The UN has consistently blamed Israel falsely for the displacement of Palestinian Arabs which the Arab League alone is completely guilty of doing. The Arab League not only displaced 1,000,000 Jews from its member states in 1948, the Arab League caused the displacement of 367.000-425,000 Palestinian Arabs in 1948. Both displacements of Jews from Arab counties and Palestinian Arabs from Israel were caused by the Arab League’s rejection of Jewish sovereignty amongst Arab-Moslem countries. The number of Palestinian Arabs who were displaced and the cause for their displacement by the Arab League is explained in depth in the book: ‘’Battleground, Facts & Fantasy in Palestine by Samuel Katz, who was ‘’Adviser to the Prime Minister of Information Abroad’’ to Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and accompanied Begin in meetings with U.S. Pres. Carter. (Wikipedia).
Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations said of Battleground, ‘’Reading BATTLEGROUND is an eye-opener. It is well written, informative, fast-paced and debunks some carefully cultivated myths converning Israel and the Middle East.’’ One of these myths that former ambassador Kirkpatrick was referring to, is ‘’…that in 1948 the Jewish people launched an attack on the Arab inhabitants of Palestine, drove them out, and thus established the State of Israel. The number of innocent peace-loving Arabs thus turned refugees was- here you may insert any figure that occurs to you, such as a million, one and a half million, two million. Justice demands that the refugees be restored to their homes, and until that day, the world (everyone, that is, except the Arab people) must care for their upkeep.’’ (pg 12). Truthfully, the Arab League rejectionism that caused the Palestinian Arab displacement began immediately after the UN adopted the Partition Plan [that would divide Western Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state], on November 29, 1947. Author Samuel Katz explained that ‘’The seven neighboring Arab states- Syria, Lebanon, Transjordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Egypt- then prepared to invade the country as soon as the birth of the infant State of Israel was announced. Their victory was certain, they claimed, but it would be speeded and made easier if the local Arab population got out of the way. The [Arab] refugees would come back in the wake of the victorious Arab armies and not only recover their own property but also inherit the houses and farms of the vanquished and annihilated Jews.’’ (pg 13).
Immediately, large numbers of Arabs, simply chose to move from their homes by example of the wealthier Arabs in Palestine. It was clear at the time that the Arabs were leaving by choice. Puzzled by the Arab’s unnecessary and peculiar behavior, a London Times correspondent reported on May 5, 1948: ‘’The Arab streets are curiously deserted and, evidently following the poor example of the more moneyed class there has been an exodus from Jerusalem too, though not to the same extent as in Jaffa and Haifa.’’ (pg 13).
On this matter, Katz states in Battleground: ‘’Before the State of Israel had been formally declared- and while the British still ruled the country- over 200,000 Arabs left their homes in the coastal plain of Palestine.’’ (pg 13). This fact proves that the Arabs left willingly and voluntarily without Israeli coercion. This was a purposely timed exodus in alignment with the Arab League’s plan to conquer the Israelis and leave the plundering to the returning Arabs. Katz explains: ‘’These exhortations came primarily from their own local leaders.’’ Katz references Monsignor George Hakim, then Greek Catholic Bishop of Galilee, the leading Christian personality in Palestine for many years, [who] told a Beirut newspaper in the summer of 1948, before the flight of the Arabs had ended: The refugees were confident that their absence would not last long, and that they would return within a week or two. Their leaders had promised them that the Arab armies would crush the ‘’Zionist gangs’’ very quickly and that there was no need for panic or fear of a long exile. (Sada al Janub, August 16, 1948)(pg 14-15).
On October 2, 1948, the London weekly Economist reported: ‘’Of the 62,000 Arabs who formally lived in Haifa not more than 5,000 or 6,000 remained. Various factors influenced their decision to seek safety in flight. There is but little doubt that the most potent of the factors were the announcements made over the air by the Higher Arab Executive, urging the Arabs to quit….It was clearly intimated that those Arabs who remained in Haifa and accepted Jewish protection would be regarded as renegades.’’ (pg 15). It is clear from this report that not only were the Jews not coercing the Arabs to leave, but the Jews were also offering the Arabs protection. The Arab leaders chose to cooperate with the Arab League’s planned war by encouraging the local Arabs to leave instead of encouraging them to stay and receive aid and protection from their Jewish neighbors.
