Interviews of Leftist European leaders, Muslims and Israelis on Middle East history

Updated: Oct. 1st. 2010

These videos show extreme leftist ideology with results of aggressive brainwash, telling their people to hate Israel, without balanced evidences. The above program was aired by CH 10 Israeli TV, “The Source” program.


* Following links of 2 videos are short version of a TV program, shows European & USA Leftist leaders which "declared WAR" on Israel


The 2 videos are on

#1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrN2FQAEna8

and continue on:
#2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gm_DIlVUi8

On the other hand, the following article reveals evidence from Muslim and Israeli sources about the self-evacuation of Palestinian people from Israel in 1948 – see message below and attached file (same).

The videos of Leftist European leaders on the boycott of Israel is part of a video investigation and TV program titled, “The source.” It was recorded from Channel 10 Israeli TV network. It provides evidence of the leftist European leaders’ goal, which is to perpetrate a “WAR” upon Israel in order to bring the Jewish state to its knees and force it to give away strategic security assets in order to eventually make it fatally vulnerable to Arab and Islamic aggression. The purpose of this strategy is to enhance the political prospects of individual leftist leaders throughout Europe and further their ideology among the populations of their respective states.

As you will see in the video, this strategy is not designed simply to support the Arabs who call themselves Palestinians. The operation is planned with one primary aim; help Muslims gain a major victory by destroying Israel through reducing it to a worn down “soft target.” This supports their overall left-wing agenda of support for Islam, and Israel is chosen at this time as the victim primarily because the leftist leaders are as yet unable to support other Muslims, such as in Chechnya, because Russia is too strong to be defeated (Reference: a leftist leader statement on the interview).

The Left is already attacking Israel on five different fronts, and the video will reveal how it is waging an existential and ideological war against Israel. The Left has chosen to attack Israel economically (by trade mark), diplomatically, publicly, culturally and at sporting events (per video interview): In short to de-legitimize and dehumanize it in order to justify eventual genocide against it so that Israel will disappear from the world’s map.

As an example of Leftist Political leaders who judge everything through ideology but are not open to any other ideas, The head of the Swedish Socialist party, Lars Haley, refused to be in the same room with the Swedish Democrat party leader, just because he did not agree with his agenda of limiting Muslim immigration into Sweden.

He intends to boycott the Swedish Democrat party in any way he can. His aggressive statements are similar to the style of many Muslim leaders .

Bottom line:

You don’t have to follow leftist leaders, if they continue to adhere to incorrect ideological beliefs when contradicted by empirical evidence to the contrary as in the lies and distortions spewed by the anti-Israel boycotters.

You may forward the entire message to friends.

The following link has the original/entire TV program, part of which is in Hebrew;

http://news.nana10.co.il/Article/?ArticleID=74172

Viewing Instructions: On the link there are another 2 Hebrew optional links as below:

*First line to be clicked when your PC is missing additional part for media player

*Second line to be clicked for direct access without downloading the additional SW:

Udi,

USA

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Palestinian and Israelis Interviews on 1948 War and Palestinian fled, May 10, 2007

Updated: 9-30-2010

First,

We are bringing few interviews and articles by Palestinian and Arab leader which accusing the Arab leaders for the orders they put on the Palestinian people to leave their homes and lands:

* Palestinian who fled Majdel ( close to Gaza strip) reported that:
Statement of son and grandson of man who fled: "Mr. Ibrahim [Sarsur]. I address you as a Muslim. My father and grandfather told me that during the "Catastrophe" [establishment of Israel in 1948 and the expulsion from the land], our district officer issued an order that whoever stays in Palestine and in Majdel [near Ashkelon – Israel] is a traitor, he is a traitor."

*Response from Ibrahim Sarsur, Head of the Islamic Movement in Israel: "The one who gave the order forbidding them to stay there bears guilt for this, in this life and the Afterlife throughout history until Resurrection Day." [PA TV April 30, 1999] [More...]
*Woman who fled Israel in 1948:
"We heard sounds of explosions and of gunfire at the beginning of the summer in the year of the “Catastrophe” [The establishment of Israel and the expulsion from the land in 1948]. They told us: The Jews attacked our region and it is better to evacuate the village and return, after the battle is over. And indeed there were among us [who fled Israel] those who left a fire burning under the pot, those who left their flock [of sheep] and those who left their money and gold behind, based on the assumption that we would return after a few hours."
[Asmaa Jabir Balasimah Um Hasan, Woman who fled Israel, Al-Ayyam, May 16, 2006]

* “Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas) charged that he Arab states are the cause of Palestinian Refugees problem” (Wall street Journal, June 5, 2003): ref: Abu Mazen article in the Falestin al-Thawra, official journal of PLO in Beirut, March 1976:

