Talk:Causes of the 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight/Archive 1

message: For the information of all editors not involved in the discussion, Jorditxei proposed some major additions to the 1948 Palestinian exodus article. Due to the volume of that article, and of the propose addition, I created this article which should suffice in space to allow the proposed additions.
Furthermore, since Jorditxei had difficulties in finding sources which refuted claims that Jews expelled Arab from Palestine, I intend to look for as many of these as I can find and post them here. In addition to these, I will be looking for any other quotations that will make the article better rounded and more comprehensive.
;"Anti-expulsion" sources
;Other sources
"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." -The Economist, October 2, 1948.
"Arab officers ordered the complete evacuation of specific villages in certain areas, lest their inhabitants ‘treacherously’ acquiesce in Israeli rule or hamper Arab military deployments. [...] There can be no exaggerating the importance of these early Arab-initiated evacuations in the demoralization, and eventual exodus, of the remaining rural and urban populations" -Benny Morris, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited, MA: Cambridge University Press, 2004, p. 590.
"We will smash the country with our guns and obliterate every place the Jews shelter in. The Arabs should conduct their wives and children to safe areas until the fighting has died down." -Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Said. Quoted in Myron Kaufman, The Coming Destruction of Israel, NY: The American Library Inc., 1970, pp. 26-27
"It must not be forgotten that the Arab Higher Committee encouraged the refugees’ flight from their homes in Jaffa, Haifa and Jerusalem." -Near East Broadcasting Station (Cyprus), April 3, 1949. Quoted in Samuel Katz, Battleground-Fact and Fantasy in Palestine, NY: Bantam Books, 1985, p. 15.
"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." -Filastin (Arabic), February 19, 1949. Quoted in Bard, Mitchell G., Myth and Facts: a Guide to the Arab-Israeli Conflict, copyright 2001, p. 170.
"The Arab armies entered Palestine to protect the Palestinians from the Zionist tyranny but, instead, they abandoned them, forced them to emigrate and to leave their homeland, and threw them into prisons similar to the ghettos in which the Jews used to live." -Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, March 1976. Quoted in Bard, Mitchell G., Myth and Facts: a Guide to the Arab-Israeli Conflict, copyright 2001, p. 171.
"The Arab civilians panicked and fled ignominiously.Villages were frequently abandoned even before they were threatened by the progress of war" -John Bagot Glubb, the commander of Jordan's Arab Legion. Quoted in London Daily Mail, August 12, 1948. 
:Please cite the whole phrase, otherwise it seems the author of the phrase is saying the contrary of what it says. This man also said :
voluntary emigrants do not leave their homes with only the clothes they stand up in. People who have decided to move house do not do so in such a hurry that they lose other members of their family - husband losing sight of his wife, or parents of their children. The fact is that the majority left in panic flight.
So I think it may say the contrary of what you meant. Cheers.--Jorditxei 23:14, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Which source said this? Screen stalker 19:22, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That is Glubbs' words which I also introduced in the talk page of 1948 Palestinian exodus (in one of my proposals). You can see there the references, is from one of his books, A Soldier with the Arabs or something like that. The point here is that authors have used citations from different sources in a misleading way to support their "cause" (in both sides). We should be careful with this. Cheers.--Jorditxei 18:23, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: By the way, I have no problems with you introducing those cites. Maybe go ahead introducing them and we may discuss after if any problem appeared. Thanks. Cheers.--Jorditxei 20:18, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Sounds good to me. And I will add your quotation from Glubbs as well. Could you provide the full citation, though? Screen stalker 13:40, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The full quotation is the one I have introduced. You wrote: "Villages were frequently abandoned even before they were threatened by the progress of war" -John Bagot Glubb, the commander of Jordan's Arab Legion.". The full one is with "The Arab civilians panicked and fled ignominiously" at the beginning. I guess that one could look for the "complete" one because I would rather argue that the author is speaking about how military action made palestinians panick and flee. Please tell me if this was what you were talking about (I am not sure! :)). Cheers. --Jorditxei 14:00, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: By all means, please add the text in question. I think it will make Glubb's point clearer. I am sorry I haven't been able to contribute recently. My life outside wikipedia has been busy as all heck, and it's about to get worse. I will continue regular editing as soon as I can. Screen stalker 13:28, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

