Talk:Palestinian exodus

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[edit] Neutrality of this article is disputed

Some editors consider this article to be biased towards the Arab point of view because:

  • The fact that many Jews fled Arab countries during establishment of Israel is not mentioned.
  • Proposed compensation for the Palestinian refugees is not mentioned.
  • Israel's own argumentation for not allowing refugees to return is not mentioned.
  • Opinions (as opposed to facts) of pro-Arab historians and politicians such as Hanan Ashrawi are given undue weight, while persons with pro-Israeli views such as David Ben Gurion are presented unfairly.

A majority of people contributing to this article consider it to be neutral, and oppose changing the article.

FWIW, it seems to me that contributors to this article try so hard not to be (or appear to be) biased that information value of the article suffers. --bonzi 09:57, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

The problem with this article is that it's not been taken over so disgracefully as has the (nearly equivalent) Palestinian refugee. But it's clearly been deteriorating steadily, with great swathes of pure propaganda now being injected.

I don't understand why Wikipedia allows this denial, and the humiliating treatment of the national catastrophe of the Palestinians.

PalestineRemembered 18:21, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Shmuel Katz

I would appreciate comments on whether a book written by the propaganda chief of one terrorist group (the Irgun) and distributed by another, the JDL qualifies as a reliable source. That book is Battleground: Fact and Fantasy in Palestine by Shmuel Katz. Ofira Seliktar writes:

Operating under the slogan "Never again" JDL supported the Greater Land of Israel, a policy which, in its view, mandated the expulsion of the Palestinians from the territories. To bolster its claims, the JDL distributed a book, Battleground: Facts and Fantasy in Palestine, penned by Shmuel Katz, the propaganda chief of the Irgun and a close friend of Begin. Katz contended that the Palestinians were recent arrivals in the land of Israel and did not deserve self-determination.
Katz, who became a leader in the Land of Israel Movement, a maximalist Israeli organization, helped to create in 1971 the Americans for a Safe Israel (AFSI). AFSI's self-described goal was to persuade American Jews to reject the land-for-peace formula of Labour in favor of the peace-for-peace model favored by the Israeli right wing. AFSI, which initially functioned as a think tank, generated a large amount of material devoted to establishing Israel's legitimacy in the West Bank, Gaza, and the Sinai Desert... AFSI gained a higher profile in the Jewish community when a number of mainstream organizations such as AIPAC and NJCRAC decided to distribute its pamphlets, along with Katz's Battleground. (Seliktar, Ofira (2002). Divided We Stand: American Jews, Israel, and the Peace Process. Praeger/Greenwood. ISBN 0275974081, p. 39).

With reference to Joan Peters' use of Battleground in her discredited book From Time Immemorial, Norman Finkelstein comments:

..twenty-one [references] to Samuel Katz's Battleground: Fact and Fantasy in Palestine, etc., etc., These 'sources' have the combined scholarly weight of a classic comic book. (Finkelstein, Norman (1995). Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict. Verso,. ISBN 1859843395, p. 219).

In view of the above I believe that anything 'sourced' to Battleground should be re-sourced to publications that satisfy WP:RS, WP:V and WP:NOT. Comments welcome. --Ian Pitchford 09:05, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

I've also asked for guidance on this matter, and challenged the admirers of Katz to provide any indication he's anything more than a propagandist (as he was in 1948, employed by Irgun to gloss over their multiple racist and near-terrorist crimes).
Needless to say, I've had no sensible response. The more I see from Katz the more I think he should not counted as WP:RS.
PalestineRemembered 16:03, 11 November 2006 (UTC)


Shmuel Katz is one of the most respected writers and historians and an expert on the Israeli Arab conflict.

The fact that Katz was in the Irgun, or the fact that he's on the right wing side of the map is of no consequence.

If Katz is not a good source, then all Benny Morris quotes should be deleted from wikipedia as well. Benny Morris is a notorious left wing analyst, who is involved in politicfs, and his works were also ruled as lies in the court of law. Yet Benny Morris is cited in wikipedia all the time.

Shmuel Katz however is a known biographer and historian. You can find his references in "google scholar" or anywhere else. He's a source in universites and schools around the world. The fact you don't like his research for political reason, although he cites all his references, for example you can see the same quote in Al Urdun newspaper, is simply your POV problem. Do not try to instigate lies. Amoruso 09:13, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

You would do well to at least try to mitigate your obvious bias, when appealing to comments. Katz's books are available on Amazon.com, and many other outlets. They were published by mainstream US publishers such as Bantam and Doubleday. To describe this as "distributed by a terrorist group" is not only POV, but dishonest poisoning the well. Finkelstein's assertions are just that- assertions by , to use your colorful language, a propagandist. I am all for using WP:RS - the quotes from Battleground should be sourced directly to that book, which is clearly as much a WP:RS as Finkelstein's screed. Isarig 09:14, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
Katz has no relevant qualifications at all. Seliktar and Finkesltein do. Perhaps you'd like to see the article on the history of Israel re-written according to the works of Yasser Arafat? --Ian Pitchford 09:18, 12 August 2006 (UTC)


It seems to me that an active member in the Irgun, writing based on his personal experience, who is also a prolific author and historian, is somewhat more qualified to comment on the events than a professor of poli-sci, who is mostly known as a propagandistic hate monger. I am not opposed to having Araft's views, properly cited, appear on various Israeli articles - that is the essence of NPOV. I wonder why you will not allow similar balance on this issue. Isarig 09:27, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
Indeed, opinion can be cited as such, but we don't use propaganda from terrorist organizations as the basis for factual claims. Why should we use dubious sources when there are plenty of good history books written by trained scholars? --Ian Pitchford 10:47, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
Ian, you're grasping at straws and you're sounding quite ridicolous. There's nothing dubious about Katz's work like Isarig explained to you. Amoruso 10:51, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
Please abide by WP:NPA and cite evidence in support of your claim that Katz is a reliable source. --Ian Pitchford 10:57, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
This has already been done. You have already been warned for your consistent POV hunts by Zeq in the past. Nobody will take your attempt to discredit Shmuel Katz any seriously. See Isirag above. Stop wasting everyone's time. Amoruso 11:01, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
Isarig - your claim that Benny Morris is a "propagandistic hate monger" looks very much like a revisionist slur (as would not be permitted in an article under WP:BLP, and might serve as a commentary on your fitness for NPOV).
And it's difficult to accept there are any grounds for your accustation whatsoever - Benny Morris is a historian (unlike Katz) and has produced several scholarly and well-researched books on the subject of the early years of Israel. Furthermore, he's not "of a Palestinian POV", he's an open supporter of the ethnic cleansing that took place in 1948, and would support it "within 5 or 10 years" under circumstances he can foresee [1].
PalestineRemembered 16:03, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

here's a random editorial review on Shmuel Katz :

Editorial Reviews From Library Journal Historian and journalist Katz has written a lengthy and detailed life of Jabotinsky (1880-1940), an outstanding and controversial figure in the Zionist movement of the 1920s and 1930s. He was a leader of Revisionism, which opposed the policies of the mainstream Zionist group led by Chaim Weitzman and David Ben-Gurion, later to become president and prime minister, respectively, of the state of Israel. Jabotinsky was also a prolific journalist, novelist, poet, and linguist, and Katz treats these aspects of Jabotinsky's work fully. This attempt at completeness often obscures the main thrust of Jabotinsky's efforts?the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. Although Katz avows a determination to be fair to Jabotinsky's contemporary critics and opponents, this is clearly the work of an ardent admirer. Recommended for academic libraries with large collections on Zionism and the state of Israel.?Harry Frumerman, formerly with Hunter Coll., CUNY Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1569800421/002-4808670-4079245?v=glance&n=283155

100% Very legitimate.

Amoruso 09:22, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

So Katz is an admirer of Jabotinsky .......... all we need to know. Here is Vladimir Jabotinsky in his book "The Iron Wall", 1923: "A voluntary reconciliation with the Arabs is out of the question either now or in the future. If you wish to colonize a land in which people are already living, you must provide a garrison for the land, or find some rich man or benefactor who will provide a garrison on your behalf. Or else - or else, give up your colonization, for without an armed force which will render physically impossible any attempt to destroy or prevent this colonization, colonization is impossible, not difficult, not dangerous, but IMPOSSIBLE! ... Zionism is a colonization adventure and therefore it stands or falls by the question of armed force. It is important ... to speak Hebrew, but, unfortunately, it is even more important to be able to shoot - or else I am through with playing at colonizing". :PalestineRemembered 20:33, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

New to Wikipedia, I find this thread, and many others on this site related to the topic of Palestine and Israel, to be unbelievable! Mr. Katz is by any practical standard a biased, unobjective source for such hotly contested information, just as other extremists such as Arafat would be.

Let me say I am not Jewish, I am not Muslim, and I am not an Arab. I am an American born of Irish origins and do not have strong political views on the subject of Arab-Israeli relations one way or another. But with the exception of Ian, other contributors here appear to be using Wikipedia as a port for channeling their political biases. For this website to maintain any level of objective credibility, Amorouso, Isarig, Jayjig, and Zeq should have no business acting as contributors to this particular topic. Instead, they need to take Journalism 101, and please do so at a truly secular university.

JEM8 23:20, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't know much about Katz - but I quickly found that he'd claimed the Palestinians left because they were ordered to by their "community leaders". It doesn't seem to be true - and would be completely irrelevant anyway. Those people have an absolute legal and moral right to return to their homes. PalestineRemembered 20:33, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

For Palestineremembered, any Zionist is not a good source. Katz is a Zionist yes, but he's still a respected historian. Jabotinsky is admired by more than 50% of the country's population including the mainstream kadima and Prime Minster Olmert. He's the leading figure behind the modern Likud who recently split to Kadima. Israelis are likely to be either right wing or left wing. Some people only want to cite left wing historians like post zionist or anti zionist people. That shows their bias, not others. Katz has all the credentials and respect and notability. The evidence of google scholar has been provided many many times by now. Amoruso 22:52, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Citing sources

Please note WP:CITE#Intermediate sources: State where you got it. You are not supposed to copy material from hidden places that cites sources you have not looked at. You have to identify your source for the material. --Zerotalk 12:44, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

that's my source. I have papers in the library, looked it up in arabic. and do not delete Shmuel Katz who is a reliable source. Amoruso 13:04, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] master plan theory

this whole section should be removed and deleted. Khalidi is not a credible source, since he's a propogandist of palestinian agenda and his lies have been exposed throughout the years by established scholars. Ilan Pape has also been condemned by its own university, not received the proffessor status, and he's discredited. This theory therefore has no reliable references. Amoruso 13:15, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Do you have have a credible source that has discredited Khalidi? I don't know, I'm just wondering.... Ramallite (talk) 16:56, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
Walid Khalidi is an eminent spokesman for the PLO. I don't see why it's ok to quote Morris and Khalidi and such and suddently it becomes POV and wrong to quote scholars that support different views. I find it strange. Yes, Khalidi is cited as very credible in Palestinian sites or Jews against Occupation sites. And Katz is cited as very credibe in Jewish sites or Pro-Jewish Christian sites and so on. That's how things are. Everyone should learn to respect both sides and for this reason there are different theories in the article for everyone to read and discuss. I see no reason and it it highly offensive that certain parts of the article are being attacked fervently simply because people don't agree with them politically. Amoruso 20:26, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The disputed section (including the collection of 'quotes')

This is garbage. That is not to mean that the actual content is garbage (that is another debate), but its bulk inclusion (with pretty much one freerepublic.com source) into an encyclopedia so offensively and preposterously is garbage, and for the following reasons:

  • If people insist on taking one extreme right-wing (and not very reputable) source and adding a disproportionate amount of information from it into a WP article just to help propagate one specific (and perhaps absurd) point of view, that is against WP:NPOV. There are many pieces on the internet of equal or even greater verifiability that would similarly bash and dehumanize the Israeli side. Should we include that as well and end up having one huge bullshit-fest of an article? The point trying to be made DOES NOT NEED such a huge disgraceful insertion. If you want to do that, there are many hate blogs that exist for that purpose.
  • Much of the section is verbatim lifted and inserted from copyrighted material, which is against policy. These will be removed if not addressed.
  • According to WP:V, at least as I understand it, the ORIGINAL source must be verifiable. All the sources are taken from the reference list at the bottom of this freerepublic.com article, with no way to verify authenticity.
  • Most of these series of quotations are NOT from Palestinian or Israeli sources, but from other 'Arabs' of no notability who happen to have an opinion. If they are not Palestinian or Israeli, they should have no business in an article on the Palestinian exodus.
  • One last musing: Since some appear to really want to push this absurd theory that 'Arabs left at their own free will' or even 'at the behest of their leaders (hint: neighbouring Arab state kings were NOT the leaders of the Palestinians), I guess the overflowing Arabs of Nazareth, or perhaps even the lebanese refugees, should flood into Kiryat Shmona's empty houses right now because, hey, after all, the occupants "left at their own free will". They were sitting on their couches watching TV and clipping their toenails and then thought, hey, wouldn't it be great to get up and leave the city? Or maybe, wait, didn't the Israeli government provide funds and transportation for them to leave? There we have it then, even their 'leaders' encouraged them to leave. I say finders keepers in Kiryat Shmona. Apparently, according to the freerepublic.com and to Katz, that's kosher. Ramallite (talk) 16:50, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

The American journalist Kenneth Bilby, who had covered Palestine for years, explained the Arab leaders' rationale for the flight : "Let the Arabs flee into neighboring countries. It would serve to arouse the other Arab countries to greater effort, and when the Arab invasion struck the Palestinians could return to their homes and be compensated with the property of Jews driven into the sea." (New Star In The Near East, New York, 1950).

  • This is a verbatim cut and paste from a copyrighted article, is not neutral (says 'Bilby explained', as opposed to 'according to Bilby'). Who is this Bilby anyway? Credible source? Ramallite (talk) 17:32, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
This is a quote from Bilby, verified and documented. Nothing to do with copyright (what does it mean in this context). Bilby is a very credible and know journalist who wrote books about the middle east conflicts. Amoruso 20:07, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
Do you know how many journalists reported on and wrote books about these events? Why does Bilby have a special right to appear here? --Zerotalk 13:34, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
how many - please tell us ? maybe you have no idea what you're talking about ? this is legitimate quote.

The claim that Arab leaders endorsed the refugee flight has been rejected by modern Palestinian writers. But Emil Ghoury, a member of the Palestinian Arabs' national leadership, admitted: "I don't want to impugn anybody, but only to help the refugees. The fact that there are these refugees is the direct consequence of the action of the Arab states in opposing partition and the Jewish state. "The Arab states agreed upon this policy unanimously, and they must share in the solution of the problem." (Daily Telegraph", September 6, 1948)

  • What does this EDITORIAL (not a historian or politician) have to do with The "Arab leaders' endorsement of flight" Theory? It seems to be criticizing Arab actions blaming them for going to war, but is certainly not evidence of an 'endorsement of flight'. Ramallite (talk) 17:32, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
it might be a little leap for some, but I think it's quite obvious for the common reader. This is another backup for the theory. It shows the Arab motive. Amoruso 20:07, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
Your understanding of The Arab Mind is very impressive. --Zerotalk 13:34, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
thank-you. yours isn't. Amoruso 11:58, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

The prime minister of Iraq, Nuri Said, declared: "We will smash the country with our guns and obliterate every place the Jews seek shelter in. The Arabs should conduct their wives and children to safe areas until the fighting has died down." (Sir Am Nakbah”, Nazareth, 1952).

  • "Wives and children to safe places" is the same thing as "Arab endorsement of flight"? Ramallite (talk) 17:32, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
Yes, it is. You need to understand that in research, one shows what fits his theories. This is the point of these theories. Of course you can open it to interpretation. If you do, you will be supporting another theory. I think this is the point of the article. Amoruso 20:07, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
Who would say "safe places" when they meant "out of the country"? This one falls on its face all by itself. Incidentally, since you have certified that this book is a reliable source, make sure you don't complain when I quote this book's account of the "Tantura massacre". --Zerotalk 13:34, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
you're proving you have no idea what you're talking about.... Amoruso 11:58, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Further quotations : "Who brought the Palestinians to Lebanon as refugees, suffering now from the malign attitude of newspapers and communal leaders, who have neither honor nor conscience? Who brought them over in dire straits and penniless, after they lost their honor? The Arab states and Lebanon among them." (The Beirut Muslim weekly Kul-Shay, Aug. 19, 1951).

  • This is an editorial, which perhaps is criticizing the war in the first place and not any "endorsement of flight". But again, it is an editorial, which is not encyclopedic material per se because it is not the words of a historian or an official of the period, but merely an opinion piece. Ramallite (talk) 17:32, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
An opinion by an Arab newspaper during or right after a war. This shows the public opinion at the time of the flight. Isn't it surprising that at the time of the war nobody was talking about a refugee problem caused by Israel ? This is very helpful for the theory and credible as such. Amoruso 20:07, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
Try to stick to things you know to be true. Actually you can read contemporary newspapers and find plenty of examples. Here's one: "They have been mortaring Jaffa heavily most of to-day, wounding a large number of Arabs, and causing an exodus which had already begun during the last few days to be accelerated by sea and by road." (Times, April 26, 1948) As for Arab spokepeople, they were very reluctant to admit the massive defeat they were suffering. Of course some of them claimed that they planned it, just like Hezbollah is claiming that they had all along planned to move their launchers to the north. No reason to believe either without evidence, and there isn't any. --Zerotalk 13:34, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
this TIMES quote of yours is fake. you probably just made it up. the evidence that I put here is huge. Amoruso 11:58, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

"On that day the Mufti of Jerusalem appealed to the Arabs to leave the country, because the Arab armies were about to enter and fight in their stead." (The Cairo daily Akhbar el Yom. Oct. 12, 1963).

Good. Amoruso 20:07, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
So prove it is genuine, determine whether it is a report, editorial, letter to the editor, or what. --Zerotalk 13:34, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
I did. Amoruso 11:58, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

"For the flight and fall of the other villages it is our leaders who are responsible because of their dissemination of rumors exaggerating Jewish crimes and describing them as atrocities, killing of women and children, etc., they instilled fear and terror in the hearts of the Arabs in Palestine, until they fled, leaving their homes and properties to the enemy." (The Jordanian daily newspaper Al Urdun, April 9, 1953).

  • This is an editorial, which again does not necessarily address an "endorsement of flight". Yet again, it is an editorial, which is not encyclopedic material per se because it is not the words of a historian or an official of the period, but merely an opinion piece. Ramallite (talk) 17:32, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
See comment above. Nothing is necessariy per se. This is why everything is in a theory section, even though it should be stated as fact. Be happy about that. Amoruso 20:07, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

"It was the Arab states who started and were responsible for starting the June (1967) War. They had duped themselves with their own fiery rhetoric and had become prisoners of their own propaganda." (Evan W. Williams, former US Minister Consul-General who served in Beirut, Tehran and Jerusalem, in his book "Jerusalem, Key to Peace", 1970).

  • Hello, 1967? This articles covers the exodus of 1948. Ramallite (talk) 17:32, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
Again, this requires some leap to understand the propaganda issue. I'm willing for you to delete this one, if you want. Amoruso 20:07, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
Take it to Arab bashing. --Zerotalk 13:34, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

"We said: "Let's resettle those people." The government of Egypt and so on, they all said: 'Wait a while' or 'No, we won't do it. The only place they are going to resettle is back in Israel, right or wrong. You must remember - well, these people are simply pawns. The Arab countries don't want to take Arabs." (John McCarthy, the United States Catholic Conference refugee expert, in a 1975 interview).

