The Dictionary of American Empire-Speak

March 10, 2009 by Russell Means Freedom
Filed under News

Russell Means:

“Hau Mi Kola (Hello My Friends). The following missive which I am forwarding to you all, is nothing more than a mirror and this is for those that can think critically.”

Mitaku Oyasin

(we are all related)

The Dictionary of American Empire-Speak

[Note to TomDispatch Readers: This week, the website Foreign Policy In Focus, whose work I greatly admire and whose co-director John Feffer is a TomDispatch regular, will be using this piece to kick off its new strategic focus on empire. FPIF will be exploring the question of whether the Obama administration is likely to wind down our empire or will simply try to implement a somewhat kinder and gentler version of the same. Its weekly e-newsletter, World Beat, is particularly useful and can be subscribed to by clicking here. Tom]

The Imperial Unconscious

Afghan Faces, Predators, Reapers, Terrorist Stars, Roman Conquerors, Imperial Graveyards, and Other Oddities of the Truncated American Century By Tom Engelhardt

Sometimes, it’s the everyday things, the ones that fly below the radar, that matter.

Here, according to Bloomberg News, is part of Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’s recent testimony on the Afghan War before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee:

“U.S. goals in Afghanistan must be ‘modest, realistic,’ and ‘above all, there must be an Afghan face on this war,’ Gates said. ‘The Afghan people must believe this is their war and we are there to help them. If they think we are there for our own purposes, then we will go the way of every other foreign army that has been in Afghanistan.’”

Now, in our world, a statement like this seems so obvious, so reasonable as to be beyond comment. And yet, stop a moment and think about this part of it: “there must be an Afghan face on this war.” U.S. military and civilian officials used an equivalent phrase in 2005-2006 when things were going really, really wrong in Iraq. It was then commonplace — and no less unremarked upon — for them to urgently suggest that an “Iraqi face” be put on events there.

Evidently back in vogue for a different war, the phrase is revelatory — and oddly blunt. As an image, there’s really only one way to understand it (not that anyone here stops to do so). After all, what does it mean to “put a face” on something that assumedly already has a face? In this case, it has to mean putting an Afghan mask over what we know to be the actual “face” of the Afghan War — ours — a foreign face that men like Gates recognize, quite correctly, is not the one most Afghans want to see. It’s hardly surprising that the Secretary of Defense would pick up such a phrase, part of Washington’s everyday arsenal of words and images when it comes to geopolitics, power, and war.

And yet, make no mistake, this is Empire-speak, American-style. It’s the language — behind which lies a deeper structure of argument and thought — that is essential to Washington’s vision of itself as a planet-straddling goliath. Think of that “Afghan face”/mask, in fact, as part of the flotsam and jetsam that regularly bubbles up from the American imperial unconscious.

Of course, words create realities even though such language, in all its strangeness, essentially passes unnoticed here. Largely uncommented upon, it helps normalize American practices in the world, comfortably shielding us from certain global realities; but it also has the potential to blind us to those realities, which, in perilous times, can be dangerous indeed. So let’s consider just a few entries in what might be thought of as The Dictionary of American Empire-Speak.

War Hidden in Plain Sight: There has recently been much reporting on, and even some debate here about, the efficacy of the Obama administration’s decision to increase the intensity of CIA missile attacks from drone aircraft in what Washington, in a newly coined neologism reflecting a widening war, now calls “Af-Pak” — the Pashtun tribal borderlands of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Since August 2008, more than 30 such missile attacks have been launched on the Pakistani side of that border against suspected al-Qaeda and Taliban targets. The pace of attacks has actually risen since Barack Obama entered the Oval Office, as have casualties from the missile strikes, as well as popular outrage in Pakistan over the attacks.

Thanks to Senator Diane Feinstein, we also know that, despite strong official Pakistani government protests, someone official in that country is doing more than looking the other way while they occur. As the Senator revealed recently, at least some of the CIA’s unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) cruising the skies over Af-Pak are evidently stationed at Pakistani bases. We learned recently as well that American Special Operations units are now regularly making forays inside Pakistan “primarily to gather intelligence”; that a unit of 70 American Special Forces advisors, a “secret task force, overseen by the United States Central Command and Special Operations Command,” is now aiding and training Pakistani Army and Frontier Corps paramilitary troops, again inside Pakistan; and that, despite (or perhaps, in part, because of) these American efforts, the influence of the Pakistani Taliban is actually expanding, even as Pakistan threatens to melt down.

Mystifyingly enough, however, this Pakistani part of the American war in Afghanistan is still referred to in major U.S. papers as a “covert war.” As news about it pours out, who it’s being hidden from is one of those questions no one bothers to ask.

On February 20th, the New York Times’ Mark Mazzetti and David E. Sanger typically wrote:

“With two missile strikes over the past week, the Obama administration has expanded the covert war run by the Central Intelligence Agency inside Pakistan, attacking a militant network seeking to topple the Pakistani government… Under standard policy for covert operations, the C.I.A. strikes inside Pakistan have not been publicly acknowledged either by the Obama administration or the Bush administration.”

On February 25th, Mazzetti and Helene Cooper reported that new CIA head Leon Panetta essentially bragged to reporters that “the agency’s campaign against militants in Pakistan’s tribal areas was the ‘most effective weapon’ the Obama administration had to combat Al Qaeda’s top leadership… Mr. Panetta stopped short of directly acknowledging the missile strikes, but he said that ‘operational efforts’ focusing on Qaeda leaders had been successful.” Siobhan Gorman of the Wall Street Journal reported the next day that Panetta said the attacks are “probably the most effective weapon we have to try to disrupt al Qaeda right now.” She added, “Mr. Obama and National Security Adviser James Jones have strongly endorsed their use, [Panetta] said.”

Uh, covert war? These “covert” “operational efforts” have been front-page news in the Pakistani press for months, they were part of the U.S. presidential campaign debates, and they certainly can’t be a secret for the Pashtuns in those border areas who must see drone aircraft overhead relatively regularly, or experience the missiles arriving in their neighborhoods.

In the U.S., “covert war” has long been a term for wars like the U.S.-backed Contra War against the Sandinistas in Nicaragua in the 1980s, which were openly discussed, debated, and often lauded in this country. To a large extent, when aspects of these wars have actually been “covert” — that is, purposely hidden from anyone — it has been from the American public, not the enemies being warred upon. At the very least, however, such language, however threadbare, offers official Washington a kind of “plausible deniability” when it comes to thinking about what kind of an “American face” we present to the world.

Imperial Naming Practices: In our press, anonymous U.S. officials now point with pride to the increasing “precision” and “accuracy” of those drone missile attacks in taking out Taliban or al-Qaeda figures without (supposedly) taking out the tribespeople who live in the same villages or neighboring compounds. Such pieces lend our air war an almost sterile quality. They tend to emphasize the extraordinary lengths to which planners go to avoid “collateral damage.” To many Americans, it must then seem strange, even irrational, that perfectly non-fundamentalist Pakistanis should be quite so outraged about attacks aimed at the world’s worst terrorists.

On the other hand, consider for a moment the names of those drones now regularly in the skies over “Pashtunistan.” These are no less regularly published in our press to no comment at all. The most basic of the armed drones goes by the name of Predator, a moniker which might as well have come directly from those nightmarish sci-fi movies about an alien that feasts on humans. Undoubtedly, however, it was used in the way Col. Michael Steele of the 101st Airborne Division meant it when he exhorted his brigade deploying to Iraq (according to Thomas E. Ricks’ new book The Gamble) to remember: “You’re the predator.”

The Predator drone is armed with “only” two missiles. The more advanced drone, originally called the Predator B, now being deployed to the skies over Af-Pak, has been dubbed the Reaper — as in the Grim Reaper. Now, there’s only one thing such a “hunter-killer UAV” could be reaping, and you know just what that is: lives. It can be armed with up to 14 missiles (or four missiles and two 500-pound bombs), which means it packs quite a deadly wallop.

Oh, by the way, those missiles are named as well. They’re Hellfire missiles. So, if you want to consider the nature of this covert war in terms of names alone: Predators and Reapers are bringing down the fire from some satanic hell upon the peasants, fundamentalist guerrillas, and terrorists of the Af-Pak border regions.

In Washington, when the Af-Pak War is discussed, it’s in the bloodless, bureaucratic language of “global counterinsurgency” or “irregular warfare” (IW), of “soft power,” “hard power,” and “smart power.” But flying over the Pashtun wildlands is the blunt-edged face of predation and death, ready at a moment’s notice to deliver hellfire to those below.

Imperial Arguments: Let’s pursue this just a little further. Faced with rising numbers of civilian casualties from U.S. and NATO air strikes in Afghanistan and an increasingly outraged Afghan public, American officials tend to place the blame for most sky-borne “collateral damage” squarely on the Taliban. As Joint Chiefs Chairman Michael Mullen bluntly explained recently, “[T]he enemy hides behind civilians.” Hence, so this Empire-speak argument goes, dead civilians are actually the Taliban’s doing.

U.S. military and civilian spokespeople have long accused Taliban guerrillas of using civilians as “shields,” or even of purposely luring devastating air strikes down on Afghan wedding parties to create civilian casualties and so inflame the sensibilities of rural Afghanistan. This commonplace argument has two key features: a claim that they made us do it (kill civilians) and the implication that the Taliban fighters “hiding” among innocent villagers or wedding revelers are so many cowards, willing to put their fellow Pashtuns at risk rather than come out and fight like men — and, of course, given the firepower arrayed against them, die.

The U.S. media regularly records this argument without reflecting on it. In this country, in fact, the evil of combatants “hiding” among civilians seems so self-evident, especially given the larger evil of the Taliban and al-Qaeda, that no one thinks twice about it.

And yet like so much of Empire-speak on a one-way planet, this argument is distinctly uni-directional. What’s good for the guerrilla goose, so to speak, is inapplicable to the imperial gander. To illustrate, consider the American “pilots” flying those unmanned Predators and Reapers. We don’t know exactly where all of them are (other than not in the drones), but some are certainly at Nellis Air Force Base just outside Las Vegas.

In other words, were the Taliban guerrillas to leave the protection of those civilians and come out into the open, there would be no enemy to fight in the usual sense, not even a predatory one. The pilot firing that Hellfire missile into some Pakistani border village or compound is, after all, using the UAV’s cameras, including by next year a new system hair-raisingly dubbed “Gorgon Stare,” to locate his target and then, via console, as in a single-shooter video game, firing the missile, possibly from many thousands of miles away.

And yet nowhere in our world will you find anyone making the argument that those pilots are in “hiding” like so many cowards. Such a thought seems absurd to us, as it would if it were applied to the F-18 pilots taking off from aircraft carriers off the Afghan coast or the B-1 pilots flying out of unnamed Middle Eastern bases or the Indian Ocean island base of Diego Garcia. And yet, whatever those pilots may do in Afghan skies, unless they experience a mechanical malfunction, they are in no more danger than if they, too, were somewhere outside Las Vegas. In the last seven years, a few helicopters, but no planes, have gone down in Afghanistan.

When the Afghan mujahedeen fought the Soviets in the 1980s, the CIA supplied them with hand-held Stinger missiles, the most advanced surface-to-air missile in the U.S. arsenal, and they did indeed start knocking Soviet helicopters and planes out of the skies (which proved the beginning of the end for the Russians). The Afghan or Pakistani Taliban or al-Qaeda terrorists have no such capability today, which means, if you think about it, that what we here imagine as an “air war” involves none of the dangers we would normally associate with war. Looked at in another light, those missile strikes and bombings are really one-way acts of slaughter.

The Taliban’s tactics are, of course, the essence of guerrilla warfare, which always involves an asymmetrical battle against more powerful armies and weaponry, and which, if successful, always depends on the ability of the guerrilla to blend into the environment, natural and human, or, as Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong so famously put it, to “swim” in the “sea of the people.”

If you imagine your enemy simply using the villagers of Afghanistan as “shields” or “hiding” like so many cowards among them, you are speaking the language of imperial power but also blinding yourself (or the American public) to the actual realities of the war you’re fighting.

Imperial Jokes: In October 2008, Rafael Correa, the president of Ecuador, refused to renew the U.S. lease at Manta Air Base, one of at least 761 foreign bases, macro to micro, that the U.S. garrisons worldwide. Correa reportedly said: “We’ll renew the base on one condition: that they let us put a base in Miami — an Ecuadorean base. If there’s no problem having foreign soldiers on a country’s soil, surely they’ll let us have an Ecuadorean base in the United States.”

This qualifies as an anti-imperial joke. The “leftist” president of Ecuador was doing no more than tweaking the nose of goliath. An Ecuadorian base in Miami? Absurd. No one on the planet could take such a suggestion seriously.

