The following from a pro-palestinian site, even doesnt' create a great case that the palestinians were all slaughtered and forced out of their homes in 1948. It even says the palestinians left because of the depth of their own haterd and because of the "intermixing of the population". Sounds like a neo-nazi sentiment to me. <begin quoted material from http://www.palestineremembered.com/Acre/Palestine-Remembered/Story562.html >
Why Palestinians Left Their Homes? Why 700,000 people became refugees was subsequently hotly disputed between Israel and its supporters and the Arabs and theirs. Israeli spokesmen--including "official" historians and writers of textbooks-- maintained that Arabs had fled "voluntarily," or because the Arab states' leaders had urged or ordered them to leave [click here to read our response to this claim], to clear the ground for the invasion of May 15, and enable their spokesman to claim that they had been systematically and with premeditation expelled the refugees. Documentation that surfaced in massive quantities during the 1980s in Israeli and Western achieves has demonstrated that neither "official" version is accurate or sufficient. The creation of the [refugees] problem was almost inevitable, given: a.. the geographical intermixing of the population b.. the history of the Arab-Jewish hostility since 1917 c.. rejection of both sides of a binominal solution d.. the depth of the Arab animosity toward the Jews and fears of coming under Jewish rule. The structural weaknesses that characterized Palestinian society on the eve of the war made it especially susceptible to collapse and flight. It was a.. poorly organized, with little social or political cohesion, b.. there were deep divisions between rural and urban population, and c.. between Muslims and Christians, and d.. between various elite clans. e.. The absence of representative leaders, and f.. national institutions [such as labor unions, health care, defense, tax collections, ..etc.] g.. As a result of economic and social processes that had begun in the mid-nineteenth century, large parts of the the rural population had been rendered landless by the 1940s. In consequence there was a constant, growing shift of population from the countryside to urban shantytowns and slums; to some degree this led to both physical and psychological divorce from the land. Moreover, 70 or 80 percent of the people were illiterate [reader should not that the public educational system available to Palestinians before 1948 was limited to 25%-30% of total eligible Palestinian student population]. In some measure this resulted in and was mirrored by a low level of political consciousness and activism. The "nationalism" of the urban elite was shared little; if at all, by the urban poor and peasantry. h.. And finally, the Arab economy in Palestine had failed to make shift from primitive, agriculture economy to a reindustrialize one--as the Yishuv had done. Equally relevant, in towns very few Arab workers were unionized; none, except the small number in British government service, enjoyed the benefit of unemployment insurance. Effectively ejected from Jewish enterprises and farms when Arab factories and offices closed down, they lost their means of livelihood. For some, exile may have become an attractive option, at least until Palestine calmed down. --Beth, Pseudo usenet cop Merlin MTB, BikeE AT, RANS gliss, Trek R200, Kickbike Owned by Kavik (Samoyed Boy) and Toklat (Keeshond Boy) Anchorage, Alaska ______________________________________________________________________ Get the mailserver that powers this list at http://www.coolfusion.com Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
