How Palestinians were expelled from their homes

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Historical Context and Background

Village described: beautiful, mountain with fig/grape trees, faces main road to Jerusalem
Population: 750 people in 1948, everyone knew each other
Historical concealment: events carefully hidden, purposefully distorted, largely forgotten in West
Palestine historically home to Palestinians for centuries with hundreds of villages, thriving cities
Jerusalem central city with holy sites for Jewish, Christian, Muslim people
Late Ottoman Empire: Palestinians overwhelmingly Muslim with minority Christian/Jewish populations
Palestinians called "Arabs" despite distinctive culture, developed unique Arabic accent, regional food/dress, family ties

Arab political movement: seeking independence from Ottoman Empire, hoped for unified Arab state including Palestine
Zionists: political group with main goal of creating Jewish state
- Response to brutal climate for Jewish people in Europe/Russia
- Massive anti-Semitism wave including large-scale attacks late 1800s/early 1900s
- Briefly considered Uganda, Argentina before deciding on Palestine due to religious history connection
British: wanted regional control to expand spheres of influence, protect trade routes to India

1916: Arab leader and British official agreement via letters
- Arabs help British fight Ottomans, give economic/foreign privileges
- British recognize/support independent Arab state
Arabs revolted against Ottomans, made British advance easier
1917: British issued new declaration
- Lord Allenby conquered holy land
- Jews promised national home in Palestine without consulting native Palestinians
Balfour Declaration: supported establishment of national home for Jewish people in Palestine
- Strategic move allowing Britain to gain power under guise of supporting self-determination
- Palestinian majority referred to as "non-Jewish communities" with civil/religious rights but no political rights

Britain gained Palestine control through mandate, required implementing Balfour plans
1922-1931: Jewish population more than doubled
Zionist slogan: "land without people for a people without land"
- Message that Palestinian inhabitants could be easily moved elsewhere
1931: Over 850,000 Palestinian Arabs in region, still vast majority
Rise of Hitler/Nazi party: Jewish flight from Europe became more urgent, biggest wave of immigration yet
Violence broke out over land tensions:
- Jewish settlers purchased fertile land, evicted tenant farmers
- Created crisis of hundreds of thousands of landless, dispossessed Palestinian Arabs
Palestinian rebellion: fiercely fought British colonial forces and Jewish settlers
- British brutally crushed rebellion
- More troops in Palestine than stationed in all of India
- Thousands of Palestinians killed including leaders
- British trained/armed Zionist militias to suppress rebellion
British began limiting Jewish immigration to prevent further Palestinian resistance
Angered Zionist extremists, led to more violence

1947: Britain gave up, handed Palestine question to United Nations
UN special committee proposed partition plan:
- Land divided into Jewish state and Arab state
- Jerusalem as separate UN-controlled entity
Plan shocked Palestinians:
- Population ratio almost 2:1 Palestinian to Jewish
- Plan gave over half the land (often most fertile areas) to Jewish state
- Hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Arabs (Muslims/Christians) would become minorities in proposed Jewish state area
November 1947: UN voted in favor of partition
- After Holocaust and lobbying from US leaders/Zionists
Britain announced mandate would end May 15, 1948
Palestinians continued rejecting partition decision

End of 1947: Zionists had well-developed paramilitary forces
- Largest: Hagana
- More extremist: Irgun
March 10, 1948: Hagana adopted Plan Dalet (Plan D)
- Paper goal: gain control of Jewish state as per partition plan, defend settlements outside borders
- Reality: majority operations took place outside UN's proposed Jewish state
Plan focused on isolating Jerusalem and roads to it
Brutal instructions:
- Destruction of Arab villages by fire, explosives, mines
- Population centers difficult to control to be targeted
- Population expelled outside state borders in case of resistance
- Villages emptied
- Occupation/control of Arab villages along main transportation arteries

Village location: 4 miles west of Jerusalem
Witness: 91-year-old Dawood Assad (18 at time of massacre)
Night before: saw lights, armored trucks moving, knew something wrong
April 9, 1948: extremist Zionist forces executing Plan D attacked
- Village had made local peace pact with neighboring Jewish settlements
Massacre details:
- Fighting lasted 2.5 hours
- Uncle put against wall, shot with 8 bullets in cold blood
- Grandmother shot on way to see family
- Brother Omar injured, fell on concrete floor
Dawood escaped through trench, walked 4 hours to Jerusalem
Israeli Army archives refuse to release many images/intelligence reports
UN report detailed "circumstances of great savagery":
- Women and children stripped, lined up, photographed, slaughtered
- Roughly 100 people killed (largely children and elderly)
Dawood reunited with captives in Jerusalem including sister and mother
Family members killed: grandmother, David, Ahmed, Ismail

Deir Yassin news spread quickly with far-reaching effects
Zionist militias used as propaganda tool
Message: "if you don't leave, we will do to you what happened in Deir Yassin"
Stories spread: women raped, babies killed
Induced great fear among Palestinian Arab population, many fled
Plan D became blueprint for ethnic cleansing of historic Palestine
Zionist paramilitary groups cleared major cities (Haifa, Jaffa), took hundreds of smaller villages/towns
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians forced to flee as refugees to neighboring states

May 14, 1948: day before British mandate ended, Zionists declared state as Israel
Neighboring Arab countries overwhelmed by Palestinian refugees went to war with Israel
Fighting lasted months, Arab armies eventually lost
Palestinians continued being killed and displaced
Many Palestinians fled carrying only enough for few weeks, hoping to return home
Locked doors, took keys, moved to safer ground expecting temporary displacement
Refugees not allowed to return:
- Those trying to return often shot at
- Zionist operations prevented return by destroying villages
Nakba definition: both forcible displacement and prevention of return

Palestinian society dismembered, crushed
Over half Palestinian people became refugees, stateless, dispossessed
Israel covered up physical evidence of Arab Palestine:
- Place names changed from Arabic to Hebrew
- Jewish National Fund planted thousands of acres of pine forests/recreational areas on top of hundreds of ruined Palestinian villages
Palestinians never forgot their homelands despite forest growth

Casualties: roughly 6,000 Israelis lost lives, Palestinian deaths estimated around 15,000 (records not kept)
By end of Nakba: roughly 750,000 Palestinians forcefully expelled, over 500 villages destroyed
Land control: UN partition plan allotted Israel 56% of land, through Nakba Israel captured 78%
Everything except what's now occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip
Today: up to 85% of total area controlled, 6 million Palestinians turned into refugees without homeland
May 15th: Israelis celebrate independence day, Palestinians protest holding up keys as symbol of lost homes and hope to return
Nakba not just historical moment but ongoing catastrophe that never really ended

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