On the other hand, when it comes to the U.S. having a major base in Kyrgyzstan, a Central Asian land that not one in a million Americans has ever heard of, that’s no laughing matter. After all, Washington has been paying $20 million a year in direct rent for the use of that country’s Manas Air Base (and, as indirect rent, another $80 million has gone to various Kyrgyzstani programs). As late as last October, the Pentagon was planning to sink another $100 million into construction at Manas “to expand aircraft parking areas at the base and provide a ‘hot cargo pad’ — an area safe enough to load and unload hazardous and explosive cargo — to be located away from inhabited facilities.” That, however, was when things started to go wrong. Now, Kyrgyzstan’s parliament has voted to expel the U.S. from Manas within six months, a serious blow to our resupply efforts for the Afghan War. More outrageous yet to Washington, the Kyrgyzstanis seem to have done this at the bidding of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who has the nerve to want to reestablish a Russian sphere of influence in what used to be the borderlands of the old Soviet Union.

Put in a nutshell, despite the crumbling U.S. economic situation and the rising costs of the Afghan War, we still act as if we live on a one-way planet. Some country demanding a base in the U.S.? That’s a joke or an insult, while the U.S. potentially gaining or losing a base almost anywhere on the planet may be an insult, but it’s never a laughing matter.

Imperial Thought: Recently, to justify those missile attacks in Pakistan, U.S. officials have been leaking details on the program’s “successes” to reporters. Anonymous officials have offered the “possibly wishful estimate” that the CIA “covert war” has led to the deaths (or capture) of 11 of al Qaeda’s top 20 commanders, including, according to a recent Wall Street Journal report, “Abu Layth al-Libi, whom U.S. officials described as ‘a rising star’ in the group.”

“Rising star” is such an American phrase, melding as it does imagined terror hierarchies with the lingo of celebrity tabloids. In fact, one problem with Empire-speak, and imperial thought more generally, is the way it prevents imperial officials from imagining a world not in their own image. So it’s not surprising that, despite their best efforts, they regularly conjure up their enemies as a warped version of themselves — hierarchical, overly reliant on leaders, and top heavy.

In the Vietnam era, for instance, American officials spent a remarkable amount of effort sending troops to search for, and planes to bomb, the border sanctuaries of Cambodia and Laos on a fruitless hunt for COSVN (the so-called Central Office for South Vietnam), the supposed nerve center of the communist enemy, aka “the bamboo Pentagon.” Of course, it wasn’t there to be found, except in Washington’s imperial imagination.

In the Af-Pak “theater,” we may be seeing a similar phenomenon. Underpinning the CIA killer-drone program is a belief that the key to combating al-Qaeda (and possibly the Taliban) is destroying its leadership one by one. As key Pakistani officials have tried to explain, the missile attacks, which have indeed killed some al-Qaeda and Pakistani Taliban figures (as well as whoever was in their vicinity), are distinctly counterproductive. The deaths of those figures in no way compensates for the outrage, the destabilization, the radicalization that the attacks engender in the region. They may, in fact, be functionally strengthening each of those movements.

What it’s hard for Washington to grasp is this: “decapitation,” to use another American imperial term, is not a particularly effective strategy with a decentralized guerrilla or terror organization. The fact is a headless guerrilla movement is nowhere near as brainless or helpless as a headless Washington would be.

Only recently, Eric Schmitt and Jane Perlez of the New York Times reported that, while top U.S. officials were exhibiting optimism about the effectiveness of the missile strikes, Pakistani officials were pointing to “ominous signs of Al Qaeda’s resilience” and suggesting “that Al Qaeda was replenishing killed fighters and midlevel leaders with less experienced but more hard-core militants, who are considered more dangerous because they have fewer allegiances to local Pakistani tribes… The Pakistani intelligence assessment found that Al Qaeda had adapted to the blows to its command structure by shifting ‘to conduct decentralized operations under small but well-organized regional groups’ within Pakistan and Afghanistan.”

Imperial Dreams and Nightmares: Americans have rarely liked to think of themselves as “imperial,” so what is it about Rome in these last years? First, the neocons, in the flush of seeming victory in 2002-2003 began to imagine the U.S. as a “new Rome” (or new British Empire), or as Charles Krauthammer wrote as early as February 2001 in Time Magazine, “America is no mere international citizen. It is the dominant power in the world, more dominant than any since Rome.”

All roads on this planet, they were then convinced, led ineluctably to Washington. Now, of course, they visibly don’t, and the imperial bragging about surpassing the Roman or British empires has long since faded away. When it comes to the Afghan War, in fact, those (resupply) “roads” seem to lead, embarrassingly enough, through Pakistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Russia, and Iran. But the comparison to conquering Rome evidently remains on the brain.

When, for instance, Joint Chiefs Chairman Mike Mullen wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post recently, drumming up support for the revised, age-of-Obama American mission in Afghanistan, he just couldn’t help starting off with an inspiring tale about the Romans and a small Italian city-state, Locri, that they conquered. As he tells it, the ruler the Romans installed in Locri, a rapacious fellow named Pleminius, proved a looter and a tyrant. And yet, Mullen assures us, the Locrians so believed in “the reputation for equanimity and fairness that Rome had built” that they sent a delegation to the Roman Senate, knowing they could get a hearing, and demanded restitution; and indeed, the tyrant was removed.

Admittedly, this seems a far-fetched analogy to the U.S. in Afghanistan (and don’t for a second mix up Pleminius, that rogue, with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, even though the Obama-ites evidently now believe him corrupt and replaceable). Still, as Mullen sees it, the point is: “We don’t always get it right. But like the early Romans, we strive in the end to make it right. We strive to earn trust. And that makes all the difference.”

Mullen is, it seems, the Aesop of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and, in his somewhat overheated brain, we evidently remain the conquering (but just) “early” Romans — before, of course, the fatal rot set in.

And then there’s the Washington Post’s Thomas Ricks, a superb reporter who, in his latest book, gives voice to the views of Centcom Commander David Petraeus. Reflecting on Iraq, where he (like the general) believes we could still be fighting in “2015,” Ricks begins a recent Post piece this way:

“In October 2008, as I was finishing my latest book on the Iraq war, I visited the Roman Forum during a stop in Italy. I sat on a stone wall on the south side of the Capitoline Hill and studied the two triumphal arches at either end of the Forum, both commemorating Roman wars in the Middle East… The structures brought home a sad realization: It’s simply unrealistic to believe that the U.S. military will be able to pull out of the Middle East… It was a week when U.S. forces had engaged in combat in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan — a string of countries stretching from the Mediterranean Sea to the Indian Ocean — following in the footsteps of Alexander the Great, the Romans and the British.”

With the waning of British power, Ricks continues, it “has been the United States’ turn to take the lead there.” And our turn, as it happens, just isn’t over yet. Evidently that, at least, is the view from our imperial capital and from our military viceroys out on the peripheries.

Honestly, Freud would have loved these guys. They seem to channel the imperial unconscious. Take David Petraeus. For him, too, the duties and dangers of empire evidently weigh heavily on the brain. Like a number of key figures, civilian and military, he has lately begun to issue warnings about Afghanistan’s dangers. As the Washington Post reported, “[Petraeus] suggested that the odds of success were low, given that foreign military powers have historically met with defeat in Afghanistan. ‘Afghanistan has been known over the years as the graveyard of empires,’ he said. ‘We cannot take that history lightly.’”

Of course, he’s worrying about the graveyard aspect of this, but what I find curious — exactly because no one thinks it odd enough to comment on here — is the functional admission in the use of this old adage about Afghanistan that we fall into the category of empires, whether or not in search of a graveyard in which to die.

And he’s not alone in this. Secretary of Defense Gates put the matter similarly recently: “Without the support of the Afghan people, Gates said, the U.S. would simply ‘go the way of every other foreign army that’s ever been in Afghanistan.’”

Imperial Blindness: Think of the above as just a few prospective entries in The Dictionary of American Empire-Speak that will, of course, never be compiled. We’re so used to such language, so inured to it and to the thinking behind it, so used, in fact, to living on a one-way planet in which all roads lead to and from Washington, that it doesn’t seem like a language at all. It’s just part of the unexamined warp and woof of everyday life in a country that still believes it normal to garrison the planet, regularly fight wars halfway across the globe, find triumph or tragedy in the gain or loss of an air base in a country few Americans could locate on a map, and produce military manuals on counterinsurgency warfare the way a do-it-yourself furniture maker would produce instructions for constructing a cabinet from a kit.

We don’t find it strange to have 16 intelligence agencies, some devoted to listening in on, and spying on, the planet, or capable of running “covert wars” in tribal borderlands thousands of miles distant, or of flying unmanned drones over those same borderlands destroying those who come into camera view. We’re inured to the bizarreness of it all and of the language (and pretensions) that go with it.

If The Dictionary of American Empire-Speak were ever produced, who here would buy it? Who would feel the need to check out what seems like the only reasonable and self-evident language for describing the world? How else, after all, would we operate? How else would any American in a position of authority talk in Washington or Baghdad or Islamabad or Rome?

So it undoubtedly seemed to the Romans, too. And we know what finally happened to their empire and the language that went with it. Such a language plays its role in normalizing the running of an empire. It allows officials (and in our case the media as well) not to see what would be inconvenient to the smooth functioning of such an enormous undertaking. Embedded in its words and phrases is a fierce way of thinking (even if we don’t see it that way), as well as plausible deniability. And in the good times, its uses are obvious.

On the other hand, when the normal ways of empire cease to function well, that same language can suddenly work to blind the imperial custodians — which is, after all, what the foreign policy “team” of the Obama era is — to necessary realities. At a moment when it might be important to grasp what the “American face” in the mirror actually looks like, you can’t see it.

And sometimes what you can’t bring yourself to see can, as now, hurt you.

Tom Engelhardt, co-founder of the American Empire Project, runs the Nation Institute’s TomDispatch.com. He is the author of The End of Victory Culture, a history of the American Age of Denial. He also edited The World According to TomDispatch: America in the New Age of Empire (Verso, 2008), a collection of some of the best pieces from his site and an alternative history of the mad Bush years.

[Note: In thinking about a prospective Dictionary of American Empire-Speak, I found four websites particularly useful for keeping me up to date: Juan Cole's invaluable Informed Comment (I don't know how he stays at day-in, day-out, year after year); Antiwar.com and the War in Context, where editors with sharp eyes for global developments seem to be on the prowl 24/7; and last but by no means least, Noah Shachtman's Danger Room blog at Wired.com. Focused on the latest military developments, from strategy and tactics to hunter-killer drones and "robo-beasts," Danger Room is not only a must-follow site, but gives an everyday sense of the imperial bizarreness of our American world. Finally, a deep bow of thanks to Christopher Holmes, who keeps the copyediting lights burning in Japan, and TomDispatch eternally chugging along.]

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Families Freezing in Nation’s Poorest County

February 27, 2009 by Russell Means Freedom
Filed under News

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Families Freezing in Nation’s Poorest County:

PUBLIC UTILITIES “CUT” ON CROW CREEK RESERVATION

(Fort Thompson, SD) Electric company caught “pulling meters” (CLICK TO VIEW THE VIDEO) in the poorest community in the nation, leaving America’s most vulnerable people without power in the dead of winter. Predatory electric companies continue to conduct these atrocious practices amid growing public outcry and damning national media scrutiny. Headlines in newspapers across the country highlight unnecessary tragedies as arctic winter months reveal the electric company’s controversial conduct of shutting off the community’s power, despite the rest of South Dakota having Seasonal Termination Protection Regulations.[1]

CORRECTION: “Central Power Electric Cooperative, Inc” is the wholesale provider, not the retail provider that has been illegally disconnecting the meters on Crow Creek Reservation. The real culprits are at the “Central Electric Cooperative:” We apologize for any confusion caused by this error and our happy to oblige the request of Loren Noess - General Manager of CENTRAL ELECTRIC COOPERATIVE to post his information here for your convenience. See his e-mail request below.

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Noess Loren Noess - General Manager

Text of Mr. Noess’ e-mail with:

To Whom it may concern:

Please change the address of Central you have on your web site. Also if you do some research on this video it was played last June on Utube [sic] and we know they were at Crow Creek last March of 2008 doing taping This video we believe is a year old. Our employees are on this video. They are doing their and should not be explosed[sic].

Please refer to the attached letter that I emailed to Eric Klein yesterday and also sent by mail.

