Excerpts from Israel’s Struggle For Peace, Israel Office of Information, New York, 1960.

From the very start, the State of Israel held out a hand of friendship to the Arabs. The Proclamation of Independence declared-

“Even amidst the violent attacks launched against us for months past, we call upon the sons of the Arab people dwelling in Israel to keep the peace and to play their part in building the State on the basis of full and equal citizenship and due representation in all its institutions, provisional and permanent.”

Israel’s Struggle For Peace, Israel Office of Information, New York, 1960, p. 89.

Responsibility for the consequences of the defiant and internationally rebellious hostilities launched against Israel, of which the refugee problem is only one, rests, therefore, fairly and squarely upon the Arabs, and, in certain moments of candor, they have recognized that themselves-

“The Arabs would not submit to a truce…They rather preferred to leave their homes in the town (Haifa), which they did.” [Jamal Bey Husseini, spokesman for the Palestine Arab Higher Committee, Security Council Official Records, Third Year, No. 62, 287th meeting, 23 April 1948, p. 14.]

“Winter is approaching and the refugees are without shelter. Responsibility for them and for failing to settle the affair rests on these Arab States which look idly on.” [King Abdullah of Jordan, My Memoirs Completed.]

Israel’s Struggle For Peace, Israel Office of Information, New York, 1960, p. 91.

The British confirm it-

“The situation in Haifa remains unchanged. 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.”

Israel’s Struggle For Peace, Israel Office of Information, New York, 1960, p. 93. [British District Police, Haifa, report to Police Headquarters, Jerusalem, April 26, 1948. (This was among the documents in the police files which came into the possession of Haganah.)

“The Arab civilians panicked and fled ignominiously. Villages were frequently abandoned even before they were threatened by the progress of war.”

Israel’s Struggle For Peace, Israel Office of Information, New York, 1960, p. 93. [General Glubb Pasha, Commander of the Arab Legion, “Daily Mail”, London, August 12, 1948.]

“The fact that there are these 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.”

Israel’s Struggle For Peace, Israel Office of Information, New York, 1960, p. 92 [Emil Ghoury, Secretary, Palestine Arab Higher Committee, “Daily Telegraph,” Beirut, September 6, 1948.]

“Of the 62,000 Arabs, who formerly 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.”

Israel’s Struggle For Peace, Israel Office of Information, New York, 1960, p. 93. [“Economist,” London, October 2, 1948.]

“It must not be forgotten that the Arab Higher Committee encouraged the refugees’ flight from their homes in Jaffa, Haifa and Jerusalem.”

Israel’s Struggle For Peace, Israel Office of Information, New York, 1960, p. 93. [Near East Arabic Broadcasting Station from Cyprus, April 3, 1949.]

Chronologically, it was not until the spring of 1949 that the Arab leaders reviewed their stand and began to demand re-admission. But they still shunned peace negotiations, the essential prerequisite to any substantial Arab return to Israel. The position of the Arab States was clearly represented by Mohammed Salah e-Din, the Egyptian Minister for Foreign Affairs, when he stated on October 11, 1949, in an article in the leading Egyptian daily, “Al-Misri”-

“In demanding the restoration of the refugees to Palestine, the Arabs intend that they shall return as the masters of the homeland, not as slaves. More explicitly they intend to annihilate the State of Israel.”

Israel’s Struggle For Peace, Israel Office of Information, New York, 1960, p. 96

The refugees are regarded as a fifth column- “let us therefore try to make them our fifth column for the day of revenge and reckoning.”

Israel’s Struggle For Peace, Israel Office of Information, New York, 1960, p. 96. [“El Sayad,” Beirut, Lebanon, April 6, 1950.]

An American observer-

“The Arab exodus, initially at least, was encouraged by many Arab leaders such as Haj Amin el Husseini, the exiled pro-Nazi Mufti of Jerusalem, and by the Arab Higher Committee for Palestine…They viewed the first waves 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.”

Israel’s Struggle For Peace, Israel Office of Information, New York, 1960, p. 92. [Kenneth W. Bilby, “New Star in the Near East,” Doubleday, New York, 1950, pp. 30-31.]

“The Secretary-General of the Arab League, Assam 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 throw the 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.”

Israel’s Struggle For Peace, Israel Office of Information, New York, 1960, p. 92. [Habib Issa. Editor, “Al Hoda,” Lebanese newspaper in New York, June 8, 1951.]

