The founders did the opposite. They appealed to the Arab residents to stay.
On May 14, 1948, David Ben Gurion announced the Declaration of the State of Israel. Even as the armies of neighboring Arab states were invading, Ben Gurion conveyed this message to the Arab residents:
WE APPEAL – in the very midst of the onslaught launched against us now for months – to the Arab inhabitants of the State of Israel to preserve peace and participate in the upbuilding of the State on the basis of full and equal citizenship and due representation in all its provisional and permanent institutions.
The Arab leaders conveyed a different message to the Jewish residents. Abdul Rahman Azzam, the Arab League’s first secretary-general, threatened that the establishment of a Jewish state would lead to “a war of extermination and momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacre and the Crusades.”
Every war results in the displacement of innocents. Millions of Muslim residents of India, and millions of Hindu residents of Pakistan, were displaced by the terrible violence that erupted following the end of British rule. Millions of Germans were displaced from their ancestral homes in land transferred to Poland and Czechoslovakia in the aftermath of World War II. Our own American Revolution led to the displacement of approximately 60,000 loyalists, who became refugees throughout the British Empire.
The Israeli War of Independence was no exception. There were atrocities on both sides. Despite Ben Gurion’s plea to the Arab residents to remain as full and equal citizens, an estimated 700,000 Arabs fled their homes, most because they were urged to do so by the invading Arab countries, but some because of legitimate fears of Israeli extremists. An even larger number of Jewish residents fled their homes in surrounding Arab countries in the wake of the violence perpetrated against them.
But while the numbers of displaced people on both sides may have been comparable, the consequences were not.
The Jewish refugees were welcomed into the nascent State of Israel, where they started new lives and became productive citizens. The Palestinian Arab refugees were segregated in squalid refugee camps in Jordan, Gaza, Syria, and Lebanon.
Ultimately, to understand why the Palestinian refugee problem is not the fault of Israel, one should consider the condition of those Arabs who heeded Ben Gurion’s appeal to remain in Israel, rather than to move. Today, Arab Israelis enjoy more civil rights than the Arabs of any other state. They are free to criticize their government – and many do! They are also free to run for office – and, again, many do! Life expectancy among Arab Israelis is higher than in any Arab-Muslim country, and their standard of living is higher than in any neighboring Arab country.
The Arabs, not the Israelis, caused the Palestinian refugee problem to begin, and the Arabs, not the Israelis, have allowed the Palestinian refugee problem to fester.
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