I have sent copies of this letter to all 3 Congressional Leaders in Washington and the South Dakota PUC. The 3 Offices in Washington indicated they haven’t received any calls from the Reservation about disconnects. As you’ll read in our letter we haven’t disconnected any[sic] for the months of Dec. Jan and Feb.

Any questions please give me a call.

Loren Noess

General Manager

PO Box 850

1420 North Main

Mitchell, SD 57301

605-996-7516

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Contact Information

Office Hours: Monday – Friday 8 am – 5 pm
E-mail: cec@centralec.coop
Phone: 605.996.7516
Toll Free in SD: 800.477.2892
Fax: 605.996.0869

Office Locations:

Headquarters Office:
PO Box 850
1420 North Main Street
Mitchell, SD 57301 USA

Plankinton Branch Office:
PO Box 130
102 South Main Street
Plankinton, SD 57301 USA

Putting LIVES on the Line:

This winter, the Crow Creek Indian Reservation is experiencing record-low temperatures reaching fifty below zero. Hundreds of families living in government housing have had their electric meters removed by Central Electric Cooperative, the local electric cooperative. When these power meters are pulled the residents are left without power; the propane heaters do not run; pipes freeze; and there is no water for cooking, drinking, bathing or flushing toilets. Many of these households have family members whose lives depend upon electronic medical equipment such as defibrillators.

Ironically these families are paying some of the highest electricity rates in the country even though they live adjacent to the Big Bend Hydro-Electric Dam on the Missouri river. These homes are poorly insulated causing electric bills in excess of $300.00 in the coldest months.

Median income in the region is approximately $5,000 a year (typical of the thirteen Lakotah (Sioux) Reservations in the “Great Sioux Nation” as defined in the Treaties of 1851 and 1868 with the US Government).

“I’ve been to disaster areas around the world including Sri Lanka after the tsunami, hurricane Katrina, and after the Iowa floods, but, I have never witnessed such blatant disregard for human life as I have here in my own country on the Crow Creek reservation,” stated Eric Klein, Founder and CEO of Compassion into Action Network – Direct Outcome Organization (CAN-DO). “Especially now, with the new administration focusing on the development of America’s infrastructure, we need to focus our energies and resources immediately to address this critical situation where such infrastructure is being blatantly misutilized.”

Appalled by the abuse and neglect, one US Marine and Crow Creek resident took action to publicize the exploitation. Using a hand-held video recorder, he documented local power companies physically cutting electricity lines and removing meters in the peak of winter.

Watch the footage at: http://youtube.com/watch?v=wIVgpMK5-Jo&feature=channel

Utilizing their proven approach to providing lasting solutions with full accountability, efficiency and results, CAN-DO is addressing the operation at the Crow Creek Indian Reservation on the local level to raise the nation’s awareness of the urgent human right abuses taking place in the South Dakota region.

“We are calling for a collaborative effort by ethical individuals, organizations, schools and political leaders to assure that this damage is reversed,” said Klein. “Together, we can contribute to real change here at home.”

View the complete Crow Creek plan at www.can-do.org. Join in the ‘Call to Action.’

LAWS OF SOUTH DAKOTA TITLE 49

PUBLIC UTILITIES AND CARRIERS

49-34A-2. Service required of utilities. Every public utility shall furnish adequate, efficient, and reasonable service.

49-34A-6. Rates to be reasonable and just – Regulation by commission. Every rate made, demanded or received by any public utility shall be just and reasonable. Every unjust or unreasonable rate shall be prohibited. The Public Utilities Commission is hereby authorized, empowered and directed to regulate all rates, fees and charges for the public utility service of all public utilities, including penalty for late payments, to the end that the public shall pay only just and reasonable rates for service rendered.

Source: SL 1975, ch 283, § 16.

THE LIE PROPAGATED BY THE STATE OF SOUTH DAKOTA:

Crow Creek Sioux Tribe:

“Every night, the sun slips quietly away behind the bluffs of the Missouri River. These bluffs flank the western edge of the Crow Creek Reservation in central South Dakota. Located one mile south of tribal headquarters at Fort Thompson is Lake Sharpe, one of South Dakota’s Great Lakes. Water recreation abounds on the 80-mile reservoir created by the Big Bend Dam. Visitors enjoy boating, fishing and swimming as well as picnicking and camping along the water’s edge. The tribe’s wildlife department offers guided fishing and hunting trips. It also maintains a buffalo herd that often grazes north of Fort Thompson. ” http://www.travelsd.com/ourhistory/sioux/tribes/crowcreek.asp

THE TRUTH

… thousands of hectares of Indian land have been lost to dams. In North Dakota, a quarter of the Fort Berthold Reservation, shared by the Arikara, Mandan and Hidatsa peoples of the upper Missouri, for example, was flooded as a result of a staircase of dams (the Missouri River Development Project (MRDP), built during the 1950s and 1960s. The land lost included the best and most valuable and productive land on the reservation – the bottom lands along the river where most people lived.105 Five different Sioux reservations also lost land. Again, the impact was quite severe: the dams destroyed nearly 90 per cent of the tribes’ timberland, 75 per cent of the wild game, and the best agricultural lands.106

Ultimately, the Missouri dams cost the indigenous nations of the Missouri Valley an estimated 142,000 hectares of their best land – including a number of burial and other sacred sites – as well as further impoverishment and severe cultural and emotional trauma. A guarantee, used to rationalise the plan in the first place, that some 87,000 hectares of Indian land would be irrigated was simply scrapped as the project neared completion. As researcher Bernard Shanks puts it: “MRDP replaced the subsistence economy of the Missouri River Indians . . . with a welfare economy . . . As a result of the project, the Indians bore a disproportionate share of the social
cost of water development, while having no share in the benefits.”.107

104 Pittja 1994:54.
105 Guerrero 1992.
106 United States v David Sohappy, Snr et al., 477 US 906 (1986), cert. denied. Cited in Guerrero 1992.
107 Guerrero 1992.

About CAN-DO:

Founded by Eric Klein, CAN-DO has set a new standard for humanitarianism and is changing the face of philanthropy. It quickly has become an organization people can trust and depend upon to “get it done” fast and effectively. It is a 501c3, relief organization dedicated to working on the local level to provide lasting solutions, with full accountability, efficiency, and results.
Video footage, photographs and the web site offer documentation of the organization’s efforts at every phase. CAN-DO supporters take pride in watching their generosity directly affect the lives of those in need through the organization’s VirtualVolunteer.TV.

CAN-DO’s successful missions to bring immediate and direct relief to areas in need have captured the attention of renowned philanthropists including Oprah Winfrey and former president Bill Clinton. The organization was recently awarded the Global Compassion Award at the United Nations for its global impact, unparalleled transparency and accountability. For further information, please visit www.can-do.org or email Eric Klein at ek@can-do.org.

About the Republic of Lakotah:

We are the freedom loving Lakotah from the Sioux Indian reservations of Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Montana who have suffered from cultural and physical genocide in the colonial apartheid system we have been forced to live under.

We are continuing the work that we were asked to do by the traditional chiefs and treaty councils at the first Indian Treaty Council meeting at Standing Rock Sioux Indian Country in 1974.

During the week of December 17-19, 2007, we traveled to Washington DC and withdrew from the constitutionally mandated treaties to become a free and independent country. We are alerting the Family of Nations we have now reassumed our freedom and independence with the backing of Natural, International, and United States law.

We do not represent those BIA or IRA governments beholden to the colonial apartheid system, or those “hang around the fort” Indians who are unwilling to claim their freedom.

For further information, please visit www.republicoflakotah.com or call 605-867-1111.

– END –

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Russell Means: Breaking the silence on Obama

January 20, 2009 by Russell Means Freedom
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Russell Means: Breaking the silence on Obama – View the VIDEO

By Brenda Norrell, Censored News

American Indian activist Russell Means said President Obama was selected by the colonial powers as president to improve the US image globally in the aftermath of George Bush. Further, Means said Obama’s appointments show that he is a Zionist controlled by Israel. Speaking on Red Town Radio today, Means said what is happening now to Palestinians is what happened to American Indians.

“Every policy the Palestinians are now enduring was practiced on the American Indian,” Means said on the Blog Talk Radio show, hosted by Brenda Golden, Muskoke Creek. “What the American Indian Movement says is that the American Indians are the Palestinians of the United States, and the Palestinians are the American Indians of the Middle East,” Means said. Further, he points out that the Zionists who control Israel now control the United States. “The power of the US in world politics diminishes every day.”

“Now they have found a house servant by the name of Obama.” Means said Obama was selected as a “man in charge to take the heat,” because of the “bad cop” image that Bush put forth in the world. “Now, all of a sudden, it is, ‘We’re so great. We elected a black man to be president.’”

Means added that Obama is a black man who was raised by his white grandmother and has appointed Zionists to key positions and that the US is headed for a new era of menial jobs. On Indian lands, Means reminds us, the only people who get ahead are those who sell out to the colonial system. Now, there is massive and sophisticated propaganda by the Zionists and the U.S. Both countries, he said, are liars. In the US, American Indians have been shut out of history, philosophy and the arts, in a “total blackout.” The United States does not want to be reminded of the smallpox blankets, theft, colonialism and mistreatment of the American Indian, he said.

Means said most Americans do not realize that the financial collapse of this country is only beginning: “Americans cannot continue the lifestyles of consumers when there is no prouction. Low income jobs and menial jobs are the only ones left.” “Health care in the US reveals how the policies used in experimentations on American Indians became US policies. The US health care system is now stringent and calloused, with constant refusals of treatment. This has always been the case with the Indian Health Service. Now it is the policy of the HMOs. Family ranchers and family farmers are now in the way of progress, the same way the American Indian was once viewed. Now, family farmers and family ranchers are being gutted, because they function on massive credit. They are trying to pay back debts, which is not possible with manipulated agriculture prices. The family farmer and family rancher are now going to be extinct.”

Means points out that the federal government has also taken over and polluted the educational system; “Americans don’t even know their own history. Along with this federal control, came the passage of English-only laws in many states. However, for Indigenous Peoples it is positive to know many languages. If you speak two languages, you are speaking with two brains. That is the way it is to us. That’s how we look at life. In the mid-Twentieth Century, US schools listened to the communities and local governing boards.”

“However, now the US educational policy has taken away local control and mandated federal guidelines. So now education has become a matter of money. Meanwhile, the real history is silenced. While the United States attempts to portray itself as a peace loving nation, the fact is the United States is at war every year. The United States breaks a host of international laws every year, which has been the pattern since 1946. American Indians were aware of what the US was doing, because the US had already broken all treaties with American Indians; treaties guaranteed by the US Constitution,” he said.

About the American revolution to throw off the British, Means pointed out how “his-story” has been manipulated; “There is a great deal of propaganda about why the US broke away from England. But the fact is that George Washington, the largest landowner, along with the slave owners, broke with England so that the original treaties of England with American Indians in the west would not have to be honored. The US broke with England, to invade the west and take the land. ”

The US was created to break international laws,” Means said, adding that it is obvious today that this is the pattern of the U.S. Means said the United States was initiated as an outlaw and renegade nation and that “today, its imperial policies mean that Israel is a surrogate of the US, receiving aid from the U.S. With the combined US and international aid, Israeli receives $12 billion a year for its “military and the settlers in the West Bank.”

Means said 80 percent of the people in the West Bank are paid to stay there. “It is America who pays them to stay there. But even in Israel, where there is a free press and not everyone agrees with Israel waging war on Palestine. He said 20 to 30 percent of the people in Israel are against the war on Palestine. Like the United States, Israel has been at war every year of its existence.”

Means often refers to Israel as the 51st state, of warmongers and imperialists. “America and Israel are based on lies, resulting in the massive deaths in Iraq. Now, the US and Israel are focused on Iran because its oil reserves.” Means said Indian lands have become “open air concentration camps.” “If you chose to stay on the reservation, you are guaranteed to be poor, unless you are part of the colonial apparatus set up by the Bureau of Indian Affairs,” he said.

“On Indian lands, everyone fights to be part of the tribal governments because that is where the money is. Everyone fights to be part of the colonial system. The only way you can be part of the colonial system is to obey. Those returning home to Indian lands cannot ‘rock the boat,’ demand their treaty rights or their rights guaranteed by the US Constitution.”

Means said the American Indian Movement made people aware that the US Constitution was based upon that of the Iroquois Six Nations. “However, the US Constitution only includes one-third of the Great Law of Peace. If all of the Great Law of Peace had been adopted, this country would be much different and much wealthier.” However, it was turned into a country of consumers. He said what you get with a country of consumers is greed. “What is going on in Palestine is going on in America. The United States is taking away the homes of the people.” Now in the United States, there is “communism from the left” and “right-wing socialism.” He said the problem with socialism is that it is bereft of consensus and spirituality.