“Who brought the Palestinians to Lebanon as refugees, suffering now from the malign attitude of newspapers and communal leaders, who have neither honor nor conscience? Who brought them over in dire straits and penniless, after they lost their honor? The Arab States, and Lebanon amongst them, did it.”

Israel’s Struggle For Peace, Israel Office of Information, New York, 1960, p. 92. [Kul-Shay, Moslem weekly, Beirut, August 19, 1951.]

Arab antagonism to any practical solution of the refugee problem is summed up by Mr. Ralph Galloway, former UNRWA representative in Jordan, addressing a group of American Congressmen in Amman in 1952-

“It has been the growing recognition of the international community that the solution to the refugee problem must be found through programs of rehabilitation and large-scale development projects which will make the refugees self-supporting members of their host countries, as well as contribute to the economic development of those countries. It has been increasingly recognized that such plans for a solution are constantly hampered and frustrated by political objection by the Arab countries which are not interested in any realistic solution to the problem but in keeping it as an open sore, as an affront against the United Nations, and a weapon against Israel.”

Israel’s Struggle For Peace, Israel Office of Information, New York, 1960, p. 97.

The U.S. Congress has repeatedly urged realistic solutions. A Survey Mission to the Middle East, sent by the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, reported- “It is essential that they (the Arab States) realize that the refugees are people who are with them to stay. Furthermore, it is not sound for the United Nations to continue camp operations in the face of continuous hostility and harassment…frequently on the part of the host Governments.”

Israel’s Struggle For Peace, Israel Office of Information, New York, 1960, p. 101. [February 24, 1954].

 

“The Arab Governments told us-

‘Get out so that we can get in!’ So we got out, buy they did not get in.

Israel’s Struggle For Peace, Israel Office of Information, New York, 1960, p. 93.
[“A-Diffa”, Jordan, September 6, 1954.]

 

The Senate Committee on Foreign Relations Report on the Mutual Security Act, 1955, stated- “A permanent solution of the Arab refugee problem can only be found through rehabilitation and resettlement and the Committee has repeatedly expressed its deep concern over the lack of progress in this direction.”

Israel’s Struggle For Peace, Israel Office of Information, New York, 1960, p. 102. [Senate Report No. 383, 84th Congress, 1st Session, May 27, 1955.]

We again recall the words of Major Salah Salem, a member of the Egyptian Cabinet at the time, who in 1955 declared-

“Egypt will strive to erase the shame of the Palestine War, even if Israel should fulfil the United Nations resolution; it will not sign a peace treaty with her even if Israel should consist only of Tel Aviv.”

Israel’s Struggle For Peace, Israel Office of Information, New York, 1960, p. 103.

The U.S. Ambassador James J. Wadsworth, addressing the United Nations Ad Hoc Committee, as far back as November 16, 1955 [80/PV.15], emphasized the need for “programs which will make refugees self-supporting…We are sure that in making that start our Arab friends understand that what will benefit the Arab refugees will benefit the Arab countries themselves.

“The plan for the development of the Jordan Valley, which has been the subject of intensive and fruitful negotiations between Ambassador Eric Johnston and the interested countries in the area, will bring 120,000 acres of new land into cultivation in the Kingdom of Jordan alone…providing many thousands of Arab refugees and their other fellow-Arabs with new and self-respecting means of livelihood. It will also create new jobs, new facilities, new industries…It is a start for a new and better Arab world.

“However, the United States alone, the contributors of funds to UNRWA alone, the United Nations itself, cannot bring this about unless the leaders of these Arab nations will let us help them help themselves. We believe that they can, to the benefit of their countries, view the refugees as an important asset, not, as is often implied here in debate, an unwanted liability. Upon these leaders’ shoulders rests the choice, we believe, between progress to greatness and prosperity and the narrow clinging to the status quo which benefits no one but hose who profit from misery and chaos.”

Israel’s Struggle For Peace, Israel Office of Information, New York, 1960, p. 99.

There has been ample testimony from the Arab side that the refugees, if allowed back would not think of living “at peace with their neighbors.” Arab leaders have always looked upon that return as a means of destroying the Jewish state from the inside, on a par with economic boycott, maritime blockade, border warfare, infiltration by terrorists and preparation for invasion. It is an open secret that their repatriation demand is part and parcel of Arab political warfare and propaganda against Israel-

“The Arab refugees will not be returned to Palestine except by war, which will preface their return. Palestine Arabs only demand arms, mobilization and training. The remainder they will do themselves.”

