Elfan B. Rees Quotes

The strategy was to have Arab refugees, who had been trained to not only hate the Israelis but also in military and terrorist techniques, to return to israel and foment an insurgency. Ironically, this quotation was cited at the time as one of the few statements upon which the Israeli and Egyptian governments could agree.

When the United Nations partitioned Palestine into a Jewish and a Palestinian State the Arab Countries all jointly attacked the fledgling Jewish State of Israel. Despite the Israeli’s being overwhelmingly out numbered in man and weapons, they beat back the invaders. However while many Arabs stayed on their Israeli land and some helped the Jews defend against the Arab Armies some abandoned their homes and land and went to neighboring Arab Counties. This is what they had been asked to do by the Arab governments who wanted to be able to attack communities without worrying about killing Arabs. To spur the evacuation the spread false propaganda about Israeli atrocities and frightened them into leaving. As a motivation to leave they were told that they could move into the Jewish lands and property when the Jews had been driven out. To make matters worse, some Israeli radicals repeated the lies to induce the Arabs to abandon their lands. In at least one case Arabs who stayed were subjected to violence. After the defeat of the Arabs, the Israelis had a dilemma in that they could not tell which Arabs were residents who had just been frightened and which had fought on the Arab side or helped the invaders. The result was that with few exceptions, the Arab refugees were not allowed back. Meanwhile, the Arab countries would not allow the refugees to settle and become citizens of the Arab countries (except for Jordan). The Palestinian refugees were a particularly fertile population and were cared for by the United Nations and have multiplied to many times their original size maintaining a continuous festering problem.

“Fora” is the plural of forum. It was then preferable to “forums” as the plural form, because “forum” was a Latin word and the Latin plural for nouns ending in “um” was “a” as in “flora and fauna”. This was adopted as U. S. Policy until the second decade of the 21st century when the combination of the War on Terror, and the huge world refugee crises triggered by the Syrian revolution produced much nativist and and-immigration feeling to go along with the small proportion of American anti-immigrants who have almost always been a part of the American pluralistic landscape.

This quotation is the basis of the Arab argument that the United Nations decided that the Palestinian refugees who left Israel upon its creation at the urging of some Arab leaders. Other’s opposing this point of view observe that only the Security Council’s resolutions are binding and the General Assembly resolutions have no weight in International Law. Further that the Arab Refugees do not want to “live at peace” as is required in the resolution. Numerous surveys demonstrate the desire of most of the Palestinian refugees to support efforts to expel the Jewish Israelis from Israel. The other barrier is that there are tens of thousands of Jews who were forcibly ejected from Arab countries for whom no country is offering a right of return. The irony of Resolution 194 is that it was opposed by every Arab country at the time.

This quote is very important historically as it bears on the two different narratives of the creation of Israel given by the Jews and the Arabs. The Arabs claim that in the 1948 partition of Palestine, the Jew attacked the Arabs and drove them out of the areas in which they had lived for years, The Israelis claim that they urged the Arabs to stay and that all those who did, received full citizenship in the new state of Israel. The Arab leaders pressured and in some cases even forced the Arabs to leave so that the Arab armies could use artillery and other war weapons and not have to worry about hitting Arabs. They promised the Arabs who left that they could return in a few days when the Jews were defeated and pushed into the sea, and the Arabs could have the Jewish property. This report of an impartial actor, tends to support the Jewish view of the happening in so far as the behavior of the Jews was concerned. There was no pressure placed on Arabs by Jews to leave. It was actually, the reverse. There were however, two small rural areas where Jewish radicals did try and drive the Arabs out, but in general the Haifa experience was the norm.

The issue of admission of relatives of citizens had, in the 20th century, become controversial as some political forces worked to restrict immigration. The result of politicizing this issue was that the relatives who would receive immigration priorities would change every time Congress legislated about anything involving immigration and asylum. Immigrants from some countries could have their aunts and uncles get priority while other countries it was only siblings, children and parents. And still others would be children only. There was also racial and ethnic discrimination in that nations with white populations received a broader right to have relatives immigrate than non-white.

When the United Nations partitioned Palestine into a Jewish and a Palestinian State the Arab Countries all jointly attacked the fledgling Jewish State of Israel. Despite the Israeli’s being overwhelmingly out numbered in man and weapons, they beat back the invaders. However while many Arabs stayed on their Israeli land and some helped the Jews defend against the Arab Armies some abandoned their homes and land and went to neighboring Arab Counties. This is what they had been asked to do by the Arab governments who wanted to be able to attack communities without worrying about killing Arabs. To spur the evacuation the spread false propaganda about Israeli atrocities and frightened them into leaving. As a motivation to leave they were told that they could move into the Jewish lands and property when the Jews had been driven out. To make matters worse, some Israeli radicals repeated the lies to induce the Arabs to abandon their lands. In at least one case Arabs who stayed were subjected to violence. After the defeat of the Arabs, the Israelis had a dilemma in that they could not tell which Arabs were residents who had just been frightened and which had fought on the Arab side or helped the invaders. The result was that with few exceptions, the Arab refugees were not allowed back. Meanwhile, the Arab countries would not allow the refugees to settle and become citizens of the Arab countries (except for Jordan). The Palestinian refugees were a particularly fertile population and were cared for by the United Nations and have multiplied to many times their original size maintaining a continuous festering problem.