Means, now 70, said he has experienced the US when it reached its zenith in the world in the 1950s, “At that time, America was a productive country. In the years that followed, the ruling elite sold out the unions, as the labor movement was razor thin close to taking over politics in America. The most watershed event was Brown vs. Board of Education, the US Supreme Court ruling which desegregated schools. The white male started losing his power. Then, in the social revolution that followed, white males lost control of their women and their women’s vote, and lost control of the work place. While civil rights was the chosen remedy of most social movements, American Indians remained dedicated to ‘sovereign rights,’ individual sovereign rights. We are the only ones that held on to the sovereign concept, he said. The other social movements were saying, “Please Mr. White Male let me be equal to you.”

Means said things will be different now, “Our grandmother the Mother Earth is tired of the human race. She is going to eliminate it and I champion her, Mother earth.” Means said matriarchy is what Indigenous people are all about. “We know that women are the givers of life and men are the takers of life. We have to follow the woman in order to gain balance.” He said in a matriarchal society, there is a balanced society, as each celebrates their strengths together. “True individual freedom has to be done by consensus, otherwise it is mob rule.” In the US, now there are fake elections. “The people are convinced they are actually electing a president. However, it is the Electoral College that actually selects the US president.”

The charade is now coming to a close, as the ‘Patriot Act’ means that Posse Comitatus is dead and buried. Means said everyone has the responsibility to be free. “You are free to be responsible. That is the essence of freedom.” He said everyone should know their rights. Otherwise, they are guaranteed slavery.

“Einstein said, ‘The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome,’” “That’s America, that’s the Indian reservation. That’s pathetic and an injustice to human beings.” He said “human brains are doped up with all this ignorance and greed.”

VIEW THE VIDEO ABOUT OBAMA’S ‘NewSpeak’ PAST

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Weekend Update 07 – I Pray for My Relatives

January 9, 2009 by Russell Means Freedom
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Russell speaks about how the great religions founded in the Middle East must learn to follow their own first Great Rule: Thou Shalt Not Kill. He continues to comment on President Obama’s poor staff selections. This isn’t the kind of change Americans had hoped for!

Tags: Affairs, after, Arab, Arab-Israel, Arab-Israeli, BIA, Bureau, diaspora, foreign, Gaza, Genocide, Government, Historians, History, Israel, lakota, lakotah, Land, law, laws, massacre, means, New, obama, palestine, palestinian, pine, policy, refugee, republic, reservation, ridge, russell, Sioux, u.s., USA, villages, war, world

Documentary on Palestinian History

January 6, 2009 by Russell Means Freedom
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60 years of Misery & Ethnic-cleansing
7 wars
5 million Palestinian Refugees
3 million Occupied
1.5 million Abducted / Hostages
254 km of an Apartheid Wall
562 Humiliation Check Points
20,000 Political Prisoners
400 Children Held in Israeli Dungeons
468,831 New Settlers on Occupied Land
Disappearance of Palestine
Number of World Leaders in UN Violations = 69

1948 Palestinian Exodus – View the Video

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

History

The history of the Palestinian exodus is closely tied to the events of the war in Palestine, which lasted from 1947 to 1949. Many factors played a role in bringing it about. Ruins of the Palestinian village of Suba, near Jerusalem, overlooking Kibbutz Zova, which was built on the village lands.

Palestinian refugees in 1948

Ruins of the Palestinian village of Suba, near Jerusalem, overlooking Kibbutz Zova, which was built on the village lands.

Ruins of the former Arab village of Bayt Jibrin, inside the green line west of Hebron.

The 1948 Palestinian exodus (Arabic: الهجرة الفلسطينية‎, al-Hijra al-Filasteeniya), referred to by Palestinians as al Nakba or al Naqba (Arabic: النكبة‎), meaning the “disaster”, “catastrophe”, or “cataclysm,”[1][2][3] refers to the creation of the Palestinian refugee problem during and after the 1948 Palestine war.

History

For more information on the historical context, see Zionism, Palestinian nationalism, United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181, 1947-1948 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine, 1948 Arab-Israeli war.

By 1951, the United Nations (UN) estimated 711,000 Palestinian refugees existed outside Israel,[4] with about one-quarter of the estimated 160,000 Arab Palestinians remaining in Israel as “internal refugees.” Today, Palestinian refugees and their descendants are estimated to number more than 4 million people.[5]

Historians have argued over the causes of the Palestinian exodus. In early decades following the exodus, two diametrically opposed schools of analysis could be distinguished. The ‘Israeli Government claimed that the Palestinian Arabs left because they were ordered to and were deliberately incited into panic by their own leaders, who wanted the field cleared for the 1948 war’. While ‘The Palestinian Arabs charge that their people were evicted at bayonet-point and by panic deliberately incited by the Zionists.’[6] From the 1960s Walid Khalidi[7][8] and others have maintained that the Expulsion of the Palestinians was a deliberate policy.[9]

With the opening up of Archival sources in the West and Israel, particularly the opening of the Protocols of the Israel’s Cabinet Meetings and the declassification of the Haganah Archive in Tel Aviv along with the IDF and Israeli Defence Ministry Archive in Givatayim,[10] a greater insight has been gained into the events leading up to the creation of Israel and the events surrounding its birth, in particular with the publication of the study by Benny Morris: The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem.

“New Historians” have presented a viewpoint suggesting around half of the Palestinians of the exodus were purposely expelled by Israeli army, though this was not an organized policy.[11][12] However, Walid Khalidi and other Palestinian historians, supported by Ilan Pappe, defend the thesis that the expulsions formed part of a deliberate plan.[13]

The initial exodus and the current situation of Palestinian refugees is a contentious topic of high importance to all parties in the Arab-Israeli conflict.

First Phase of the Exodus, December 1947 – March 1948

In the first few months of the civil war the climate in the Mandate of Palestine became volatile, although throughout this period both Arab and Jewish leaders tried to limit hostilities between Jews and Palestinian Arabs.[14] According to historian Benny Morris, the period was marked by Palestinian Arab initiatives and Jewish reprisals.[15] On the other hand, Simha Flapan points out a pattern in which terrorist attacks by Irgun and Lehi resulted in Palestinian Arab retaliations and then ‘the Haganah – while always condemning the actions of Irgun and Lehi – joined in with an inflaming counter-retaliation’.[16] Typically the Jewish forces carried out reprisals directed against villages and neighborhoods from which attacks against Jews had allegedly originated,[17] The attacks were more damaging than the provoking attack and included killing of armed and unarmed men, destruction of houses and sometimes expulsion of inhabitants.[18] The Zionist groups of Irgun and Lehi reverted to their 1937-1939 strategy of indiscriminate attacks by placing bombs and throwing grenades into crowded places such as bus stops, shopping centres and markets. Their attacks on British forces reduced British troops’ ability and willingness to protect Jewish traffic.[19] General conditions deteriorated: the economic situation became unstable and unemployment grew.[20] Rumours spread that the Husaynis were planning to bring in bands of fellahin (peasant, farmers) to take over the towns.[21] Some Palestinian Arab leaders sent their families abroad. While Gelber claims that the Arab Liberation Army embarked on a systematic evacuation of non-combatants from several frontier villages in order to turn them into military strongholds.[22] Arab depopulation occurred most in villages close to Jewish settlements and in vulnerable neighborhoods in Haifa, Jaffa and West-Jerusalem.[23] The poor inhabitants of these neighborhoods generally fled to other parts of the city. Many rich inhabitants fled further away, most of them expecting to return when the troubles were over.[24] By the end of March 1948 thirty villages were depopulated of their Palestinian Arab population.[25] Approximately 100,000 Palestinian Arabs had fled to Arab parts of Palestine, such as Gaza, Beersheba, Haifa, Nazareth, Nablus, Jaffa and Bethlehem some had left the country altogether; to Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt.[26] Other sources speak of 30,000 Palestinian Arabs.[27] Many of these were Palestinian Arab leaders, middle and upper-class Palestinian Arab families from urban areas. Around 22 March the Arab governments agreed that their consulates in Palestine would only issues entry visas to old people, women and children and the sick.[28] On 29-30 March the Haganah Intelligence Service (HIS) reported that ‘the AHC was no longer approving exit permits for fear of [causing] panic in the country’.[29]

While expulsion of the Palestinians had been contemplated by some Zionists from the 1890s (see Zionist quotes), during this period there was no official Yishuv policy favoring expulsion and Jewish leaders anticipated that the new Jewish state would have a sizable Arab minority. The Haganah was instructed to avoid spreading the conflagration by indiscriminate attacks and to avoid provoking British intervention.[30] On 18 December, 1947 the Haganah approved an aggressive defense strategy, which in practice meant ‘a limited implementation of “Plan May” (Tochnit Mai or Tochnit Gimel), which, produced in May 1946, was the Haganah master plan for the defence of the Yishuv in the event of the outbreak of new troubles… The plan included provision, in extremis, for “destroying Arab transport” in Palestine, and blowing up houses used by Arab terrorists and expelling their inhabitants.[31] In early January the Haganah adopted Operation Zarzir, a scheme to assassinate leaders affiliated to Amin al-Husayni, placing the blame on other Arab leaders, but in practice few resources were devoted to the project and the only attempted killing was of Nimr al Khatib.[32]

The only authorized expulsion at this time took place at Qisarya, south of Haifa, where Palestinian Arabs were evicted and their houses destroyed on 19 February – 20 February 1948.[33] In attacks that were not authorized in advance several communities were expelled by the Haganah and several others were chased away by the Irgun.[34]

According to Ilan Pappé the Zionists organized a campaign of threats,[35] consisting of the distribution of threatening leaflets, ‘violent reconnaissance’ and, after the arrival of mortars, the shelling of Arab villages and neighborhoods.[36] The idea of ‘violent reconnaissance’ was to enter a defenceless village at night, fire at everyone who dared leave his or her house and leave after a few hours.[37] Pappé also notes that the Haganah shifted its policy from retaliation through excessive retaliation to offensive initiatives.[38] During the ‘long seminar’, a meeting of Ben-Gurion with his chief advisors in January 1948, the departure point was that it was desirable to ‘transfer’ as many Arabs as possible out of Jewish territory, and the discussion focussed mainly on the implementation.[39] The experiences in a number of attacks in February 1948, notably those on Qisarya and Sa’sa’, were used in the development of a plan, detailing how enemy population centers should be handled.[25] According to Pappé plan Dalet was the master plan for the expulsion of the Palestinians.[25]

Palestinian belligerency in these first few months was ‘disorganised, sporadic and localized and for months remained chaotic and uncoordinated, if not undirected’.[40] Husayni lacked the resources to mount a full-scale assault on the Yishuv and restricted himself to sanctioning minor attacks and to tightening the economic boycott.[41] The British claimed that Arab rioting might well have subsided had the Jews not retaliated with firearms.[42]

Overall Morris concludes that the ‘Arab evacuees from the towns and villages left largely because of Jewish – Haganah, IZL or LHI – attacks or fear of impending attack’ but that only ‘an extremely small, almost insignificant number of the refugees during this early period left because of Haganah or IZL or LHI expulsion orders or forceful “advice” to that effect’.[43] In this sense, Glazer[44] quotes the testimony of Count Bernadotte, the UN mediator in Palestine, who reported that “the exodus of the Palestinian Arabs resulted from panic created by fighting in their communities, by rumours concerning real or alleged acts of terrorism, or expulsion. Almost the whole of the Arab population fled or was expelled from the area under Jewish occupation”.[45][46]

See also: List of massacres committed during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war

Second Phase of the Exodus, April 1948 – June 1948

Benny Morris maintains that from April 1948 Ben-Gurion was a “transferist”; although Ben-Gurion gave no explicit orders, Ben-Gurion projected a “message of transfer”, and that a “consensus of transfer” was created.”. Also Benny Morris upholds that Ben-Gurion was correct in expelling the “Arab” population of Palestine on the grounds that “Without the uprooting of the Palestinians, a Jewish state would not have arisen here.”[47] Benny Morris puts the main causes for the Palestinian exodus as:-

“Above all let me reiterate, the refugee problem was caused by attacks by Jewish forces on Arab villages and towns and by the inhabitants’ fear of such attacks, compounded by expulsions, atrocities, and rumour of atrocities – and by the crucial Israeli Cabinet decision in June 1948 to bar a refugee return.”[48]

By May 1, 1948, two weeks before the Israeli Declaration of Independence, nearly 175,000 Palestinians (approximately 25%) had already fled.[49]

The fighting in these months was concentrated in the Jerusalem – Tel Aviv area and most depopulations took place in Jewish controlled areas, such as Tiberius, Haifa, Jaffa and the coastal region. The Deir Yassin massacre in early April, and the exaggerated rumours that followed it, helped spread fear and panic among the Palestinians.[50]

Even so, Palestinians fled the city of Haifa en masse, in one of the most notable flights of this stage. Historian Efraim Karsh writes that not only had half of the Arab community in Haifa community fled the city before the final battle was joined in late April 1948, but another 5,000-15,000 left apparently voluntarily during the fighting while the rest, some 15,000-25,000, were ordered to leave, almost certainly on the instructions of the Arab Higher Committee. Karsh concludes that there was no Jewish grand design to force this departure, nor was there a psychological ‘blitz’, but that on the contrary, both the Haifa Jewish leadership, including Mayor Shabtai Levy, and the Hagana went to great lengths to convince the Arabs to stay, to no avail.[51][52] However Efraim Karsh based his observations on a “British Police Report” of the 26 April sent after the British Forces had evacuated from Haifa and the Jewish forces had taken over the Port of Haifa and the Palestinian Population had already fled. The British Report of 22 April at the height of the fight for Haifa portrays a different picture.[53] Furthermore, two independent studies, which analysed CIA and BBC intercepts of radio Broadcasts from the region concluded that no orders or instructions were given by the Arab Higher Committee.[54]

According to Morris “The Haganah mortar attacks of 21-22 April [on Haifa] were primarily designed to break Arab morale in order to bring about a swift collapse of resistance and speedy surrender. […] But clearly the offensive, and especially the mortaring, precipitated the exodus. The three inch mortars ‘opened up on the market square [where there was] a great crowd […] a great panic took hold. The multitude burst into the port, pushed aside the policemen, charged the boats and began to flee the town’, as the official Haganah history later put it”.[55] According to Pappé [56] this mortar barrage was deliberately aimed at civilians to precipitate their flight from Haifa.

