Mahmoud Abbas Quotes

When the United Nations partitioned Palestine into a Jewish and a Palestinian State the Arab Countries all jointly attacked the fledgling Jewish State of Israel. Despite the Israeli’s being overwhelmingly out numbered in man and weapons, they beat back the invaders. However while many Arabs stayed on their Israeli land and some helped the Jews defend against the Arab Armies some abandoned their homes and land and went to neighboring Arab Counties. This is what they had been asked to do by the Arab governments who wanted to be able to attack communities without worrying about killing Arabs. To spur the evacuation the spread false propaganda about Israeli atrocities and frightened them into leaving. As a motivation to leave they were told that they could move into the Jewish lands and property when the Jews had been driven out. To make matters worse, some Israeli radicals repeated the lies to induce the Arabs to abandon their lands. In at least one case Arabs who stayed were subjected to violence. After the defeat of the Arabs, the Israelis had a dilemma in that they could not tell which Arabs were residents who had just been frightened and which had fought on the Arab side or helped the invaders. The result was that with few exceptions, the Arab refugees were not allowed back. Meanwhile, the Arab countries would not allow the refugees to settle and become citizens of the Arab countries (except for Jordan). The Palestinian refugees were a particularly fertile population and were cared for by the United Nations and have multiplied to many times their original size maintaining a continuous festering problem.

The strategy was to have Arab refugees, who had been trained to not only hate the Israelis but also in military and terrorist techniques, to return to israel and foment an insurgency. Ironically, this quotation was cited at the time as one of the few statements upon which the Israeli and Egyptian governments could agree.

This quote is very important historically as it bears on the two different narratives of the creation of Israel given by the Jews and the Arabs. The Arabs claim that in the 1948 partition of Palestine, the Jew attacked the Arabs and drove them out of the areas in which they had lived for years, The Israelis claim that they urged the Arabs to stay and that all those who did, received full citizenship in the new state of Israel. The Arab leaders pressured and in some cases even forced the Arabs to leave so that the Arab armies could use artillery and other war weapons and not have to worry about hitting Arabs. They promised the Arabs who left that they could return in a few days when the Jews were defeated and pushed into the sea, and the Arabs could have the Jewish property. This report of an impartial actor, tends to support the Jewish view of the happening in so far as the behavior of the Jews was concerned. There was no pressure placed on Arabs by Jews to leave. It was actually, the reverse. There were however, two small rural areas where Jewish radicals did try and drive the Arabs out, but in general the Haifa experience was the norm.

At that time Jews in Palestine were in the minority. The issue of how to obtain the land was hotly debated amongst Jewish groups. Jabotinsky was at one extreme—colonize and take the land just as the Arabs had done to the Jews when there was a Jewish majority. His view did not however prevail. The policy was to buy the land from individual Arabs and Jewish land up to 1948 was obtained that way. In that year the UN partitioned Palestine and 11 Arab armies attacked the new state of Israel and asked the Arab civilians to leave the area so that the Army could cleanse it of Jews. Many did not, and they or their descendants are still on their land or have sold it. The Arabs who left, were suspected of being possible collaborators or terrorists, and they have never been paid for their land or allowed to return. Compensation is still in dispute. At the same time Jews driven out of Arab countries by law and the military have never been compensated or given any right of return either.

When the United Nations partitioned Palestine into a Jewish and a Palestinian State the Arab Countries all jointly militarily attacked the fledgling Jewish State of Israel. Despite the Israeli’s being overwhelmingly outnumbered they beat back the invaders. However while many Arabs stayed on their Israeli land and some helped the Jews defend against the Arab Armies, some others abandoned their homes and land and went to neighboring Arab Counties. This is what they had been asked to do by the Arab governments who wanted to be able to militarily attack communities without worrying about killing Arabs. To spur the evacuation the Arab leadership spread false propaganda about Israeli atrocities and frightened them into leaving. As a motivation to leave they were told that they could move into the Jewish lands and property when the Jews had been driven out. To make matters worse, some Israeli radicals repeated the lies to induce the Arabs to abandon their lands. In at least one case, Arabs who stayed were subjected to Jewish violence. Each side has since railed about what the other side did at that point in time and each fails to mention how they contributed to the refugee problem.

Mehmet Talaat Pasha. This document is one of the coldest writing in the history of humanity. In modern times, only the German Nazis would exceed this evil in brazen purpose. The Christian Armenians, a minority in Turkey and its lands, were discriminated against like other non Muslim minorities in the Ottoman Empire. But during the Turkish War with Russia and WWI, some Armenians defected and served on the Russian side. Many Turkish citizens took revenge on Armenians by means of murder and torture. Soon, the extermination of the Armenians became the official “Young Turk” government policy. Hundreds of thousands of Armenians were killed outright, and about an equal number were “deported” to special areas. Many died of malnutrition along the forced march of Ethnic Cleansing. Others were murdered as they were deported. No one knows exactly how many Armenians were killed with estimates ranging from ½ million to 4 million. This was the first genocide of the 20th century. Modern Turkish leaders however, are in denial about the Armenian deaths. They claim that there was a war and food was scarce; the only Armenians killed, the claimed were proven Russian agents. They further claim that the Armenian behavior was in large part responsible for the forced deportations because of their lack of patriotism and unwillingness to help the Turkish authorities identify the Russian agents. Most Turks today are unaware of the Armenian Genocide as nothing is taught about the massacres in schools or other institutions. It is against the law in Turkey to even have an intellectual study of the Turkish behavior towards the Armenians, much less publish anything about it.