Reiterating the London weekly Economist report, the Near East Arabic Broadcasting Station from Cyprus stated on April 3, 1949: It must not be forgotten that the Arab Higher Committee encouraged the refugee’s flight from their homes in Jaffa, Haifa and Jerusalem.’’ (pg 15). Katz also referenced the leading Arab propagandist of the day, Edward Atiya (then Secretary of the Arab League Office in London), [who] reaffirmed the facts: This wholesale exodus was due partly to the belief of the Arabs, encouraged by the boasting of an unrealistic Arab press and the irresponsible utterances of some of the Arab leaders that it could be only a matter of some weeks before the Jews were defeated by the armies of the Arab States and the Palestinian Arabs enabled to re-enter and retake possession of their country. [The Arabs (London, 1955), p. 183] (pg 15). The Arab League Secretary even calls the purposed exodus a ‘’wholesale’’. The Arab leaders and media, sold the exodus idea to the Arab people- who were not motivated by real danger but motivated at the possible gains of Jewish property and assets.
Keneth Bilby, Katz references, [who was] one of the American correspondents who covered Palestine for several years before and during the war of 1948, soon afterward wrote a book on his experience and observations. In it he reported: The Arab exodus, initially at least, was encouraged by many Arab leaders, such as Haj Amin al Husseini, the exiled pro-Nazi Mufti of Jerusalem, and by the Arab Higher Committee for Palestine. They viewed the first wave of Arab setbacks as merely transitory. Let the Palestine Arabs flee into neighboring countries. It would serve to arouse the other Arab peoples to greater effort, and when the Arab invasion struck, the Palestinians could return to their homes and be compensated with the property of Jews driven into the sea. [New Star in the Near East(New York, 1950), pp. 30-31].
In addition to the encouragement from the local Arab leaders, the leaders of the Arab States also encouraged the Arabs of Palestine to leave too:. Still during the war, Katz references Emil Ghoury, Secretary of the Arab Higher Committee, the official leadership of the Palestinian Arabs, stated in an interview with a Beirut newspaper: I do not want to impugn anybody but only to help the refugees. The fact that there are refugees is the direct consequence of the action of the Arab States in opposing partition and the Jewish State. The Arab States agreed upon this policy unanimously and they must share in the solution of the problem. [Daily Telegraph, September 6, 1948]. Mr. Ghoury clearly states that the Arab States are responsible for the Arab refugees of Palestine, and does not mention the Jews as bearing any responsibility. The Arab leaders caused the Arab refugee problem and are therefore solely responsible for them. The Arab League now comprises of 22 states, these 22 states can absorb and manage the Arab refugees far better than the lone small State of Israel. It is wrong and unbalanced to expect one small state- Israel, who didn’t cause the refugee problem to bear full responsibility for it and not put any expectation on the 22 Arab League States to take their rightful responsibility.
Simply put, Israel is not and should not be responsible for the Arab League’s refugee problem.
On February 19, 1949, the Jordanian newspaper Falistin, reported: The Arab States encouraged the Palestine Arabs to leave their homes temporarily in order to be out of the way of the Arab invasion armies.
The Arabs of Palestine were getting ‘’out of the way’’ of the invading Arab armies, not the Israeli forces, which is a completely different story told today by Arab leaders. Today, there is the ‘’Nakbah’’ or ‘’catastrophe’’, the Arab term for the Arab displacement from Palestine in 1948. The Nakbah is commemorated every year and every year the Jews are wrongfully blamed, while the Arab League happily evades the blame with the comfort of hiding the true story.
Nimr el Hawari, the Commander of the Palestine Arab Youth Organization, in his book Sir Am Nakbah (The Secret Behind the Disaster, published in Nazareth in 1952), references how the Iraqi Prime Minister Muri Said. Nuri, fervently warned the Arabs of Palestine to be ’’out of the way’’ from the invading Arab armies as the Jordanian newspaper Falistin reported of the Arab States: We will smash the country with our guns and obliterate every place the Jews seek shelter in. The Arabs should conduct their wives and children to safe areas until the fighting has died down.