  • Yet again does not address "endorsement of flight" but address a non-Palestinian leader's unwillingness to grant citizenship to refugees. Has nothing to do with "endorsement of flight". Ramallite (talk) 17:32, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
It says that the "refugees" were pawns. It doesn't take an Einstein to figure this one out. Amoruso 20:07, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
The citation is insufficient; where was the interview published? If genuine, it might fit in Palestinian refugee but it has nothing to do with the causes of the exodus. This is from Joan Peters, did you know that? --Zerotalk 13:34, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
the citation is more than sufficent. all the evidence is there. Joan peters maybe also used it. btw, Joan peters is discredited is she ? One sided bias again.

Monsignor George Hakim, then Greek Catholic bishop of Galilee, the leading Christian personality in Palestine for many years, told a Beirut newspaper in the summer of 1948, before the flight of the Arabs had ended: "The refugees were confident that their absence would not last long, and that they would return within a week. Their leaders had promised them that the Arab armies would crush the "Zionist gangs" very quickly, and that there was no need for panic or fear of a long exile." (Sada al Janub," August 16, 1948).

  • If this is true, okay..... This Hakim guy must be a big shot to find himself so notable.... Ramallite (talk) 17:32, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
Ok then. Amoruso 20:07, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
I proved this quotation is misleading. It's a good example of how propaganda works. --Zerotalk 13:34, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
I proved the quotation isn't misleading. It's a good example of the truth. Amoruso 11:58, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

"Of the 62,000 Arabs who formerly lived in Haifa, not more than 5,000 or 6,000 remained. Various factors influenced their decision to seek safety in flight. There is but little doubt that the most potent of the factors were the announcements made over the air by the Higher Arab Executive urging the Arabs to quit.It was clearly intimated that those Arabs who remained in Haifa and accepted Jewish protection would be regarded as renegades." (The London weekly "Economist" October 2, 1948).

  • If this is true, okay..... although it still is a foreign paper's report but okay.... Ramallite (talk) 17:32, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
ok then. Amoruso 20:07, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

On April 3, 1949, the Near East Arabic Broadcasting Station in Cyprus stated: "It must not be forgotten that the Arab Higher Committee encouraged the refugees' flight from their homes in Jaffa, Haifa and Jerusalem."

  • A broadcasting station in Cyprus? This most certainly is a relevant and verifiable source.. sigh Ramallite (talk) 17:32, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
Ok, delete it if you must, though I saw this in several publications, and I'm sure it's true. Amoruso 20:07, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
This radio station was run by the British Secret Services. Spreading the truth was probably not their primary mission. --Zerotalk 13:34, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
this comment of yours is original research (and wrong) and it has nothing to do with anything of wikipedia. Amoruso 12:00, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

"The Arab States encouraged the Palestinian Arabs to leave their homes temporarily in order to be out of the way of the Arab invasion armies." (The Jordanian newspaper "Filastin" wrote on February 19, 1949) Most pointed of all was the comment of one of the refugees themselves: "The Arab governments told us: Get out so that we can get in. So we got out, but they did not get in." (Jordan daily “Ad Difaa", September 6, 1954).

  • I find it hard to believe that a Jordanian daily would print something like this (not to mention I've never heard of this paper), but then again who am I to not believe what I don't believe? Ramallite (talk) 17:32, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
I found quotes from this paper in the Mount Campus archives. It is true. They actually reported it. Amoruso 20:07, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
"Quotes from this paper" doesn't cut it. Prove it is geniune and in context. One refugee's opinion is not notable anyway. You don't even name this refugee. Also, you claim you are not copying stuff from the web but you even copied the introduction "Most pointed of all was the comment of one of the refugees" which is not part of the quotation. --Zerotalk 13:34, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
I used Katz and verified the sources. I will add in the Katz reference. Amoruso 12:00, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] the garbage here is the whole master plan theory

This was refuted by many historians like explained, and still it is included. on the other hand, the truth, that is, the theory of the arabs wanting the palestinians to leave and encouraging it, is widely spread and known and has been researched . I really don't understand what's the problem here. This is a long article and most of it is concentrated on the palestinian fantasy of refugees. It's very strange that with millions of refugees of every war in history, the only refugees people keep discussing about are the palestinian refugees. Some of them still receive money from the U.N even though they are millionaires. It is quite disturbing. This article lists many theories, some of them are obviously non sensible. I don't see what's the problem with writing more in the section provided for this theory. If you don't agree with the theory, move on, but respect it.

The quotes I've cross-checked. The arab papers quotes are available in computers in the Hebrew University in Mount Campus. Those that I didn't find I didn't include , from the source you said which indeed provided me the initial database to search for.

There are no grounds for deletion of this section and I will not agree to it. You can take it to arbitration and then we'll see if Wikipedia advocates propaganda of palestinians over facts. Of course Arab, not palestinian, quotes of what happened are very important to support this theory, so I don't see any problem of it either.

As to your claim of wanting to move to Kiryat Shmona : a) be my guest b) it's not relevant c) does that mean Jews can move to southern lebanon now too ? d) this theory doesn't talk about any moral aspects, simply what happened e) the palestinians left at the request of SOMEONE's else army, not themselves which is the point here f) they moved so that the arabs can come in and perform mass genocide on the Jews, which is not the case here g) it didn't happen. so one needs to live with the reality.

Amoruso 17:00, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

They moved so that someone else can come in and perform mass genocide of the Jews? Funny, I thought it was the rockets and the shells and fighting going on around them, but I guess that doesn't matter. If you really think that a foreign army can simply come and request that people leave their own homes, and that the Palestinians would simply acquiesce like that, with no other factors (like their lives are already in danger or they are being forcibly expelled on trucks, read Rabin's diaries), you have serious misconceptions about our history. But I will admit that every party always chooses to believe what they choose to believe in order to justify their (or their ancestor's) actions. If it makes you feel better to believe what you believe, nobody can stop you. Ramallite (talk) 17:41, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
p.s. if "Jews" moving to south Lebanon, and "Muslims and Christians" moving to northern Israel would bring peace, I'd be all for it. But you'd have to take this debate up with a Lebanese fellow, I'm not involved in this. Ramallite (talk) 17:41, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Guys WP is not a soap box or newsgroup deabte club. As for History: There is no WP:RS that show any "master plan" - it is completly OR that concluded that "theory" based on misunderstood words by Zionist leaders 10 and 15 years before the war. If you want to see what took place in 48 you need only to look at nassrale call to the Arabs of Haifa: "get out so we can bomb the jews" - this is EXACTLY what Arab leaders did in 48. Zeq 17:46, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

very well said. After Nasralla said this, some Arabs in Israel in papers mentioned the similarity and that it sounded really bad and reminded of past times. Maybe this Narallah example can be included too. At the very least this quote from Katz should be brought too :

Equally specifically brought to public notice was the part played by the chief spokesman for the combined Arab states, the Secretary General of the Arab League himself. Habib Issa wrote in the New York Lebanese daily newspaper At Hoda on June 8, 1951, The Secretary General of the Arab League, Azzam Pasha, assured the Arab peoples that the occupation of Palestine and of Tel Aviv would be as simple as a military promenade... He pointed out that they were already on the frontiers and that all the millions the Jews had spent on land and economic development would be easy booty, for it would be a simple matter to throw Jews into the Mediterranean. -- Brotherly advice was given to the Arabs of Palestine to leave their land, homes, and property and to stay temporarily in neighbouring fraternal states, lest the guns of the invading Arab armies mow them down.

Amoruso 02:42, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

So why don't you identify "Habib Issa" for us. I bet you can't. While you are at it, explain to us why Katz didn't identify this as a Maronite newspaper. --Zerotalk 03:02, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

And of course the ultimate proof :

As late as 1952, the charge had the official stamp of the Arab Higher Committee. In a memorandum to the Arab League states, the Committee wrote: Some of the Arab leaders and their ministers in Arab capitals -- declared that they welcomed the immigration of Palestinian Arabs into the Arab countries until they saved Palestine. Many of the Palestinian Arabs were misled by their declarations... It was natural for those Palestinian Arabs who felt impelled to leave their country to take refuge in Arab lands -- and to stay in such adjacent places in order to maintain contact with their country so that to return to it would be easy when, according to the promises of many of those responsible in the Arab countries (promises which were given wastefully), the time was ripe. Many were of the opinion that such an opportunity would come in the hours between sunset and sunrise

Amoruso 02:46, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

No reliable source, inadmissible. Explain how Katz came into possession of a secret memorandum that contradicted the position stated dozens of times. --Zerotalk 03:02, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cleanup attempt - the link between words and events

Several paragraphs currently in this article contains statements or editorial passages, but provides no explanation on how it played a part in the events which took place. Obviously, any person can say something but it doesn't follow there's a connection, that people are listening and acting based on what is said.

In an attempt to clean up some of the mess on this page, I have moved a number these paragraph here to talk, for rewording, cleanup and for proper context (link for cause) to be added:

(this page is still a mess though, for instance the subtitle "Claims by Israeli government sources" is way off; the section should either be refactored or renamed "Israeli claims" or something.


(Katz:)

For nearly a generation, those leaders have willfully kept as many people as they possibly could in degenerating squalor, preventing their rehabilitation, and holding out to all of them the hope of return and of "vengeance" on the Jews of Israel, to whom they have transferred the blame for their plight. ... at the time No Arab spokesman made such a charge. At the height of the flight, the Palestinian Arabs' chief representative at the United Nations, Jamal Husseini, made a long political statement (on April 27) that was not lacking in hostility toward the Zionists; he did not mention refugees. Three weeks later (while the flight was still in progress) the secretary-general of the Arab League, Azzam Pasha, made a fiercely worded political statement on Palestine; it contained not a word about refugees.

The American journalist Kenneth Bilby, who had covered Palestine for years, claimed that the Arab leaders' rationale for the flight was:

"Let the Arabs flee into neighboring countries. It would serve to arouse the other Arab countries to greater effort, and when the Arab invasion struck the Palestinians could return to their homes and be compensated with the property of Jews driven into the sea." (New Star In The Near East, New York, 1950).
  • "Who brought the Palestinians to Lebanon as refugees, suffering now from the malign attitude of newspapers and communal leaders, who have neither honor nor conscience? Who brought them over in dire straits and penniless, after they lost their honor? The Arab states and Lebanon among them." (The Beirut Muslim weekly Kul-Shay, Aug. 19, 1951).
  • "For the flight and fall of the other villages it is our leaders who are responsible because of their dissemination of rumors exaggerating Jewish crimes and describing them as atrocities, killing of women and children, etc., they instilled fear and terror in the hearts of the Arabs in Palestine, until they fled, leaving their homes and properties to the enemy." (The Jordanian daily newspaper Al Urdun, April 9, 1953).
  • "Of the 62,000 Arabs who formerly lived in Haifa, not more than 5,000 or 6,000 remained. Various factors influenced their decision to seek safety in flight. There is but little doubt that the most potent of the factors were the announcements made over the air by the Higher Arab Executive urging the Arabs to quit. It was clearly intimated that those Arabs who remained in Haifa and accepted Jewish protection would be regarded as renegades." (The London weekly "Economist" October 2, 1948).
  • "The Arab States encouraged the Palestinian Arabs to leave their homes temporarily in order to be out of the way of the Arab invasion armies." (The Jordanian newspaper "Filastin" wrote on February 19, 1949)

-- Steve Hart 00:36, 16 August 2006 (UTC) But the leading Arab propagandist of the day, Edward Atiyah (then Secretary of the Arab League Office in London), reaffirmed the endorsement theory:

This wholesale exodus was due partly to the belief of the Arabs, encouraged by the boasting of an unrealistic Arab press and the irresponsible utterances of some of the Arab leaders that it could be only a matter of some weeks before the Jews were defeated by the armies of the Arab States and the Palestinian Arabs enabled to re-enter and retake possession of their country. (The Arabs (London, 1955)), p. 1831

-- Steve Hart 01:07, 16 August 2006 (UTC)


The claim that Arab leaders endorsed the refugee flight has been rejected by modern Palestinian writers. But Emil Ghoury, a member of the Palestinian Arabs' national leadership, admitted:

"I don't want to impugn anybody, but only to help the refugees. The fact that there are these refugees is the direct consequence of the action of the Arab states in opposing partition and the Jewish state. "The Arab states agreed upon this policy unanimously, and they must share in the solution of the problem." (Daily Telegraph", September 6, 1948)

quote moved per discussion about accuracy -- Steve Hart 22:54, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
this is all plainly ridicilous. Move back all the citations to their proper place under the endorsement theory. The quotations were : (a) cross checked for verifiability (b) all the quotations I placed on the last edit appeared in Katz's history book. I don't see anyone questioning the millions of Benny Morris quotes on wikipedia's million sites that he's cited on. Did anyone go to the archives and check each and every quote that Benny Morris bases his studies upon ? no. You can add "Katz claims" before every quote if you think that quote is selective (because they do exist) but you must include them. Thank you. Amoruso 00:12, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
I do want to take this opportunity and thank you for what I assume to be your good faith here. I do believe you mean only good, and you must see that some members are trying to exploit the final look of the article not because they think quotes are inaccurate or selective or unreliable, but simply because they don't like the quotes themselves. They want to read through the article and not to see things which contradict their way of thinking and belief. But you do seem intent on simply cleaning up the article and making it the best it can. And you should be congratulated for your objective efforts. Even though you moved quotations here to talk, you did so with good faith and did not delete for POV reasons, an impartial island in a sea of bias. I hope you see eye to eye with me that quotes should be kept, especially if they're quoted from Katz's book, just like quotes of military officials and so on that Morris bases his work are all kept. Attacking Joan peters, Katz, Schetman and so on and standing by Morris, Khalidi and so on, is a pure example of POV standard that certain users are trying to enforce upon Wikipedia, and it's sad. Amoruso 00:23, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Part two

Well, now I'm possibly disgusted. Running some of the text above through Google, most or all of them come up on the same webpages, e.g. United Jewish Communities and Palestine Facts. If quotes and information indeed have been lifted from a web page and included here as book citations, that's a violation of WP:CITE: Intermediate sources: State where you got it. No wonder there was no context. Either a lot of resourcing must be done, or a purge. Based on this I've also removed another paragrap from the article (inserted above). -- Steve Hart 01:07, 16 August 2006 (UTC)


I really don't know what you're talking about. And I think you don't know either. Making outrageous claims like are a violation of wikipedia policy. There is nothing wrong with the paragraphs you just vandalised and brought them here for no reason. There is no violation of WP:CITE policy with these paragraphs. Where it says they appear in a book, they do, and it's all been verified. I've been spending time in the Mount Scopus Library and verifying these sources , books and papers. The fact they also appear in personal sites, news sites and so on is utterly irrelevant. I asssure you kahlidi/pappe/benny morris quotes appear on various palestinian and hamas sites and so on.
The only proposal made sense by you here is that claims not made by israel or arab leaders should be in a different section and say they're made but other sources or people present at the time. These are all important factors to understand the issue and are critical to the article. This vendetta of some people who don't agree with these facts on a political point of view is a violation of the NPOV policy of wikipedia. Please refrain from doing so. Restate the paragraphs in the article and allow a cleanup of categorizing if you wish. Anything else you shouldn't do. You're also in clear violation of Wikipedia:No personal attacks , Wikipedia:Civility , and almost simply Wikipedia:Vandalism of this article and efforts of users to expand on a legitimate and based theory of the exodus. Amoruso 01:17, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
Did you verify the Attiyah quotation? --Zerotalk 01:20, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
Page 183, penguin books. Check it yourself. This is an exact quotation. I'm simply left very annoyed and irritated from what I'm encountering here. One of the pillars of wikipedia is to discuss things in a civil way. My contribution to the theory section is legitimate. It's small, it's not even that outrageous and it's not anything controversial either. It's simply further information on something that already exists, all in accordance with WP:V, WP:RS, WP:CITE, but since the conflict is a sensitive issue, I am sorry to see that people abuse their power and try to enforce former edits which fit their POV. This is disappointing and damaging to the wikipedia cause. If any of you want to use wikipedia to enforce only your political agenda and ignore the theories/facts/debates from all sides, do so, just let it be known at the wikipedia introduction page that wikipedia is no place for Jews supporting Israel or something like that, perhaps a haven for anyone who wants to promote theories that Israel is an apartheid state and any claims which may put Israel into a positive light are immediately discredited with lame excuses. Amoruso 01:33, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
Well, if you are the one who included these paragraphs (I haven't been following this article) and you have access to the books, then I'm sure you can provide the paragraph before and after these quotations so that we can see what context they appear in. I have not accused you of anything, not even mentioned your name (but since you replied it's strange that other people have quoted the exact same paragraphs from the same books and put them on a web page) Disclaimer: I've only noticed that several of the paragraphs are listed on other web pages, I don't know if they all are. Wikipedia policy is clear: if something comes from a webpage instead of a book, then we need to cite the web page and not the book. It's really not that big of a deal, we just need to recite according to WP:CITE. Anyway, until others have had an opportunity to comment I think we should leave the paragraphs here on Talk. And again, I didn't mean tgo accuse anybody (it's late, sorry) -- Steve Hart 01:38, 16 August 2006 (UTC)


yes, it's very "strange" that people use the same arguments and famous quotes. Unbelievable even. oh look, a random search for sykes's book brought me to here : [2] - how strange is that ? it's a website called bint jbeil (hizballah outpost in lebanon) and it justifies attacks on israel which is a war crime country of course, how strange ? Could it be the same quote is used and was just copy pasted here ? How peculiar !!! But wait, that quote is still in the article. Evidently, you didn't try to see who is using those pro palestinian quotes ! I wonder why ! From all the asterix quotes in the section supposed to deal PRO ENDORSEMENT THEORY , the only ones left are these :
  • "'Doesn't he have anything more important to do?' was Ben-Gurion's reaction when told, during his visit to Haifa on 1 May 1948, that a local Jewish leader was trying to convince the Arabs not to leave. 'Drive them out!' was Ben-Gurion's instruction to Yigal Allon, as recorded by Yitzhak Rabin in a censored passage of his memoris published in 1979, with regard to the Arabs of Lydda after the city had been taken over on 11 July 1948." (Ben-Ami, Shlomo (2006). Scars of War, Wounds of Peace: The Israeli-Arab Tragedy. Oxford University Press, p. 44.)
  • An interview frequently cited in Zionist historiography was with Monsignor George Hakim, then Greek Catholic bishop of Galilee, in the Beirut newspaper Sada al Janub, August 16, 1948: "The refugees were confident that their absence would not last long, and that they would return within a week. Their leaders had promised them that the Arab armies would crush the "Zionist gangs" very quickly, and that there was no need for panic or fear of a long exile." Hakim later commented on this use of his words: "There is nothing in this statement to justify the construction which many propagandists had put on it... At no time did I state that the flight of the refugees was due to the orders, explicit or implicit, of their leaders, military or political, to leave the country... On the contrary, no such orders were ever made... Such allegations are sheer concoctions and falsifications. ...as soon as hostilities began between Israel and the Arab States, it became the settled policy of the Government to drive away the Arabs..." (quoted in E. B. Childers, The Wordless Wish, in I. Abu-Lughod (ed) Transformation of Palestine, Northwestern University Press (1971), 197-198.)
  • The Jewish Haganah broadcast a warning to Arabs in Haifa on 21 April: "that unless they sent away 'infiltrated dissidents' they would be advised to evacuate all women and children, because they would be strongly attacked from now on" ('British Proclamation In Haifa Making Evacuation Secure', The Times, Thursday, April 22, 1948; pg. 4; Issue 51052; col D ).
woah, what do you know... it seems you didn't dispute even one grain of sand , not even a word, a spelling mistake, of these different quotes. Of course all legitimate historians, verfied, WP:V, WP:RS, WP:CITE what not... everything, perfect, right ? Yeah, sure... no problem, you want me to quote the entire book of Atiyah I'll go back to the library and do it , but I must say I'm assuming bad faith here from no on. If you want to make the articles any way you want, go ahead. I'm close to not giving a flying you know what anymore. wikipedia is simply losing any shred of credible dignity and I'm sorry I've wasted my time. I should have realised it when I saw the banning of anyone leftists disagree with like Zeq etc and I was warned to this effect by people. Amoruso 02:23, 16 August 2006 (UTC)