Israel’s Struggle For Peace, Israel Office of Information, New York, 1960, p. 96 [“Falastin,” Jordan daily, January 28, 1956.]

The refugees themselves-

“All of a sudden, the people of Jaffa began to evacuate their town, abandoning it in the middle of a fight, even before its climax…I now see that we fought only half-heartedly…Our many quarrels kept us too busy. We left the country of our own free will believing we were going on a short visit, a trip, and soon we would return as if nothing had happened and as if there had never been a war.”

Israel’s Struggle For Peace, Israel Office of Information, New York, 1960, p. 92. [Mahmoud Seif ed-Din Irani, “With the People,” Amman, Jordan, 1956.]

In 1957 the Director of the United Nations Relief and Works Administration (UNRWA) reported-

“Officials of the host Governments, with but two exceptions…oppose large-scale resettlement projects…The two large-scale projects which have been under study for some time…are considered technically possible but…they are held up because of political and other factors beyond our control.”

The U.S. Delegation to the United Nations underlined this report by stating-

“the host Government did not respect their obligations…these projects have proved feasible and technically sound, but unfortunately, no agreement on them has materialized.”

Israel’s Struggle For Peace, Israel Office of Information, New York, 1960, pp. 100-101.

 

Arab spokesmen frankly confess the reason for their obstructionism. The Foreign Minister of Iraq told a party of American newspaper correspondents-

“The refugee problem is being used by Egypt as a political football. Iraq alone is capable of absorbing all the Arab refugees, amounting to more than a million souls. In Iraq there are wide expanses of uncultivated agricultural lands waiting to be tilled. It is within Iraq’s capacity to absorb more than 5,000,000 people.”

Israel’s Struggle For Peace, Israel Office of Information, New York, 1960, p. 97. [“Rose el Yussef,” Cairo, April 8, 1957.]

“L’Orient,” Beirut, said in April, 1957-

“The responsibility of the Arab Governments is very great. For eight years they have been applying to the refugees an abstract and inhuman policy; under the pretext of cultivating in the refugees the longing for their homes in Palestine, and for the purpose of maintaining a menacing population on the frontiers of Israel, they have systematically rejected all attempts at organization and employment for the refugees.”

Israel’s Struggle For Peace, Israel Office of Information, New York, 1960, p. 97.

Dr. Elfan Rees, Adviser on Refugees to the World Council of Churches, reported as follows to the Geneva Conference on Refugees on May 27, 1957-

“I have often wondered how long the patience of the contributing governments will last, to contribute to the perpetuation of a refugee problem which, they know very well, was capable of solution…I dare to suggest that there is also a debt owed to the refugees by the Arab States themselves – the debt that men of the same language, the same faith, the same social organization, should at any time in history feel due from them to their fellows in distress. The debt which in simple terms would involve regarding these people as human beings and not as political footballs.”

Israel’s Struggle For Peace, Israel Office of Information, New York, 1960, p. 104.

A few quotations from a speech to the Special Political Committee of the United Nations on 10 November, 1958, by George McGregor Harrison, the United States Delegate, revealed the gravity of the situation-

“Today there are more refugees who need help than there were in the past. Despite UNRWA’s efforts which have been great and, considering the obstacles, successful.

“Clearly something must be done. Over the past ten years the world has given some $200,000,000 to help the refugees, the United States having contributed two-thirds of this amount. The world generally, including the contributors, have a legitimate interest in a solution. Over the past two years the United States has urged that advance planning be undertaken looking toward the expiration of UNRWA’s mandate in 1960.

“In our view it is not good enough consciously to perpetuate for over a decade the dependent status of nearly a million refugees. Finally, those Governments whose contributions year after year have made it possible for UNRWA to sustain the refugees are becoming increasingly critical of the dole that they are called upon to perpetuate.

“The continuation of UNRWA beyond its present mandate, is not, in the eyes of the United States, the proper way to handle the refugee problem…Some better system must be found that will greatly accelerate the rate at which refugees are made self-supporting.”

Israel’s Struggle For Peace, Israel Office of Information, New York, 1960, pp. 101-102. [United States Delegation to the Gen. Assembly, Press Release No. 3068, 10 November 1958.]