Over and over again, the theme, to get ‘’out of the way’’ from the invading Arab armies is reiterated by leading Arabs. Habib Issa, the Secretary General of the Arab League, said in the New York Lebanese daily newspaper Al Hoda on June 8, 1951: The Secretary General of the Arab League, Azzam Pasha, assured the Arab peoples that the occupation of Palestine and of Tel Aviv would be as simple as a military promenade…he pointed out that they were already on the frontiers and that all the millions the Jews had spent on land and economic development would be easy booty, for it would be a simple matter to through [throw] Jews into the Mediterranean…Brotherly advice was given to the Arabs of Palestine to leave their land, homes, and property and to stay temporarily in neighboring fraternal states, lest the guns of the invading Arab armies mow them down.
There can be no doubt that the Arab League is responsible for the ‘Nakbah’. Even some years after the Palestinian Arabs’ migration from their homes, Katz notes: ‘’As late as 1952, the charge had the official stamp of the Arab Higher Committee. In a memorandum to the Arab League states, the Committee wrote: Some of the Arab leaders and their ministers in Arab capitals…declared that they welcomed the immigration of Palestinian Arabs into the Arab countries until they saved Palestine. Many of the Palestinian Arabs were misled by their declarations…it was natural for those Palestinian Arabs who felt impelled to leave their country to take refuge in Arab lands…and to stay in such adjacent places, in order to maintain contact with their country so that to return to it would be easy when, according to the promises of many of those responsible in the Arab countries (promises which were given wastefully), the time was ripe. Many were of the opinion that such an opportunity would come in the hours between sunset and sunrise.’’ (pg 17-18). This revealing memorandum also proves that when the Arabs left Palestine, they were in a ‘’state of mind’’, not in a ‘’state of crises.’’ Katz even quotes a Arab refugee who testifies to this ‘’state of mind’’, the refugee said: ‘’The Arab governments told us: Get out so that we can get in. So we got out, but they did not get in.’’ (pg 18).
The Arab governments have caused the suffering of the Arab refugees from Palestine by their vain unkept promises as the refugee plainly said.
In its report, JJAC agrees that ‘’…the historical pattern of the Israeli-Palestinian-Arab conflict can be summed up under the rubric of ‘’double rejectionism’’. Both the Arab leadership and the Palestinian leadership in 1947 were prepared to forgo the establishment of a Palestinian state if that meant countenancing a Jewish state in any borders. Simply put, if the Arab leadership had accepted the U.N. Partition Resolution of 1947, there would have been no refugees- either Arab or Jewish.’’
As empty promises were fading, the Arab leaders began spreading false rumors that spread like wildfire to get the half remaining Arab population living in the Jewish section (designated by the UN’s Partition plan) out of the way as there was one month yet before the Arab armies planned invasion. Katz explains the factual events that took place between local Arab fighters and local Jewish fighters, in which the events were spun into a false rumor by Arab leaders: ‘’At the village of Dir Yassin, one of the bases of the Arab forces maintaining pressure on the Jerusalem- Tel Aviv road, an assault by the ‘’dissident’’ Irgun Zbai Leumi [Jewish group] and the FFI (Stern group) had continued for eight hours before the village was finally captured, and then only with the help of a Palmach armored car, which arrived on the scene unexpectedly. The element of surprise having been lost, the Arab soldiers could turn every house in the village into a fortress. Jewish casualties amounted to one third of the attacking force (40 out if 120). The Arabs, barricading themselves in the houses, had omitted to evacuating the women and children, many of whom were thus killed during the attack.’’ (pg18). The Arab fighters could have and should have let the women and children leave the fighting scene, but they chose not to. However, this was not the story that the Arab leadership spread. The Arab leadership falsely accused the Jews of a ‘’massacre’ which was heard across Palestine and the world. The Arab leaders’ plan to scare the Arab residents from their homes worked as Katz recorded: ‘’The British officer who had done most in the years before 1948 to build up the Transjordanian Army, General Blubb Pasha, wrote in the London Daily Mail on August 12, 1948: ‘’The Arab civilians panicked and fled ignominiously. Villages were frequently abandoned before they were threatened by the progress of war.’’ (pg 19).
To debunk the false rumor, Katz references: ‘’…the refugee from Dir Yassin, Yunes Ahmed Assad, has soberly recorded that ‘’The Arab exodus from other villages was not caused by the actual battle, but by the exaggerated description spread by Arab leaders to incite them to fight the Jews.’’ (pg19). This refugee’s living testimony confirms the facts on the ground. The Arabs left Palestine not based on real fear from the Jewish forces, but ‘exaggerated’ tales to ‘incite’’ them to leave as the refugee said. Due to these ‘exaggerated incitements’, Katz notes that ‘’Another quarter of a million Arabs thus left the area of the State of Israel in the ate spring and early summer of 1948’’. (pg 19).