The 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’.[57]

Commenting on the use of ‘psychological warfare broadcasts’ and military tactics in Haifa, Benny Morris writes:

Throughout the Haganah made effective use of Arabic language broadcasts and loudspeaker vans. Haganah Radio announced that ‘the day of judgment had arrived’ and called on inhabitants to ‘kick out the foreign criminals’ and to ‘move away from every house and street, from every neighborhood occupied by foreign criminals’. The Haganah broadcasts called on the populace to ‘evacuate the women, the children and the old immediately, and send them to a safe haven’… Jewish tactics in the battle were designed to stun and quickly overpower opposition; demoralization was a primary aim. It was deemed just as important to the outcome as the physical destruction of the Arab units. The mortar barrages and the psychological warfare broadcasts and announcements, and the tactics employed by the infantry companies, advancing from house to house, were all geared to this goal. The orders of Carmeli’s 22nd Battalion were ‘to kill every [adult male] Arab encountered’ and to set alight with fire-bombs ‘all objectives that can be set alight. I am sending you posters in Arabic; disperse on route’.[58]

By mid-May 4000 Arabs remained in Haifa. These were concentrated in Wadi Nisnas in accordance with Plan D whilst the systematic destruction of Arab housing in certain areas, which had been planned before the War, was implemented by Haifa’s Technical and Urban Development departments in cooperation with the IDF’s city commander Ya’akov Lublini.[59]

According to Glazer (1980, p.111), from May 15, 1948 onwards, expulsion of Palestinians became a regular practice. Avnery (1971), explaining the Zionist rationale, says,

I believe that during this phase, the eviction of Arab civilians had become an aim of David Ben-Gurion and his government …. UN opinion could very well be disregarded. Peace with the Arabs seemed out of the question, considering the extreme nature of the Arab propaganda. In this situation, it was easy for people like Ben-Gurion to believe the capture of uninhabited territory was both necessary for security reasons and desirable for the homogeneity of the new Hebrew state.[60]

Edgar O’Ballance, a military historian, adds,

Israeli vans with loudspeakers drove through the streets ordering all the inhabitants to evacuate immediately, and such as were reluctant to leave were forcibly ejected from their homes by the triumphant Israelis whose policy was now openly one of clearing out all the Arab civil population before them …. From the surrounding villages and hamlets, during the next two or three days, all the inhabitants were uprooted and set off on the road to Ramallah…. No longer was there any “reasonable persuasion”. Bluntly, the Arab inhabitants were ejected and forced to flee into Arab territory…. Wherever the Israeli troops advanced into Arab country the Arab population was bulldozed out in front of them.[61]

After the fall of Haifa the villages on the slopes of Mount Carmel had been harassing the Jewish traffic on the main road to Haifa. A Decision was made on 9 May 1948 to expel or subdue the villages of Kafr Saba, al-Tira, Qaqun, Qalansuwa and Tantura[62] On the 11 May 1948 Ben-Gurion convened the “Consultancy” the outcome of the meeting is confirmed in a letter to commanders of the Haganah Brigades telling them that the Arab legion’s offensive should not distract their troops from the principal tasks:

“‘the cleansing of Palestine remained the prime objective of Plan Dalet” [63]

The attention of the commanders of the Alexandroni Brigade was turned to reducing the Mount Carmel pocket. Tantura being on the coast gave the Carmel villages access to the outside world and so was chosen as the point to surround the Carmel villages as a part of the Coastal Clearing offensive operation in the beginning of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. On the night of 22-23 May 1948 1 week and 1 day after the declaration of Independence of the State of Israel the coastal village of Tantura was attacked and occupied by the 33rd Battalion of the Alexandroni Brigade of the Haganah. The village of Tantura was not given the option of surrender and the initial report spoke of dozens of villagers killed with 300 adult male prisoners and 200 women and children[64] Many of the villages fled to the Fureidis (previously captured) and to Arab held territory. The Captured women of Tantura were moved to Fureidis and on the 31st May Brechor Shitrit the Minister of Minority Affairs of the provisional Government of Israel, sought permission to expel the refugee women of Tantura from Fureidis as the amount of refugees in Fureidis was causing problems of overcrowding and sanitation. [65]

According to a report from the military intelligence SHAI of the Haganah entitled “The emigration of Palestinian Arabs in the period 1/12/1947-1/6/1948″, dated 30 June 1948 affirms that:

At least 55% of the total of the exodus was caused by our (Haganah/IDF) operations.” To this figure, the report’s compilers add the operations of the Irgun and Lehi, which “directly (caused) some 15%… of the emigration”. A further 2% was attributed to explicit expulsion orders issued by Israeli troops, and 1% to their psychological warfare. This leads to a figure of 73% for departures caused directly by the Israelis. In addition, the report attributes 22% of the departures to “fears” and “a crisis of confidence” affecting the Palestinian population. As for Arab calls for flight, these were reckoned to be significant in only 5% of cases…[66][67][68]

By the estimates of Morris, 250,000 to 300,000 Palestinians left Israel during this stage.[69] Keesing’s Contemporary Archives in London place the total number of refugees before Israel’s independence at 300,000.[70]

Third Phase of the Exodus, July-October 1948

Israeli operations labeled Dani and Dekel that broke the truce was the start of the third phase of expulsions. The largest single expulsion of the war began in Lydda and Ramla July 14 when 60,000 inhabitants (nearly 10% of the whole exodus) of the two cities were forcibly expelled on the orders of Ben-Gurion and Yitzhak Rabin.

According to Flapan (1987, pp. 13-14) in Ben-Gurion’s view Ramlah and Lydda constituted a special danger because their proximity might encourage cooperation between the Egyptian army, which had started its attack on Kibbutz Negbah, near Ramlah, and the Arab Legion, which had taken the Lydda police station. However the author considers that, Operation Dani, by which the two towns were seized, revealed that no such cooperation existed.

In the opinion of Flapan, “in Lydda, the exodus took place on foot. In Ramlah, the IDF provided buses and trucks. Originally, all males had been rounded up and enclosed in a compound, but after some shooting was heard, and construed by Ben-Gurion to be the beginning of an Arab Legion counteroffensive, he stopped the arrests and ordered the speedy eviction of all the Arabs, including women, children, and the elderly”.[71] In explanation, Flapan cites that Ben-Gurion said that “those who made war on us bear responsibility after their defeat”.[72]

Rabin wrote in his memoirs:

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 that 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. (Soldier of Peace, p. 140-141)

Flapan maintains that events in Nazareth, although ending differently, point to the existence of a definite pattern of expulsion. On 16 July, three days after the Lydda and Ramlah evictions, the city of Nazareth surrendered to the IDF. The officer in command, a Canadian Jew named Ben Dunkelman, had signed the surrender agreement on behalf of the Israeli army along with Chaim Laskov (then a brigadier general, later IDF chief of staff). The agreement assured the civilians that they would not be harmed, but the next day, Laskov handed Dunkelman an order to evacuate the population.[73][74]

Additionally, widespread looting and several cases of rape[75] took place during the evacuation. In total, about 100,000 Palestinians became refugees in this stage according to Morris.[76]

Fourth Phase of the Exodus, October 1948 – March 1949

This period of the exodus was characterized by Israeli military accomplishments; Operation Yoav, in October, this cleared the road to the Negev, culminating in the capture of Beersheba; Operation Hiram, at the end of October, resulted in the capture of the Upper Galilee; Operation Horev in December 1948 and Operation Uvda in March 1949, completed the capture of the Negev (the Negev had been allotted to the Jewish State by the United Nations) these operations were met with resistance from the Palestinian Arabs who were to become refugees. The Israeli military activities were confined to the Galilee and the sparsely populated Negev desert. It was clear to the villages in the Galilee, that if they left, return was far from imminent. Therefore far fewer villages spontaneously depopulated than previously. Most of the Palestinian exodus was due to a clear, direct cause: expulsion and deliberate harassment, as Morris writes ‘commanders were clearly bent on driving out the population in the area they were conquering’.[77]

During Operation Hiram in the upper Galilee, Israeli military commanders received the order: ‘Do all you can to immediately and quickly purge the conquered territories of all hostile elements in accordance with the orders issued. The residents should be helped to leave the areas that have been conquered’. (October 31, 1948, Moshe Carmel) The UN’s acting Mediator, Ralph Bunche, reported that United Nations Observers had recorded extensive looting of villages in Galilee by Israeli forces, who carried away goats, sheep and mules. This looting, United Nations Observers report, appeared to have been systematic as army trucks were used for transportation. The situation, states the report, created a new influx of refugees into Lebanon. Israeli forces, he stated, have occupied the area in Galilee formerly occupied by Kaukji’s forces, and have crossed the Lebanese frontier. Bunche goes on to say “that Israeli forces now hold positions inside the south-east corner of Lebanon, involving some fifteen Lebanese villages which are occupied by small Israeli detachments”.[78]

According to Morris[79] altogether 200,000-230,000 Palestinians left in this stage. According to Ilan Pappé, “In a matter of seven months, five hundred and thirty one villages were destroyed and eleven urban neighborhoods emptied […] The mass expulsion was accompanied by massacres, rape and [the] imprisonment of men […] in labor camps for periods [of] over a year”.[80]

The United Nations using the offices of the United Nations Truce Supervision Organisation and the Mixed Armistice Commissions was involved in the conflict from the very beginning. In the autumn of 1948 the refugee problem was a fact and possible solutions were discussed. Count Folke Bernadotte said on September 16:

No settlement can be just and complete if recognition is not accorded to the right of the Arab refugee to return to the home from which he has been dislodged. It would be an offense against the principles of elemental justice if these innocent victims of the conflict were denied the right to return to their homes while Jewish immigrants flow into Palestine, and indeed, offer the threat of permanent replacement of the Arab refugees who have been rooted in the land for centuries[81][82]

UN General Assembly Resolution 194, which was passed on December 11, 1948, and reaffirmed every year since, was the first resolution that called for Israel to let the refugees return:

the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible.[83]

The Lausanne Conference of 1949

In 1949 at the Lausanne conference, Israel proposed allowing 100,000 refugees to return. The offer implicitly included an alleged 25,000 who had already returned surreptitiously and 10,000 projected family-reunion cases and would allow Israel to resettle the returnees where it saw fit.[84] It was further conditional on a full peace treaty that would allow Israel to keep all the territory it had captured and on the Arab states agreeing to absorb the remaining refugees.

