BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee

34
Survey of Palestinian Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons (2006-2007)
Sheeba (21 October 1948), Safsaf (29 October 1948), al-Dawayima (29 October 1948), Khirbeh as-Samniyya (30 October 1948),
Saliha (30 October 1948), Sa’sa (30 October 1948), Eilaboun (29 October 1948), Jish (29 October 1948), and Majd al-Kroum
(29 October 1948). For accounts of these massacres, see Morris, Benny, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, pp. 72–3,
113–15, 120, 156, 206–7, 213–14, 222–23, 228–30 and 350.
39 According to the government investigating committee, “[Prime Minister] Ben-Gurion and [Foreign Minister] Shertok appeared
not to have been shocked by what had happened.” Kibbutz Meuhad Archives – Aharon Zisling Papers 9/9/1, “Decisions of the
Provisional Government,” 7 November 1948; Hashomer Haztair Archives (Mapam, Kibbutz Artzi Papers), 66.90 (I), protocol of
the meeting of the Political Committee of Mapam, 11 November 1948; and David Ben-Gurion’s Yoman Hamilhama, 1948–49
(The War Diary), p. 809, entry for 10 November 1948, cited in Morris, Benny, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, pp.
232–233.
40 Morris, Benny, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, pp. 222–23.
41 For accounts of such expulsions, see Morris, Benny, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, pp. 54–56, 64, 105, 107, 115,
118–19, 121, 127, 201, 209–210, 212, 215, 227, 239 and 242.
42 th Kibbutz Meuhad Archives – Palmah Papers 141–143, Operation Dani headquarters to Yiftah Brigade headquarters, 8 Brigade
headquarters, 13:30 hours, 12 July 1948. A coded (and undated) version of this order is in Kibbutz Meuhad Archives – Palmah
Papers 142–18, cited in Morris, Benny, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, p. 207.
43 Cited in a book review by Gideon Levy in Ha’aretz, 3 November 2000; see also Morris, Benny, Correcting a Mistake – Jews and
Arabs in Palestine/Israel, 1936–1956. Am Oved Publishers, 2000.
44 “Retroactive Transfer, A Scheme for the Solution of the Arab Question in the State of Israel,” three-page memorandum signed
by Yosef Weitz, Ezra Danin and Elias Sasson, cited in Morris, Benny, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, p. 136.
45 For descriptions of incidents of looting and destruction of property, see, e.g., Morris, Benny, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee
Problem, pp. 32, 50, 52, 54, 62–3, 88, 101–2, 106, 112–13, 116, 119, 125, 128, 215, 221 and 230.
46 Segev, Tom, 1949: The First Israelis, New York: The Free Press, 1986, p. 73.
47 According to demographic projections by Janet Abu Lughod, between 890,000 and 904,000 Palestinians would have been living
in the territory that became the state of Israel if no displacement had taken place. “The Demographic Transformation of Palestine,”
in The Transformation of Palestine, ed. Abu-Lughod, Ibrahim, p. 159. This was roughly equal to the size of the Jewish population
at the end of 1948. Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, Statistical Abstract of Israel, No. 52 (2001), Table 2.1, “The Population by
Religion and Population Group,” pp. 2–9.
48 Final Report of the United Nations Survey Mission for the Middle East (Part I). UN Doc. A/AC.25/6, which cites a figure of 750,000
refugees. The total number of refugees rises to around 900,000 if the number of persons who lost their livelihood but not their
homes is added. This includes approximately 100 “border” villages where the 1949 armistice lines separated villagers from their
lands. For a register of villages depopulated during this period, see Abu Sitta, Salman, The Palestinian Nakba 1948, Register, The
Register of Depopulated Localities in Palestine. London: Palestinian Return Centre, 2001.
49 This included vast areas in the southern Naqab (Negev) region held according to traditional or customary ownership by nomadic
Bedouin. Abu Sitta, Salman, The Palestinian Nakba 1948, Register, The Register of Depopulated Localities in Palestine. London:
Palestinian Return Centre, 2001.
50 Rempel, Terry, “Housing and Property Restitution: The Palestinian Refugee Case,” Returning Home: Housing and Property Restitution
Rights of Refugees and Displaced Persons. Leckie, Scott (ed.). New York: Transnational Publishers, 2003, p. 296.
51 Christison, Kathleen, Perceptions of Palestine: Their Influence on U.S. Middle East Policy. Berkley: University of California Press,
1999, p. 47. According to Nichols, “[t]he US government spoke eloquently of the plight of European Jews, [but] its actions
indicated a desire to distance itself from politically unpopular efforts to liberalize immigration law or otherwise to expand the
number of Jews reaching America.” Nichols, Bruce, “Religion, Refugees, and the US Government,” Refugees in the Age of Total
War in Bramwell, Anna C. (ed.). London: Unwin Hyman, 1988, p. 91.
52 Anti-semitism, Nazi atrocities in Europe and Zionist information campaigns targeted at displaced European Jews resulted in a
massive increase in the number of Jewish asylum-seekers in Palestine, particularly during the 1930s. Between 1933 and 1936, for
example, 30–60,000 Jews immigrated to Palestine every year. The total number of Jewish immigrants in these years accounted
for nearly 50% of the total number of official Jewish immigrants from the beginning of the British mandate until 1946 (the date
of the last British estimate of the population in Palestine). See Table 1, Number of Immigrants Annually by Race. Total Number
of Persons Registered as Immigrants, Survey of Palestine, Vol. 1, Washington, DC: Institute for Palestine Studies, 1991, p. 185.
Jewish immigrants arrived in Palestine primarily from Poland, Russia and Germany.
53 “Latest aliyah Figures!”, Jewish Agency for Israel, 24 May 2007.
54 There were approximately 1,013,000 Jews in Israel in 1949 and 5,313,000 in 2006. See Statistical Abstract of Israel 2006, Israel
Central Bureau of Statistics, p. 93. “The large waves of immigration were between 1948 and 1951 (about 688,000 immigrants),
and in the 1990s (about one million immigrants).” Israel in Figures in 2006, The Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics, p. 10.
55 The Jewish National Fund (JNF) (Hebrew: Karen Kayemet L’Yisrael) was established by a decision of the Fifth Zionist Congress
in December 1901 and incorporated in England in April 1907. For more details, see Lehn, Walter, The Jewish National Fund,
London: Kegan Paul International, 1988.