The Jewish authorities in Israel, even tried to prevent the Arabs from choosing to leave. Katz references Bishop Hakim of Galilee confirmed to the Rev. Karl Baehr, Executive Secretary of the American Christian Palestine Committee that the Arabs of Haifa ‘’fled in spite of the fact that the Jewish authorities guaranteed their safety and rights as citizens of Israel.’’ (pg 19). Bishop Hakim’s statement coincides with a report by the Haifa District HQ of the British Palestine Police sent on April 26, 948, to Police HQ in Jerusalem: ‘’Every effort is being made by the Jews to persuade the Arab populace to stay and carry on with their normal lives, to get their shops and businesses open and to be assured that their lives and interests will be safe.’’ (Battleground). The Jewish guarantees went ignored by the Arab residents. The police report continues: ‘’A large road convoy escorted by [British] military…left Haifa for Beirut yesterday….Evacuation by sea goes on steadily.’’ Two days later, Katz notes, the Haifa police continued to report. The jews were ‘’still making every effort to persuade the Arab populace to remain and to settle back into their normal lives in the towns’’; as for the Arabs, ‘’another convoy left Tireh for Transjordan, and the evacuation by sea continues…’’ (pg 19-20).
The Arabs chose to leave Haifa even as a truce was being made between the Jewish and Arab forces. Katz explains: ‘’The voluntary nature of the evacuation was proclaimed a virtue by the leader and chief spokesman of the Palestinian Arabs. While it was in progress, Jamal Husseini, Acting Chairman of the Palestine Arab Higher committee, told the United Nations Secretary Council: The Arabs did not want to submit to a truce…they rathered preferred to abandon their homes, their belongings and everything they possessed in the world and leave the town. This is in fact what they did.’’ (pg20-21). Even the Arab National Committee of Haifa, in a memorandum two years later to the governments of the Arab League, Katz notes, recalled frankly that ‘’the military and the civil authorities and the Jewish representative expressed their profound regret at this grave decision [to Evacuate]. The [Jewish] Mayor of Haifa made a passionate appeal to the delegation to reconsider its decision.’’ (pg 21). The Arab National Committee of Haifa and the Arab League both clearly understood as acknowledged in this memorandum, that the Jews were not responsible for the Arab’s flight and even tried to prevent their flight. However the fact, the Arab leadership needed to turn the attention and blame away from them when their empty promises of victory over the Jews failed. The perfect solution to the Arab leadership’s dilemma, was to direct the attention and blame onto the Jews. Katz explains this strategic transfer of blame ‘’…soon became a powerful propaganda weapon in the general war against Israel.’’ (pg 21). This powerful, yet false propaganda against Israel, spread around the world even by the same Arab leaders, who at the time of the Arab’s flight, publicly acknowledged it was the fault of the Arab States. Mr. Emil Ghoury, Secretary of the Arab Higher Committee during the war of 1948, had previously stated on September 6, 1948 to the Beirut Daily Telegraph: I do not want to impugn anybody, but only to help the refugees. The fact that there are these refugees is the direct consequence of the action of the Arab States in opposing portion [of Palestine] and the Jewish State. The Arab States agreed upon this policy unanimously and they must share in the solution of the problem.’’ Here, Mr. Ghoury declares the Arab States’ actions are the ‘’direct consequence’’ of the Arab refugee problem, then in a speech at the United Nations Special Political Committee on November 17, 1960: ‘’It has been those [Zionists] acts of terror, accompanied by wholesale depredation, which caused the exodus of the Palestine Arabs.’’ (pg 22).
