Arabs and Jews
Sir. Again as an Israeli, I feel that the dispute over what caused the 'flight' of the Arab refugees in 1948 is misplaced. Nobody now inside Israel doubts that they were expelled, only now they are quarrelling about who expelled more.
For example a high authority, General Meir Pa'il, speaking about the Deir-Yassin massacre, claims that it was not this massacre but deliberate expulsions by Haganah forces that were responsible (Yedioth Aharonot, April 4 and April 20, 1972).
Mr J. Zetler and Mr M. Ra'anan of the Stern gang and Irgun respectively claim: " Odr action has made the Arabs afraid and caused the inhabitants of many Arab villages to flee"(ibid, April 7). But perhaps it would be easier to cite concrete examplesof expulsions which happened without any connections with war activities: 1) The village of Zarnuga was situated near Rehovot, completely surrounded by Jewish settlements. The village collaborated with Jewish authorities completely, both in 1936-1939 and in 1947-1948. In August 1948 during the cease-fire all the inhabitants were forced by the Israeli Army to go on trucks (at one hour's notice) and were removed by force to the Egyptian lines in the Gaza strip. 2) The village of Kefar-Yassif in Galilee. In April 1949 — many months after cessation of hostilities, about half of the adult males of the village — some 500 persons — were taken by 'force to Jordan. Of course their families had to follow — by themselves — by ' permission ' afterwards.
3) In August 1950 there lived about 8,000-10,000 Arabs in a township — Mejdal — on the Place where the present town of
Ashkelon is situated. Again the town was surrounded by the Army and, in the course of ten days, the whole population was deported to Gaza, by force. Apparently this was done since Ashkelon was planned as a town for South African Jews, who are notorious, even in Israel, for treating both Arabs and Oriental Jews in the same way that coloured people are treated in the country of their origin.
4) The latest mass expulsions of Arabs from Israel happened as late as 1959, when some hundreds of Bedouins were rounded up in the Negev and expelled through the Egyptian lines. Only the intervention of the UN SecretaryGeneral saved many more from the same fate.
Now leaving aside for a moment the main body of 1948 refugees, one can legitimately ask Air ViceMarshal R. I. Jones: What about those cases? What about the flagrant injustice done to those people? Have they not a much greater right to return to their homes, than those Soviet Jews about whom so many hypocrites in this country are raising their voices?
Israel Amos London, WI
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