Safran wrote that “The Arab states, who had refused even to negotiate face-to-face with the Israelis, turned down the offer because it implicitly recognized Israel’s existence”.[85]

Morris, however, in a more differentiated analysis, resumes:

In retrospect, it appeared that at Lausanne was lost the best and perhaps only chance for a solution of the refugee problem, if not for the achievement of a comprehensive Middle East settlement. But the basic incompatibility of the initial starting positions and the unwillingness of the two sides to move, and to move quickly, towards a compromise – born of Arab rejectionism and a deep feeling of humiliation, and of Israeli drunkenness with victory and physical needs determined largely by the Jewish refugee influx – doomed the ‘conference’ from the start. American pressure on both sides, lacking a sharp, determined cutting edge, failed to budge sufficiently either Jew or Arab. The ‘100,000 Offer’ was a classic of too little, too late. [86]

In the first decades after the exodus two diametrically opposed schools of analysis could be distinguished. In the words of Erskine Childers:[87] ‘Israel claims that the Arabs left because they were ordered to, and deliberately incited into panic, by their own leaders who wanted the field cleared for the 1948 war’, while ‘The Arabs charge that their people were evicted at bayonet-point and by panic deliberately incited by the Zionists.’ Alternative explanations had also been offered. For instance Peretz[88] and Gabbay[89] emphasize the psychological component: panic or hysteria swept the Palestinians and caused the exodus.

Changes after the advent of the ‘New Historians’

Israel opened up part of its archives in the 1980s for investigation by historians. This coincided with the emergence of various Israeli historians, called New Historians, who favored a more critical analysis of Israel’s history. The most famous scholar of this group, Benny Morris, concludes that Jewish military attacks were the main direct cause of the exodus, followed by Arab fear due to the fall of a nearby town, Arab fear of impending attack, and expulsions. The traditional Israeli version was replaced by a new version stating that the exodus was caused by neither Israeli nor Arab policies, but rather was a by-product of the 1948 Arab Israeli War.[90][12] The Arab version hardly changed[91] but did get support from some of the New Historians. Pappé calls the exodus an ethnic cleansing and points at Zionist preparations in the preceding years and provides more details on the planning process by a group he calls the ‘Consultancy’.[92]

Results of the Palestinian exodus

Abandoned, evacuated and destroyed Palestinian localities:

List of villages depopulated during the Arab-Israeli conflict

Several authors have conducted studies on the number of Palestinian localities which were abandoned, evacuated and/or destroyed during the 1947-1949 period. Based on their respective calculations, the table below summarises their information.[93]

Source: The table data was taken from Ruling Palestine, A History of the Legally Sanctioned Jewish-Israeli Seizure of Land and Housing in Palestine. Publishers: COHRE & BADIL, May 2005, p. 34.
Note: For information on methodologies; see: Morris, Benny (1987): The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987; Khalidi, Walid (ed.): All that Remains. The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948. Washington, D.C: Institute for Palestine Studies, 1992, App. IV, pp. xix, 585-586; and Sitta, Salman Abu: The Palestinian Nakba 1948. London: The Palestinian Return Centre, 2000.

According to COHRE and BADIL, Morris’s list of affected localities, the shortest of the three, includes towns but excludes other localities cited by Khalidi and/or Abu Sitta. The six sources compared in Khalidi’s study have in common 296 of the villages listed as destroyed and/or depopulated. Sixty other villages are cited in all but one source. Of the total of 418 localities cited in Khalidi, 292 (70 percent) were completely destroyed and 90 (22 percent) “largely destroyed”. COHRE and BADIL also note that other sources refer to an additional 151 localities that are omitted from Khalidi’s study for various reasons (for example, major cities and towns that were depopulated, as well as some Bedouin encampments and villages ‘vacated’ before the start of hostilities). Abu Sitta’s list includes tribes in Beersheba that lost lands; most of these were omitted from Khalidi’s work.[94]

Another study, involving field research and comparisons with British and other documents, concludes that 472 Palestinian habitations (including towns and villages) were destroyed in 1948. It notes that the devastation was virtually complete in some sub-districts. For example, it points out that 96.0% of the villages in the Jaffa area were totally destroyed, as were 90.0% of those in Tiberiade, 90.3% of those in Safad, and 95.9% of those in Beisan. It also extrapolates from 1931 British census data to estimate that over 70 280 Palestinian houses were destroyed in this period.[95]

Palestinian refugees
Total population 4.9 million (including descendants and re-settled)[97] Regions with significant populations
Gaza Strip, Jordan, West Bank, Lebanon, Syria

Although there is no accepted definition of who can be considered a Palestinian refugee for legal purposes, UNRWA defines them as ‘persons whose normal place of residence was Palestine between June 1946 and May 1948, who lost both their homes and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict’. UNRWA’s definition of a refugee also covers the descendants of persons who became refugees in 1948. This comes in contrast to the standard definition of refugee as defined by UNHCR. The final UN estimate was 711,000,[4] but by 1950, according to UNRWA, the number of registered refugees was 914,000.[98] The U.N. Conciliation Commission explains that these numbers are inflated by “duplication of ration cards, addition of persons who have been displaced from area other than Israel-held areas and of persons who, although not displaced, are destitute,” and the UNWRA additionally noted that “all births are eagerly announced, the deaths wherever possible are passed over in silence”, as well as the fact that “the birthrate is high in any case, a net addition of 30,000 names a year.” By June, 1951 the UNWRA had reduced the number of registered refugees to 876,000 after “many false and duplicate registrations [were] weeded out”.[99] Today that number has grown to over 4 million, one third of whom live in the West Bank and Gaza; slightly less than one third in Jordan; 17% in Syria and Lebanon (Bowker, 2003, p. 72) and around 15% in other Arab and Western countries. Approximately 1 million refugees have no form of identification other than an UNRWA identification card.[100]

In another study, Abu Sitta^[96] shows the following findings in eight distinct phases of the depopulation of Palestine between 1947-1949. His findings are summarized in the table below:

* Other sources put this figure at over 70 000.
Source: The table data was taken from Ruling Palestine, A History of the Legally Sanctioned Jewish-Israeli Seizure of Land and Housing in Palestine. Publishers: COHRE & BADIL, May 2005, p. 34. The source being: Abu Sitta, Salman (2001): From Refugees to Citizens at Home. London: Palestine Land Society and Palestinian Return Centre, 2001.

The Prevention of Infiltration law

Following the emergence of the Palestinian refugee problem after the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, many Palestinians tried, in one way or another, to return to their homes. For some time these practices continued to embarrass the Israeli authorities until finally they passed a law forbidding Palestinians to return to Israel, those who did so being regarded as “infiltrators”.[101]

According to Kirsbaum[102] over the years, the Israeli Government has continued to cancel and modify some of the Defence (Emergency) Regulations of 1945, but mostly it has added more as it has continued to extend its declared state of emergency. For example, even though the Prevention of Infiltration Law of 1954 is not labelled as an official “Emergency Regulation”, it extends the applicability of the Defence (Emergency) Regulation 112 of 1945 giving the Minister of Defence extraordinary powers of deportation for accused infiltrators even before they are convicted (Articles 30 & 32), and makes itself subject to cancellation when the Knesset ends the State of Emergency upon which all of the Emergency Regulations are dependent.

Land and Property laws

Palestinian refugees – Area of UNWRA operations.

Following its establishment, Israel designed a system of law that legitimised both a continuation and a consolidation of the nationalisation of land and property, a process that it had begun decades earlier. For the first few years of Israel’s existence, many of the new laws continued to be rooted in earlier Ottoman and British law. These laws were later amended or replaced altogether.

The first challenge facing Israel was to transform its control over land into legal ownership. This was the motivation underlying the passing of several of the first group of land laws.[103].

Initial ‘Emergency Laws’ and ‘Regulations’

Among the more important initial laws was article 125 of the Defence (Emergency) Regulations [104]

According to Kirshbaum, the Law has as effect that “no one is allowed in or out without permission from the Israeli Military”. “This regulation has been used to exclude a land owner from his own land so that it could be judged as unoccupied, and then expropriated under the Land Acquisition (Validation of Acts and Compensation) Law (1953). Closures need not be published in the Official Gazette”.[102]

The Absentees’ Property Law’

The Absentees’ Property Laws were several laws, first introduced as emergency ordinances issued by the Jewish leadership but which after the war were incorporated into the laws of Israel.[105] As examples of the first type of laws are the Emergency Regulations (Absentees’ Property) Law, 5709-1948 (December) which according to article 37 of the Absentees Property Law, 5710-1950 was replaced by the latter;[106] the Emergency Regulations (Requisition of Property) Law, 5709-1949, and other related laws.[107]

According to COHRE and BADIL (p.41), unlike other laws that were designed to establish Israel’s ‘legal’ control over lands, this body of law focused on formulating a ‘legal’ definition for the people (mostly Arabs) who had left or been forced to flee from these lands.

The absentee property played an enormous role in making Israel a viable state. In 1954, more than one third of Israel’s Jewish population lived on absentee property and nearly a third of the new immigrants (250,000 people) settled in urban areas abandoned by Arabs. Of 370 new Jewish settlements established between 1948 and 1953, 350 were on absentee property.[108]

Laws enacted

That enabled the further acquisition of depopulated lands, and related laws. Among the more important regulations were:

* The Land (Acquisition for Public Purposes) Ordinance (1943). To authorise the confiscation of lands for Government and ‘public’ purposes.
* The Prescription Law, 5718-1958.[109] According to COHRE and BADIL (p. 44), this law, in conjunction with the Land (Settlement of Title) Ordinance (Amendment) Law, 5720-1960, the Land (Settlement of Title) Ordinance (New Version), 5729-1969 and the Land Law, 5729-1969, was designed to revise criteria related to the use and registration of Miri lands – one of the most prevalent types in Palestine – and to facilitate Israel’s acquisition of such land.

Films about the exodus

* 500 Dunam on the Moon Is a documentary film Directed by Rachel Leah Jones, about Ayn Hawd a Palestinian village that was captured and depopulated by Israeli forces in the 1948 war.
* The Palestinian Catastrophe 1948 is a documentary film Benny Brunner and Alexandra Jansse, that follows the events surrounding the creation of the Palestinian refugee problem.

The Nakba’s role in the Palestinian narrative

The term “Nakba” as a euphemism for “disaster” or “catastrophe” first appeared in George Antonius’ The Arab Awakening, published in 1938, before the creation of the State of Israel. On page 312, Antonius writes,

“The year 1920 has an evil name in Arab annals: it is referred to as the Year of the Catastrophe (Am al-Nakba). It saw the first armed risings that occurred in protest against the post-War settlement imposed by the Allies on the Arab countries. In that year, serious outbreaks took place in Syria, Palestine, and Iraq.”

Thus, this early “Nakba” was a response to the division of Arab-populated lands into British and French mandates, and the Balfour Declaration promoting an independent Jewish state.[110]

The term “Nakba” was given its present meaning by Constantin Zureiq, a professor of history at the American University of Beirut, in his 1948 book Ma’na al-Nakba (The Meaning of the Disaster). After the Six Day War in 1967 Zureiq wrote another book, The New Meaning of the Disaster, but the term Nakba is reserved for the 1948 war. Muhammad Nimr al-Hawari also used the term Nakba in the title of his book Sir al Nakba (The Secret of the Defeat) written in 1955.