To further displace attention and blame onto Israel, the Arab leaders inflated the number of Arab refugees to the point that one leader would add a whole million on top of the number of another leader’s number. The Arab leaders were essentially contradicting themselves with the inflated numbers. Katz provides the numbers of Arab refugees quoted by three Arab leaders that differ drastically from each other: ‘’Emil Ghoury quoted the number at ‘’two million’’ to the UN on November 17, 1960. ‘’On November 25, the Lebanese representative, Nadim Dimechkie, declared that ‘’more than one million Arabs have been expelled’’. Katz continues: ‘’Four days later, the spokesman for Sudan struck an average, speaking of the ‘’expulsion of one and a half million Arabs.’’ (pg22). Katz then factually clarifies the number of Arab refugees: ‘’In 1947, there were approximately one million Arabs in the whole of Western Palestine. (British figures, certainly inflated, put the number at 1,200,00; independent calculations claim 800-900,000). Of these, the total number actually living in that part of Palestine which became Israel was, according to the British figure, 561,000. Not all of them left. After the end of hostilities in 1949, there were 140,000 Arabs in Israel. The total number of Arabs who left could not mathematically have been more than some 420,000.’’ (pg23). At the time of the Arab’s flight, the Arab leaders actually quoted smaller numbers. Katz quotes: ‘’At the end of 1948, Faris el Khoury, the Syrian representative on the UN Security Council, estimated their number at 250,000.’’ Emil Ghoury ‘’…announced on September 6, 1948, that by the middle of June, at the time of the first truce, the number of Arabs who had fled was 200,000.’’ By the time the second truce began (July 17),’’ he said, ‘’their number had risen to 300,000.’’
A prominent authority figure, Count Bernadotte, the UN Special Representative in Palestine, reporting on September 16, 1948 informed the Nunited Nations that the estimated the number of Arab refugees at 360,000, including 50,000 in Israeli territory (UN Document A/1648). (Battleground)
After July 1948, Katz notes that there was a fourth exodus of some 50,000 Arabs from Galilee and from the Negev.
The number of Arab refugees has also been inflated due to five factors:
First- with the United Nations’ provisions to the Arab refugees, Katz notes: ‘’There was no system of identification; any Arab could register as a refugee and receive free aid. Immediately a large number of needy Arabs from various Arab countries flocked to the refugee camps, were registered, and thenceforth received their rations. Already by December 1948, when their total could not yet have reached the maximum of 425,000, the Director of the United Nations Disaster Relief Organization, Sir Rafael Cilento, reported that he was feeding 750,000 refugees. Seven months later, the official figure had increased to a round million in the report of W. de St. Aubin, the United Nations Director of Field Operations.’’ (pg23-24).
Second- Katz notes that: ‘’The International committee of the Red Cross pressed the United Nations Relief headquarters to recognize as refugees any destitute Arab in Palestine and to let him have refugee facilities in his own home. The Red Cross Committee made no effort to conceal its purpose;…[The Red Cross communicated]: ‘’between the refugees and the residents, as the Arab-occupied areas do not produce sufficient food or salable goods to nourish more than a small percentage of the resident population’’. The Red Cross communication also stated that it forced them ‘’to abandon their homes to be able to get food as refugees.’’ Katz noted that ‘’At least 100,000 ordinary Arab citizens in this category thus became refugees de luxe.’’ (pg24). Essentially, there was 100,000 people who needed ‘’food stamps’’, but received them under the false pretence as ‘’refugees.’’
There are millions of people around the world, including in the first world country of America, who receive food stamps- that doesn’t make them refugees.
Third- Katz explains: ‘’…both the Jordanian authorities and the Egyptian administration in the Gaza Strip insisted that the refugee rolls include any Arab who would be described as needing support as a result of the war of 1948. Though the United Nations Relief and Works Administration made gestures of, protest it finally accepted this situation, thus becoming a major partner in the deception.’’ (pg24).
Fourth- Katz explains: ‘’Nor were the relief organizations permitted by the host governments to investigate or to take steps to combat the large-scale forging of and trading in ration cards, which had become a major well-known ‘’racket’’ throughout the Middle East.’’ (pg25).
Fifth- ‘’There is reason to believe’’, reported the UNRWA Director as early as 1950, ‘’that births are always registered for ration purposes, but deaths are often, if not usually, concealed so that the family may continue to collect rations for the deceased (UN Document A/1451, pp. 9-10). Katz further explains that ‘’Nine years later, the UNRWA Director’s report for 1959-1960 equally laconically records that its figures of Arabs receiving relief - 1,200,000 do not necessarily reflect the actual refugee population owing to factors such as ‘’the high scale of unreported deaths, undetected false registration, etc.’’ (UN Document A/4478, p. 13). And again, Katz explains that ‘’In October 1959, the Director had admitted that ration lists in Jordan alone ‘’are believed to include 150,000 ineligibles and many persons who have died.’’ (pg25).
