It is no secret that millions of people on the European continent were displaced from their countries and homes after World War II. The years of fighting and destruction left millions in a state of limbo while being corralled into Displaced Persons camps by the newly formed United Nations and International Refugee Organization (IRO). A large percentage of these Displaced Persons were Jews, who had been systematically hunted down by the Nazi and Soviet regimes during the war. Soon after the war, in 1947, the United Nations sought to tackle the Jewish question. To do so they drew up a resolution to create the nation of Israel in the already existing country of Palestine. More accurately, their resolution would partition Palestine into two new countries, one for Jews and one for Arabs. While Jewish leaders readily accepted the deal, Arab and Palestinian leaders were quick to reject it. Their rejection of the plan would not matter within the coming year. Starting in the spring of 1948 750,000 Palestinians would be forced from their homes by the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) at the command of Zionist leaders. [1] This forceful ejection of people from Palestine created a whole new refugee problem within the Middle East and is considered by many to be an international war crime of ethnic cleansing.
The events of 1948 are referred to by Palestinians as the Nakba, meaning “the catastrophe”. Many people who have researched the Arab-Israeli conflict of 1948 have come to the conclusion that it was a well crafted and coordinated attack created by Zionist leaders. Headed by David Ben-Gurion in the 1930s and 40s, Zionists are Jews who wished for the creation of a separate Jewish state within Palestinian lands. In 1937 Ben-Gurion wrote to his son, in a manner which eerily foreshadows the events of 1948, stating that “[t]he Arabs will have to go, but one needs an opportune moment for making it happen, such as a war”. [2] In preparation for the take over of Palestine, Zionist leaders took years assembling mass data files on every individual village within Palestine. They knew the population size, the layout of streets, ages of residents, names and locations of village leaders, and various other pieces of information. Once all the data was collected, the IDF split into twelve units and began terrorizing their assigned villages. Named Plan D, orders on how to remove people included “destroying villages. . .and especially those population centers that are difficult to control permanently. . .In case of resistance, the armed forces must be wiped out and the population expelled outside the borders of the state” [3]. These orders showcase the type of brutality that took place in those six months of conflict. It was not a peaceful integration of people, but rather a forceful expulsion of the native population who did not see it coming.
People that have studied this event have likened the acts of Zionist forces to that of ethnic cleansing. The U.S. State Department defines ethnic cleansing as “the systematic and forced removal of the members of an ethnic group from communities in order to change the ethnic composition of a given region”. [4] The tactics used by the IDF seem to match up with this definition, but very few people speak out about it in the same way people speak about the Nazi’s ethnic cleansing of Jews during the Holocaust. While the Palestinians were not forced into forced-labor camps many did move into the neighboring countries of Jordan and Syria, but many also stayed within the two remaining Palestinian regions of Gaza and the West Bank. While not on par to the size of the European Displaced Persons crisis, the rapid nature of Israeli takeover left hundreds of thousands in a bitter limbo for years to come.
The creation of the nation of Israel has been one of the most controversial events of the modern era, and has contributed to the complex state of our modern geopolitical system. With new histories and accounts now being written on the events of 1948 in Palestine it sheds new light on a topic all but seemingly forgotten by the wider world. Personally after reading through personal accounts of Palestinians who were forced from their homes, as well as the various orders on how to expel them, it makes me sympathize deeply with them. I am uncertain that these new histories will lead to a resolution for the people Palestine, but I am certain that the events of 1948 will come back to haunt the world in the coming years.
[1] Avi Shlaim, “The Debate about 1948,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 27 (1995). 295.
[2] Ilan Pappe, “The 1948 Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine,” Journal of Palestine Studies 36 (2006). 9.
[3] Ibid, 16.
[4] Ibid, 7.