While I'm not for censoring or anything like that, I have to point out a couple of things here:
  1. My previous note that many of these quotations do not really support, or are evidence of, "Arab leaders' endorsement of flight" which is what the section is about. A lot of these quotes have a lot of Israel-bashing, or Arabs bashing other Arabs or whatever, but most of these quotations actually do not specifically support the thesis of the section. Amoruso had argued on this talk page that one can somehow conclude that there was 'endorsement' that may be indirectly evident from reading these quotations, but I still don't see it. The explanations may actually border on original research.
  2. I agree with Steve that some of these quotations can be easily found on a multitude of anti-Palestinian sites, but almost always without context. For example, I found the Emil Ghoury quote on multiple websites, always quoting the Daily Telegraph as a source. But I could not find a single reference to the entire Telegraph article, only that specific sentence. As such, and without context, I really wish that those with access to archival material (HU Mount Scopus, which is what I assume Amoruso meant when mentioning "Mount Campus" above, may have them perhaps?) I myself am not allowed to enter Jerusalem or I would have been interested in going myself while I was still in Palestine last week. In any case, is there any way to remedy these concerns? Ramallite (talk) 03:44, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
p.s. I can assure you that any problem Zeq had in the past was not due to his ideology but rather his manner of dealing with other Wikipedians. Most regulars and administrators on WP tend to be much more right wing vis-a-vis Israel than left wing. (Except for myself, I'm rather wingless). Ramallite (talk) 03:44, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
all the other quotations can be found just as easily on anti-israel sites, like I showed above an example, and also out of context. That argument is quite void then. I do believe all the quotations support the theory and they don't approach original research. It's a deduction people can make, it's why it's a theory. If a palestinian says he blames the arabs for the whole refugee issue already from the beginning of the war when they entered and told them to leave, it means he knows who is to blame. And I don't see where the confusion is. As for your assurance, I will remain highly skeptical since I'm now assuming bad faith here after these one sided and violent edits. Amoruso 11:38, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
For the record, all the quotations I have added to this article were taken by me directly from the source given with the quotation. That includes the quotation from al-Azm's memoirs. --Zerotalk 12:31, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
Ditto. --Ian Pitchford 12:48, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
To clear up a couple of things:
  1. Initially, I moved several quotations which appeared out of context to talk for discussion. Most of them also suggests guilt by association, a logical fallacy. As a comparison, if a newspaper criticizes Bush in an editorial it isn't evidence of anything, it's just an opinion.
  2. I see four "quotations" left in that section, 2 pro and 2 con (which is largely irrelevant since WP isn't supposed to balance a debate 50-50. WP present viewpoints in proportion to the prominence they hold in the outside world (that could be 50:50, 90:10 or 10:90)). I kept Hakim Greek bishop , Haganah broadcast, and Katz II because those contained specific information, but I have not reviwed them. I kept Rabin because I read the whole passage myself years ago thus remembering it. I cut Katz 1 in half because the second part of the quotation (about someone failing to says something at a particular time and place) isn't proof of anything.
It is proof of everything !!! If the Jews caused the exodus, don't you think arab leaders will mention it at the time ? They didn't, because the hoax wasn't invented yet. This is the most relelvant proof there is. It shows how the arguments changed to meet their political ends. Amoruso 16:37, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
  1. What happened next was that I googled a sentence from one of the quotations, leading me to a page with several of the quotations from this article, complete with book citations (e.g. Edward Atiyah, The Arabs, London: Penguin Books, 1955, p. 183). What struck me as strange wasn't the fact that the quotations could be found on the web, but that several of them appeared on the same page, identical to "our" quotations. Therefore I believe a second look is warranted.
  2. Further: No, I did not continue to check every other quotation or cite in this article, I'm not a machine who do not need sleep. But my opinion applies equally to the rest.
What should be done is to identify the context of these quotations, as demonstrated by Zero below. Who - Why - Where. Which is why I suggested that if User:Amoruso has access to the sources then s/he can post the text before and after the quotations here. That's a start. We're dealing with a subject with a high level of propaganda coming from both sides, which is why I believe editors here largely rely on books and journals from recognized authors in their work, instead of text from the web. And rightfully so. -- Steve Hart 17:12, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Quotations, a salutary lesson

For the record, many of these "quotations" brought by Amoruso first appeared in a 1952 book of the Revisionist author Joseph Schechtman, long-time aide of Ze'ev Jabotinsky and a strong advocate of population transfer. Schechtman had been hired by Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver to write on this subject for the American section of the Jewish Agency (Medoff, American Jewish History, 86.1, p125). Since then the same collection of "quotations" has been uncritically repeated ad-infinitum by a large number of authors. As far as I know, the only person to have actually checked Schechtman's claims was Erskine Childers, who found that most of them were misleading or out of context. (I've lost Childers' article but I'll report details from it tomorrow.) The whole matter of quotations is a crock anyway. There were hundreds of thousands of people involved in these events, holding a large number of different opinions as people do, so we can always find someone espousing an opinion against the stream. What does that prove? Nothing. Yet we are expected to accept even the supposed opinion of "a refugee" who is not even named, whose background is not revealed, allegedly reported in a newspaper article that none of us has looked at. This nonsense has to stop. --Zerotalk 12:28, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

all the quotations have been verified by the leading historians. like said, your attempt to discredit Schechtman is complete amateur behaviour of a disgruntled person who is faced with facts and wishes to distort them. All these quotes were brought by people, prominent people or editors of Arab papers, who have observed the events and commented on them. They are very important. If you have any genuine quotes of your own you can bring them, and it's better to do that than vandalise the page, invent fantasies, and tarnish the name of respected historians, just because you don't like the truth they're saying. Amoruso 12:19, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
How exactly Amoruso knows the "truth"? Is it convincing? It is interesting that when we look at the userpages of editors, we see that they tend to be interested parties, at least in the Israeli/Palestinian issues. But for outsider, it is quite disgusting to see how such revisionism can be tolerated (nakba denial? [[3]]). Now I can imagine what would happen if such standards would be applied to articles concerning other ethnic cleansing projects. I think that the article should be renamed "Nakba", as this is most used term. --Magabund 00:06, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
When you invent things, it's only natural for people to "deny" them. Bringing WP:RS and verifiable sources towards that end is justified. It seems that this fantasy proves the theoerm that the more you tell the lie often the more it sticks. This technique was used by Goebles. Amoruso 00:42, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Now to an example. Amoruso added this:

silly example which proves nothing, but the opposite. Amoruso 12:19, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
But the leading Arab propagandist of the day, Edward Atiyah (then Secretary of the Arab League Office in London), reaffirmed the endorsement theory: "This wholesale exodus was due partly to the belief of the Arabs, encouraged by the boasting of an unrealistic Arab press and the irresponsible utterances of some of the Arab leaders that it could be only a matter of some weeks before the Jews were defeated by the armies of the Arab States and the Palestinian Arabs enabled to re-enter and retake possession of their country. (The Arabs (London, 1955)), p. 183"

Since all of this can be copied off dozens of web-sites, I asked Amoruso if he had checked it. He said that he had and claimed to be offended. Well, now I'll ask Amoruso: if you looked at this sentence in Atiyah's book, why did you not report that the very next sentence, and the following paragraph, paint an entirely different picture of Atiyah's position? Here is the whole section:

This wholesale exodus was due partly to the belief of the Arabs, encouraged by the boasting of an unrealistic Arab press and the irresponsible utterances of some of the Arab leaders that it could be only a matter of some weeks before the Jews were defeated by the armies of the Arab States and the Palestinian Arabs enabled to re-enter and retake possession of their country. But it was also, and in many parts of the country, largely due to a policy of deliberate terrorism and eviction followed by the Jewish commanders in the areas they occupied, and reaching its peak of brutality in the massacre of Deir Yassin.
There were two good reasons why the Jews should follow such a policy. First, the problem of harbouring within the Jewish State a large and disaffected Arab population had always troubled them. They wanted an exclusively Jewish state, and the presence of such a population that could never be assimilated, that would always resent its inferior position under Jewish rule and stretch a hand across so many frontiers to its Arab cousins in the surrounding countries, would not only detract from the Jewishness of Israel, but also constitute a danger to its existence. Secondly, the Israelis wanted to open the doors of Palestine to unrestricted Jewish immigration. Obviously, the fewer Arabs there were in the country the more room there would be for Jewish immigrants. If the Arabs could be driven out of the land in the course of the fighting, the Jews would have their homes, their lands, whole villages and towns, without even having to purchase them. And this is exactly what happened.

So, not only does Amoruso's single sentence not say anything at all about "the endorsement theory", but Atiyah's real opinion was that the Jews intentionally brought about the Arab exodus in order to achieve an Israel with as few Arabs as possible. It should be noted that Atiyah's book can be found in many libraries, and even bought at Amazon, yet this blatant lie about his opinion is copied over and over without a care. That's what this quotations business is like and that's why no quotations from these sources can be accepted without independent verification. Old Arabic newspapers available in only a few libraries in the world? Provide us with a scan or forget it. --Zerotalk 12:28, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Incidentally, Atiyah has written about this quotation:

I stand by what I said then today, if it is taken in its entirety. ... there is no suggestion whatever in what I wrote that the exodus of the Arab refugees was a result of a policy of evacuating the Arab population. What I said is something quite different from the Zionist allegation that the Arab refugees were ordered or even told by their leaders to evacuate (The Spectator, 1961; reprinted in JPS, 18, 1, 1988, p61) --Zerotalk 12:28, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
like said below, you have proved nothing but the endorsement theory. Of course Atiyah will use the modern propaganda blaming Israel, which is why showing that even he can't help but note the endorsement in his propaganda book is such a huge and monumental evidence.... I think this is fairly obvious and this is in fact the historians' point. Amoruso 12:19, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
Thank you for proving that I'm not a paranoid loony. I see there are libraries in my country who has "The Arabs", both the 1955 edition, as well as 1958 and a 1968 editions. I could (probably) easily get one of them on remote loan, if this is the wish of anyone here. Just let me know. I also have what I believe is a more complete passage for Ben-Gurion's instruction to Yigal Allon, as recorded by Yitzhak Rabin:
  • "What would they do with the 50,000 civilians in the two cities ... Not even Ben-Gurion could offer a solution, and during the discussion at operation headquarters, he remained silent, as was his habit in such situations. Clearly, we could not leave [Lydda's] hostile and armed populace in our rear, where it could endanger the supply route [to the troops who were] advancing eastward. ... Allon repeated the question: What is to be done with the population? Ben-Gurion waved his hand in a gesture which said: Drive them out! ... 'Driving out' is a term with a harsh ring ... Psychologically, this was one of the most difficult actions we undertook. The population of [Lydda] did not leave willingly. There was no way of avoiding the use of force and warning shots in order to make the inhabitants march the 10 to 15 miles to the point where they met up with the legion."
-- Steve Hart 17:30, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
The story behind that passage appeared in NYT, October 23, 1979, page A3. People like Rabin who have worked for the government have to submit their work to two sets of censors. The military censors approved the passage but the political censors (a cabinet committee) rejected it. So Rabin's book appeared with this passage deleted. However, his translator then gave the passage to the NYT who published it. It seems that it was reinserted in later editions of the book. --Zerotalk 00:39, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
this passage appears in anti israel sites, completely discredited and should be removed. Amoruso 12:19, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
Again very convincing. How, where and by whom exactly was it discredited? --Magabund 00:06, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
this line was used as a cynical response to the allegations that when a citaiton is used in a personal website it ceases to be a reliable source. Follow up on the context. Amoruso 00:43, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Continuing, we consider this old chestnut:

The claim that Arab leaders endorsed the refugee flight has been rejected by modern Palestinian writers. But Emil Ghoury, a member of the Palestinian Arabs' national leadership, admitted: "I don't want to impugn anybody, but only to help the refugees. The fact that there are these refugees is the direct consequence of the action of the Arab states in opposing partition and the Jewish state. The Arab states agreed upon this policy unanimously, and they must share in the solution of the problem." (Daily Telegraph", September 6, 1948)

Erskine Childers comments as follows.

Another quotation used perennially by official Israeli spokesmen, and in virtually all official publications, is a statement attributed to Mr. Emile Ghoury. Again, the method of presenting this quotation as evidence, indeed Arab admission, of Arab evacuation orders has been to state that "an even more candid avowal came on 15 September 1948 from Mr. Emile Ghoury, who had been the Secretary of the Arab Higher Committee at the time of the invasion of Israel": [alleged quote as above] The quotation not only appears-again, when suitably introduced-to confess Arab evacuation orders, it also appears to blame the Arab states in that they opposed partition at all, and it is consistently used by official Israeli spokesmen further to suggest that many Palestine Arab leaders want a "solution of the problem" in resettlement, in other Arab countries. Study of the full, original text of Mr. Ghoury's statement [footnote: in the Beirut newspaper Telegraph, Aug 6, 1948] indicates diametrically opposite and plain meaning in his words. Nowhere in a long and very detailed statement did he so much as intimate that there had been official Arab evacuation orders. On the contrary, large parts of his statement which Israeli authorities do not choose to quote contain such descriptions as "the furnace of the Irgun, Stern, and Haganah" and, again, "their savage, bestial acts of which there are a thousand proofs." Specifically, the blunt intention of his statement was to lay responsibility upon the Arab states for failing to protect the Palestine Arabs from being dispossessed. (Childers, The Wordless Wish, in I. Abu-Lughod (ed.) Transformation of Palestine. Northwest Univ. Press, 2nd edition 1987.) --Zerotalk 14:44, 17 August 2006 (UTC)


totally irrelevant post from zero. And actually proves the contrary. Emile Ghoury is no zionist. He is very much against Jews. Katz writes :

" The fraud developed. Its next feature was the inflation of the numbers of the refugees. Mr. Emil Ghoury, Secretary of the Arab Higher Committee during the war, is a typical purveyor. In his 1960 speech at the United Nations, he set the number of "expelled"' Arabs at two million. The Arab spokesmen who succeeded him in the debate presumably considered this figure too high. On November 25, the Lebanese representative, Nadim Dimechkie, declared that "more than one million Arabs have been expelled." Four days. later, the spokesman for Sudan struck an average, speaking of the "expulsion of one and a half million Arabs." These speeches are characteristic; ever since the policy of falsification was adopted, the figure used by Arab spokesmen has never fallen below a million. The misrepresentation may be epitomised in a comparison of two, of Emil Ghoury's statements.

Emil Ghoury to the Beirut Daily Telegraph, September 6, 1948

I do not want to impugn anybody, but only to help the refugees. The fact that there are these refugees is the direct consequence of the action of the Arab States in opposing partition and the Jewish State. The Arab States agreed upon this policy unanimously and they must share in the solution of the problem.

Emil Ghoury in a speech at the United Nations Special Political Committee, November 17, 19609

It has been those [Zionist] acts of terror, accompanied by wholesale depredations, which caused the exodus of the Palestine Arabs. "

So in effect, it's not surprisng that many of the arab leaders who said certain things in 1948 say different things later on, or try to explain what they said in a differnet light. Of course they will try to deny what they said. But without noticing, they admitted the truth at the time, because at the time, the theory that Israel has anything to do with the refugees or that Israel is to blame for any plight of the palestinians - at the time nobody said it , so even from anti-zionists and extreme fanatics, they had no problem to admit the endorsement facts. This is what so monumental. Amoruso 16:15, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Lastly I will say that Zero's deletion of the quotes from Katz's book prove his bad faith, and he should be banned for trying to politically influence this article Amoruso 16:15, 17 August 2006 (UTC) .

btw, the quotes of Erskine Childers are false (possible lies?). He did not blame the Jews for the exodus but only the arabs. Amoruso 16:19, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Why would anyone read through this biased, one sided "analysis" of yours ?

Like I said, do whatever the **** you want (sorry, but it's too much already). Atiyah is a proclaimed propogandist of the arabs. It is for that reason that his claim that the arabs asked the palestinians to leave is so monumental. Same thing goes for all the newspapaer quotes - these are editorials of ARAB newspapers at the time, and therefore have the most relevance.

If you want to quote only books, no problem - i'll quote the same quotes from Katz's book.

If you want to leave the biased quotes (I don't believe ian or zero for a second here) which are also used only on propaganda and out of context (and Atiyah's quote is NOT out of context), go ahead too. This article is ridicilous already as it is. Amoruso 11:32, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] finally, this attack on joan peters, shmuel katz, joseph shectman....

these leftists biased one sided editors who try to control wikipedia (ian pitchford, zero etc) actually claim that any person who disagrees with them - journalist, writer and historian is discredited borders on complete insanity. All the quotes from Joseph B. Shectman are 100% accurate and verifiable and trust worthy. This is true on all accounts of other historians who happent to belong to a right wing side of a map. These users who attack these sources, simply for their political ends, and spread rubbish on them should all be banned. Amoruso 12:04, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] political biased deletion of quotes

Much quotes and work was deleted from the article for political reasons. Zero claims he deleted part of Katz's quote because it did not talk about the endorsement but rather on the treatment of refugees by arab countries. if that's true, why did this section was removed ? For no reason other than political bias from zero and his allies.

at the time No Arab spokesman made such a charge. At the height of the flight, the Palestinian Arabs' chief representative at the United Nations, Jamal Husseini, made a long political statement (on April 27) that was not lacking in hostility toward the Zionists; he did not mention refugees. Three weeks later (while the flight was still in progress) the secretary-general of the Arab League, Azzam Pasha, made a fiercely worded political statement on Palestine; it contained not a word about refugees.".(Katz, 1973, pp. 72) Amoruso 16:31, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

On the contrary, even the Jewish press carried these statements that Katz claims didn't exist. "Palestinian Arabs fled because they did not have sufficient arms to defend themselves." - Mayor of Nablus, quoted in Palestine Post, June 16, 1948. It is a clear example of an Arab spokesman blaming the exodus on Jewish attacks. --Zerotalk 07:52, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
no it isn't. In fact you're only proving the opposite. They fled because they didn't have sufficent arms, so they wanted the Arab states to attack instead. That line isn't a clear example of anything. Amoruso 13:40, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
Other examples from 1948: Egyptian UN rep, "a whole nation of people had been driven from their homes" [4];
thank you for another example supporting the endorsement theory. Driven by their home ? Is that the best... in December 1948. You have so many arab delegates there (iraqi, syria, lebanon etc) and none blame the Jews for the exodus. Driven from their home is ambiguous. Amoruso 13:40, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Syrian UN rep: "Furthermore, they have expelled the Arab population, massacred the people, looted their property and oppressed them to such an extent that they have been compelled to leave their own country." [5]

One line from one representive in December 1948. That's more than a year after the war started. During the war nobody noticed this "massacre" and "expulsion" but everybody did notice the Arab leaders' mass calls for eviction. Everynbody did notice Jewish efforts to stop the exodus too. Funny isn't it... Amoruso 13:40, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

== in fact, I've yet to find explanations for deleting all parts originating from Katz's book, which are very relevant to the issue. Katz provides wide evidence to support his claim, and his claim should be written in full, just like claims by propogandists Khalidi and Morris. Zero is trying to discriminate the sources and choose only those that he likes . He would allow only a few lines from Katz but long articles and views from palestinian supporters. Weird no ?