In short, without responsibility for the Arab-Israel war and the twin refugee problems that war produced – of Palestine Arabs who voluntarily left Israel’s territory and Jews forced by hostility and persecution to leave the Arab states of the Middle East and North Africa – Israel and the Jewish people have borne the full cost of resettlement of the Jewish refugees and the State of Israel has offered and continues to offer compensation to aid in the resettlement of displaced Arabs. As a further contribution towards a peaceful settlement of problems in the area and dissipation of its tensions, Israel’s Ambassador, Mr. Abba Eban, in a statement before the Special Political Committee of the General Assembly of the United Nations on November 17, 1958, renewed Israel’s offer of compensation even without demanding as a condition that it be part of an overall peace settlement between Israel and the Arab States. This offer, again unique and without parallel, was made in these words-

“The basic solution of the refugee problem lies in the integration of the refugees in the countries where they have been for the past decade, and where they live among their own kinsmen. There is no precedent for a country which has been the victim of aggression voluntarily offering compensation to other victims of the aggression. Nevertheless, we have made this undertaking. If such a solution by integration were actually carried out and if the international assistance offered (the loan suggested by Mr. Dulles) in 1955, were available, Israel would be prepared to pay compensation, even before the achievement of a final peace settlement, or the solution of other outstanding problems. We believe that even if a peace settlement is beyond our reach, there would be independent advantage, both moral and political, in a separate solution of the refugee problem.”

Returning to this question, in his booklet “We Strangers and Afraid,” Dr. Elfan Rees stated again in 1959-

“The debt of the Arab States is one of fellowship and compassion – a debt that has been paid by many nations in this era of refugees to homeless men of the same race and faith. It is high time that a people so famous for their hospitality to the wanderer should see the tragedy of hopelessness and idleness and become more aware of human needs and less concerned with the political advantages – which are not what they were – of having a refugee problem.”

Israel’s Struggle For Peace, Israel Office of Information, New York, 1960, p. 104. [“We Strangers and Afraid” by Elfan Rees, Pub. by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, p. 57.]

It is also reflected in a statement by Dr. Robert G. Storey, Dean, School of Law, Southern Methodist University, who is also Chairman of the United States Board of Foreign Scholarships and member of the President’s Commission on Civil Rights, which was published in the “Dallas News” on January 5, 1959-

“Israel can teach the nations of the world a lesson on how to conduct their relations with their minority groups. I was greatly impressed with the manner in which the Arab population had been made an integral part of the general community life.”

Israel’s Struggle For Peace, Israel Office of Information, New York, 1960, p. 94.

In reaction to the “Report on Arab Refugees to the United Nations” [This report constituted the basis for discussion at the meeting of the Special Political Committee of the UN General Assembly in November, 1959, when the question of the Palestine Arab refugees and the future of UNRWA came under review] by Mr. Dag Hammarskjold, Secretary-General, dated June 15, 1959, the Beirut daily, “El Hayat,” wrote on June 24, 1959-

“The flood of comments which followed the United Nations Secretary-General’s report again demonstrated the negative Arab attitude which tends to criticize, accuse and threaten.

“Firstly, it should be noted that the Arabs today are the last people interested in the return of the refugees or in trying to render them justice. The Arab States use the suffering of the refugees as a weapon in their struggle. But this struggle has not yet taken place and it does not look as though the Arab States were getting ready now to wage it in the near future. Eleven years have already passed, the refugees are still scattered and time has begun to leave its mark on them. The old generation is disappearing and the new generation, foreign to its motherland, has arisen.

“During all these years, the Arab Governments have not lifted a finger in order to bring justice to the refugees. If this situation will continue for another ten years, the refugees will disappear, memory of them will be forgotten and the new generation will assimilate in its new country.

“We have already stated that the Arab States need a positive policy towards the Palestine problem. The whole Arab mentality requires a basic change in this matter. Ever since the Arabs opened their struggle against the Jews of Palestine in the second decade of this century they have followed a purely negative policy, centering round the word “NO,” without reference to any practical steps. We constantly demand what we would like to see and never think about what we could obtain in reality. Accordingly, we have achieved nothing ever since we rejected the British White Paper of 1939. The events in Palestine have developed contrary to our aspirations but we still did not act according to our abilities and were not satisfied with achieving the possible. As a result, we have now been living for over a third of a century in wild imaginations, in senseless and impractical hopes, and enjoy a mirage of lies and ignorance…We repeat and reiterate our warning that we are on the brink of a new disaster…We still continue to delude ourselves, refuse to change our mentality and face facts…When shall we have a practical policy based on Arab, regional and international facts?

