A Palestinians were forced to leave and so have a right to return

Especially in the 1948 War, Palestinians were forcibly removed from their homes and towns en masse by the Israeli Defence Force (IDF). The traditional Israeli point of view arguing that Arab leaders encouraged Palestinian Arabs to flee is simply untrue. In fact, Arab leaders intended for the Palestinian Arab population stay put. Historians such as Benny Morris, Erskine Childers, and Walid Khalidi state that no evidence of widespread evacuation orders exists, and that Arab leaders in fact instructed the Palestinian Arabs to stay put.[1][2][3]. According to Morris, whatever the reasons driving many into flight, temporary evacuation under local orders, contagious panic, fear of Jewish arms, or direct expulsion manu militari, the 700,000 odd Palestinians who did become refugees acquired that status as a result of compulsory displacement or expulsion, since they were not permitted by Israel to return.(1) In terms of the cause of the Palestinian flight, Morris argues that "Arab evacuees from the towns and villages left largely because of Jewish... attacks or fear of impending attack."(1) A report from the military intelligence SHAI of the Haganah entitled "The emigration of Palestinian Arabs in the period 1/12/1947-1/6/1948", dated 30 June 1948 affirms that up to 1 June 1948: "At least 55% of the total of the exodus was caused by our (Haganah/IDF) operations." To this figure, the report’s compilers add the operations of the Irgun and Lehi, which "directly (caused) some 15%... of the emigration". A further 2% was attributed to explicit expulsion orders issued by Israeli troops, and 1% to their psychological warfare. This leads to a figure of 73% for departures caused directly by the Israelis. In addition, the report attributes 22% of the departures to "fears" and "a crisis of confidence" affecting the Palestinian population. As for Arab calls for flight, these were reckoned to be significant in only 5% of cases.[4] This clearly demonstrates not only Israeli responsibility for the Palestinian refugees of 1948, but also that Israel was aware of it while it was going on, thus showing that expelling the Palestinians was intentional Israeli policy.  This is compounded by the fact that the dispossession and ethnic cleansing of the Arabs of Palestine was part of the Zionist project from the very beginning. Theodor Herzl, in effect the father of modern Zionism and the state of Israel, in the draft-agreement of The Jewish-Ottoman Land Company (JOLC) stated the company was 'for the purpose of settling Palestine and Syria with Jews' (the company lobbied for approval from Sultan Abdulhameed in Istanbul in 1901). In Article III of the same agreement the JOLC was given the right to deport the native populations, an act aimed at legitimizing ethnic cleansing, by granting "The right to exchange economic enclaves of its territory, with the exception of the holy places or places already designated for worship. The owners shall receive plots of equal size and quality procured by it (the JOLC) in other provinces and territories of the Ottoman Empire."[5] This intentional ethnic cleansing of Arabs from Palestine can therefore be seen as part of the Zionist project to create a Jewish majority state in Israel. Therefore, to deny the Palestinian right of return is to perpetuate this injustice and allow ethnic cleansing to succeed. Israel, a state founded by refugees of ethnic cleansing and the Holocaust, should not allow such an injustice to stand any longer. [1] Morris, Benny. "The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited". Cambridge University Press. 2004 [2] Childers, Erskine. "The Other Exodus". The Spectator. 12 May 1961 [3] Khalidi, Walid. "Why did the Palestinians Leave, Revisited". Journal of Palestinian Studies Vol 134, no. 2 (Win. 05). [4] Morris, Benny. "The Causes and Character of the Arab Exodus from Palestine: The Israel Defence Forces Intelligence Branch Analysis of June 1948". Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 22, No. 1 (Jan., 1986) [5] Sakhnini, Nizar. "Dispossession and Ethnic Cleansing." Al-Awda - The Palestinian Right of Return Coalition. 12 July 2004. http://www.al-awda.org/zionists01.html