Sections of Katz that much of the information inside should be included in the article :

More interesting still, no Arab spokesman mentioned the subject. At the height of the flight, on April 27, Jamal Husseini, the Palestine Arabs' chief representative at the United Nations, made a long political statement, which was not lacking in hostility toward the Zionists; he did not mention refugees. Three weeks later (while the flight was still in progress), the Secretary General of the Arab League, Azzam Pasha, made a fiercely worded political statement on Palestine; it contained not a word about refugees. The Arab refugees were not driven from Palestine by anyone. The vast majority left, whether of their own free will or at the orders or exhortations of their leaders, always with the same reassurance-that their departure would help in the war against Israel. Attacks by Palestinian Arabs on the Jews had began two days after the United Nations adopted its decision of November 29, 1947, to divide western Palestine into an Arab and a Jewish state. The seven neighbouring Arab states-Syria, Lebanon, Transjordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Egypt -- then prepared to invade the country as soon as the birth of the infant State of Israel was announced. Their victory, was certain, they claimed, but it would be speeded and made easier if the local Arab population got out of the way. The refugees would come back in the wake of the victorious Arab armies and not only recover their own property but also inherit the houses and farms of the vanquished and annihilated Jews. Between December 1, 1947, and May 15, 1948, the clash was largely between bands of local Arabs, aided in diverse ways by the disintegrating British authority and the Jewish fighting organisations.

The rest of the text here is removed due to possible copyright violation: "Copyright © 1973, 1977, 1978, 1985 by Samuel Katz. All rights reserved. Reprinted by Permission. Portions Copyright © 2001 Joseph Katz". The rest of the text is available at: [6] -- Steve Hart 00:58, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Amoruso 16:31, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

I can assure you that you can bring the citations back, there's no copyright violation. but thanks anyway, it doesn't matter. Amoruso 01:21, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
Well, the on the source it says "Portions Copyright © 2001 Joseph Katz". Which means the text is covered by copyright. -- Steve Hart 01:24, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
I'm positive on the permission from author to post it here which is why I did it. But it's ok linked, no problem. Amoruso 02:04, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Emil Ghoury & Childers

The Emil Ghoury quote from the Daily Telegraph is correct as it appears in the article. Childers claims the quote is misleading and/or out of context, but contrary to what User:Steve Hart claims, he does not provide the "full text" of the quote, nor any convincing arguments as to why it is misleading. We have an unsubstantiated assertion that "Study of the full, original text of Mr. Ghoury's statement indicates diametrically opposite and plain meaning in his words". Even if this is true (and nowhere in the section quoted from him on Talk does Childers present evidence that it is true), at best this can be used as an interpretation by Childers ( a partisn critic) to "balance" the Israeli POV in the section "2.1.2 Claims by Arab leaders ". But as it stands, the only reference he makes to the extended text of Ghoury is to assert that it "contain[s] such descriptions as "the furnace of the Irgun, Stern, and Haganah" and, again, "their savage, bestial acts of which there are a thousand proofs." - none of this is relevant in the slightest to the argument being advanced. So, I am putting this quote back in. Isarig 21:39, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

On one hand we have a quote, a rather a sentence, suggesting something. On the other hand we have a description of the full text (which was the word I used) suggesting the opposite. Until that is sorted out, the quote is not reliable. I think you can see that, but if you oppose, please go ahead and have the context/origin of the quote verified per WP:V yourself. If you read the discusion here on talk, you'll notice there is no consensus for including the quote, on the contrary, there's currently a majority against it. Please abide by that and join the discussion. -- Steve Hart 22:41, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
We have a description of some writer who wrote a biased discredited book attacking Israel on the refugee issue (btw, google scholar gives 1 citation on the book which isn't a book itself, a notion by zero&ian suggeting that the scholar shouldn't be quoted with regard to this book). See Childers' attempt to refute other quotes above... there is a one sided pattern here. that description is wrong like Isarig explained. Isarig showed you very convincingly that by Childers' words themselves, there's nothing to suggest that Ghoury did not mean what he meant. There's no connection whatsoever like Isarig mentioned between descriptions of Jewish militant groups and between the question of blame for the exodus. Amoruso 22:54, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
You provide no source for your interpretation, you just disagree. Currently we have 1 source describing the origin of the quote. If you want to object to the description, please find sources discussing the origin and the full text to support your argument. -- Steve Hart 23:22, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
It doesn't work that way. We have scholars like Shmuel Katz who use the source and believe it's in context. There's apparently a scholar, Childers, who think the source is quoted out of context. Childers' interpretation of the source can therefore, if one deems necessary, be used in the article, like Isarig suggested (even though common sense suggests Childers' interpretation does not refute the quote - see Isarig's comments). One is not supposed to drop scholary and researched material simply because there's criticism to it. That's how it works. You do whatever you want. Amoruso 23:34, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
"You do whatever you want" is not a healthy comment. During the last few weeks several editors have tried to explain to you the process of how wikipedia works, about your disruptions, and about discussing and coming to conclusions before making controversial changes. I understand you don't agree with it and prefer to unilaterally inject material you deem "right" into articles, but wikipedia is guarded by policies and guidelines. Sadly, I don't think saying it one more time will make a difference. But I can repeat something else: There's no consensus for including this quote. -- Steve Hart 01:25, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
I'm afraid this cuts both ways: there's no consensus for excluding this quote, either. There is no disputing that the quote, as quoted by Amoruso is in fact, correct. Contrary to what you wrote in your misleading edit summary, nowhere on this talk page has the "correctness of quote disproven". There is an unsubstantiated allegation, by a baised critic (Childers), that claims the full text shows a different meaning - but does not quote the full text to support that allegation. Thus, there is no reasonable grounds to exclude a relevant, correctly quoted statement, from a reputable source from this article. Please make a case on Talk before removing it again, thanks. 02:12, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
No it doesn't, controversial material is moved to talk, not the other way around. I know you have read policy often enough to remember that. In any case, this quote was unilaterally included over the subsequent objections of several other editors, it should never have been there in the first place. And I know that if you pause to think about it, you understand that in this case we have a sentence presented without any description from the source about the context or the background. It's questionable by itself. Then we get a description from a different source giving one explaination of the the context, and so far not one single editor have given a cite suggesting this source is wrong. So why don't you provide sources? -- Steve Hart 02:50, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
That's an innovative interpretation of WP policies. It is nowhere stated in any of the guidelines that I am familiar with. Perhaps you can point to a relevant page that says this. You are welcome to your POV that "it should never have been there in the first place", but other editors disagree. Perhaps if you make a convincing case for not including it, you'll be able to convince these other editors to exclude it, but blanking it as part of a sweeping mass deletion is vandalism, and removing it repeatedly with misleading edit summaries is an indication of bad faith. As to the meat of your arguments here (or rather, lack thereof): There is absolutely nothing questionable about this quote. This can not be emphasized enough: it is sourced to a WP:RS - the Daily Telegraph, with a publication date. Go to your library and check it out. What we have is an unsubstantiated claim, from a biased critic, who alleges that the full context of the quote bears out a different meaning. That allegation is not supported by anything from that critic; specifically, that critic does not quote the full text for us to judge if he is correct in his interpretation. I repeat: There is absolutely no reason to exclude a relevant, sourced quote from a WP:RS, so the Ghoury quote stays. If you want to add context, and quote the differing interpretation of Childers, go right ahead and do this, in the appropriate section - but do NOT remove sourced material to push a POV. Isarig 03:08, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
No, this isn't sourced to the Beirut Daily Telegraph, the quote comes from Katz, and if I remember correctly he again cites someone else. Childers is the only one cited as actually having looked at the material. And as for my POV, it might surprise you that I don't care at all about the conflict, what I dislike is unilateral POV warriors (I'm speaking in general terms here) who wants information included into articles no matter what. That's the reason for my engagement. -- Steve Hart 03:26, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
Even if this was true, it makes no difference, as Katz is also a WP:RS. But it is in fact not true. The Childers quote, for example, does not cite Katz. Again, I know of no-one who disputes that this quote appears, verbatim, in the Daily Telegraph, so there is no basis to exclude it. If you truly dislike POV warriors, your anger here is misplaced: Amoruso made what I consider to be a good faith edit, which meets the requirements of both WP:V and WP:RS. This edit was removed by a notorious POV warrior, Zero, as part of a sweeping mass deletion made with a misleading, uncivil edit summary. Portions of that mass deletions have by now made their way back into the article, some restored even by yourself (the Bilby quote), indicating the POV nature of the original deletion. I have not seen you so much as meekly point out to Zero that you disapprove of his edit war. Isarig 03:42, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
Katz himself cites others (once again, AFAIK) Childers in his discussion of the context cites the original newspaper, something Katz doesn't. Katz obviously included the quote to support his POV. If we present the quote we give an impression that is contradicted by the only source we have so far citing the original. We're not the David Letterman show. I restored the Bilby quote not because I believe it adds anything to the article (I don't) but because the article needed better POV balance. -- Steve Hart 04:20, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
I don't know where you got the idea that Katz cites others. In any case, the quote you are repeatedly removing is not sourced to Katz, but to the Daily Telegraph. Even if it was sourced to Katz who in turn cited others, it is irrelvant - as Katz is a WP:RS, and there's no problem with citing a WP:RS who in turn is a secondary source. Your repeated suggestion (based on what?) that only Childers looked at the original requires some substantiation, which is notably missing from both the Childers quote and from anything that's been presented in the article. Presenting quotes, verbatim, is not an "impression", whereas an interpretation, such as the one by Childers, is. I find the last sentence ("I restored the Bilby quote not because I believe it adds anything to the article (I don't) but because the article needed better POV balance") to be bizzare. If the quote is incorrect - it has no place in the article. if it is correct, and adds balance to boot, then it's obvious that it's original deletion was POV vandalism - yet for some reason you have not chided the vandal, but rather the editors who want the material restored. Isarig 04:33, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
The quote is erroneously cited to the Beirut Daily Telegraph. Remember that nobody here has looked at that paper, so we need to cite those who cite the paper, not the paper itself (if you have read the previous discussion it's not the only cite drawn into question in this regard). [on edit:] Childers is the only one that we know of who explicitly claims to have reviewed the original and is explaining the context. Should we just disregard that? Now, you might question Childers, but Katz isn't exactly uncontroversial. As for the Bilby quote, I restored it because this subject needs balance. I don't now if it's correct, it doesn't add anything besides POV, but hopefully someone will have a better reference later on. And I don't have a habit of calling other people's edits vandalism, it just stir things up. -- Steve Hart 05:31, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
another bizarre claim. Katz has reviewed the Beirut Daily Telegraph and explained the context as well. Anyone can claim that any quote is out of context but Childers did not prove his claim. We shouldn't just disregrard that, we can use his dubious claim after the quote. Isarig is correct. Amoruso 12:42, 19 August 2006 (UTC)


your allegations don't make sense. Katz writes clearly :

The war was not yet over when Emil Ghoury, Secretary of the Arab Higher Committee, the official leadership of the Palestinian Arabs, stated in an interview with a Beirut newspaper: I do not want to impugn anybody but only to help the refugees. The fact that there are these refugees is the direct consequence of the action of the Arab States in opposing partition and the Jewish State. The Arab States agreed upon this policy unanimously and they must share in the solution of the problem. [Daily Telegraph, September 6, 1948]

That should be the end of story there. Any comments on this by Childers should be added after Katz's claim, which he stands behind it, and I'm positive that he did read the entire source over and over again in full and in more than one langauge probably. Amoruso 02:58, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

As you can see Steve Hart during the last few weeks several editors have tried to explain to you the process of how wikipedia works, about your disruptions, and about discussing and coming to conclusions before making controversial changes. I understand you don't agree with it and prefer to unilaterally throw out material you deem "wrong" out of articles, but wikipedia is guarded by policies and guidelines. Sadly, I don't think saying it one more time will make a difference. But I can repeat something else: do not try to patronize over others and realise your own logical fallacies. Amoruso 02:29, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
I would have to ask you to provide some diffs to back up your statement, because with the exception of my welcome message I'm not aware of any editors explaining to me how wikipedia works. -- Steve Hart 02:53, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
Funny. Amoruso 02:58, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

The most amazing thing about this Ghoury interview is that even the tiny fragment repeatedly quoted does not say what we are told it says. Here it is again: "I don't want to impugn anybody, but only to help the refugees. The fact that there are these refugees is the direct consequence of the action of the Arab states in opposing partition and the Jewish state. The Arab states agreed upon this policy unanimously, and they must share in the solution of the problem." It does not mention a plan or orders of Arab leaders to induce flight at all. That's why it is necessary to first create a phoney context by introducing it with words like "Even Arab leaders admitted that they ordered the flight, for example...". The sad fact is that the propagandists like Katz are correct in believing that most of his readers will simply take his word for what it means and not read it carefully themselves. Suppose my house falls down in an earthquake and I tell the reporters, "The loss of my house is directly due to the builders who gave it a weak foundation". Now Katz/Amoruso writes the "history" book: "Even Zero himself admitted that his house was not destroyed by an earthquake." It's pathetic. --Zerotalk 06:19, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

On another quotation: seems Shmuel Katz did not even know what Sada al-Janub was when he "quoted" from it. It was not a Beirut newspaper like Katz claimed. --Zerotalk 06:19, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
The quote is from the Beirut newspaper that Katz quoted. I think nobody here has any idea what you're talking about or referring to. I also think the quote speaks for itself. Katz has reviewd all his sources and is maintaining it's in context, and justly so. I don't see how any sensible reasonable person can interpret this differently. Your example is also very strane, since earthquake is a natural phenomenon, but if the only people you will blame are the builders and not the inspectors for instance, then yes the builders are to blame in your eyes. Amoruso 12:37, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
Question (purely out of ignorance): was Katz the first to use the Ghoury quotation that later became an obligatory component of any anti-Palestinian refugee website? Or did he use it because everybody else was? I am very intrigued by this quotation, especially since I did a Google search for "Beirut Daily Telegraph" with "-ghoury" and "-ghory" and I got absolutely no hits of this newspaper in any context other than this quote. In other words, the only mention on Google of "Beirut Daily Telegraph" is as a source for this quote. Was this newspaper so puny that it never printed any other article that was quotable, even on Google? Did this paper even actually exist? Did it only print one edition? Curious... Ramallite (talk) 13:57, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
It was used by Abba-Eban before a UN committee in 1955 and again in 1958. [7] [8]. Childers lists 1957 too. Now here is something interesting: Eban says that Ghouri made these remarks on September 15, but Katz claims that the "Daily Telegraph" reported it on September 6. Apparently the Lebanese had invented time travel. --Zerotalk 14:42, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
Wow, Abba-Evn got the date wrong. Wow. Astonishing. But thank you, this is another possible source especially for Israeli leaders claims section. As to your question Ramallite I believe the Daily Telegraph in Beirut is simply the branch of The Daily Telegraph, it's not an altogether different paper. And if you search google, you'll find it exists.
So you won't mind telling us where your Google search found the proof of this? The real solution to this puzzle is that Katz copied some earlier propaganda tract without knowing what he was doing, just like he didn't know where "Sada al-Janub" was published. --Zerotalk 12:20, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
Katz didn't copy any propaganda. He performed historical resesrch and found the truth, which is overwhelming in support of the Endorsement theory. The existance of the Daily Telegraph branch in Beirut is of course a known fact. [9]Amoruso 13:30, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
That's actually very funny. I invite everyone to click on that link to see Amoruso's proof that the Daily Telegraph had a branch in Beirut. --Zerotalk 13:41, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
very funny ? You have a book of one of the reporters who was stationed there, not good enough for you ? Weird. Amoruso 13:43, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
He worked for the London Daily Telegraph and was stationed in Beirut. Lots of newspapers have reporters stationed in Beirut. It doesn't mean they can be cited as Beirut newspapers. That requires them to at least have a Beirut edition. --Zerotalk 14:06, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
Katz's original quote is that in an interview to the Daily Telegraph, Beirut... I think it fits in. i don't really understand your position though. Are you saying Childers lied ? Amoruso 14:22, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
You are no good at spin; you should look for a different job. Go on, quote Katz's exact words for us. --Zerotalk 14:56, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
Alas, nobody seems to understand what you're trying to say. <sigh> Amoruso 15:16, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
Your evasive reply proves that you know you have been caught in a deception. As you know perfectly well, Katz did not refer to "an interview to the Daily Telegraph, Beirut" but to "an interview with a Beirut newspaper". You copied Katz's text onto this page yourself: [10]. --Zerotalk 02:28, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
I have Katz's book right here with me. Looking at original hebrew version he cites the paper twice... once "Daily Telegraph, Beirut" and another one "Beiruti Daily Telegraph" . I'm not being evasive in any way. And it doesn't matter, whatever Katz wrote about the nature of the paper he was correct. I still don't understand why you're trying to say Childers is a liar. Childers quoted Ghoury himself confirming he said this. Your new argument that the paper doesn't exist makes as much sense as saying that the moon doesn't exist. Amoruso 02:35, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
Both "Daily Telegraph, Beirut" and "Beiruti Daily Telegraph" are incorrect. As for Childers, he gives a different newspaper name and a different date. I guess you also think your idol must also be right that Sada al-Janub is a Beirut newspaper. --Zerotalk 02:51, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
Well as far as we know Katz was right with all the quotes. I don't know why you are lying or what purpose you think it serves. You quoted Childers as saying " in the Beirut newspaper Telegraph, Aug 6, 1948 ". So Childers says "august", Katz says "september". Childers ommited the word "daily" (is there any difference ? why are we discussing this ? ). You're being pointless. Also Katz was right about other quotes of papers. Amoruso 02:57, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
ROFTL, the differnet name is telegraph instead of the word daily. Was it a daily paper ? LOL, now this is funny. Telegraph gives a million hits as well with the quote : [11] oh yeah very discredited. What a waste of time this was. Should have told you "childers" right in the beginning to show how ridicilous your claims were. Amoruso 03:01, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
and oh yeah, CHILDERS IS WRONG about the date, Katz was right SO much for the off context theory. Possibly Childers never even had a look at the right interview LOL. I'm glad that's finally settled. Talk about who's discredited. Amoruso 03:02, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
As far as we know, nobody would use Katz as a reference for anything. He's a lifelong propagandist and a violent militant. However, nobody is going to challenge anyone who claims that other editors in the encyclopedia are liars.
PalestineRemembered 14:23, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
As far as who knows ? Palestineremembered.com. ? Amoruso 22:53, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bishop Hakim quotes

