The First Cause

A few days ago, I posted the YouTube clip from the BBC's "50 Years War" program of a decade ago in which we see and hear an Arab, who served as a journalist/PR person in Jerusalem for the Arab Higher Committee admitting that the horror stories of rape and such at Deir Yassin were made up by his superiors but spread by himself. It was that line of publicity that caused tens of thousands of Arabs to leave their homes unnecessarily, joining others who either had picked up and left early in the war for economic reasons or who had guessed that the Arabs were going to surely lose, or who believed instructions to get out of the way of conquering Arab troops or who left their villages after trying to kill as many Jews as possible and having their own homes taken over and, yes, others who, like in Ramleh/Lod, were forced out against their will.

Well, he's back on BBC but this time has a different story:

Israel's President, Shimon Peres, an aide to Mr Ben Gurion in 1948, told the BBC in an interview to mark his country's 60th anniversary that it bore no responsibility for the exodus of Palestinians. "I was present at the occasion," President Peres said. "I don't mind what historians are writing. Ben Gurion did not want the Arabs to leave the country."

The former Jordanian Foreign Minister, Hazem Nusseibeh, a Palestinian who was a journalist in Jerusalem in 1948, expressed surprise when the BBC put the Israeli president's words to him.

"No responsibility whatsoever? Then what caused the exodus to happen? It was the Israeli massacre of the villages of people whom they encountered," he said.

"I can count you the scores of massacres which happened all over the country. Do you think anyone would leave his home unless he was really threatened?"

Scores? By Jews...or Arabs?

What caused the exodus was a silly, stupid and wicked decision by Arabs to support their leadership and attempt to ehtnically cleanse the Mandate area of the Jews and prevent the implementation of the UN resolution to establish a Jewish State. I call that illegal aggression. What the Arabs did at the Hadassah Convoy massacre (79) and at the Gush Etzion Bloc massacre (128) - over 200 Jewish dead in those two acts of killing alone - are glossed over until this day as are the forced abandonment of Atarot, Neveh Yaakov, the Old City quarter of Jerusalem, Bet HaAravah and other communities. That was the first cause.