UNRWA staff members also participated in fictionalizing refugee numbers as a laconic UNRWA report stated in 1952 ‘’There are numerous instances of full-time Government employees remaining on ration rolls because of the high income scale’’. (UN Document A/2176 p. 16). (pg 27).
Katz provides the correct calculations by Dr. Walter Pinner, who published the figures in two books: ‘’How Many Refugees? (London, 1959); The Legend of the Arab Refugees (Tel Aviv, 1967). The figures here given are from the more recent study (p.45).’’ (pg 26)
‘’The UNRWA, disregarding its own reports in 1966, set the number of refugees at 1,317,749. In fact, the number of real refugees, as calculated by Dr. Pinner, was 367,000. The difference of over 950,000 is roughly made up as follows:
Unrecorded deaths- 117,000
Ex-refugees resettled in 1948- 109,000
Ex-refugees who became self-supporting between 1948 and 1966 (85,000 in Syria, 60,000 in Lebanon and 80,000 in Jordan- 225,000
Frontier villagers in Jordan (nonrefugees)- 15,000
Self-appointed no refugees (pre- 1948 residents of ‘’West Jordan’’ and the Gaza Strip registered as refugees)- 484,000. (pg26-27).
Revealing the fabricated numbers of Arab refugees is not to downgrade the suffering of the real number of Arab refugees, but to purely and simply reveal the truth.
Arab refugees have suffered in poverty while their leaders live in wealth. For example, ‘’Of the real refugees, nearly half were in the Gaza Strip- 155,000 out of 367,000’’ (Battleground). Katz explains how the refugees were kept in deprivation and poverty: ‘’The reason is simple. Control of the Gaza Strip was in the hands of Egypt…the Egyptian authorities maintained a strict separation between ‘’refugees’’ and the ordinary population of the area. The Gaza Strip, wrote Martha Gellhorn (an American writer), ‘’is not a hell-hole, not a visible disaster. It is worse It is a jail’’ (Atlantic Monthly, October 1961).’’ (pg27).
Not only did the Arab leadership cause the Arab refugee problem, but they cultivated and nurtured the problem for years, causing a long-term infestation of poverty and deprivation.
Katz noted: ‘’In 1952, Jordan, Egypt, and Syria all signed agreements with UNRWA for the execution of a plan for integration that was to cost the United Nations $200 million. The plan was adopted by the General Assembly of the UN on January 26, 1952. However, they never took any steps to implement the plan. Not a single one of the projects it envisaged was ever launched…Any plan that involved resettlement of the refugees was automatically rejected.’’ (pg28).
Since the very day that the Arabs left Palestine and migrated to neighboring countries, the Arab League has used them as pawns in their war against Israel. First, the Arab League thought: let the Arabs leave their homes, it will cause the Arab population in the region to become indignant towards Israel and therefore fight against Israel, as Keneth Bilby, the American correspondent who covered the war of 48’ wrote in his book, ‘’New Star in the Near East’’. Since that day, the Arab leadership has been teaching the Arab populace that all their problems stem from one source- Israel. Even now, in 2009, nothing has changed. The Hamas terrorist org., just like Hezbollah in July 2006, fire rockets onto Israeli civilians from within the Gaza Palestinian Arab civilian populace whom they claim to ‘serve’ and as a result of Israel targeting Hamas’ rocket sites, civilians get hurt. Alan M. Dershowitz, reported on Hamas’ use of Arab civilians during Israel’s Operation Cast Lead to eliminate Hamas rocket sites in the Wall Street Journal in a January 2, 2009 article. Dershowitz reported the following: ‘’In a recent incident related to me by the former head of the Israeli air force, Israeli intelligence learned that a family's house in Gaza was being used to manufacture rockets. The Israeli military gave the residents 30 minutes to leave. Instead, the owner called Hamas, which sent mothers carrying babies to the house….Israel held its fire. The Hamas rockets that were protected by the human shields were then used against Israeli civilians’’ If the use of babies wasn’t inhumane enough, Ynetnews.com, the largest news source in Israel, reported on Hamas use of Arab children for human shields: ‘’Reports out of Gaza say residents who attempted to flee their homes in the northern area of the [Gaza] Strip were forced to go back at gunpoint, by Hamas men….Other civilian complaints state that Hamas gunmen pull children along with them ‘’by the ears’’ from place to place, fearing that if they don’t have a child with them they will be fair game to the IDF. Others hide in civilian homes and stairwells, UNRWA ambulances, and mosques. In other reported cases Hamas gunmen hold civilians hostage in alleyways in order to provide themselves with a living barricade to ward off IDF forces.’’ Honestreporting.com also provided ‘’video footage of an armed Hamas terrorist grabbing an innocent young boy off the street to use as a human shield to save his own life.’’ Yes,
during Israel’s Operation Cast Lead, Hamas also used hospitals and mosques to fire rockets at Israeli civilians. On Dec 31, 2008, Is8raelnationalnews.com reported that Hamas used Gaza hospitals as command posts and that Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) chief Yuval Diskin said "A number of Hamas operatives hide in hospitals, several of them walking around in doctors' and nurses' uniforms," On January 2, 2008, Israelnationalnews.com reported that Hamas used many Gaza mosques, including: ‘’The Hulfaa mosque in the northern Gaza rocket-launching center of Jabalya, four kilometers north of Gaza City, was used to store a large number of Grad-type Katyusha missiles, Kassam rockets and other weaponry and ammunition….’’