There is the quote of Hakim in support of endorsement theory, and then the editor brought a quote in a later date which was supposed to refute it. I would like to add this further quote brought by Katz, quoted from the Herland Tribune : " Bishop Hakim of Galilee confirmed to the Rev. Karl Baehr, Executive Secretary of the American Christian Palestine Committee, that the Arabs of Haifa "fled in spite of the fact that the Jewish authorities guaranteed their safety and rights as citizens of Israel " (I think it's clear enough...) and also explain his view why Arab leaders have systematically started transferring the blame for Israel, and how it fits in. Amoruso 02:52, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

..and somehow I don´t feel convinced by whatever the American Christian Palestine Committee stated: it was set up on the Zionist "command", secretly funded by the Zionist. "How completely they were controlled by the Zionists became clear when the Christians felt it necessary to complain that [the Zionist] was making statements in their names without prior consultation."[12]. LOL! Regards, Huldra 15:03, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
Katz is not a reliable source and gives quotations out of context, as you have adequately proved to us. You have to provide a real source and then you have to argue relevance and encyclopedicness. This article is not a repository for everything you can find in your favorite book. There are plenty of pro-Arab books that are full of "quotations" of Zionist figures that could be copied into the article just as easily. This is not a competition about who can get the most of their favorite things into the article. Look what I can find in a few minutes, these are far more explicit than anything you have posted:
"I don't suggest that we should trample on others' rights, but one must call a spade a spade: Zionism and rights don't always go hand-in-hand. The very establishment of this state is an affront to the Arabs' rights. Arabs lived in Jaffa. They didn't leave; they were expelled. We went into the villages and said 'Get out.' And they got out. Yes, it's important for me and others that this state be a democratic one, but you still have to consider the difference between ourselves and the other countries and remember that democracy is not an end in itself but rather an instrument. Zionism takes precedence over everything." -- Limor Livnat, member of the Likud Central Committee, Tikkun, Sep/Oct 1991, p14.
"In the month preceding the end of the Mandate, the Jewish Agency decided to undertake a difficult mission as a prelude to taking over the Arab cities before the evacuation of British forces and the dispersal of their Arab population. The Jewish Agency came to an agreement with us that we should execute these arrangements, while they would repudiate everything we did and pretend that we were dissident elements, as they used to do when we fought the British. So we struck hard and put terror into the hearts of the Arabs. Thus we accomplished the expulsion of the Arab population from the areas assigned to the Jewish state." Menachem Begin - The Middle East Journal, Vol 3, No. 4 (1949) pp381-382.
Note how both of these refer explicitly to explusion and don't require any Katz-like coaching to tell us how to interpret them. If I was a pov-pusher like you, I'd insist that both these go into the article and I could easily find another dozen just as good and a hundred as good as most of yours. The fact that I am not even proposing to insert them proves that I am not like you. The real problem here is that you see Wikipedia as a forum where you can fight your little battle on behalf of Israel. It isn't; you should go looking for a suitable web forum and stop harassing us encyclopedia writers. --Zerotalk 04:18, 19 August 2006 (UTC)


Are there any other objections rather than saying the already disproven claim that Katz is an unreliable source ? As proven times and again, Katz is the most reliable source there is and is with policy : WP:RS compltely. He is cited in google scholar and his books are widely referenced and have prestige of reliablity and verifiablity. He has an extensive bibliography, footnotes, references and has done considerable research. Zero's further comments are irrelevant. If he wants to include more quotes (like Livnat's quote who we all know was alive during the conflict) he may do so if he wishes and if they're reliable like Katz's source. I'll keep this discussion here for a few days, and if there are no real serious objections (except this ludricous POV claim) then it will be added to the Hakim section. It is very relevant since one is using notorious Childers to try to refute Hakim's original quote, and that is not the case, so it's important to add Katz's analysis on this. Amoruso 12:33, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
Well, I don't see in what way Katz is more reliable a source than Menachem Begin. As far as I am concerned Zero's quotes above are very relevant and belong in the main article. Dianelos 16:00, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Whatever the logic may appear to lack, these quotes support a basic Israeli contention, and thus should be included in that context; no one is saying that the quotes are the broadest representation of the discussion, but those points are also discussed at length here. Cheers, TewfikTalk 02:46, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, absolutely: it should be discussed...but in the correct article, which is Maximos V Hakim. Note that the official Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs web-site calls him "George Hakini"(!) If the claims were true, then Maximos V Hakim must have been a complete scitzofrenic ---how else could he lobby for the two depopulated Christian villages of Kafr Bir'im and Iqrit at the same time? Regards, Huldra 15:03, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ghoury is quoted but not Schetchman ?

Hello. It is strange given Ghoury ruled the Jihad al-Muqadas just after Abd-al Kader's death. On the other hand, I just point out than Gelbert refers on Schetchman work. So I deduce Schetchman whatever partisan he is, should not be censored from wp:en. The NPoV in that case means editors should write : "According to Schetchman, bla bla bla". Good job. Alithien 06:38, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Disingenuous logic and respect for our readers

  • I push you and you fall over a chair. You say, "If that chair was not there I might not have fallen". I say "Hah!, you admit it wasn't my fault." This is the logic that readers are insultingly expected to take from this "Ghouri quotation".
  • Amoruso attacks my house with a gun. I call the cops and they say "no problem we'll come and take care of it". I wait with my neighbors. Amoruso takes my house and declares "Zero abandoned his house on the orders of his leaders. Therefore his house is mine, mine, all mine." This is the logic that readers are insultingly expected to take from the "Hakim quotation" and the "Atiyah quotation".

The bottom line is that we should be writing for people with brains, not treating our readers like morons. --Zerotalk 06:23, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

so you moved from the earthquake metaphor to the gun metaphor now ? I think you made your point. You're wrong. Ghoury is only one of dozens of quotes we're supposed to include and everybody understand the context (but you). Sorry. If you think it's just insulting the reader, then you have no case, since "don't insult the reader" falls under your WP:POV hence irrelevant, but there is WP:RS and WP:CITE and it fits it perfectly. Amoruso 06:27, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

On the contrary, Zero0000's position is much more logical, and would immediately be adopted if Wikipedia were a genuine, scholarly encyclopaedia, rather than an internet honeypot for people with more opinions than information. Palmiro | Talk 12:02, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] absentee property law

How does the timing of this law compare with the seizure of property of Iraqi Jews? I can't find the exact dates but was wondering whether either was considered to be in retaliation for the other? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 165.146.65.19 (talk • contribs).

The absentee property law came almost exactly one year ahead of the Iraqi action. --McKay 00:38, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
Absentee law started to be discuss during the second phase of the war, ie april-may 1948. Alithien 11:15, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Palestinian exodus in outer space!

Did the foundation of Israel and the Palestinian exodus occur in outer space? If it occurred here on earth and both groups are human beings why is it treated as some unique event in the history of the universe? Is there a body of international law? Do those laws deal with conflict? Do they examine the problems of refugees from conflicts? Yes, yes, and yes. Could somebody please insert a section on the rules of international law as they apply to the Palestinian refugees. That might turn this part of wikipedia from a typical piece of web self-indulgent bullshit into a useful reference site. Pmurnion 00:36, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

International Law is a bit like National Law before there were policemen, it's not enforced unless someone with money and guns enforces it.
The only part of International Law I think that absolutely applies is that the occupying force may not carry out or permit population transfers.
There are other parts, but they rather depend on a court adjudging what is, for instance, "Communal Punishment" and what is military necessity.
There are at least two decisions made by competent bodies that I can think of that, if they're not complied with, amount to breaches of International Law. One is the mandatory return of people to their homes, and the other is the decision that the Wall is illegal and must be torn down.
Does that help?
PalestineRemembered 21:41, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] current edit war in the article

Dear Gentlemen, it this so difficult to try to write an article about this subject. Instead of trying to prove the other side is wrong or instead or finding -by himself- a given view is proven by the other, this problem should be solved in quoting only historians who studied the subject.

And concerning a quote of somebody living at that time it is not difficult : if an historian clearly uses this and consider this relevant of whatever, it can be introduced. If not, it should not be.

All this is a pity. Alithien 11:13, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Causes of the Palestinian exodus" should be a seperate article ... ?

The "Causes of the Palestinian exodus" section makes this article very long, but it contains vital information to understanding the past, present, and future of the Palestinian people. I propose we make it a seperate article. Does anyone agree? --GHcool 18:52, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

I've seen this happen before in other articles. When important sections are removed editors just start to add the information again and then we have two articles covering much of the same material. --Ian Pitchford 20:22, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] it could be a good idea

the problem of the article as of now is that it's basically a copy paste from Morris. Someone clearly tried to make use of propaganda here and presenting a one sided view of the events instead of making an encyclopedic entry. The events are told as facts which is ridicilous. It is no surprise then that the section of the causes of exodus is being attacked fervently by those WP:POV pushers. Amoruso 20:32, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Are you actually Zeq, Amoruso? --Ian Pitchford 20:33, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
No... are you actually Zero0000, Ian Pitchford ? Amoruso 20:44, 29 August 2006 (UTC)


I confess, I Ramallite am actually Oscar the Grouch.

This article describes an event that is the national tragedy of an entire nation. It is hard to see how any article about a national tragedy cannot be "one sided" because, after all, these are real people with real history and property who lost their land and livelihoods. How many sides of "people who lost their lives and property unwillingly were not allowed to return to their homes (the key point, regardless of how they left)" can there be? I know it may be hard for some to accept that one group of people can do that to another, but it does happen. Let's not let Wikipedia turn into an instrument of history denial. Trying to claim that some obscure "Arab" asked Palestinians to leave, as if Palestinians are so gullible that they will leave their homes and belongings in droves and head to another hostile territory (which pretends to be friendly but is not), is not an alternative POV, it is offensive. Asking readers to believe that Palestinians "left at their own free will" with bombs and artillery around them is also offensive and dehumanizing. So am I making this another political debate? No, I'm just one ordinary human being who gets offended when I see the major national tragedy of my people trivialized by cheap propaganda. Please stop it. If one must introduce hate propaganda by favorite propaganda figures, at least have the decency to show the sensitivity this subject deserves in an encyclopedia. Ramallite (talk) 21:31, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Don't grouch then... :) Well, the thing is it's exactly the other way round. It's hard to accept I know that for someone who's been taught and brainwashed that this is a national tragedy, that it really isn't. Millions of people were transferred from one place to another in the 1940's , 1950's and until the present day. More than two times Jews lost all they had and came to Israel. 12 Million Germans were expelled from Poland and during which millions were killed. But this 400,000 Arabs who simply went to their Arab states by their own will and by offical statements from both their leaderships (the mufti though in exile) and the Arab states' request, assuring them they will be back perhaps in days after Israel is obliterated, is deemed as a "tragedy", that's a real joke. The vast amount evidence concerning what happened is flabbergasting, and saying that the refugees were created for any other reason other than this, is really mind-blowing. Of course there are always isolated incidents and factors , but in general the truth is obvious. There are inifinte reports of how Haifa residents moved casually to Acre, the British even examining their belongings... there was no panic or flee from shells, there was almost indifference on this... it might not be nice to hear but it's the historical verifiable truth here. From Acre they moved further north... it didn't even seem like migrating since most of them simply moved to another place of the Arab controlled area, it was all the same to them back then, and if it wasn't for British and Arab States involvement, pressure and incitement, they could have lived happily with their Jewish neighbours inside Israel. But this is not a discussion board - if your feelings are hurt, deal with, but don't delete WP:RS sources which depict history. Amoruso 21:54, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
You've been told by a Palestinian that the claim you're making is offensive and dehumanising (and it's not difficult to understand why). Can I suggest that you stop making it? Especially when it's patently not true in many cases, it's absurdly unlikely in most cases, and it's almost completely irrelevant. The atrocity that is the Nakba didn't start when Palestinians fled their homes (whatever the reason). The atrocity that is the Nakba started when immigrants appeared with guns and the determination to kill them if they returned to their homes.
It's also insulting to use the figure (400,000) given by those who carried out this ethnic cleansing, benefited from it and defend it with guns. The figures are more likely to be well over 700,000 from 1948, between 100,000 and 250,000 in 1967, and more every day before and since.
PalestineRemembered 14:15, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Does that mean that if we agree that nobody from Haifa can claim to be a refugee, everybody else will be allowed to be, by your standards?

Anyway, it's obviously no use arguing on these talk pages. But I take exception to being called "brainwashed", you have no idea who I am. The other examples you mention are national tragedies as well, but we are not in the business of comparing national tragedies. Every nation has its own history of tragedies and successes, we can't tell one nation that theirs doesn't count because it doesn't measure up to others. As for Haifa, I have my own family history in Haifa, and I can tell you that we lost property there despite the fact that my great grandfather stayed and refused to be pushed out. But that's another story, just let's try to have a constructive relationship and keep our ideologies private. So don't call me brainwashed, especially as you seem to be the "Katz-o-maniac" (joking), and do me another favor, try really hard not to blurt out silliness likes "But this 400,000 Arabs who simply went to their Arab states by their own will", because no person with even half a brain would go to an Arab State "by their own free will", and never refer to it is "our" Arab states. They are as much "my" Arab states as they are yours. I know it's very convenient to lump all Arabs together, but don't insult us Palestinians like that. Ramallite (talk) 14:33, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Don't take offense, but your claim of ancesterhood will be taken as complete unverified WP:OR and I doubt why you even mention it here. Also please don't take everything so personally since we're discussing wikipedia here, not a discussion board. Heated debates exist in many internet forums in many languages. But here we deal with WP:RS and everything cited in support of exactly these claims of "went to their Arab states by their own will" fit that category. I disagree completely to your claims that Palestinians saw themselves as distant from other Arab states, and yes I do believe according to all the WP:RS provided that the Arab states are indeed "lumped together". You might see that as insulting, but that's the truth I'm standing behind. To me it is actually insulting to claim otherwise, and this insulting business is pure unbased WP:POV as it is, it's not meant as Personal Attacks , simply as historical facts. As for national tragedies... you're right, point taken, it's irrelevant what other tragedies are. But when you define tragedy, you have to look at it in perspective. And if you examine the history books and the global contexts, you'll see that almost every other people managed to overcome this terrible tragedy of population exodous quite well. There is no UNRWA for Jewish refugees, German refugees, Greek/Bulgarian refugees, Paksitani refugees, Indian refugees, Sudanese refugees and so on, because these incidents weren't wrapped up with a political agenda of annhilating another country. Your Palestine state, if suddently there was an abrupt wish for it, could have been created in Transjordan or in any other Arab state - it IS the same, historically, genetically, culturally. You are a member of a people who want to maintain their conquer of the land of Israel as with other lands (Spain, Sicily, Cyprus...), instead of staying in Arabia. The political divison within the Arab people shouldn't harm other national rights of other peoples. With all due respect, it is insulting for me that you claim your own something that isn't - even by the current peace agreements and by every international standard, the claim of right of return is morally horrible since it hints that not even the 1948 borders of Israel are recognised by you as soverign. That's policide of a state which exists for 58 years with a population of 6 million. Again, about 400,000, one of the smallest insignificant transfers/exodus prompted this right of return... why is the discussion on it even so elaborate ? It should have been ignored by objecive WP:NPOV standards, I'm sorry. Amoruso 15:13, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
This word "policide" appears to be a little piece of propaganda invented by the Zionists as code for "Israel must be free to do whatever it likes".
There are people who want genocide of Israelis. There are other people who want ethnic cleansing of Israelis, others who only want regime change applied to a nation they claim operates apartheid. And others who believe that the only solution tolerable in law and morality, or acceptable to the refugees themselves, is that the people be allowed to return to their homes.
Rolling all these very different meanings into one word makes any form of nuanced understanding impossible, it's simply a means to muddy the water.
PalestineRemembered 14:15, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
On a friendly note, if all Palestinians were like you, good hearted and spirited, there would be peace already. But that's the jist of it I guess. Amoruso 15:16, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
Let the people back to their homes, then they may agree to play nicely with you.
Of course, if you're the same gunmen who drove them from their homes in the first place, they may be less keen to trust you. But living in peace with your neighbours is not optional, I have to do it, and ultimately you have to do the same. Gun-play is not an acceptable alternative.
PalestineRemembered 21:46, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Response on your talk page. Ramallite (talk) 15:32, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sources

The material below appears to have been copied wholesale from one or more web pages in violation of WP:V. Are the editors responsible claiming to have consulted these sources? --Ian Pitchford 21:29, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

The Secretary of the Arab League Office in London, Edward Atiyah, wrote in his book, The Arabs:

"This wholesale exodus was due partly to the belief of the Arabs, encouraged by the boastings of an unrealistic Arabic press and the irresponsible utterances of some of the Arab leaders that it could be only a matter of weeks before the Jews were defeated by the armies of the Arab States and the Palestinian Arabs enabled to re­enter and retake possession of their country.”

On April 3, 1949, the Near East Broadcasting Station (Cyprus) said:

"It must not be forgotten that the Arab Higher Committee encouraged the refugees' flight from their homes in Jaffa, Haifa and Jerusalem."

The Jordanian newspaper Filastin, reported on February 19, 1949:

“The Arab States encouraged the Palestine Arabs to leave their homes temporarily in order to be out of the way of the Arab invasion armies,”

Jordan's King Abdullah, writing in his memoirs, blamed Palestinian leaders for the refugee problem:

"The tragedy of the Palestinians was that most of their leaders had paralyzed them with false and unsubstantiated promises that they were not alone; that 80 million Arabs and 400 million Muslims would instantly and miraculously come to their rescue."

Unlike Israel's efforts for Jewish immigrants and refugees fleeing foreign countries, Arab governments did not provide homes, funds, or improve conditions for Arab Palestinian refugees after the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.[1] The Arab League claims their reasons for limited assistance and instructions to bar the granting of citizenship to Palestinian Arab refugees (or their descendants) is "to avoid dissolution of their identity and protect their right to return to their homeland". [2] Many critics find the lack of Arab effort to relieve the refugee crisis as a way of using the Palestinians as political pawns, and/or to promote anti-Israel sentiment.

The equivelence between Israel's embrace of Jewish immigrants from the Arab world and the Arab's world decision to keep Palestinian refugees in camps is a false one. Ethnic cleansing was a Jewish objective, not an Arab one; ending Jews existence outside Israel was the Zionists' goal, while ending Palestinian existence in Palestine was not the Arab's goal. The logical lacuna is saying "we take care of the Jews and you take care of the Arabs -- that's fair." In fact, it isn't fair at all; it is simply a different way of expressing the Zionist notion that Palestine belongs not to its people, but to Jews, and that the Palestinians, rather than being a nation, are simply "Arabs." Presenting Israel's acceptence of new Jewish immigrants -- which they had always sought -- as a reason why the Arabs should assimilate and thus end the independant existence of Palestinians -- which is also a longstanding Zionist objective -- as if they were two sides of a compromise, is absurd.

During the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said on Al-Manar television [13] :

"I have a special message to the Arabs of Haifa, to your martyrs and to your wounded. I call you to leave this city. I hope you do this. ... Please leave so we don't shed your blood, which is our blood."

