An Accurate History of Palestine, Israel, and the "Palestinians," Part II (1948 - Early 1950s)

PART II

War of 1948
One day after the State of Israel was born, on May 15, 1948, no less than five Arab nations invaded Israel. The new State fought against Syria and Lebanon in the north, Iraq and Transjordan (Jordan) in the east, Egypt (assisted by contingents from the Sudan) in the south, and Arabs and volunteers from other Arab countries from within. Being that Israel had just been born, these five Arab countries had superior armor, artillery, and air forces.

On May 31, the Haganah was renamed the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) and suffered initial setbacks, but after three weeks, they were able to halt the offensive, stabilize the front, and even initiate some local offensive operations. By mid-July 1949, Israel was able to capture the upper Galilee, the Negev in the south (which had been allotted to the Jewish State by the UN), and end the war. The Arab countries signed Armistice Agreements; first came Egypt on February 24, 1949, Lebanon on March 23, 1949, Jordan on April 3, 1949, and Syria on July 20, 1949. Only Iraq did not sign an agreement. It preferred to withdraw its troops and hand over its sector to the Arab Legion of Jordan. In the end, not only did Israel eject the Arab forces, but it also took 5,000 square kilometers over and above the areas allocated to it by the United Nations.

As soon as the armistice agreements were signed, the IDF was disbanded. But it was too soon to do so. The former Arabs of Palestine (and neighboring Arab countries, in an effort to show Israel and the rest of the Arabs that they hadn't given up the war) started sending suicide troops across the ill-protected border to steal farm equipment, laying of mines, killing of individuals, and wholesale massacres. They were trained, equipped, and paid by Egyptian intelligence, but they operated from bases in Jordan (which caused Jordan to bear the brunt of the retaliation). Each time Israel would retaliate, the UN Security Council would condemn it.

Post-1948 War through the Early 1950s
Despite the refugee problem being admittedly caused by the Arabs fleeing (due to the Arab Higher Committee encouraging them to leave their lands) and the surrounding Arab states, Israel was still willing to take back the Arabs who had scattered in the hopes of an Arab victory in 1948.

On November 19, 1948, the General Assembly created the UN Relief for Palestinian Refugees, later renamed UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) to dispense aid to the refugees. The Arab refugees of Palestine are the only refugee group that gets their own UN organization. All other refugees utilize the UN Refugee Agency. Regardless, UNRWA was originally given a budget of $50 million to assist the estimated 650,000-711,000 Arab refugees of Palestine (according to the UN).

According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, a refugee is someone who has been forced to leave a country because of war or for religious or political reasons. Recall that Israel never forced the Arabs to leave Palestine/Israel. In fact, Israel insisted and requested that they stay and help them build the country. The Arabs were the ones who rejected the Jewish request and abandoned their property.

According to the UN Refugee Agency, pursuant to the 1951 Refugee Convention, a refugee is someone "who owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality, and is unable to, or owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country" (emphasis added).

On another section of the UNHCR website, refugee is defined as "someone who has been forced to flee his or her country because of persecution, war, or violence." Again, the Jews of Palestine practically begged the Arabs to stay; the Jews were not the reason the Arabs left.

Additionally, the new Israeli government was more than willing to take the Arabs back into the country. The Arabs rejected this offer (see below).

[Note: For this reason alone, there are no Arab refugees from Palestine. For argument's sake, even if there were, the number would be limited to the original 650,000-711,000. Refugee status does not extend to additional generations. There is no international law that provides for this and no other refugee group can, or does, claim this. Despite this, Arabs from Palestine insist that their descendants are entitled to keep this label (and UNRWA supports it), thus making the number of "Palestinian refugees" an unwieldy and ridiculous five million people. And reductio ad absurdum, if you continued along these lines another 20-30 years, you would have over thirty million Arabs claiming the Right of Return to Israel.

In the history of the world, all refugees have eventually been assimilated (since WWII, 165 million). All but one -- the Arabs of Palestine. Due to the application of the definition of refugee, all numbers of refugees have declined to zero (either from absorption or from them dying off); all except the Arabs of Palestine. Their numbers have increased, despite all rules of law and mathematics.

We won't discuss here the ignored issue of the Jewish refugees, mainly because Israel absorbed them as soon as they fled and arrived in Israel.

For a more in depth conversation on the refugee issue, please refer to my already written blog, There Are No Refugees.]

According to UNRWA (now the largest UN agency, with a staff of over 30,000) and the US Department of State, from 1950-1999, the US gave $2,222,000,000.00 to UNRWA. That's over $2 BILLION (with a "B"). As of 2012, the US has given a total of $4,300,510,350.00 to UNRWA, whose only focus is the Arabs from Palestine alleged refugee problem. In 2010, the European Commission gave UNRWA $165 million. That same year, Sweden gave $47 million, the UK gave $45 million, Norway gave $40 million, and the Netherlands gave $29 million.

On December 11, 1948, the UN passed Resolution 194, which stated that, "refugees willing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so ... and that compensation should be paid for property of those choosing not to return..." (emphasis added). Those emphasized words show that the UN did not expect Israel to repatriate a hostile population that might endanger its security. The solution to the problem would have to include resettlement of Arabs into neighboring Arab countries. Israelis did not expect the resettlement issue to be a problem, but the Arabs were, still, unwilling to negotiate and cooperate and unanimously rejected the UN Resolution, on claimed moral and political grounds.

The only country that has assimilated, in significant numbers, the Arabs of Palestine is Jordan. No other Arab country has absorbed them or given them full citizenship despite the fact that many of them were born in those countries and have lived there for years.