May 6, 1949 Arab Refugees

“Arab Threatens Refugee Uprising.”

Lausanne, Switerland.   M.N. Hawari, a member of the so-called Congress of Arab Refugees, one of many Arab groups now gathering around the United Nations Palestine Conciliation Commission in Lausanne, said today that Arab refugees in Palestine and surrounding areas would rise in violent rebellion unless the Israeli Government soon permitted them to return home.

“Unless this conference [the discussions of Arab and Israeli Governments with the Conciliation (E.G. UN) Commission] produces agreement on the refugees’ future,” Mr. Hawari, who is himself a refugee, told this correspondent, “there will be explosions such as the Middles East has not yet seen.  We will attack the Jews; we will attack the Arab Government; we will attack the British and we will attack the Americans.  Our people are not interested in awaiting frontier or political settlements.  No Arab Government speaks for us or represents us.”

Mr. Hawari emphasized that the refugees considered The Arab Governments only slightly less guilty than they considered the Israeli Government to be of using the refugees as pawns in a political game.

“Our people have been very quiet and very patient, but our patience is running out,” he said. 

His sharp comments on the Arab Governments were delivered in the presence of a Jordanian representative who neither contradicted him nor sought to smooth the edges of his remarks.

Source: The New York Times, May 7, 1949, “Arab Threatens Refugee Uprising.”