Sone analysts have drawn a comparison between these sayings [14] [15] and the alleged Arab leaders' endorsement for flight in 1948. [16] [17]

[edit] Claims by Arabs who fled

A leading Palestinian nationalist of the time, Musa Alami, revealed the attitude of the fleeing Arabs:

"The Arabs of Palestine left their homes, were scattered, and lost everything. But there remained one solid hope: The Arab armies were on the eve of their entry into Palestine to save the country and return things to their normal course, punish the aggressor, and throw oppressive Zionism with its dreams and dangers into the sea. On May 14, 1948, crowds of Arabs stood by the roads leading to the frontiers of Palestine, enthusiastically welcoming the advancing armies. Days and weeks passed, sufficient to accomplish the sacred mission, but the Arab armies did not save the country. They did nothing but let slip from their hands Acre, Sarafand, Lydda, Ramleh, Nazareth, most of the south and the rest of the north. Then hope fled (Middle East Journal, October 1949)."

Habib Issa in the New York Lebanese paper, Al Hoda (June 8, 1951) said:

"The Secretary-General of the Arab League, Azzam Pasha, assured the Arab peoples that the occupation of Palestine and Tel Aviv would be as simple as a military promenade. He pointed out that they were already on the frontiers and that all the millions the Jews had spent on land and economic development would be easy booty, for it would be a simple matter to throw Jews into the Mediterranean....Brotherly advice was given to the Arabs of Palestine to leave their land, homes and property and to stay temporarily in neighboring fraternal states, lest the guns of the invading Arab armies mow them down."

One refugee quoted in the Jordan newspaper, Ad Difaa (September 6, 1954), said:

"The Arab government told us: Get out so that we can get in. So we got out, but they did not get in."

It is objective wording. All it says is this person said this. It's not a big deal. If you feel you should, unscramble the words. The explanation to King Abdallah's comment is just explaining and very briefly expanding on the lack of Arab nations "coming to their rescue," like the King said. All is all neutral and worded correctly. --Shamir1 00:41, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
Just answer the question: Have you consulted these sources in accordance with WP:V? --Ian Pitchford 21:14, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Incidentally Ian Pitchford, please refrain from deleting differnet non connected materials under the same pretext. Amoruso 21:36, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

I think the editor in question can explain his own behaviour. Your speculation doesn't clarify anything. --Ian Pitchford 16:59, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
It's a fact you deleted different materials under this pretext which is not even related to any new material , for example image of a book [18]. Amoruso 08:56, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
I think I've made it clear (with suitable references quoted here an elsewhere) that Katz is not a reliable source and the article certainly doesn't need an image of a non-notable volume by a non-notable non-historian. --Ian Pitchford 15:59, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
It seems you have misconceptions about what you made clear. Amoruso 17:42, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
Seems to me that Ian has an excellent point, someone has been shovelling the content of web-pages into articles. And I can't see it matters if some Palestinians were ordered to leave by their own leaders. (Particularily when we know that many of those who wished to stay were were beaten from their homes). The claim itself is a piece of propaganda, made by the people who seized the land thus emptied. The encyclopedia would be loath to take seriously excuses made to justify victimisation of other peoples - why are the Palestinians different? PalestineRemembered 20:23, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] bogus reference for bogus text

i removed this from Palestinian exodus#Criticisms of the "endorsement of flight" theory:

At the time of his writing this, however, the anti-Semitic hysteria of the British Establishment had great impact in Ireland, as well as sympathy for Zionism by the British, who were hostile with the Irish at the time.

it cited http://irelandsown.net/connolly19.html, but this article's footnotes aren't appearing for some reason.

the page is talking about "the anti-Semitic hysteria of the British Establishment" around the time of the first world war—more than two decades before the exodus, and nearly four decades before the time that childers wrote (early 1960s). the particular erskine childers who is quoted here was not, in fact, alive at the time—the two who are mentioned are his father and grandfather. "sympathy for zionism by the British", and zionism period, are not even discussed in the cited source. furthermore, the text about relations between great britain and ireland might be relevant in discussions of writings from the 1910s and 1920s, but childers wrote on the palestinian exodus in the 1960s. i'd say "find a better source for this text", but i sincerely doubt one exists. 67.68.213.214 04:45, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Why are the reasons for the flight of the Palestinians important?

Can someone explain to me why the original reason for the flight of the Palestinians is of any significance? If I left my home for whatever reason, nobody could possibly justify keeping me out of it for any length of time atall.

The claim that "Arab leaders told them to leave" sounds exactly like a statement made by a guilty party to avoid addressing the issue/s (and try to wriggle out of culpability for it).

Some may think this question doesn't belong ...... but if the reasons are of little importance, then the article could be made much shorter (I estimate half the size) and perhaps more manageable and informative.

PalestineRemembered 14:47, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

If you left your house for the reason that someone will come to your neighbour house, butcher him and so you left so you won't be injured accidentally, then the reason you left is very important. Arab legions came to commit genocide on the Jewish people and local Arab population agreed to go out to make it easier. Similar to what Nasrallah asked Haifa citizens in the present conflict - this time they learnt the trick and didn't move. They also said so explicitly - it rings bells. Amoruso 05:35, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
I'm glad you've abandoned the outrageous claim that these people left of their own accord, and admitted that they left in fear (95% fear of the Zionists according to one historian, later reduced to at least 90%).
Needless to say this alternative argument is equally worthless (and of course, pure WP:OR!).
PalestineRemembered 18:07, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
I don't know what you read but they left in a calculated manner in order to help the genocide of the Jews. Of course there's no moral right to them to return. Amoruso 22:03, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
You seem to have stated that they left in fear of injury (though from "their own side", not from the immigrants). So you've abandoned the claim that they "all" left on orders (which was unsustainable anyway, I don't recall there ever being an RS for it). It definitely wasn't true in many places that we know of.
I know of nothing to justify this new explanation, nor why you say it would somehow negate a "moral right" to the return of their property.
Nor have you explained why the article spends so much time explaining they left of their own accord, and none atall as to why that matters, what effect it has on their legal right to the enjoyment of their property.
PalestineRemembered 09:22, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
No I'm still saying they left in order to help the Arab countries commit genocide at the Jewish population at the request of those armies. They have no such legal or moral right to any property. Amoruso 10:51, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Claims by Arab leaders (funny article, this)

Under the heading "Claims by Arab leaders" is listed: Near East Broadcasting Station. That radio station was a fully British funded propaganda station. Perhaps we should list this article in cat. "humor"? Regards, Huldra 14:11, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

You are quite right, and I'll add additional evidence to that article soon. Another reason to laugh (or cry) at this article is the repeat of the claim that "Habib Issa" was the secretary of the Arab League. This might make one wonder why he is not listed in the timetable of Arab League secretaries at Arab League. Now we even have "Habib Issa" quoted twice. The fact is, the automatons blindly copying this rubbish from their favorite web sites or propaganda books don't have a clue who Habib Issa was. --Zerotalk 09:55, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
If you read carefully, you can see it doesnt say Habib Issa was the secretary of the Arab League. It says Azzam Pasha who is in fact listed on the timetable. Sources confirm Habib Issa's statements and we have it. Are you saying we need to personally know someone to add their sourced, reliable statement? Of course not. And what "the fact really is", is that you havent read the quote carefully enough, which can be called "a source of hilarity". --Shamir1 04:21, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
You are right that I misread it; I carelessly assumed it was a copy the rubbish on the web in scores of places (even the Jerusalem Post!). In fact it is a copy of the slightly different rubbish on the web in scores of other places. But you still have no idea who Habib Issa is, do you? How are we supposed to know whether Mr Issa is a reliable source if we don't have the foggiest idea who he is? Why is he in a section "Claims by Arabs who fled" when you don't know if he is an Arab who fled? That's plain dishonest. Well, there is one thing we do know about "Habib Issa": he was so famous that Google can't identify him. Yes, definitely a very important person to quote. And there is an even worse problem about this quote: in fact Habib Issa did not say it at all! See below. --Zerotalk 12:44, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
Zero, get over it. These excuses are pathetic and without merit to Wikipedia. It is sourced and reliable, besides the fact that Habib and Issa are both very common Arabic names. --Shamir1 06:19, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
Another source of hilarity is the claim that Sada al Janub is a Beirut newspaper, as anyone who knows the subject can see just from its name that it is not from Beirut. --Zerotalk 10:01, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
You cannot judge by its name where its from. Thats original research on your part. It was indeed from Beirut. --Shamir1 04:21, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
You are out of your depth, Shamir1. To a Lebanese, "al-Janub" means the south-west district of Lebanon whose main city is Sidon. The great scholar Shmuel Katz apparently didn't know that. See South Governorate. As for Sada al-Janub, it was published in the Christian village of Marjeyoun. (two sources) --Zerotalk 12:44, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
It is nonetheless Lebanese, please stop this vandalism. --Shamir1 06:19, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Please don't remove mass sourced material without consensus first, again. Amoruso 11:31, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't need consensus to remove junk; it is my duty as a Wikipedia editor. Inserting "Habib Issa" when you don't even know who he was is an outrageous violation of WP:RS. --Zerotalk 12:00, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
That's a violation of WP:AGF. As to what you removed, you removed so many things not even remotely related to your reasoning including a recent edit by another user unrelated including events related to the conflict with hizballah including images including a dozen of other quotes. It looks bad on your part . Amoruso 12:05, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
The section about Hizbollah was removed because Hizbollah did not exist in 1948-9 and the relevance of the insertion (other than Arab bashing) was not established. Weren't you going to tell us who Habib Issa was? --Zerotalk 12:53, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
THERE ARE MULTIPLE SOURCES giving the RELEVANCE OF the Hezbollah quote, its not Arab bashing please stop. It doesnt say anything about 1948-9 it SPECIFICALLY SAYS 2006! --Shamir1 04:00, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
"It doesnt say anything about 1948-9". I AGREE, THAT'S WHY IT DOESN"T BELONG IN THIS ARTICLE! (And don't shout.) --Zerotalk 12:44, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
No, that is wrong. You said it doesnt belong because it infers Hezbollah was in 1948-9 which it does not. The point is, it was another instance of an Arab leader trying prompt the exit of Arabs in the region. Same thing, and again sources! THAT is why it belongs. Stop vandalising. --Shamir1 00:06, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Please don't do it again, you're mass deleting sourced materials. As for the station, it being obviously anti jewish is only a reinforcement for the quote. Amoruso 12:57, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Smearing entire nations as being anti-semitic does not belong in this discussion. Nor does Arab-bashing.
And you've been challenged to defend Habib Issa as a WP:RS and have not yet shown a great interest in doing so.
PalestineRemembered 23:09, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
...and some editors here have obviously no clue as to who Georg Hakim is (or rather: was)...if they did, why do they call him "Georg Hakim"?? ...it is like insisting on calling a person "Karol Józef Wojtyła" ..(and not Pope John Paul II)
..and look at the quote that Katz have fom Edward Atiyah; then look at the whole quote (which I have added)...now; can anybody truthfully claim that Katz have quoted him "fairly"?? Regards, Huldra 17:02, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Enough with the excuses of removing reliable information. --Shamir1 04:00, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

unfortunately, the adminstrator who protected the page rewarded the vandalism by the editors who blanked out the sourced material to meet their WP:POV. Amoruso 08:54, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What should be included in the article

three new pieces of information:

  • around 5-6 May 1948: Haganah intelligence and Western diplomatic missions in the Middle East at that time, picked up, recorded and quoted from Arab orders and appeals (by King Abdullah I, Arab Liberation Army Commander Fawzi Qawuqji, and Damascus Radio) to the Arabs of Palestine to stay put in their homes or, if already in exile, to return to Palestine. (Not evidence of "Arab orders" to flee but of orders to stay put during those crucial pre-invasion weeks are what one find in Israeli and Western Archives). (ref: Morris, 1994 (1948 and after; Israel and the Palestinians, p.31)
  • around 6-10 May 1948: Aharon Cohen, leader of the Mapam's Arab department wrote a memorandum called: "Our Arab Policy in the Midst of the War", 10 May. In his notes for the memorandum, penned 6 May 1948, he wrote: "a deliberate eviction [of the Arabs] is taking place.... Others may rejoice -I, as a socialist, am ashamed and afraid .... To win the war and lose the peace....the state [of Israel], when it arises, will live on its sword." (ref: Morris, 1994, p. 59-61):
  • around 30 june 1948: the report "The Emigration of the Arabs of Palestine in the Period 1/12/1947/- 1/6/1948", produced by Israeli Defence Forces Intelligence Service. (ref.:Morris [19] --Huldra 17:20, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
I fear you're allowing the Zionist ethnic cleansers to dominate this article and mislead anyone coming across it. There's really no question that the Palestinians were driven out. Only some 5 or 10% left because they were told to (Morris), none of them because of broadcasts, which were pleading with people to stay.
And the article's glaring defect is that there is no "Palestinian POV" presented. If there was, it would be saying something like "So what if they fled, they still have an absolute legal and moral right to return to their homes." What you read in here is overwhelmingly an "Israeli POV" which is effectively blatant propaganda.
PalestineRemembered 00:51, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

The whole article is written from Morris' view - the whole description of the exodus is from what he wrote. There's only ONE section dealing with the established facts, presented in the article as THEORY, of many sources which depict the fact , represented in the article as theory and having other "sources" to contradict it, that Arab population was told to flee in order not to disrupt the attacks on the infant Israel and so nothing will happen to them - "Israel will be destroyed and you'll come back as victorious" - in fact this fact is the reason why there are still palestinian refugees waiting for Israel to one day be destroyed - well guess what it's not going to happen. Jewish refugees were settled in Israel, European refugees were settled in their countries, Indian/Pakistani refugees were settled, African refugees were settled, it's time these particular refugees were settled in Arab countries. I think that's pretty obvious - but that IS not presented in the article. What is presented in the article is YOUR POV based on Morris with only half of a section supporting the endorsement "theory". How is that blatant propoganda ? Amoruso 05:41, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

It has been known since Walid Khalidi's paper 'Why Did the Palestinians Leave' was published in 1959 that the story you recount is false and was fabricated post-1948, largely by the Revisionist leader Joseph Schechtman. Morris' work simply confirms what Khalidi and Childers published more than forty years ago. --Ian Pitchford 17:28, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
The very fact you said "it has been known since Walid Khalidi" demonstrates why what you said is utterly ridicilous. Your blanking of the material in the article is pure vandalism obviously and will be restored immediately when the page is unprotected by the good faith editors of wikipedia. Amoruso 08:52, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
The good faith editors of Wikipedia will note who is in denial of Deir Yassin being a massacre.
The good faith editors of Wikipedia will note your insistence on introducing material from very POV commentators with no historical credentials.
And the good faith editors of Wikipedia will not accept that propaganda explanations of why the Palestinians left have any relevance to their rights to return to their homes.
PalestineRemembered 21:51, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
It would be refreshing and telling if polemicists such as PalestineRemembered would simply state their views clearly, namely that it is better that all Israeli Jews die (worst case) or are made homeless (best case) just as long as Palestinians get what they demand. Honestly - why don't you just come out and say it? --Leifern 22:03, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
It would be refreshing and telling if polemicists such as Leifern would simply state their views clearly, namely that it is better that all Palestinian die (worst case) or are made homeless (best case) just as long as Israeli Jews get what they demand. Honestly - why don't you just come out and say it? (Jeg forstår godt at du er i eksil, Leifern!) And now, when we have finished mud-slinging (hopefully), perhaps we could continue with the discussion about what should be included, and what sources are reliable? Regards, Huldra 22:48, 22 November 2006 (UTC) (or should I say: "Huldraen" ;-))

[edit] Habib Issa in al Hoda

Here are the reasons why the "Habib Issa" quotation is unacceptable.

  1. Nobody can identify who Habib Issa was, so nobody knows whether his words hold any weight.
  2. al Hoda was (and still is) a newspaper of the Maronite community in the United States. The animosity of the Lebanese Maronites towards the Palestinian refugees is well known, so al Hoda was a biased source.
  3. The way that this "quotation" got into the Zionist quote collection was that the Revisionist writer Joseph Schechtman (see above about the background) put it in his 1952 book "The Arab Refugee Problem". We can be sure this is the source because al Hoda is in Arabic and Schechtman's English translation matches the current one perfectly. In other words, all the vast number of copies of this "quotation" in circulation derive by repeated copying from Schechtman's original or copies of it. (Around here that's called "verification".) This was not an independent work, but a project Schechtman carried out for the US branch of the Jewish Agency (citation above). This indicates that something like "according to a report commissioned by the Jewish Agency" needs to be attached, but don't bother as the whole thing is inadmissible. Now there is something else: the punctuation of the quotation in Schechtman's book does not indicate that Azzam Pasha gave the "brotherly advice" of the quotation. It is just Habib Issa's claim, whoever Habib Issa was. --Zerotalk 13:21, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
  4. No contemporary source confirming these claims of "Habib Issa" have ever been found. We can be sure of that as such a source would have been prominently presented in place of this embarrassingly weak "Habib Issa" source. --Zerotalk 13:21, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

All this is your POV and totally irrelevant. We're quoting WP:RS, WP:V of the quote and it's enough. Amoruso 08:56, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

  1. That is a ridiculous excuse. He is quoted and we have many sources. That is the point.
  2. "Lebanese Maronites towards the Palestinian refugees is well known, so al Hoda was a biased source." That is not an argument. That does not make anything biased. (plus, there have been more than one al Hodas). Calling something biased does not make it incorrect and your prejudice towards maronites and assuming such a thing is absolutely pathetic.
  3. That is opinion and means nothing. There are verifiable sources.
  4. Ugh, please. He was a person, do you get that? A person whose statement was quoted and published. Leave it alone. --Shamir1 00:13, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
What is ridiculous is that someone thinks it is normal to dismiss out of hand a well-known and reputable historian writing about a subject he was expert in (Walid Khalidi, per the above section), yet also normal to insist on the inclusion of a quotation from an entirely unknown writer in a minor newspaper on another continent. What is equally ridiculous is that this person has been getting away with this sort of approach to editing Wikipedia for months now. Palmiro | Talk 00:55, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
You are encouraged to reviwe WP:NPA. Your not-so-veiled threat above is a clear vioaltion of policy. Comment on edits, not editors. Isarig 01:00, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
Who exactly is encouraging me to review WP:NPA? What am I threatening to do? If suggesting (however implicitly) that it may be time to use Wikipedia policies such as WP:DR is a violation of policy, then the world of Wikipedia must be considered somewhat reminiscent of that of Joseph Heller. Palmiro | Talk 01:11, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
I am encouraging you to do so. You were commenting on an editor, not his edits. If you want to implement certain aspects of WP:DR - go right ahead, no one is stopping you.Isarig 03:14, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
"Getting away with"? Again, you can't just say, "oh well since the animosity toward ... by... is so well-known, well there we go, its biased." No, sorry, this is not the kind of edits one "gets away with" on Wikipedia. I am not dismissing anything, it seems that someone else is. We are using reputable and verifiable sources. Would you like to contact the editors of these sites/books? For some of them I have their contact information. We are not quoting an "unknown writer" we are quoting an Arab's words of his plight that has already been published, that is not something to be dismissed. Who cares what continent? Is that a rule on Wikipedia? Yes, i think I read that before: "When an editor quotes a published quotation from multiple reliable sources, please make sure the one who is quoted is in the continent at hand." Oblivious to the hundrends of thousands who were absorbed by the US, Canada, and elswhere.
Also, when direct parallels are drawn between a past incident and a recent one, it may be included. It is directly involved and extremely relevant when again an Arab leader calls his people to leave during a war from the very same exact land. This is an attempt to prompt an exodus, in exactly the same manner as before. --Shamir1 21:17, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
What "plight" did Habib Issa suffer? How do you know? The fact is, you know nothing at all about Habib Issa, who he was, what his background was, nothing. Which continent did he live on? You don't know, do you? Stop wasting our time. --Zerotalk 01:12, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
The point is that Shamir1 has explained to you in wikipedia rules why there's no problem at all with the quote. Please maintain WP:CIVIL with other users. Amoruso 09:07, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
It's okay. It's excuse, after excuse. First, he says it doesnt work because Issa wasnt the Secretary General. Then that was done with, and he says it doesnt work because he believes the newspaper is Lebanese Christian. Then he says it doesnt work because this Arab man is on a different continent. Sounds like he is running out of lame excuses... But it doesn't matter because, I found a source to clear it up! [20] Look for Mr. Issa! --Shamir1 20:44, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
That's funny. You found someone who quotes exactly the same stuff from the same sources and gratuitously adds the word "refugee" to try to shore it up the propaganda value. There are many more articles out there who claim Issa was the secretary-general. So what? You still don't have a clue who Habib Issa was. By the way, how likely do you think it would be for a Palestinian to actually be the editor of a Maronite newspaper? --Zerotalk 04:23, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
I've not checked all of this, but it seems you've made an excellent case that this "Habib Issa" quote is worthless. Nobody has subsequently indicated it's acceptably RS.
PalestineRemembered 20:29, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

This argument is void. Habib Issa worked for this newspaper obviously - this is who he is. - he wrote the article where he reported that the secretary of the Arab league said these words. Abdul Rahman Hassan Azzam never denied he said these words. in fact, it was perfectly alligned with other statements of Azzam at the time as in the genocide of the Jews like the mongols and the crusaders and he gave advices for his brothers to leave so the canons won't shred them apart (just like with Nasrallah this time). Katz got it right of course because he's a serious historian and scholar, he never claimed issa was the secretary general himself - this obviously a wrong copy in some web-sites (probably distorted originally by people wanting to claim the lie zero made above in order to dismiss it) but it's irrelevant. Instead of saying Habib Issa one can simply say the journal's claim. This is simply the name on top of the article in the journal, it's bonus info. Katz also knows exactly what this paper is and says so in his book - a Lebanese journal paper from New York. Other have also used the correct citation which is this: Habib Issa, ed., Al-Hoda, Arabic daily, June 8, 1951, New York [21] listed as a new york paper in wikipedia just like Katz wrote. The readers can decide if it's reliable or not, it doesn't matter. It's a WP:RS journal. Amoruso 22:12, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Let's all decide together if Al Hoda is a reliable journal or not. Let's see. [22] This source is an article from 1967 that explains thoroughly that :

  • Al Hoda is New York's oldest Arab-language newspaper
  • It serves thousands of Arab immigrants who read the newspaper
  • in 1898, in a small office on East 28th Street, Naoum Mokarzel, a young Lebanese with an interest in journalism, founded an eight-page daily called Al-Hoda (The Guidance) that was soon reaching a readership of 5,000 people.