Together with Naji al-Ali’s Handala (the barefoot child always drawn from behind), and the symbolic key for the house in Palestine carried by so many Palestinian refugees, the ‘collective memory of’ the Nakba ‘has shaped the identity of the Palestinian refugees as a people’.[111]

The events of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War greatly influenced the Palestinian culture. Countless books, songs and poems have been written about the Nakba. The exodus is usually described in strongly emotional terms. For example, at the controversial 2001 World Conference Against Racism in Durban, prominent Palestinian scholar and activist Hanan Ashrawi referred to the Palestinians as “a nation in captivity held hostage to an ongoing Nakba, as the most intricate and pervasive expression of persistent colonialism, apartheid, racism, and victimization” (original emphasis).[112]

In the Palestinian calendar, the day after Israel declared independence (May 15) is observed as Nakba Day. It is traditionally observed as an important day of remembrance.[111]

See also:

* Arab diaspora
* 1948 Palestine war
* 1947-48 Palestinian civil war
* 1948 Arab-Israeli war
* 1967 Palestinian exodus
* Eilaboun massacre
* Ethnic cleansing
* History of Palestine#Post-Mandate
* Land and Property laws in Israel
* List of villages depopulated during the Arab-Israeli conflict
* New Historians
* Palestinian diaspora
* Palestinian infiltration
* Palestinian refugee
* Palestinian Chilean
* Palestinian Exodus 1949 to 1956
* Plan Dalet
* Prevention of Infiltration Law
* Expulsion of Germans after World War II (contemporary “exodus”, executed 1944 – 1950)
* Ilan Pappe

Palestinian flag Palestinian Arab villages depopulated during the 1948 Palestine war:

District of Acre: al-Amqa · Arab al-Samniyya · al-Bassa · al-Birwa · al-Damun · Dayr al-Qassi · al-Ghabisiyya · Iqrit · Iribbin, Khirbat · Jiddin, Khirbat · al-Kabri · Kafr ‘Inan · Kuwaykat · al-Manshiyya · al-Mansura · Mi’ar · al-Nabi Rubin · al-Nahr · al-Ruways · Suhmata · al-Sumayriyya · Suruh · al-Tall · Tarbikha · Umm al-Faraj · al-Zee

District of Baysan: Arab al-’Arida · Arab al-Bawati · Arab al-Safa · al-Ashrafiyya · al-Bira · Danna · Farwana · al-Fatur · al-Ghazzawiyya · al-Hamidiyya · al-Hamra · Jabbul · Kafra · Kawkab al-Hawa · al-Khunayzir · Masil al-Jizl · al-Murassas · Qumya · al-Sakhina · al-Samiriyya · Sirin · Tall al-Shawk · al-Taqa, Khirbat · al-Tira · Umm ‘Ajra · Umm Sabuna, Khirbat · Yubla · Zab’a · al-Zawiya, Khirbat
District of Beersheba:
al-Imara · al-Jammama · al-Khalasa

District of Gaza:
Arab Suqrir · Barbara · Barqa · al-Batani al-Gharbi · al-Batani al-Sharqi · Beit Daras · Bayt ‘Affa · Bayt Jirja · Bayt Tima · Bil’in · Burayr · Dayr Sunayd · Dimra · al-Faluja · Hamama · Hatta · Hiribya · Huj · Hulayqat · Ibdis · Iraq al-Manshiyya · Iraq Suwaydan · Isdud · al-Jaladiyya · al-Jiyya · Julis · al-Jura · Jusayr · Karatiyya · Kawfakha · Kawkaba · al-Khisas · al-Masmiyya al-Kabira · al-Masmiyya al-Saghira · al-Muharraqa · Najd · Ni’ilya · Qastina · al-Sawafir al-Gharbiyya · al-Sawafir al-Shamaliyya · al-Sawafir al-Sharqiyya · Simsim · Summil · Tall al-Turmus · Yasur

District of Haifa:
Abu Shusha · Abu Zurayq · Arab al-Fuqara · Arab al-Nufay’at · Arab Zahrat al-Dumayri · Ayn Ghazal · Ayn Hawd · Balad al-Shaykh · Barrat Qisarya · Burayka · al-Burj, Khirbat · al-Butaymat · Daliyat al-Rawha’ · al-Dumun, Khirbat · al-Ghubayya al-Fawqa · al-Ghubayya al-Tahta · Hawsha · Ijzim · Jaba’ · al-Jalama · Kabara · al-Kafrayn · Kafr Lam · al-Kasayir, Khirbat · Khubbayza · Lid, Khirbat · al-Manara, Khirbat · al-Mansi · al-Mansura, Khirbat · al-Mazar · Naghnaghiya · Qannir · Qira · Qisarya · Qumbaza · al-Rihaniyya · Sabbarin · al-Sarafand · al-Sarkas, Khirbat · Sa’sa’, Khirbat · al-Sawamir · al-Shuna, Khirbat · al-Sindiyana · al-Tantura · al-Tira · Umm al-Shawf · Umm al-Zinat · Wa’arat al-Sarris · Wadi Ara (village) · Yajur

District of Hebron:
Ajjur · Barqusya · Bayt Jibrin · Bayt Nattif · al-Dawayima · Dayr al-Dubban · Dayr Nakhkhas · Kudna · Mughallis · al-Qris Horkins · al-Qubayba · Ra’na · Tall al-Safi · Umm Burj, Khirbat · az-Zakariyya · Zayta
District of Jaffa:
al-’Abbasiyya · Abu Kishk · Bayt Dajan · Biyar ‘Adas · Fajja · al-Haram · Ijlil al-Qibliyya · Ijlil al-Shamaliyya · al-Jammasin al-Gharbi · al-Jammasin al-Sharqi · Jarisha · Kafr ‘Ana · al-Khayriyya · al-Mas’udiyya · al-Mirr · al-Muwaylih · Rantiya · al-Safiriyya · Salama · Saqiya · al-Sawalima · al-Shaykh Muwannis · Yazur

District of Jerusalem:
Allar · Aqqur · Artuf · Bayt ‘Itab · Bayt Mahsir · Bayt Naqquba · Bayt Thul · Bayt Umm al-Mays · al-Burayj · Colonia · Dayr Aban · Dayr ‘Amr · Dayr al-Hawa · Dayr Rafat · Dayr al-Shaykh · Deir Yassin · Ein Karim · Ishwa · Islin · Ism Allah, Khirbat · Jarash · al-Jura (Jerusalem) · Kasla · al-Lawz, Khirbat · Lifta · al-Maliha · Nitaf · al-Qabu · al-Qastal · Ras Abu ‘Ammar · Sar’a · Saris · Sataf · Sheikh Badr · Suba · Sufla · al-Tannur, Khirbat · al-’Umur, Khirbat · al-Walaja

District of Jenin:
Ayn al-Mansi · al-Jawfa, Khirbat · al-Lajjun · al-Mazar · Nuris · Zir’in
District of Nazareth:
Indur · Ma’lul · al-Mujaydil · Saffuriyya
District of Ramla:
Abu al-Fadl · Abu Shusha · Ajanjul · Aqir · Barfiliya · al-Barriyya · Bashshit · Bayt Far, Khirbat · Bayt Jiz · Bayt Nabala · Bayt Shanna · Bayt Susin · Bir Ma’in · Bir Salim · al-Burj · al-Buwayra, Khirbat · Daniyal · Dayr Abu Salama · Dayr Ayyub · Dayr Muhaysin · Dayr Tarif · al-Duhayriyya, Khirbat · al-Haditha · Idnibba · Innaba · Jilya · Jimzu · Kharruba · al-Khayma · Khulda · al-Kunayyisa · al-Latrun · al-Maghar · Majdal Yaba · al-Mansura, Ramla · al-Mukhayzin · al-Muzayri’a · al-Na’ani · an-Nabi Rubin · Qatra · Qazaza · al-Qubab · al-Qubayba, Ramla · Qula · Sajad · Salbit · Sarafand al-’Amar · Sarafand al-Kharab · Saydun · Shahma · Shilta · al-Tina · al-Tira · Umm Kalkha · Wadi Hunayn · Yibna · Zakariyya, Khirbat · Zarnuqa

District of Safad:
Abil al-Qamh · al-’Abisiyya · Alma · Ammuqa · Arab al-Shamalina · Arab al-Zubayd · Ayn al-Zaytun · Baysamun · Biriyya · al-Butayha · al-Buwayziyya · Dallata · al-Dawwara · Dayshum · al-Dirbashiyya · al-Dirdara · Fara · al-Farradiyya · Fir’im · Ghabbatiyya · Ghuraba · al-Hamra’ · Harrawi · Hunin · al-Husayniyya · Jahula · al-Ja’una · Jubb Yusuf · Kafr Bir’im · al-Khalisa · Khan al-Duwayr · Karraza, Khirbat · al-Khisas · Khiyam al-Walid · Kirad al-Baqqara · Kirad al-Ghannama · Lazzaza · Madahil · al-Malikiyya · Mallaha · al-Manshiyya · al-Mansura, Safad · Mansurat al-Khayt · Marus · Mirun · al-Muftakhira · Mughr al-Khayt · al-Muntar, Khirbat · al-Nabi Yusha’ · al-Na’ima · Qabba’a · Qadas · Qaddita · Qaytiyya · al-Qudayriyya · al-Ras al-Ahmar · Sabalan · Safsaf · Saliha · al-Salihiyya · al-Sammu’i · al-Sanbariyya · Sa’sa’ · al-Shawka al-Tahta · al-Shuna · Taytaba · Tulayl · al-’Ulmaniyya · al-’Urayfiyya · al-Wayziyya · Yarda · al-Zahiriyya al-Tahta · al-Zanghariyya · al-Zawiya · al-Zuq al-Fawqani · al-Zuq al-Tahtani

District of Tiberias:
Awlam · al-Dalhamiyya · Ghuwayr Abu Shusha · Hadatha · al-Hamma, Tiberias · Hittin · Kafr Sabt · Lubya · Ma’dhar · al-Majdal (Tiberias) · al-Manara · al-Manshiyya · al-Mansura, Tiberias · Nasir al-Din · Nimrin · al-Nuqayb · Samakh · al-Samakiyya · al-Samra · al-Shajara · al-Tabigha · al-’Ubaydiyya · al-Wa’ra al-Sawda’, Khirbat · Yaquq

District of Tulkarm :
Bayt Lid, Khirbat · Bayyarat Hannun · Fardisya · Ghabat Kafr Sur · al-Jalama, Tulkarm · Kafr Saba · al-Majdal, Khirbat · al-Manshiyya · Miska · Qaqun · Raml Zayta · Tabsur · Umm Khalid · Wadi al-Hawarith · Wadi Qabbani · al-Zababida, Khirbat · Zalafa, Khirbat

Notes:

1. ^ Ha’aretz 13 May 2008 Palestinian refugees, Israeli left-wingers mark Nakba By Yoav Stern
2. ^ Badil Nakba 60
3. ^ A History of the Modern Middle East by William L. Cleaveland, 2004, p. 270 The term “Nakba” emerged after an influential Arab commentary on the self-examination of the social and political bases of Arab life in the wake of the 1948 War by Constantine Zureiq. (Prior to that, the term had more commonly referred to the 1920 Battle of Maysalun, in which France invaded Syria and deposed Arab Revolt leader King Faisal I.) The term became quite popular and widespread that it made the term “disaster” synonymous with the Arab defeat in that war.
4. ^ a b United Nations General Assembly (1951-08-23). “General Progress Report and Supplementary Report of the United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine” (OpenDocument). Retrieved on 2007-05-03.
5. ^ UNRWA Doc. UNRWA estimate 4.25 Millions in 2005
6. ^ Erskine Childers, ‘The Other Exodus’, The Spectator, May 12, 1961 reprinted in Walter Laqueur (ed.) The Israel-Arab Reader: A Documentary History of the Middle East Conflict,(1969) rev.ed.Pelican Books 1970 pp.179-188 p.183
7. ^ Institute of Palestinian Studies Khalidi, Walid “Plan Dalet Revisited: Master Plan for the Conquest of Palestine” in Journal of Palestinian Studies Vol 18 no. 1, (Aut. 88): 3-37. Republish article from the early 1960s
8. ^ Institute of Palestinian StudiesKhalidi, Walid “Why did the Palestinians Leave, Revisited” in Journal of Palestinian Studies Vol 134, no. 2 (Win. 05): 42-54
9. ^ Institute for Palestinian StudiesCorrespondence between Erskine Childers, Walid Khalidi, Jon Kimche, Hedley V Cooke, David Cairns and Edward Atiyah
10. ^ Eugene L Rogan and Avi Shlaim 2007 p. 38
11. ^ B. Morris 2004 pp.5-7,pp.38-64,pp.462-587
12. ^ a b B. Morris, ‘Response to Finkelstein and Masalha’, J. Palestine Studies 21(1), p. 98-114
13. ^ Ilan Pappe (2007)
14. ^ Morris, 2004, p. 90-99
15. ^ Morris, 2004, p. 65
16. ^ Flapan, 1987, p. 95; also quoted by Finkelstein, 1995, p. 82
17. ^ Morris, (2004), p. 76
18. ^ Morris, (2004) p. 76, 125
19. ^ Morris, (2004) p. 66
20. ^ (Gelber, p. 75)
21. ^ (Gelber, p. 76)
22. ^ (Gelber, p. 79)
23. ^ Morris, 2004, pp. 99-125
24. ^ Morris, 2004, p. 138
25. ^ a b c Ilan Pappé, 2006, p. 82
26. ^ Morris, 2004, p. 67
27. ^ (Glazer, p.104)
28. ^ Morris, 2004, p. 134
29. ^ Morris, 2004, p. 137, quoting Haganah Archive (HA) 105\257)
30. ^ Morris, 2004, pp. 68-86
31. ^ Morris, 2004, p. 75
32. ^ Morris, 2004, p. 76
33. ^ Morris, 2004, p. 130
34. ^ Morris, 2004, p.125
35. ^ Ilan Pappé, 2006, p. 55
36. ^ Ilan Pappé, 2006, p. 73
37. ^ Pappé, 2006, p. 56
38. ^ Ilan Pappé, 2006, p. 60
39. ^ Pappé, 2006, p. 63
40. ^ Morris, 2004 p. 86
41. ^ Morris, 2004, p. 87
42. ^ Morris, 2004, p.75
43. ^ Morris, 2004, pp. 138, 139
44. ^ Glazer 1980, p.109

45. ^ UN Progress Report, September 16, 1948, Part 1 Section V, paragraph 6; Part 3 Section I, paragraph 1 to 3;. According to Glazer, this observation by Count Folke Bernadotte is frequently cited not only as an example of descriptions of panic, but also as evidence that the Zionists pursued a policy of expulsion.