text: Screen stalker, would you be so kind as to add these quotations into the article with their proper citations? Thanks.  --GHcool 22:13, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Since I see no objection, I will go ahead and do that. Screen stalker 22:12, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed Additions 

message: congratulations Alithien 11:02, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  nice work 

message: I don't understand why we keep at the end of the article a conclusion by Morris. It has not its place there. Alithien 11:05, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree.--Jorditxei 13:52, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree as well, and have deleted it. If someone disagrees, it can be reinstated in another section. Screen stalker 14:04, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  conclusion by Morris section 

message: Morris, in various books including his last (The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited), concludes that although some villages were depopulated by the AHC, the bulk of the Palestinian Refugees fled during the fighting. Using his statements on these AHC-depopulations as "proof" that the whole Exodus was on Arab orders is disingenuous to say the least -- especially since he is amply quoted in the "Criticisms of the 'endorsement of flight' theory" section. 
Again, Morris' conclusion is that there were small depopulations on AHC orders, but the bulk of the Refugees fled during the fighting. Quoting him to argue that it was Arab orders that caused the Exodus is wrong. 
If there is no good argument for keeping these quotes, I will remove them. Cheers, Pedro Gonnet 07:25, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree. Its a traditional instrument of israeli propaganda: quote an author out of context, in a complete misleading way so it says exactly the contrary of what the author means. We must be very careful with this. As an example, here we have a quotation of John Glubb:
Villages were frequently abandoned even before they were threatened by the progress of war" -John Bagot Glubb, the commander of Jordan's Arab Legion. Quoted in London Daily Mail, August 12, 1948. 
A longer quotation is instead:
The Arab civilians panicked and fled ignominiously.Villages were frequently abandoned even before they were threatened by the progress of war" -John Bagot Glubb, the commander of Jordan's Arab Legion. Quoted in London Daily Mail
Moreover, John Glubb's book is rather a proof of how israeli attacks caused panick among arabs but pro-israel sources quote him as proof that palestinian refugees fled "even before they were threatened by process of war". Disgusting. Cheers.--Jorditxei 11:29, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Morris' quotes in "Claims by scholars that support the theory that the flight was instigated by Arab leaders" 

message: Moshe Efrat is an historian but is not specialised on the topic of the Palestinian refugee problem or the 1948 War.
This is not necesseraly a "bad point". He should be able to take more "distance". On the other way, he could be completely POVed... :-(
Morris, Flapan, Karsh, Gelber, Pappé, Khalidi, Childers, manyothers have deeply studied the matter but even if they agree more than what most commentators (such as on the web) think, they also tried to defend their "own" point of view.
I think we should need to know what are Efrat references for the article he wrote in this encyclopaedia to go deeper into details and know how to deal with this material.
Is this possible ? Alithien 07:48, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That is clear to me also. What are his references, his "more recent studies (which ones) ... based on declassified IDF documents (which ones? the ones I have seen cited show quite the contrary, that very few left voluntarily or because of Arab instigation)..." etc. I guess that he must make reference to these research in his "Refugees" article, so bring those sources here please. Cheers. --Jorditxei 09:42, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: According to the "Contributors" page in The Continuum Political Encyclopedia, Moshe Efrat, Ph.D., is a research associate (I assume under the supervision of Avraham Sela) at the Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.  Of course, this is hardly here nor there since this is an encyclopedia entry that I am sure an entire team of researchers contributed to this and other Continuum entries, but that Efrat was cited as the entry's primary author.  Other contributors to the encyclopedia come from Harvard and Johns Hopkins University.  This encyclopedia entry should be treated with as much respect as one would treat any other encyclopedia entry in the world, regardless of whether a primary author is credited or not.  --GHcool 07:14, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  About Moshe Efrat or other historians 

