadan (New York: Ballantine Books, 1975), p. 56.
14. Interview with Nasser, Le Monde (Paris: February 1970), cited in Vatikiotis, Nasser, p. 259.
15.
Charles Foltz, interview with Nasser, U.S. News and World Report, May
1970, cited in Vatikiotis, Nasser, p. 259; see also Le Monde interview,
February 1970.
16. contrary to the popular view ... in
the West," a "great many refugees" were living out of camps "in
comfortable housing outside," in the beginning of the 1960s according to
Fawaz Turki, The Disinherited- Journal of a Palestinian Exile (New York
and London: Monthly Review Press, 1972), p. 41.
17.
Al-Haytham A]-Ayubi, "Future Arab Strategy in the Light of the Fourth
War," Shuun Filastiniyya (Beirut), October 1974. AI-Ayubi, also called
Abu-Hammam, has been military head of Popular Front for the Liberation
of Palestine, Lieutenant Colonel in the Syrian army, and highly
respected strategist on Israel. He perceived the "guerrilla" war against
Israel as the ultimately successful one.
18. Rosemary
Sayigh, "Sources of Palestinian Nationalism: A Study of a Palestinian
Camp in Lebanon," Journal of Palestinian Studies, vol. 6, no. 4, 1977,
p. 2 1; see also Sayigh, "The Palestinian Identity Among Camp
Residents," Journal of Palestinian Studia vol. 6, no. 3, 1977, pp. 3-22.
19.
In 1981, the Organization of African Unity's executive secretary,
Ambassador Oumarou Garba Youssoupou from Niger, reflected upon why the
millions of displaced souls in Africa were not as visible: "We're not
getting the publicity because of our culture. No refugee is turned away
from the host countries, so we're not dramatic enough for television. We
have no drownings, no piratings.... We don't make the news ... ..
Aiding Africa's Refugees," by Gertrude Samuels, The New Leader, May 4,
1981.
20. AI-Ayubi, "Future Arab Strategy in the Light of the Fourth War."
21. Musa Alami, "The Lesson of Palestine," The Middle East Journal, October 1949.
22.
Khaled Al-Azm, Memoirs [Arabic), 3 vols. (AI-Dar al Muttahida Id-Nashr,
1972), vol. 1, pp. 386-87, cited by Maurice Roumani, The Case of the
Jewsfrom Arab Countries: A Neglected Issue, preliminary edition
(Jerusalem: World Organization of Jews from Arab Countries [WOJAC],
1975), p. 61.
23. Jordanian National Law, Official
Gazette, No. 1171, February 16, 1954, p. 105, Article 3(3). Between 1948
and 1967, 200,000 to 300,000 Arabs moved from the West Bank to the
"East Bank," according to Eliyahu Kanovsky, in Jordan, People and
Politics in the Middle East, Michael Curtis, ed. (New Brunswick, N.J.:
Transaction Books, 1971), p. 111.
This page was produced by Joseph E. Katz
Middle Eastern Political and Religious History Analyst
Brooklyn, New York
Source: "From Time Immemorial" by Joan Peters, 1984, a national
bestseller