46. ^ UN Doc. a/648 Progress Report of the United Nations Mediator on Palestine Submitted to the Secretary-General for Transmission to the Members of the United Nations Part 1 Section V para 6. It is not yet known what the policy of the Provisional Government of Israel with regard to the return of Arab refugees will be when the final terms of settlement are reached. It is, however, undeniable that no settlement can be just and complete if recognition is not accorded to the right of the Arab refugee to return to the home from which he has been dislodged by the hazards and strategy of the armed conflict between Arabs and Jews in Palestine. The majority of these refugees have come from territory which, under the Assembly resolution of 29 November, was to be included in the Jewish State. The exodus of Palestinian Arabs resulted from panic created by fighting in their communities, by rumours concerning real or alleged acts of terrorism, or expulsion. It would be an offence against the principles of elemental justice if these innocent victims of the conflict were denied the right to return to their homes while Jewish immigrants flow into Palestine, and, indeed, at least offer the threat of permanent replacement of the Arab refugees who have been rooted in the land for centuries.
47. ^ “Survival of the Fittest”Avi Shavit Interview with Benny Morris – 01.11.04
48. ^ Eugene L. Rogan and Avi Shlaim 2007 p. 38
49. ^ Howard M. Sachar. A History of Israel from the Rise of Zionism to Our Time. Published by Alfred A. Knopf. New York. 1976. p. 332. ISBN 0-394-48564-5
50. ^ Morris 2004, p. 264
51. ^ Nakbat Haifa: Collapse and Dispersion of a Major Palestinian Community, E. Karsh, Middle Eastern Studies, Volume 37, Number 4/October 01, 2001
52. ^ British Police Report: Arab Flight From Haifa
53. ^ Situation in Haifa. Report by John Fletcher-Cooke to UN Secretary-General 22nd April 1948.
54. ^ Erskine Childers, Walid Khalidi, and Jon Kimche 1961 Correspondence in The Spectator on “Why the Refugees Left” [Originally Appendix E of Khalidi, Walid, “Plan Dalet Revisited: Master Plan for the Conquest of Palestine” in 18 no. 1, (Aut. 88): 51-70.
55. ^ Morris, 2004, pp. 191, 200
56. ^ Ilan Pappé, 2006, p. 96
57. ^ ‘British Proclamation In Haifa Making Evacuation Secure’, The Times, Thursday, April 22, 1948; pg. 4; Issue 51052; col D
58. ^ Morris 2004, pp. 191, 192
59. ^ Morris 2004, pp. 209-211
60. ^ Avnery, Uri (1971): Israel Without Zionism: A Plan for Peace in the Middle East. New York: Collier Books, pp.224-25.
61. ^ O’Ballance, Edgar (1956) pp. 147, 172.
62. ^ Benny Morris (2004) p.246; Summary meeting of the Arab Affairs Advisor in Netanya 9 May 1948 IDF 6127/49//109
63. ^ Ilan Pappé (2006) p. 128.
64. ^ Benny Morris (2004) p. 247 unsigned short report on Tantura Operation, IDFA 922/75//949, and ya’akov B.’, in the name of the deputy OC ‘A’ company ‘Report on Operation Namal’ 26 May 1948, IDFA 6647/49//13.
65. ^ Benny Morris (2004). Shitrit to Ben-Gurion 31 May 1948 ISA MAM 302/48.
66. ^ Kapeliouk, Amnon (1987): New Light on the Israeli-Arab Conflict and the Refugee Problem and Its Origins, p.21. Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 16, No. 3. (Spring, 1987), pp. 16-24.
67. ^ Review by Dominique Vidal in Le Monde Diplomatique
68. ^ Morris, Benny (1986): What Happened in History. Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 15, No. 4. (Summer, 1986), pp. 181-182.
69. ^ Morris 2006, p. 262
70. ^ Quoted in Mark Tessler’s A History of the Arab-Israeli Conflict: Keesing’s Contemporary Archives (London: Keesing’s Publications, 1948-1973). p. 10101.
71. ^ Oren, Elhanan (1976): On the Way to the City. Hebrew, Tel Aviv.
72. ^ Ibid.
73. ^ Peretz Kidron interview with Ben Dunkelman, Haolam Hazeh, 9 January 1980.
74. ^ Kidron, Peretz (1988). Truth Whereby Nations Live. In Edward Said and Christopher Hitchens (Eds.). Blaming the Victims: Spurious Scholarship and the Palestinian Question Verso. ISBN 1-85984-340-9, p. 87.
75. ^ Ari Shavit – Survival Of The Fittest? An Interview With Benny Morris: Logos Winter 2004
76. ^ (Morris, 2004, p. 448)
77. ^ Morris, 2004, p. 490
78. ^ UN Doc. PAL/370 UN Press Release dated 6 November 1948
79. ^ Morris (2004), p. 492
80. ^ Ilan Pappe (Spring 2006). “Calling a Spade a Spade: The 1948 Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine” (HTML). Retrieved on 2007-05-03.
81. ^ UN Doc A/648 Progress Report of the United Nations Mediator on Palestine Submitted to the Secretary-General for Transmission to the Members of the United Nations see part 1 section V para 6
82. ^ Bowker, 2003, pp. 97-98.
83. ^ “United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194″. United Nations General Assembly (December 11, 1948). Retrieved on 2007-05-24.
84. ^ Morris 2006, p. 578
85. ^ Nadav Safran, Israel: The Embattled Ally, Harvard University Press, p 336.
86. ^ Morris 2006, p. 580
87. ^ Erskine Childers, ‘The Other Exodus’, The Spectator, May 12, 1961 reprinted in Walter Laqueur (ed.) The Israel-Arab Reader: A Documentary History of the Middle East Conflict,(1969) rev.ed.Pelican Books 1970 pp.179-188 p.183
88. ^ Reported by Philip Mendes, A historical controversy: the causes of the Palestinian refugee problem; retrieved from the Australian Jewish Democratic Society website on 1 November 2007.
89. ^ Reported by Philip Mendes, A historical controversy : the causes of the Palestinian refugee problem; retrieved from the Australian Jewish Democratic Society website on 1 November 2007.
90. ^ B. Morris, 2004 pp.5-7,pp.38-64,pp.462-587
91. ^ Khalidi, Walid (1961).
92. ^ Ilan. Pappé, (2006)
93. ^ Ruling Palestine, A History of the Legally Sanctioned Jewish-Israeli Seizure of Land and Housing in Palestine. Publishers: COHRE & BADIL, May 2005, p. 34.
94. ^ Ruling Palestine, A History of the Legally Sanctioned Jewish-Israeli Seizure of Land and Housing in Palestine. Publishers: COHRE & BADIL, May 2005, p. 35.
95. ^ Saleh, Abdul Jawad and Walid Mustafa (1987): p.30.
96. ^ Abu Sitta, Salman (2001).
97. ^ http://www.un.org/unrwa/publications/pdf/rr_countryandarea.pdf Refugees Per Country & Area; 2005
98. ^ Who is a Palestine Refugee? UNRWA ’s operational definition
99. ^ Assistance To Palestine Refugees UN Doc A/1905Report of the Director of the UNRWA, 28 September 1951
100. ^ (Bowker, 2003, pp. 61-62)
101. ^ Jiryis, Sabri (1981): Domination by the Law. Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 11, No. 1, 10th Anniversary Issue: Palestinians under Occupation. (Autumn, 1981), pp. 67-92.
102. ^ a b Kirshbaum, David A. Israeli Emergency Regulations and The Defense (Emergency) Regulations of 1945. Israel Law Resource Center, February, 2007.
103. ^ Ruling Palestine, A History of the Legally Sanctioned Jewish-Israeli Seizure of Land and Housing in Palestine Publishers: COHRE & BADIL, May 2005, p. 37.
104. ^ geocities.comIsraeli Emergency Regulations & The Defense (Emergency) Regulations of 1945 by David A. Kirshbaum
105. ^ Absentees’ Property Law (1950)
106. ^ See article 37 Absentees’ Property Law 5710-1950
107. ^ Ruling Palestine, A History of the Legally Sanctioned Jewish-Israeli Seizure of Land and Housing in Palestine. Publishers: COHRE & BADIL, May 2005, p. 41.
108. ^ Peretz, (1958)
109. ^ Prescription Law (1958)
110. ^ Plaut, Steven “How ‘Nakba’ Proves There’s No Palestinian Nation” Jewish Press 4/30/2008
111. ^ a b (Bowker, 2003, p. 96)
112. ^ http://www.i-p-o.org/palestine-ashrawi.htm

Bibliography

* Abu Sitta, Salman (2001): From Refugees to Citizens at Home. London: Palestine Land Society and Palestinian Return Centre, 2001
* Arzt, Donna E. (1997). Refugees into Citizens: Palestinians and the End of the Arab-Israeli Conflict. Council on Foreign Relations. ISBN 0-87609-194-X
* Atiyah, Edward Selim, (1958) The Arabs, London, Penguin Books,
* Beit-Hallahmi, Benny (1993). Original Sins: Reflections on the History of Zionism and Israel. Oliver Branch Press. ISBN 1-56656-131-0
* Benvenisti, Meron (2002) Sacred Landscape. University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-23422-7
* Bowker, Robert (2003). Palestinian Refugees: Mythology, Identity, and the Search for Peace. Lynne Rienner Publishers. ISBN 1-58826-202-2
* Cleveland, William L. “A History of the Modern Middle East” Westview Press; Third Edition (July 22, 2004) ISBN-10: 0813340489 ISBN-13: 978-0813340487
* Dershowitz, Alan (2003). The Case for Israel. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ISBN 0-471-67962-6.
* Finkelstein, Norman (2003). Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict, 2nd Ed. Verso. ISBN 1-85984-442-1
* Fischbach, Michael R. (2003). Records of Dispossession: Palestinian Refugee Property and the Arab-Israeli Conflict. Columbia University Press. ISBN 0-231-12978-5
* Flapan, Simha (1987) “The Birth of Israel: Myths and Realities” Published by Pantheon ISBN 039455888X ISBN 978-0394558882
* Gelber, Yoav (2006). Palestine 1948. War, Escape and the Emergence of the Palestinian Refugee Problem. Sussex Acadam Press. ISBN 1-84519-075-0.
* Glazer, Steven (1980): The Palestinian Exodus in 1948. Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 9, No. 4. (Summer, 1980), pp. 96-118.
* Kanaaneh, Rhoda A. (2002). Birthing the Nation: Strategies of Palestinian Women in Israel. University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-22944-4.
* Kapeliouk, Amnon (1987): New Light on the Israeli-Arab Conflict and the Refugee Problem and Its Origins. Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 16, No. 3. (Spring, 1987), pp. 16-24.
* Katz, Shmuel (1973) Battleground: Fact and Fantasy in Palestine Shapolsky Pub; ISBN 0-933503-03-2
* Khalidi, Walid (1959). Why Did the Palestinians Leave? Middle East Forum, July 1959. Reprinted as ‘Why Did the Palestinians Leave Revisited’, 2005, Journal of Palestine Studies, XXXIV, No. 2., pp. 42-54.
* Khalidi, Walid (1961). Plan Dalet, Master Plan for the Conquest of Palestine. Middle East Forum, November 1961.
* Lehn, Walter & Davis, Uri (1988). The Jewish National Fund. London : Kegan Paul.
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* Morris, Benny (2001). Revisiting the Palestinian exodus of 1948. In The War for Palestine: Rewriting the History of 1948 (pp. 37-59). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-79476-5
* Morris, Benny (2004). The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-00967-7
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* Pappé Ilan (1992) “The Making of the Arab Israeli Conflict 1947-1951″ Published by I B Tauris ISBN 1-85043-819-6
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* Rogan, Eugene L., & Shlaim, Avi (Eds.). (2007). The War for Palestine” 2nd Edition Cambridge: Cambridge University Press ISBN 978-0-521-87598
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* Saleh, Abdul Jawad and Walid Mustafa (1987): Palestine: The Collective Destruction of Palestinian Villages and Zionist Colonisation 1882-1982. London: Jerusalem Centre for Development Studies
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