Mary Mokarzel represents the second generation of American Arabs. Although the niece of the man who founded Al-Hoda, and although she has run the paper since 1952, Miss Mokarzel neither speaks nor reads Arabic, relying heavily on her editor Marwan Jabri to check all copy. But like her uncle who founded the paper, and her father who carried it on after, Mary has strong faith in the paper's capacity to survive. "It's true that we used to be a daily and that we're down to twice a week and it's true we're down from eight pages to six," she says, "But they were predicting the end of the Arab press 30 years ago and Al-Hoda is still very much alive."

Coming from Al-Hoda, that kind of optimism tends to stimulate all publishers. Al-Hoda, after all, is the "big" Arab paper. It's in New York. It has a publisher and an editor. It has Linotype operators. It even has more than one "department." If Al-Hoda can survive, the other publishers seem to say, maybe we can too.

Sounds pretty good to me as a source to quote the Secretary General of the Arab league which is obviously relevant and informative to this article. Cheers. Amoruso 22:31, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

It was and is a Maronite newspaper. No avoiding that. (Actually the original source, Schechtman, calls it a Maronite newspaper.) It did not speak for Arabs in general, and anyway this is not a quotation but a claim by Habib Issa. And why should the acting editor of a Maronite newspaper in 1952 be in a position to report something Azzam Pasha said in 1948 that nobody at the time seems to have heard? Did Azzam Pasha whisper it during his sleep, perhaps? Can't have anything to do with the growing anger of the Lebanese Maronites at the masses of Palestinians in Lebanon, by any chance? Anyway, since you are sp strict on NPOV, why aren't you also quoting editorials from Arab newspapers of the 1950s about the evil Zionists? --Zerotalk 07:10, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
This is a Lebanese paper as proven above. Or actually it was created by a Lebanese but it's actualyl simply an arab language newspaper in New York. It's not as if editors are all maronites or anything - I see no basis for this claim. At any case, even if it was read by the maronite immigrant community, Katz described it as a New York Lebanese Paper, most describe it was an Arab Daily in New York - this is the correct term. Why and how did he know this information ? We don't know and it's not for us to know. The paper is in Arabic and is WP:RS and has a direct comprehsive quote by Azzam Pasha - it's hard to believe someone will make this speech up especially since Azzam Pasha never denied to have said these words. It's therefore very reasonable to include this well sourced material claiming that Azzam Pasha said those words. It's not for us to decide whether Al Hoda got it right as long as we know it's a real paper and a real report. It seems logical that he said it as I've explained above and I've seen no contrary opinion on the matter from Pasha. In fact, it would seem this is a censorship attempt of something you simply don't like. As we have it, a paper quoted a quote from Pasha that was not denied and it's well known and notable and should be included. Amoruso 19:29, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
1952... As in only four years after 48? Right, that's the rule on Wikipedia. I read that somewhere too. It says: If you quote a sourced statement, the interview or story published most be less than four years after the incident at hand. So that means John McCain's words today mean nothing when it comes to the Vietnam War, even though he was there and was a prisoner of war. Or that Elie Wiesel's words mean nothing when it comes to the Holocaust, even though he was there and a survivor. Right, because they all violated the 4-year time limit. In that case, Childers's words are not valid either. If you want to ask Mr. Issa where he heard Azzam Pasha say it, that is a good idea, good luck to you, but sorry to say, that is not how it works here on Wikipedia. And who says, "nobody at the time seems to have heard"? Where did that come from? You can't say you know that. Arabs fled cities before Jewish troops even got there. "Can't have anything to do with the growing anger of the Lebanese Maronites at the masses of Palestinians in Lebanon, by any chance?" No, that's not how it works here, it makes no difference. That is prejudice against a people, and just assuming a bias. --Shamir1 19:36, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "transfer theory" title is disgusting

"transfer theory" is a disgusting euphemism. It should be called by its real name: ETHNIC CLEANSING

Ilan Pappé agrees with you. His latest book is called The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. --Ian Pitchford 18:15, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
Ilan Pappe is a self hating jew and is discredited after the teddy katz case, he's irrelevant. Amoruso 20:32, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
What does this have to do with anything? This guy is just showing everyone he does not know what a population transfer is. The homes of Jewish refugees, their money, frozen bank accounts, confiscated land, all could easily relieve the Palestinians. What you think there wasnt a Jewish refugee crisis? Of course, a much worse one. The thing different was, Israel relieved their people's refugee crisis, while the Arab nations sat on their behinds to expand a propaganda and human tool against Israel. That is what is "disgusting". --Shamir1 07:43, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Dear Gentlemen,

transfer idea (and not theory) refers to the fact the transfer of arab population was a major concern among Zionist leaders who debated this as soon as the end of XIXth century. This concept was developed by Morris. ethnic cleansing refers to the 3rd and 4th phase of the palestinian exodus (after july 48) when palestinian where chased by israeli soldiers. This theory is not from Pappé. Gelber, Morris, Pappé, Khalidi etc agrees on that. The only controversy is about what happens during the second (and most important) phase. Pappé and Khalidi (and others) consider what happens was also ethnic cleansing while Morris (and others like Gelber) claim it was not at all organise but was more a consequence of war. Alithien 10:46, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] I think we can all agree that the vandalism by Zero and co is wrong

He seems to be arguing only on Habib Issa here while removing mass sourced material of various incidents without any explanation. Something needs to be done. Sadly, he's allowed to keep this behavour. Amoruso 12:06, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Fortunately all editors are bound by Wikipedia policy: WP:V "Articles should rely on reliable, third-party published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. Sources should be appropriate to the claims made: exceptional claims require stronger sources.... English-language sources should be given whenever possible, and should always be used in preference to foreign-language sources, so that readers can easily verify that the source material has been used correctly... In general, sources of dubious reliability are sources with a poor reputation for fact-checking or with no fact-checking facilities or editorial oversight. Sources of dubious reliability should only be used in articles about themselves." Please find verifiable sources for the alleged quoatations and other material you are adding to this article. --Ian Pitchford 18:12, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
And you think that what you've written down here is convincing ? You can't hide behind WP:V while blanking out whole pages without any explanations on each and every blanking - you can't just say "it's unreliable" when obviously the quotes were reliable. They were ALL reliable. Some of them weren't even quotes - there were images for example. Some of them weren't quotes - there was the Hizballah section. And so on. This is pure vandalism. Revert yourself when the page is unprotected or face permanent banning Ian Pitchford. Amoruso 18:45, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Where are Zero's excuses for removing all the other verifiable claims? Why is this taking so long? ALSO, information here should be included. --Shamir1 07:48, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

What verifiable claims are you talking about? Which of them did you verify? --Zerotalk 08:51, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
Which one is not verified? You removed a lot more material than just one quote, which is vandalism. --Shamir1 19:15, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
Adding material that you can't vouch for per WP:V is vandalism. --Ian Pitchford 23:00, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
Please do not make up baloney to try to justify his deletion. It is vouched by multiple reliable sources per WP:V. This dispute is all based on something he didn't read carefully enough. Besides that, he took stuff out which he just didnt even like. Where is the WP:V to that? The quotes, Nasrallah, everything. The link I provided earlier is (just like the rest that were blindly removed) perfectly reliable. That section is written by a Palestinian! --Shamir1 01:38, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
Habib Issa served in interim as secretary-general of the Arab League under Azzam Pasha. He assumed the role of such in the later years of Azzam's leadership, including the time he wrote in Al-Hoda.
Actually this is a perfect example of the trouble you get in to when you cut and paste material from websites. Neither you nor Amoruso has even consulted the actual hardcopy of Katz's book. He doesn't claim that Habib Issa was Secretary General of the Arab League - he quotes Habib Issa quoting Azaam Pasha (Secretary General of the Arab League) without giving any indication of who Habib Issa is or why anyone should be interested in anything he might have to say. There's not a single mention of "Habib Issa" in the entire Times Digital Archive 1785-1985 and the only mention in any book listed in Google Books is to the French translation of Katz's book. --Ian Pitchford 14:31, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
Nonetheless, it doesnt change the fact that his words are relevant and were published in a newspaper. The indication infers he had been a refugee according to the text, as does many other sources. However, your discredit for ANY source that comes along is getting way out of hand. --Shamir1 18:14, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
What on earth are you talking about? --Ian Pitchford 18:47, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Ian pitchford, I think you're having some trouble to read sections above you. I have 3 differnet copies right here of Katz book in more than one language and me and Shamir1 explained to Zero0000 very well what Katz says about this quote. Your claim is bizarre. Like we explained, he says it's a lebanese new yorkian paper and that Habib Issa says that Azam Pasha said this - so I don't know why you think you suddently had a revelation on this issue. It was Shamir1 who showed this to Zero0000 who wrongly thought that Katz says that Issa was the secretary General. You should learn to read the discussion before writing nonsense next time please. As to who Habib Issa was it's a ridicilous question to begin with since it's not about Issa it's about Al Hoda - we don't care who was the person who reported a citation from CNN or BBC and we don't care who was the editor or reporter of Al Hoda as long as it was said. This was an editorial in Al Hoda. Al Hoda being the biggest arab newspaper in New York is a WP:RS. It's a citation from the Secretary General of the Arab League which is in line of other statements of his during the war and which he never denied. I hope this clears things up and we can move on without trying to censor more information. Cheers. Amoruso 18:59, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

You will need to find a reliable peer-reviewed source for your claims. Stop wasting our time with this nonsense. --Ian Pitchford 21:19, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
Please stop with your cliched peer reviewed nonsense. Papers are not peer reviewd. Al Hoda is WP:RS period, this discussion was over already... Amoruso 19:51, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
This media site identifies that he was a refugee. Whatever he was or became in 1951 really doesnt matter. What matters is that he had been a refugee. [23] 207.233.32.18 19:21, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
What nonsense? We are using the fact that it was published in such a paper at such a time. There are several reliable peer-reviewed sources, including one edited by Palestinians. The nonsense is the fact that you two insist it not be included for the MOST ludicrous reasons that I have never heard of throughout editing Wikipedia. This man was a refugee, there are sources that identify him as such. Whether he filled in for Azzam Pasha and acted as secretary-general could be a possibility, but we know he was a refugee per many reliable peer-reviewed sources. Same with a quote by refugee Mahmoud Abbas (yes, now the president). He wrote in Beirut, March 1976, in the official PLO journal. At the time, all he had been was a refugee and PLO member. Now he is the president of the PA. This man, whatever his occupation later was, was a refugee. --Shamir1 04:15, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

As I noted up above, the exact wording of the translation shows that Schechtman's 1952 book "The Arab Refugee Problem" is the original source of all these "Habib Issa" claims. Schechtman identifies him thus: "Habib Issa, acting editor of Al-Hoda (Guidance), leading daily newspaper of the Lebanese Maronite community in the United States". His identification of Al-Hoda is completely correct. I assume he has also identified Habib Issa correctly, but nobody has ever checked as far as we know. In any case, this does not identify Issa as a refugee, nor as an Arab League official. It doesn't make the slightest difference whether later propagandists have "improved" the story by inventing additional "facts" about Issa. Schechtman's words also identify the article as probably an editorial and not a news report. That makes it the personal opinion of Habib Issa. It isn't admissible. --Zerotalk 08:22, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Al Hoda was founded by Maronite immigrant Naoum Mokarzel, known as "110% Maronite" and "an unswerving Lebanese nationist". After his death, Al Hoda passed to his brother Salloum, who was still the owner when Habib Issa wrote. It was and remained a Maronite concern. On Apr 10 1984, NYT noted that the owner at the time was Stephen Fares, "a prominent Maronite and vice president of the American Lebanese League, which lobbies for the right-wing Phalangist Party in Lebanon." Sounds like a real pro-Palestinian newspaper (not). --Zerotalk 09:24, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

We really don't care because it doesn't matter whether Mokarzel was a maronite or not. It's the biggest arab paper in new york and it's a direct quote of Azam Pasha. Whetehter it's an editorial or newsreport is relevant how ? He's quoting Pasha directly in the quote. It's a quote from a WP:RS not even denied therefore admissable. Amoruso 19:53, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

It doesn't even claim to be a direct quote. --Zerotalk 23:19, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
Of course it does, he writes that this is what he said. Maybe without the uses of "" but it's certainly quoting from Pasha. Amoruso 23:27, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
First of all, calm down. What does "Sounds like a real pro-Palestinian newspaper (not)" supposed to mean? Does it need to be? Are you saying it needs to be "pro-Palestinian" in order to be used? Get real. It is known that he was an Arab who fled. It is also possible that Habib Issa could have been a refugee before acting editor in 1952. The man claims what Azzam Pasha made apparent to all Arab nations. He was an Arab who fled, and his findings described part of the refugee conflict, and were published. We have to keep up with the sources. It is irrelevant who the owner supported in 1984 or ANY TIME. It is not relevant. If they found statements (biased or not), they used evidence to support their points. We also cannot prejudge a bias, and Wikipedia does not care if the owner identified as whatever percent Maronite. You know all of that means nothing here. We know that Habib Issa was an Arab (under an Arab League nation) who fled. ALL neighbouring Arab countries (and many more) were directly involved in the war and conflict. Many reliable sources call him a refugee, however, if you wish not to include that, fine, but his input is necessary. His findings show the attitude of the Arabs and the Arab League. That is all fact, and please, no more excuses based on nothing that Wikipedia stands for. You know that. --Shamir1 20:06, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
I suggest that people stop responding to Shamir, because his case is clearly baseless and we all have better things to do. Palmiro | Talk 20:55, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
Palmiro, I suggest you delete this remark which is very un-WP:CIVIL and anti WP:AGF. Amoruso 21:00, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
My name is not Shamir, if you choose to call me by my user name, add the 1. It seems you have some sort of agenda in your head, and you just want to deny the fundamentals of Wikipedia. (Not to mention you havent contributed zip to this discussion, so I dont know where that comes from). --Shamir1 00:34, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
Neither Shamir1 nor Amoruso have actually contributed anything except rhetoric to this argument. It is time to end it. --Zerotalk 23:18, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
I agree that we need to end this. we established there's nothing wrong with the quote and that it's WP:RS. No need to go in circles, there's no avoiding this. Amoruso 23:27, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
Besides saying "baseless" and making up an excuse like "oh well that's on a different continent" or "those people are inherently biased", what is your argument? None. Is the quotation relevant? Yes. Published? Yes. Written on a reliable source? Several. End of discussion. --Shamir1 00:34, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Btw, as i understand it, we can restore all material blanked since no one disputes that and perhaps continue to talk about Issa although I think that's settled as well. Someone should unlock the article then to restore everything or atleast everything besides Issa. Cheers. Amoruso 00:36, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree, for now, I will not add Issa. --Shamir1 00:45, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
A controversial statement from an unknown guy quoted by a non recognized historian is not much for wikipedia. Isn't there more acceptable quotes meaning exactly the same ? Alithien 10:58, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
I can't agree to the addition of anything sourced to the Revisionist politician Katz. This is a clear violation of WP:V by Amoruso and Shamir1 and I think this unprotection request misrepresents the debate on this page: [24]. I will file a WP:RFC. --Ian Pitchford 20:11, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
I think too that Katz's quote is not appropriate. But more, what does it give to the article ? I have the feeling you "quarrel" for non important matters... Alithien 20:34, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
As you know Alithien I think sourcing is the most important issue for an encyclopedia. --Ian Pitchford 20:36, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
I know ;-). And you are absolutely right. This should not even be discussed. I work the same ex1 - ex2 - ... I understood that from you. Alithien 20:42, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
Admirable Alithien. I just wish I'd worked harder in French class! --Ian Pitchford 20:46, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. I know about your French... So should I have learned English better.
But you know even so... It is a little bit a pity that there are so many discussions and controversies that prevent people from working well on wp:en. I mean this should not be that hard to write articles in giving all point of views and in respect with wikipedia rules. So simple and so well thought.
I often come and read wp:en because it is far richer than wp:fr but participating is too hard and tiring.
Maybe you could find your way in Citizendium's project ? Alithien 20:59, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm seeing nothing to indicate that Habib Issa is any kind of Reliable Source. It's up to the editors wishing to include these sources to prove they're fit, not for anyone else to prove they're unfit. As for Katz ...... here's something typical, a quote that some editors think fit to be put into articles, when it's a fact-free polemic: Katz, Shmuel (1973) Battleground: Fact and Fantasy in Palestine , p.36 ISBN 0933503032 "....... The economic interest of the individual Arab in the perpetuation of the refugee problem and of his free keep is backed by the accumulating vested interest of UNRWA itself to keep itself in being and to expand. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency is thought of as some Olympian, philanthropic body directed and operated by a band of dedicated humanitarians, devoted exclusively to the task of helping suffering refugees. The fact is that the organisation consists of some 11,000 officials of whom all but a handful are Arabs who are themselves inscribed on the rolls as "refugees." They perform the field work; they, that is, hand out the relief. The remaining handful consists of some 120 Americans and Europeans who man the organisation’s central offices. Since UNRWA itself is thus a source of livelihood for some 50,000 people, no one connected with it has the slightest interest in seeing its task end or in protesting the fraud and deception it has perpetuated for over twenty years. The myth continues to live and to thrive, feeding on itself." PalestineRemembered 21:44, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Katz like explained is of course an excellent source for the conflict. We're citing him as a secondary source for so many quotes by people , arab leaders, reporters etc. Nothing wrong with it. See WP:RS, WP:V, WP:CITE, Kats meets all of course but it's not relevant, nobody ever questioned his use of references. Amoruso 20:00, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Katz and Quotes referenced WP:V, WP:NPOV and WP:NOR