message: M. G. Bard, Myth and Facts, p.130.
At the so-called myth : The arab leader never encouraged the Palestinian to flee, one of the answer given by Bard is :
:Benny Morris, the historian who documented instances where Palestinians where expelled, also found that Arab leaders encouraged their brethren to leave. The Arab National Committee in Jerusalem, following the March 8, 1948, instructions of the Arab Higher Committee, ordered women, children and the elderly in various parts of Jerusalem to leave theirs homes : "any opposition to this order...is an obstacle to the holy war... and will hamper the operations of the fighters in these districts".
And he refers to Middle Eastern Studies (January 1986).
So, quoting is not enough ! It must be done properly and with high care and the current "war of quote" is not a good way to work. See WP:Undue weight.
And if an article gives to much information to one side or theory (eg too many quotes), not conterbalancing the information, it is POV and a POV flag needs to be put on it.
Alithien 11:36, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with you. The point would be to find those lacking sources. You seem to have done research on the subject, do you have any proposal of any publication NOT BOOK but rather article in scholar journal that would add some value to the text? I have acces to most scholar journals so I could download them. I have already looked for some of them and most of the times I have found nothing... Cheers. --Jorditxei 18:18, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  exemple of propaganda 

message: I don't know how to correct the problem with notes 46, 76 and 80...
Does someone know what to do ? Alithien 16:57, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  prob. with notes 

message: This article is nice and clear with all its theories, but it misses a conclusion. Theories only offer explanations and calling them theories underlines that they might just as well be true as false. In the scientific debate there is however a consensus about some parts of the subject. 
At the end of the article I added a paragraph with a small consensus.
--JaapBoBo 00:15, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Overview/synthesis is needed 

message: I found the following reference in in From Time Immemorial: The Origins of the Arab-Jewish Conflict over Palestine:
Some Arab leaders demanded the "return" of the "expelled" refugees to former homes despite the evidence that Arab leaders had called upon Arabs to flee [...] such as President Truman's International Development Advisory Board Report, March 7, 1951: "Arab leaders summoned Arabs of Palestine to mass evacuation ... as the documented facts reveal. ..."
I was unable to find any uncut version of this report on the internet. Any help in finding the full version would be appreciated. This would help the article out a lot. Screen stalker 18:15, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Joan Peters book was very thoroughly discredited. Even her supporters (this is Daniel Pipes) say things such as: "From Time Immemorial quotes carelessly, uses statistics sloppily, and ignores inconvenient facts. Much of the book is irrelevant to Miss Peters's central thesis. The author's linguistic and scholarly abilities are open to question. Excessive use of quotation marks, eccentric footnotes, and a polemical, somewhat hysterical undertone mar the book. In short, From Time Immemorial stands out as an appallingly crafted book." He goes on to state that the central thesis (basically that the Palestinians arrived at the same time as other immigrants) is genuine, but nobody seriously believes it. PalestineRemembered 18:32, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with PalestineRemembered and others who believe that From Time Immemorial is not a very good book.  That doesn't necessarily mean that all of Peters's ideas are wrong or lies, and From Time Immemorial is still read and quoted by a variety of commentators to the extent that the ideas in it are still relevant.  Of course, like all scholarly claims, it would be better to verify Peters's claims with her primary source or a 3rd party historian that agrees with her assessment of the facts, but I don't think quoting her in this article would be violate Wikipedia guidelines which state that all significant points of view should be presented.  --GHcool 23:52, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Personally, I would rather prefer that cites like those ones would be taken in the original version and in the context of that version, otherwise we just can't know whether it refers to the whole palestine, we don't know how did arab leaders summoned Arabs of Palestine nor which arabs are they referring to and so on and so forth. It's like the Falastin and the other Libanese newspaper (can't remember the name) cites', I have also tried to find the whole text but never have found it, only the two phrases repeated ad nauseam indicating that arabs endorsed the flight... I am not saying that they shouldn't be introduced, but to me (and this is an opinion as reader) they lack reliability. Cheers. --Jorditxei 01:33, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I am not saying we should use this quotation from From Time Immemorial. What I'm saying is that I would like to find the original Truman-era report somewhere. I think the one sentence that is quoted is not sufficient information, and heaven only knows what went between "mass evacuation" and "as the documentation reveals." Can anyone help out with finding the original source? I am trying to hunt down too many sources as is. Screen stalker 15:01, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't own a copy of From Time Immemorial, so I cannot easily check it for citation info, etc.  If you have a copy, check the footnote.  If it is a private letter or something of a similar archival source, then it probably will be virtually impossible (or very expensive) to get your hands on the original document.  In that case, it would probably be ok to cite it by saying "Qtd. in Peters, Joan.  From Time Immemorial: Blah Blah Blah." If the source is in a publically available book, then that would just require a trip to the library.  --GHcool 18:57, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: All From Time Immemorial quotes is the one pathetic sentence herein quoted, and she cites it to the Truman-era report. That's all the information I have. I'm sure it's somewhere in the national archives, but I don't plan on traveling to DC to get it. Screen stalker 22:10, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