Essentially, Hamas has absolutely no value on the lives of it’s own people. Yet, instead of condemning Hamas’ human rights’ violations against their own people, the Arab League states as well as the Palestinian Authority, only condemn Israel.
Looking back in 1948, what did the Arab League states of Egypt and Jordan, do for the lives of the Arabs who had been displaced in Gaza or Judea-Samaria besides teaching them lies? Nothing, The answer is nothing. During the time Egypt illegally occupied Gaza and Jordan illegally occupied Judea-Samaria [Jordan named West Bank] from 1948-1967, the life expectancy of the Arabs decreased and illiteracy increased. This all changed after the 1967 Six Day War, when Israel re-gained and administered Gaza and Judea-Samaria from the illegal occupying governments of Egypt and Jordan. Israel immediately began restoring the lives of the Arab refugees. Israel created 6 universities, 20 community colleges, and 166 clinics for Palestinian Arabs between 1967-1995. Not surprisingly, ‘’unemployment plummeted, life expectancy soared and the population nearly doubled in the 26 years between 1967 and 1993’’, (StandWithUs). The ‘’unemployment in Gaza plummeted to 2 percent.’’ (StandWithUs). Also, ‘’Infant mortality plunged from 60-15 per 1,000 births between 1968-2000’’ and ‘’The number of Palestinian [Arab] school children rose 102 percent, and illiteracy dropped to 14 percent for adults over age 15.’. (StandWithUs). Israel pored in millions of dollars to improve refugee housing, but was denounced by the PLO and the UN for making efforts to improve the housing in 1971 and 1986. (UN GA Resolutions 2792 (1971) and 41/69 (1986))(StandWithUs).
It didn’t take a lot to improve the living standards and life expectancy of the Arab refugees as the figures show. Israel did the job that the Arab League states didn’t want to do, but Israel is a tiny state and can’t do the job for all the Arab League states in helping their Arab brethren. In Britain’s TimesOnline news article of Feb 6, 2009, written by Catherine Philp (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article5671797.ece), the lead sentence states: ‘’The Syrian authorities stopped the UN from improving life in the camp where 900 Palestinians live. Families stay in tents by the roadside….’’ The article describes how Arab Palestinians who were living in Iraq, were driven out by the Iraqi Shia militias after Saddam Hussein’s death. When the Arab Palestinians tried to flee to Syria, they were turned away and even arrested. They have been living on the border of Iraq and Syria ever since. Philp explains that ‘’The Syrian Government has kept it (the camps) hidden, embarrassed by what it shows….’’ Salim Ahmad, a refugee says ‘’Don’t tell me about (Arab) solidarity when nobody cares that we are here at all.’’ Philp explains that Jordan has also blocked them from entering. Is this a coincidence, that in 2009, sixty years after the War of 48’, that the Arab League states still refuse to lift a finger to help the Arab Palestinians? Philp frankly answers this question: ‘’The Palestinian Authority and the governments of Arab states oppose resettlement on grounds of political principle….’’ The Arab League states have been deciding the fate of the Arab Palestinians instead of letting them decide on their own. Refugee, Salim Ahmad pleads: ‘’We want to be settled. Who are they to tell us what is good for Palestinians? No Arab country wants us so if a European one does then I will go there. It is about our Children’s future.’’