Leftists are outraged at Tzipi Hotovely, but she told the truth. The reality behind the prevailing propaganda is that the Arabs for the most part left Israel because they were ordered to do so by Muslim Arab leaders. Contrary to the contention of the Palestinians and their allies today, the Arab Higher Committee actually exhorted Arabs to leave the new State of Israel, and they obeyed in large numbers.
This action had been contemplated for a considerable period: in May 1946, fully two years before the State of Israel proclaimed its independence, Abdul Rahman Hassan Azzam, secretary-general of the Arab League, stated that “Arab circles proposed to evacuate all Arab women and children from Palestine and send them to neighboring countries, to declare ‘Jehad’ and to consider Palestine a war zone.”
When the war came, many of the Arab Muslims left of their own accord, to the consternation of others who were determined to wage jihad. The Arab newspaper Ash Sha’ab, based in Jaffa, lamented on January 30, 1948 that “the first group of our fifth column consists of those who abandon their houses and businesses and go to live elsewhere…. At the first sign of trouble they take to their heels to escape sharing the burden of struggle [jihad].
Others left because the plan to get the Arabs out of harm’s way until the Jews were destroyed and Israel was defeated was being implemented. The Economist magazine reported on October 3, 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.
The Jordanian daily Falastin complained on February 19, 1949, that “the Arab state which had encouraged the Palestine Arabs to leave their homes temporarily in order to be out of the way of the Arab invasion armies, have failed to keep their promise to help these refugees.” The Near East Arabic Broadcasting Station confirmed this on April 3, 1949: “It must not be forgotten that the Arab Higher Committee encouraged the refugees’ flight from their homes in Jaffa, Haifa, and Jerusalem.” The Egyptian daily Akhbar el Yom on October 12, 1963, reported that the grand mufti had issued the same call to Arabs to leave: “The 15th May, 1948, arrived…. On that day the mufti of Jerusalem appealed to the Arabs of Palestine to leave the country, because the Arab armies were about to enter and fight in their stead.”
The Jordanian daily Al Urdun reported on April 9, 1953: “For the flight and fall of the other villages it is our leaders who are responsible because of their dissemination of rumors exaggerating Jewish crimes and describing them as atrocities in order to inflame the Arabs…. By spreading rumors of Jewish atrocities, killings of women and children etc., they instilled fear and terror in the hearts of the Arabs in Palestine, until they fled leaving their homes and properties to the enemy.”
Discover more about this in The Palestinian Delusion.
“New Israeli ambassador in Britain describes Nakba as ‘Arab lie,'” Middle East Monitor, December 8, 2020:
Israel’s new Ambassador to the United Kingdom, 42-year-old Tzipi Hotovely has used her first speech during an event organised by the Board of Deputies of British Jews to describe the Nakba as “a very strong and very popular Arab lie.” She added that the displacement of Palestinians since 1948, when Israel was created in their land, is “a made up story”…
The Nakba describes the forced expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians by Zionist paramilitary groups from 1947 onwards. Around 600 Palestinian villages have since been wiped off the map in order to create a Jewish majority in Israel. Israeli historians have called this process “ethnic cleansing”. Despite volumes of evidence, Nakba denial has been mainstreamed by far-right Zionist groups.
clive delmonte says
Hooray! I look forward to lots more common sense and truth from Ms. Hotovely!
Roland says
Bob, the last paragraph doesn’t cohere with the rest of this essay. .
del says
The last paragraph is Middle East Monitor editorial content folded into the linked, nominal news story. They are an Arab propaganda organisation. The original news story was critical of the new Israeli ambassador.
MEMO is a sort of evil sibling of MEMRI (but they are not related)
from wikipedia, about Middle East Monitor:
“According to Israeli scholar Ehud Rosen, a senior researcher at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, MEMO generally supports Islamist positions within Palestinian politics.[12] According to Andrew Gilligan, the Middle East Monitor promotes a strongly pro-Muslim Brotherhood and pro-Hamas viewpoint.[13]
Haaretz reporter Anshel Pfeffer described MEMO as a “conspiracy theory-peddling anti-Israel organisation”.[14]
MEMO has been described by Marc Rich as promoting conspiracy theories about “Jews, Zionists, money and power. This has included a claim that MEMO had questioned the suitability of Matthew Gould for the post of UK ambassador to Israel simply because he was Jewish”.[15]”
gravenimage says
True, Del.
Infidel says
It may be a lie, but in the long term, at some point, it’ll have to become true. Israel can’t indefinitely keep existing w/ an active fifth column in its country. Same goes for India, Sri Lanka and other such countries: sooner or later, they’ll have to do what Burma did
Frank Adam says
One only has to look at how civilians fled from all the war zones of Europe and Asia to see there was nothing unusual about the Arabs of Palestine running back to their extended families in Lebanon, the Hebron Hills and Egypt which explains why a third of the Gaza famiies are surnamed Masri or Misri.
Given the 1948 war was fought within Haifa and on the Tel Aviv -Jaffa border remember there were also 6000 Jewish refugees from the fighting apart from Jews expelled from the Old City of Jerusalem…..
somehistory says
moslims lie. Even to other moslims when it suits the progress of islam to take over and rule the world. The upper crust moslims…those who lie the most and have the most to gain from having their lies believed…want to rule over everyone else in the name of their false ‘prophet’ and false ‘god.’
How they achieve this goal doesn’t matter to them…just get it done and kill as many enemies along the way as possible.
This lady evidently has studied her history and has not been deceived by what arab moslims and the so-called palestinians currently claim.
Keith O says
Tzipi Hotovely, Intelligent, not afraid to speak the truth AND good looking.
What a combination. It’s about time the world has people like this in positions of authority.
James Lincoln says
Keith O,
I agree, and she is kinda hot looking.
But we are all *not* supposed to notice that…
Keith O says
Sorry James, can’t help it, I’m a trained observer!
gravenimage says
🙂
Charlie in NY says
In every conflict, civilians generally flee from hostilities. The rule has always been that the military heads toward the gunfire, the civilians head away from it. We saw the most recent example of this phenomenon in the Armenia-Azerbaijan war. No governmental threats were needed to get the civilians to flee, just the sound of approaching artillery and, in some cases, a real or imagined fear of what the enemy might do. And if your side loses the war (especially if your side starts it), you don’t get to return – just like the Jews who were expelled from the lands seized and held by Jordan and Egypt between 1948-67. That’s all entirely normal.
What made the 1948 war a bit different was the virtually unprecedented Arab declarations to their own population to flee to clear their battlefield – declarations which anti-Zionists later falsely projected on the Jews, perhaps to maintain Arab honor in light of their shocking defeat.
Raja says
Charles, thanks for some insights and reasoning. Thanks for your time
libertyORdeath says
I love it! How long have the writers and readers on this site called for someone, ANYONE, to state the fact that the muslims of the levant were given the 78% of the Palestinian mandate that is called JORDAN? How many times have we begged for someone to speak truth to the “Palestinian” lies of forced removal and apartheid conditions? It’s great to finally see it from a proper official. Better late than never.
gravenimage says
New Israeli ambassador to UK: Forced expulsion of ‘Palestinians’ from Israel from 1947 on is ‘very popular Arab lie’
……………..
Good for Tzipi Hotovely for telking the truth!
Simone says
My blood boiled when I read an article by the Head reform rabbi condemning her for saying this. They even had the audacity to say ‘doesn’t Hotovely know that the majority of British Jews reject that idea. How dare this rabbi (she is now an ex rabbi) think they speak for us.