text: It must be pretty clear to everyone by now that "evacuation under Arab orders" accounted for only a small percentage of those leaving (and from villages, not from towns). Morris (Birth re-visited, 2004, p.xiv) has a list of 391 villages with dates and causes of abandonment. Just 5 villages are marked "A" for "Abandonment on Arab orders", plus Haifa is M/A (being Military Assault/Abandonment). 3 are "re-settled". 38 (ie 10%) are "Not Known". PalestineRemembered 23:02, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  International Development Advisory Board Report 

message: There are two probelms with the Flapan citations:
#Whoever incorporated the contemporary historical quotations from Flapan's research into the article cited the a source he/she hasn't ever laid eyes upon (i.e. Ben-Gurion's diaries, etc.).  Obviously the Wikipedia editor found the quotes in Flapan's book (certainly Ben-Gurion did not discuss about Flapan's 1987 opinion of Ben-Gurion's 1948 actions in his diary dated in 1948).  It is the editor's responsibility to write a footnote along the lines of "Ben-Gurion, David.  1948.  Quoted in Simha Flapan.  1987." This happens several times in the article and I've put "citation needed" tags where necessary.
#Simha Flapan published two works in 1987 that are cited in this article: The Birth of Israel and The Palestinian Exodus of 1948.  It must be specified which work each of the quotes come from.  An in-line citation such as "(1987, p.X)" is not specific enough since both works were published in 1987.  I added "specify" tags where needed.
Thank you.  --GHcool 06:33, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I have fixed the citations. Thanks for pointing out the problem GHcool. Cheers.--Jorditxei 21:31, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Flapan citations 

message: I created a new section, to deal with the issue of fear psychosis. I placed those relevant paragraphs which I found under this section, but I am sure that I did not find them all. Please help out and place other appropriate paragraphs there. Screen stalker 16:39, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fear Psychosis 

message: I don't like this comment by Screen Stalker: What the heck? Not only is this section grammatically incorrect and improperly capitalized, it also isn't true. Majority opinion? The intro should sound like an intro.) 
If you find gramatical errors or improper capitalising you can correct it. 
If some things are not true in your opinion, please specify them so we can discuss them!
Although apparently the intro does not conform to Screenstalkers idea of an intro that doesn't make it a worse intro than the previous one. Rather this on is better because it is shorter and it doesn't contain this really ugly sentence 'Causes of the 1948 Palestinian exodus are explanations offered ....  
The first three lines of the present intro: The first and largest part of this article is devoted to theories that explain the causes of the expulsion or flight of Palestinian Arabs during the 1947-1948 Civil War in Palestine and during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. At the end of the article an attempt is made at offering an overview of what most modern historians do agree on. tell exactly what is in the article. What's wrong with that?
--JaapBoBo 13:52, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you for your corrections ! :-) Alithien 14:51, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removals by Screen Stalker 

message: Of the Zeezya sample 48% reported that they had seen and observed Israeli soldiers or civilians. About half of the sample, in other words, had had actual contact with the enemy forces.
This fact is relevant to the question of mass panic. It is clear that these families, at least, did not flee before an unknown enemy. They did not leave their homes before the enemy arrived. They observed the occupying forces arrive, and then decided to leave their homes. The old and new refugees differ in this respect. The majority of the old refugees (68%) left without seeing the Israelis. By contrast, 42% of the new refugees did so. This fact may be seen in Table 5-1, which summarizes the refugees' description of their experiences during the war.
JaapBoBo's interpretation:
Barakat's conclusion is very likely to be as far a conclusion as can be drawn but not further. To state their conclusion as I interpret it, in my words: This fact is an indication that mass panic was a more important cause in 1948 than in 1967. In no way it warrants the statement in the preceding sentence in the article: there was no official policy or instructions to bring about the expulsion.
--JaapBoBo (talk) 22:28, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: quote from the book