In the 1948 war the Palestinians were largely defenceless, and sought to avoid getting caught in the fighting which broke out. A significant proportion of the Palestinian population was terrorized into leaving.
At first this was the result of threats, intimidation and acts of terror, in cities like Jaffa and Jerusalem, carried out by two Jewish terror organizations, IZL (Irgun Zvai Leumi) and LEHI (Lohamei Herut Israel). Of such acts the most notorious occurred on 9 April 1948 at the village of Deir Yassin on the western side of Jerusalem, when 120 villagers were killed. Deir Yassin had a devastating impact on Palestinian civilian morale, in the words of Israeli military intelligence,
"a decisive accelerating factor [to flight]"
(quoted in Benny Morris, 'The Causes and Character of the Arab Exodus from Palestine: The Israel Defence Forces Intelligence Service Analysis of June 1948', Middle Eastern Studies, vol.xxii, no. 1, January 1986, p.9).
Deir Yassin has always been considered as an Irgun outrage, but the destruction of the village was approved by the Haganah.
There were also deliberate efforts to force the Palestinians to leave their homes. During the summer months of 1948 a decision was taken to prevent Palestinian villagers, both in the forward battle area and behind Jewish lines, from harvesting their summer and winter crops in 1948. Others were directly expelled. In July 1948 Jewish forces resolved to seize the two Palestinian towns of Lydda and Ramla. From the start, the operations against the two towns were designed to induce civilian panic and flight, and at least one of the four Jewish brigades was told:
"Flight from the town of Ramle of women, the old and children is to be facilitated. The males are to be detained"
(Benny Morris, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949 (Cambridge, 1987), p.28).
In Lydda fear led to panic, and many were shot down in what amounted to a large-scale massacre of probably 250-300 men, women and children after the town had surrendered.
When General Allon asked:
"What shall we do with the Arabs ?"
Ben-Gurion made a dismissive, energetic gesture with his hand and said:
"Expel them"
(Morris, p. 207).
Approximately 70,000 inhabitants of the two towns were then driven out, almost 10 percent of the refugee total.
Expulsions, sometimes accompanied by atrocities, became increasingly frequent in the mopping-up operations from late summer 1948 onwards, and increased the fearfulness of the Palestinian population. In the course of his research the Israeli historian Benny Morris found an Israeli Intelligence report that estimated that 70 percent of those who fled in the decisive period up to 1 June 1948 did so as a result of direct or nearby Jewish military or paramilitary action. In other words, they fled either because they were expelled or because they thought their lives were in immediate danger, not because they voluntarily 'abandoned' their homes. Furthermore, it was widely understood what was intended, and it took place under 'a coalition government whose policy, albeit undeclared and indirect, was to reduce as much as possible the Palestinian population which would be left in the country and to make sure that as few refugees as possible would return.
By 1948, the number of Palestinian refugees was estimated 780,000. Zionists claim that this figure is 520,000. Israel's Six Day War proved almost as great a disaster for the Palestinians as the 1948 war had been. Large numbers of Palestinians fled or were expelled from villages or refugeecamps, particularly those on the floor of the Jordan Valley where they could flee across the river. Altogether 355,000 Palestinians crossed to the East Bank, of whom 210,000 had not previously been refugees and were now described as 'displaced'. Of those displaced either during the 1967 war or immediately after it, only 15,000 were allowed to return, less than 5 percent of the total. By 1994, the 'displaced' of 1967 numbered an estimated 800,000. Once again, as in the period after the 1948 war, Israeli troops routinely shot civilians trying to return home.
Even after the armistice agreements of 1949, Israel continued to expel or coerce thousands of Palestinians into leaving, notably from the "Little Triangle", a strip of West Bank land ceded by Transjordan during negotiations, and in the south from Majdal ("Ahkelon") on the coast, to Faluja and Bir Saba. the environs of Hebron, and from the demilitarized zone east and north of the Sea of Galilee. In 1953 it expelled another 7,000 bedouin.
Only 17 percent of the Palestinian population, approximately 160,000 remained in what became Israel. What had just taken place was the second major case of ethnic cleansing in the post-war world.
