Articles By Bob

Some 5-7000 Jews lived in Palestine under the Ottoman Empire before the British took over.
Prior to the first major wave of Jewish immigration in 1882, only 250,000 Arabs lived in the area and the majority of them were fairly new arrivals themselves.

Between the First and Second World War, the Jewish population increased by 375,000 and the Arab population by 380,000.

After the partition vote from the United Nations, Israel declared its Independence on May 14, 1948. One day later, five Arab armies invaded Israel from Egypt, Transjordan, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq.

Jews pleaded with Palestinian Arabs to remain in their homes.  Although many of the Arabs did flee or join the invading armies, a considerable portion of Arabs remained in Israel.  This interesting fact is seldom discussed. About 300,000 Arabs fled Israel and about 160,000 remained. Today Israel still contains a vital Arab population and these Arabs have more rights in Israel than any other Arab in any Arab country! In fact, shortly before Yassir Arafat’s death, when there was talk (once again) under the Bush administration, of a “separate Palestinian state” the Arab citizens in Israel were asked if they wanted to move, renouncing their Israeli citizenship, and live in the Palestine sector. Guess what they decided!  Some of them probably fell on the floor laughing before saying to the Israeli government, “Oh, I’m sorry.  You were serious.”

In 1948, when Israel beat the odds and defeated five invading nations, the problem of refugees came up.  We always hear about the Arab refugees from Israel.  But they were not the only refugees. Hundreds of thousands of Jews were kicked out of Arab lands too. All of the Jewish refugees were welcomed into Israel where as Arabs who wanted to resettle in Arab countries were (for the most part) denied admission.  Jordan was an exception but even in Jordan most of the refugees were confined to camps. They lived in that condition all the way up to 1967, when Israel annexed Jordan’s West Bank. Prior to 1967 there was no significant ongoing discussion amongst the countries of the world regarding Jordan’s treatment of the “poor Palestinians.”

On December 11, 1948, the United Nations drafted and ratified Resolution 194.  This was a call for the Arab states and Israel to resolve the refugee/resettlement issues but the condition was that all returning citizens would agree to live in peace. Receiving no such guarantee from the Arabs, Israel decided to postpone repatriation until her neighbors would recognize her right to exist.

Although as a general rule, the Arab refugees left Israel on their own, there are always exceptions to the rule during times of war and there were a few (extremely few) cases of Arabs being forced out of their homes by the Israelis. Some of this is understandable since most Arabs were siding with five nations that vowed to annihilate every last Jew. One such case is the forced evacuation of the village, Biram.  But even in this situation, the Arabs relocated to a nearby village and they did remain in the country of Israel where they reside to this day. Recently, the Israeli government has taken a more sympathetic interest to their complaint and a positive solution may still be in the horizon.

But such rare occurrences must not cause us to ignore the fact that most of the Arabs who chose to remain in Israel were never forced to leave. They became citizens with full rights and privileges!

Nevertheless, the world was about to be deceived by the most brilliant, most sinister, most destructive historical revision to ever surface on our planet. Realizing that they were unable to win a real war against Israel, the Arabs waged the war of public opinion instead.  The pawns?  Arab refugees soon to be re-named “Palestinian refugees.”  And the leader of their cause would be a man who was not even born in Palestine.