“The world laughs at the Arabs when Palestine is being discussed, and tomorrow history will say- “In the Palestine problem the Arabs were the victims of their ignorance, blindness and arrogance.”

Israel’s Struggle For Peace, Israel Office of Information, New York, 1960, pp. 98-99.

This view is again upheld by the Lebanese daily “El Hayat” which on June 25, 1959, stated-

“The Beirut press announced yesterday that the Lebanese Foreign Ministry has instructed its representative at the United Nations to inform Mr. Hammarskjold that the Government of Lebanon disagrees with his report on the resettlement of the refugees in the Arab world.

“Undoubtedly, similar notifications will be sent to the Secretary-General by the other Arab States.

“Isn’t this a perfect example of our hypocrisy? Is there any other Arab country in which these refugees have been more fully absorbed than in the Lebanon?

“Of the 120,000 refugees who entered the Lebanon in 1948 no more than 15,000 have been left in camps. If we remember that the natural increase during these years has reached a similar figure of 15,000 we must accept the conclusion that all of the 120,000 refugees have been absorbed in the Lebanon and have become an integral part of its population, society and economic life.

“Nevertheless, we refuse to ‘resettle’ the refugees – in our typical Arab way, that of the ostrich!

“It would have been understandable had the Arab States rejected the resettlement of the refugees in the Arab world and had kept them instead on the borders of Palestine and organized them, both politically and militarily, for a new war. But the refusal to resettle them in the way we go about it is worse than Mr. Hammarskjold’s proposals and even Israel’s hopes…

“It is only regrettable that the refugees themselves have been prepared to lend themselves to this policy of blindness. They have not succeeded in organizing themselves properly in order to prevent the Arab States from leaving the right track. History will determine that our brothers the refugees are in a very large measure responsible for their tragedy because of their primitive emotions and hopeless enthusiasm.

“Everybody in the Arab States, among the refugees, and all over the world knows that we the Arabs, in our present position and on the basis of our present policy, will not do a thing for the refugees. Nevertheless, we ‘reject’ resettlement and accuse any foreigner who dares mention the word ‘resettlement’ of treason, imperialism and intrigue; even if he only wants to help us or the refugees.

“The time has come for us to rid ourselves of this hysteria of verbal bravery and empty dreams at our expense and at that of the refugees. The time has come for the Arab States to forgo their ambition to complete for the support of the mobs in a contest of words about Palestine and to move from a policy of ‘crocodile tears’ to one of plans, means and aims.”

Israel’s Struggle For Peace, Israel Office of Information, New York, 1960, pp. 99-100.

In a document entitled “Proposals for the Continuation of United Nations Assistance to Palestine Refugees,” submitted by Mr. Dag Hammarskjold, Secretary-General, the practical possibilities of fully integrating the refugees is summed up in these words-

“Given the present economic situation in the area, we can, in general terms, state that the re-integration of the refugees through normal economic processes into productive life will, for the immediate future, at least, require capital imports sufficient to render possible an increase in national income and capital formation preferably more than proportional, but at least proportional, to the increase in population. From an economic viewpoint, such capital imports would represent sound investment in an area with great potentialities and great needs for a more diversified production. In the long run, with increasing revenues from oil in some parts of the region, the emphasis would switch from capital imports to investment of surpluses in the areas where re-integration of the Palestine refugees into productive life, although it must be considered as a fairly long process, is perfectly within reach…Viewed from the perspective of what has been said, the unemployed population represented by the Palestinian refugees should be regarded not as a liability but, more justly, as an asset for the future; it is a reservoir of manpower which in the desirable general economic development will assist in the creation of higher standards for the whole population of the area.”

Israel’s Struggle For Peace, Israel Office of Information, New York, 1960, p. 102. [Document A/4121/Corr.1 29 June 1959, pp. 3 and 4.]

“The Arabs were confused buy promises and deluded by their leaders…Iraq’s Prime Minister had thundered-

‘We shall smash the country with our guns, and destroy and obliterate every place the Jews seek shelter in. The Arabs should conduct their wives and children to safer areas until the fighting has died down.’

Israel’s Struggle For Peace, Israel Office of Information, New York, 1960, pp. 92-93.
Nimer Al-Hawari, ex-Commander, Palestine Arab youth Organization, “The Secret Behind the Disaster”.]