Katz is a purveyor of politically expedient - and rather absurd - falsehoods. Had the Palestinian people abandoned their country en masse at the exhortation of foreign Arabs the evidence would be voluminous, well-marshalled by the scholars, and cited ad nauseam. All you can bring to this debate are a few alleged quotations fabricated and circulated by a couple of Revisionist politicians. Your behaviour is clear evidence against the case you are trying to defend. --Ian Pitchford 20:19, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

There's already a section called Shmuel Katz above. I didn't start this header and if you want to post under such a header, there's one already in existance. Katz is a respected writer who wrote a very comprehensive book about the conflict, a very notable one with thousands of refernces. Whatever his opnion is we can cite it. And whatever references he brings we can bring him. You have not brought a single shred of evidence to back up your claim that the quotes are false. We can quote them from many different books, all WP:RS - we like to quote them from Katz because they're eloquently presented. You can't censor that. You simply can't. Good day. Amoruso 20:23, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
Obviously, you can't answer the points raised or defend Katz with support from reliable sources. More evidence of the weakness of your case. --Ian Pitchford 20:40, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
I just answered them. It's you who's trying to censor well sourced information with no evidence to back up your WP:POV. Also please note a section called Katz already exists, don't turn this talk page to your personal blog because you don't like Katz. Katz has nothing to do with it anyway, he's a secondary source for well known quotes fully referenced by WP:RS and he can comment on them if he wants to too. His book has been used widely in the conflict (also by scholary journals [25]) and it's a good source to collect these references from no doubt [26] Amoruso 20:58, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
I am shocked to see wikipedia users quoting someone like Kate from בית"ר a clearly anti-Palestinian revisionist Zionist school of thought. Katz is respected by few! Not many and certainly his views should be clearly marked under Zionist Perception of the Exodus.
I have to agree with Ian Pitchford. Amoruso's explanation of the use of such individual in an article describing Palestinians suffering is highly irregular and against WP:RS and WP:NPOV. --Palestine48 11:19 pm, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
Even though we can, We're not actually quoting Katz as we're quoting his dozens of WP:RS of newspapers, speeches and so on. The article also is not about suffering, it's about the palestinian exodus. Amoruso 00:22, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
This is not about Palestinian "suffering", please bring relevance to the discussion. (And what would the Arabs have done if they had won the war, eh?) --Shamir1 22:24, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Anyway, Zero and Pitchford have repeatedly said that the material Katz uses is widely used by Schechtman, and as noted here [27] most of the article builds on that through Gelber anyway. End of story. Amoruso 00:25, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Ian Pitchford, you are arguing with the wrong people. You say "Had the Palestinian people abandoned their country en masse...", that is not an argument to editing with Wikipedia. If you want to argue with the validity of the research, contact him or his colleauges yourself, but that is not argument of why not to add it to Wikipedia. (Israeli sources, from Hebron 1929 to Jenin 2002, have tended to be much more accurate than Arab ones.) No Israeli source says that the Arab encouragement was the only factor, but did exist. --Shamir1 02:28, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
Nonsense. It wasn't a factor at all. Yoav Gelber writes: "... the Israeli traditional argument, blaming the Arab leadership for encouraging the mass flight, has no basis in the documentary evidence. As far as the documents reveal, the AHC, the ALA and the Arab governments made unsuccessful efforts to check the exodus." (Gelber, Y. (2006). Palestine 1948. Sussex Academic Press, p. 116). Please stop adding propaganda to this article. --Ian Pitchford 18:55, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

But he uses him for referncecs in his book, n'est pas ? Funny how any scholar you don't agree with is simply spreading propaganda. Your vandalism must be stopped. Amoruso 22:13, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Could Gelber's statement be clearer? --Ian Pitchford 23:28, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
Hello
Amoruso, these are conclusions of Chap.7 of Gelber's : Palestinian society collapse. And if you look for more information about Yoav Gelber you can conclude he is not exactly a "anti israeli propagandist" but rather an "israeli historian" about who some "pro israeli bias" could be suspected.
He gives many references (other than his mind) explaining that if in some cases arab leaders called for an evacuation, that was not a arab general policy.
Benny Morris is a little bit more nuanced on the topic. Here are his conclusions (The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited, pp.589-590) :
From the first, the AHC and the local National Committees opposed the exodus, especially of army-aged males, and made efforts to block it. But they were inefficient and, sometimes, half-hearlted. And, at the same time, they actively promoted the depopulation of villages and towns. Many thousands of Arabs - women, children and old people, from villages around Jerusalem, the Coastal Plain and the Jezreel and Kordan valleys, and from various towns - left, well before battle was joined, as a result of advice and orders from local Arab commanders and officials, who feared for their safety and were concerned that their presence would hamper their militiamen in battle. Indeed, already months before the war the Arab states and the AHD had endorsed the removal of dependents from active and potential combat zones. And, starting in December 1947, Arab officers ordered the complete evacuation of specific villages in certain areas, lest their inhabitants 'treacherously' acquiesce in Israeli rule or hamper Arab military deployments. There can be no exaggerating the importance of these early, Arab-initiated evacuations in the demoralisation, and eventual exodus, of the remaining rural and urban populations.
In the conclusions of his book The Palestine War 1948, Efraim Karsh wrote a chapter named The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem (pp. 87-90). He gives same comments as the 2 above :
It is true that neither the AHC nor the Arab states envisaged a Palestinian dispersion of the extent that occurred, and that both sought to contain it once it began snowballing. But it is no less true that they acted in a way that condemned hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to exile.. (In the following paragraphs he gives many examples of such "acts".).
Alithien 14:15, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, it's why we're quoting Gelber, Morris, Schcetman ,who Gelber quotes too and as many sources as possible. Anyway, the last version should be restored ASAP as it contained many sources blanked for no reason. Pure vandalism by Pitchford and Huldra it seems. Amoruso 15:30, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Gelber's conclusion is quite unequivocal "... the Israeli traditional argument, blaming the Arab leadership for encouraging the mass flight, has no basis in the documentary evidence. I'm asking you once again to abide by the policy on verifiability and to refrain from personal attacks. Fabricated quotations from Katz have no place in Wikipedia. --Ian Pitchford 18:44, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
You cannot use one scholar/historian's findings and not use the other, that is not what the "place" is in Wikipedia. The pure vandalism by Ian Pitchford and Huldra is wrong and should be taken note of. Again, SO much verifiable material was removed for no reason whatsoever. I am not just talking about Katz but about all of the other information that was deleted. What is the basis to that? There has not even been an argument brought up about it. You cannot just remove all of that. That makes it by definition vandalism. --Shamir1 22:24, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
You don't even know where this material is from Shamir1. That itself is a violation of WP:V. --Ian Pitchford 22:36, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
??????? Unbelievable. Not only does that not make sense, "that itself" shows you do not have a clue what I am talking about, so I really do not see what your response means. Let me put it more clear: You deleted a lot of information that was verifiable (I am not even talking about Katz). It came from reliable sources and you just removed them. Why? I have no idea. Absolutely no clue. It may just be because you don't like it. Do you have some sort of agenda you need to fulfill? You cannot just erase all of that material. I don't know what it will take for you to understand that. Again, that is vandalism. --Shamir1 18:23, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
Also, you cannot add Gelber without adding Katz. That is by definition biased and one-sided. We do not just go by the words of the scholar you choose. --Shamir1 18:31, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
Nonsense. It has been pointed out already that even the Irgun website calls Katz a propagandist. It doesn't matter how many sources he claims to use because he isn't a reliable source. He's a paid propagandist for the Revisionist cause. How do you know that more than what is taken from Katz has been deleted? You haven't even consulted the book. --Ian Pitchford 19:00, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
How do you know what he consulted or not ? I have consulted the book (books, in different languages) all right, and you are dead wrong. You have broken right now every rule of wikipedia including WP:AGF, WP:CIVIL. You should be looking for a hefty ban unless you self revert after un protection. Btw, that "irgun" link is of course irrelevant, and it's bad translation. Amoruso 19:10, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
If Katz's claim is correct then you should be able to provide evidence from scholarly sources that you have consulted. Please do so. --Ian Pitchford 19:21, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
It does not label him as a propagandist. Secondly, we have to be fair. If we use Katz's findings then we say "This is what Katz found". All we need to do is give him credit. His work is published and has been used. You may disagree with it, but that does not make any difference here. I repeat: you cannot add Gelber without adding Katz. That is by definition biased and one-sided. We do not just go by the words of the scholar you choose. Because you disagree with it or see it as false does not stop it from having merit. It deserves input, and so does yours. Aside from that, I am close to furious with the fact that verifiable material that had nothing to do with Katz was deleted. For that, I question your judgment. --Shamir1 06:49, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Can someone tell me if the point is :

  • to determine if Katz is a reliable source (for a fact he would report) OR
  • to determine if Katz's point of view is pertinent for the article (for a analysis he would give in respect of NPoV)

This is of course different.
That is why I patiently asked you just below to give "1 information" at a time to focus on 1 matter at a time. Alithien 10:23, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] step by step

In front of the current problem, to move forward, I would suggest that Shamir1 and/or Amoruso or any other give 1 information (only 1) they would like to introduce in the article and they give the source (only 1 too) they have for this. This could be a good starting point to try to find a solution. But please, try to refrain from comments and/or personnal attacks and/or additional considerations. I think something such as what follows should not be bad :

Between December 1947 and January 1948, fights in Palestine made around 1000 deaths and 2000 injured people (United Nations Special Commission, First special Report to the Security Council : The Problem of Security in Palestine, 16 avril 1948, §.II.5)

and be ready to prove you can show where you get the information from (whether from the internet or from a book you could scan if needed or in explaining where you consulted this book). Would this be ok ? Alithien 10:39, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

No, I don't think so, there's too much information. It should be the other way around - restored everything, and then argue one by one if they want to drop anything. We agreed to drop Issa until it's settled although now I want it back again because they broke good faith and reverted the whole thing blanking too much sourced material. Amoruso 10:48, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
There are 2 answers to this :
  • a basic principle of rhetoric is when somebody says many many things, it is simple to "counter" on focusing only on its weakest point and so to succeed in discrediting everything he says.
If you want to add many many things, it is so simple to find only one little "wrong" thing. That is why it is better, for the point you want to introduce, to go step by step. (I precise -if needed- that I don't say this is what happens here).
  • In wikipedia, "the charge of the proof" is not the responsability of the one who removes information but is of the one who wants to add something.
Therefore, instead of discussing in all directions, a simple way to move forward is to go step by step, one information with one source at a time and to analyse this under the eye of the wikipedia rules and principles of work.
Alithien 14:37, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
There's a flaw here as this information wasn't added together, it was removed together. the burden of proof was at the time. I can remove whole articles and start asking people to go one by one ? Not that I mind, they don't have excuses for any. Amoruso 15:46, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
Amoruso, what do you expect ?
You want those who doesn't share your point of view to admit you are right or you want to find a solution to add information in the article ?
I will not discuss with you the fairness of the solution I propose. Whether we try to follow this, or we stay where we are.
So, could you please give 1 information (just one) with 1 source (just one) you would like to introduce in the article so that we can discuss about this ? Step by step we can then go back to fundamental wikipedia principles and see how they apply to the information introduced.
For your information I am quite neutral here even if I have quarrelled very strongly with Ian in the past. Alithien 08:50, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

THIS IS ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS. This article reeks of POV. So much verifiable information has been removed. Let Katz back in, his work is widely used. Would it be fair not to let Said's work be used? We cannot just pick which ones you guys want to be used. Please learn to be fair. Bias is not welcome here. All we do is say This is Katz's findings. THAT'S IT! Voila! The rest of the material that had nothing to do with Katz has the right to be restored. Removing them for no apparent reasons shows great bias. This is a cooperative effort, not just the ones you like. --Shamir1 08:19, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Katz doesn't have "findings", he isn't a scholar or historian. He only has "claims", and these are not taken seriously by scholars. I repeat my claim that you did not consult most (or all) of the "sources" you added. --Zerotalk 12:00, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
Shall I again produce your own edits, from another article's Talk page, in which you accept that he is an historian? Please stop this campaign to remove Katz from WP. You don't like his background and opinions - we get that. Isarig 14:48, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
You will not find solutoins the way you all discuss.
There are rules in wp to determine if somebody can be a source. Just follow them.
To be a reliable source, this source must be used as a reference by other reliable sources. Arre there scholars who quote Katz ? If some, that's ok. If nobody, that is a problem. That's all. Alithien 21:14, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
A typical example is Lapierre et Collins's O Jerusalem. They are neither scholar nor historians. But they are quoted by Karsh, Morris and Gelber (among others). So they become a reliable source. So easy. Alithien 21:16, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
Mitchell Bard has used Katz if that is what you are asking, as does Joel Himelfarb, David Meir-Levi, and others. Zero, please stop. All sources have been reliable. Okay, we get it, you don't like Katz, you are opinionated, good for you, but this isn't Zero's article. Learn to cooperate. If Katz has found something we can't just deny it because of one's prejudice. Katz's work is widely used and quoted and you all know it. Would it be fair that I dont allow you to add Said? Is it fair that you have removed mass amounts of material that is sourced (again, NOTHING TO DO WITH KATZ)? Of course not. Learn to be fair. Learn not have bias here. Learn to eliminate heavy POV. --Shamir1 21:56, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
Shamir, the NPOV policy states that "article should fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by a verifiable source, and should do so in proportion to the prominence of each. Katz's claims are false, as reliable sources indicate, hence they should not appear in this article. --Ian Pitchford 22:49, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
Pitchford, I'm really wondering whether you believe what you're saying or not. Saying that Katz's claims are false is your WP:OR of choice choosing one side of an opinion over another. In fact, that side is not convincing at all. The witness reports and sourced and verified information here is exactly what needs to be in the article, especially in that section. I would expect you to follow wikipedia's guidelines and even restore the information you blanked yourself as a gesture of good faith since obviously you haven't shown what's wrong with that information except it doesn't conform to the opinion you have over the exodus - which is not a valid reason. Cheers. Amoruso 02:13, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
Pitchford, I dont know what it is going to take for you. IT IS PUBLISHED by several verifiable sources, he is quoted and used. Pleae keep your opinion out of here. We get it, you don't like it, we don't care. Any smart person knows that scholars and historians almost never agree on anything, however, such people still may have input. Is it really your intent anyway? Your removal of other non-Katz material proves otherwise. It is not right for anyone to toss out any information they don't like for no apparent reason. --Shamir1 02:48, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Alithien, please have a look here, Katz has been extensively quoted by scholars and scholary journals, numerous examples are found by simple searches. [28] Let's move on, unlock the article, restore the WP:RS information and live happily. Cheers. Amoruso 02:17, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Hello.
Shamir1. Bard is not a reliable source. I bought his book and periodically receive his updates about "myths and facts". He is not at all neutral and even modify information.
Amoruso and Shamir1, why don't you just give 1 precise source to stop the polemic.
Katz is quoted by ThatScholar, at that page, of this book so that we can check. Alithien 11:04, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
Shamir1 mentioned Mitchell Bard, Joel Himelfarb, and David Meir-Levi. The first two cited Katz as editors of the propaganda handbook "Myths&Facts" that has no scholarly value, and in any case neither of them wrote that text but only inherited it from earlier propagandists. Neither Himelfarb nor Meir-Levi ever published in the scholarly literature on the Middle East as far as I can tell. Mitchell wrote a book on Ethiopian Jews and in 1990 published an opinion piece in the semi-scholarly magazine Orbis. Whether he cited Katz in any of his own work, I don't know. Overall no evidence whatever of Katz's status as a historian. The only cautious citing of his work that I have ever come across is in relation to his biography of Jabotinsky, which is of interest because Katz was an eyewitness and not because Katz is a respected historian. For example, an article on Jabotinsky by Jan Zouplna in the Journal of Israeli History (Vol 24, March 2005, pp35-63) refers to Katz's biography twice, after noting that "Shmuel Katz’s biography lacks the scholarly merits of Schechtman’s work" (p37). The first reference is to an opinion of Katz that "does not seem plausible", and the second is to note that a fact claimed by Katz seems to be chronological impossible. (This example goes to show that simply identifying a citation made by a scholar does not prove much; you also have to show that the citation affirms scholarly status.) --Zerotalk 12:36, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] al Nakbar

is the name "al Nakbar" used to refer to the "the refugee flight of Palestinian Arabs during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war" or to the war itself? I always understood it as being the name that the arab world prescribed to the war itself, not only because it was a catastrophe that Palestinians were displaced, but because it was a catastrophe that the State of Israel was created/not destroyed. should the opening line be changed? In the same light, should the title of the page be changed to Al Nakbar to encompass all of this? ILikeHowMuch 03:45, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] biased statements in article

This statement from the article is biased.

However, at the Lausanne Conference, 1949 Apr-Sept of the same year, Israel's offer was to take back around 1/5th of the refugees in return for recognition by its neighbours, and this was rejected.

The statement is biased because Lausanne Conference, 1949 states why it was rejected:

The Israelis insisted on discussing solutions to refugee problems only in the context of an overall settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict. This agreed with the commission's stance that The interrelation of all the aspects of the problem was too obvious to be overlooked." The Israeli government offered to repatriate 100,000 refugees, but only as part of a final settlement in which all other refugees were absorbed by Arab states. Compensation would be paid, but not to individual refugees or Arab states, only to a "common fund" and only for land that had been under cultivation prior to being abandoned; not for any movable property or uncultivated land. The common fund would be reduced by an amount of compensation to Israel for war reparations. The Commission found this proposal to be unsatisfactory and declared that the Government of Israel is not prepared to implement the part of paragraph 11 of the General Assembly resolution of 11 December 1948 which resolves that the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date.

To just state it was rejected is biased because it does not say who rejected or why it was rejected, leading one to believe the rejection was unfair and possibly done by the arabs . The arabs also rejected it since they wanted the issues discussed seperately.

A statement that the Lausanne Conference, 1949 was convened to resolve disputes and linking the that article would be appropriate, rather then giving an incomplete view of that issue. If they need further info they go to that article. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Wmb1957 (talk • contribs) 17:04, 8 December 2006 (UTC).

There were also other conditions, such as Israel keeping all the territory it had conquered regardless of the partition plan. --Zerotalk 12:44, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

We would consider adding this material together with the sourced material which was deleted when the article gets unlocked. Amoruso 06:22, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

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