“ Arab armies entered Palestine…..forced them to emigrate and to leave their homeld ..and thru them into prisons similar to the Jewish Ghettos in Europe”

* Khaled al-Azm (Syrian Prime Minister after the 1948 war) notes in his 1973 memories:

“ Since 1948, it is we who have demanded the return of the refugees while it is we who made them leave. We brought disaster upon million Arab refugees by inviting them and bringing pressure on them to leave…”

Fuad Abu Higla, then a regular columnist in the official Palestinian authority (PA) daily Al Hayat Al Jadida, wrote an article before an Arab Summit, which criticized the Arab leaders for a series of failures. One of the failures he cited, in the name of a prisoner, was that an earlier generation of Arab leaders "forced" them to leave Israel in 1948, again placing the blame for the flight on the Arab leaders.
"I have received a letter from a prisoner in Acre prison, to the Arab summit:

To the [Arab and Muslim] Kings and Presidents, Poverty is killing us, the symptoms are exhausting us and the souls are leaving our body, yet you are still searching for the way to provide aid, like one who is looking for a needle in a haystack or like the armies of your predecessors in the year of 1948, who forced us to leave [Israel], on the pretext of clearing the battlefields of civilians... So what will your summit do now?"
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadidah, March 19, 2001]

= = = = =

Second,

we are bringing Summary of the important point of the following interviews:


* There were no orders or instructions from the Israeli army, to push Palestinians out of their home or land.
* There were no direct orders from the top leaders to clear the villages and towns of the inhabitants.
* Top officers did not instruct anyone in their unit to uproot Palestinians.
* Israel’s leaders understood in 1948 that uprooting Palestinians was not a politically wise thing to do and tried to avoid inhuman actions.
* Each commander in each village determined for himself what to do, depending on the situation he faced.
* Thousands of Palestinians ran away during a battle in Zipori. The hundreds that stayed were not pushed out.

* One interviewer was an intelligence officer who would have known about Israeli policy, orders to push out Palestinians and about every instruction and report. He never got any orders to scare Palestinians or to encourage them to leave.

* Israelis did not scare the Palestinians into leaving, did not tell them it would be better for them to leave by themselves, and in most cases did not push them to leave. In most cases, the Palestinians left of their own will, village by village. More than eighty percent left on their own, with no Israeli involvement.

* The same thing happened in 1967, when Israel fought and took over the Golan Heights. The villagers of Tel Phaher fled and ran to Syria before the Israelis reached their village. This escape was similar to the escape of the Palestinians in 1948. There was no political decision by the Israelis to clear out Arab villages.

However, once the Arabs started fleeing in 1948, the villages fell in a domino effect – one village after another.

Only in a few strategic places like Ikrit, Bir’am, and Idmit, which were on the main road, close to the border, were the people told by the Israelis to leave at gunpoint. These were less than ten percent of all the Palestinians who fled.



* In most cases, the Palestinians ran away before the Israelis even reached their villages because they believed the Arab propaganda, that the Israelis will kill all of them and rape their women. This is what the Arabs planned to do to the Jewish settlers if they had been able to.
* One Israeli knew many Arab villagers and visited the villagers often. They considered themselves friends. He received an order from the Haganah (Israeli military organization) to urge the villagers not to leave. He got this task since he was friendly with the Arab villagers and spoke their language.

* A wealthy Palestinian man owned very large part of north Nahariya land, and he was friendly with his Israeli neighbors. The Haganah suggested to him that he stay, that he would be unharmed, in fact protected by them. The Iraqi army, led by Fawzi Kaukji, was nearby at the time, up to 1 Km from the sea. The son of this wealthy Arab decided to join Kaukji’s army to fight the Israelis and the father was afraid and ran away, abandoning his entire land and property.

* The Israelis shot a single shell with a very old gun toward El Caucadi village. The shell fell in the field, made a loud noise but no damage and the entire village ran away. The soldiers were over 2 Km from the village when the villagers fled.

* On the other hand, in another neighboring Muslim village (Mazra), the Kaukji soldiers did not enter the village and the people were not scared. The villagers stayed and today enjoy good relations with their Israeli neighbors.

* Kaukji soldiers occupying the village of Samariya, 1 Km from the Mediterranean Sea, North of Acre, shot into Regba many times. The Kaukji soldiers scared the Arab villagers and convinced them to leave. When the Israeli soldiers attacked the Kaukji army in Samariya and won the battle, the whole village escaped with food still on the tables, well before the soldiers arrived.

* A small Israeli aircraft ‘bombed’ the large village of Tarshiha. The bombs were small – mostly grenades. Five minutes after the bombing started all the Palestinians ran away.



* The Palestinians left their villages because Arab propaganda told them to leave and promised them that when they come back, after the victory of the Arab army, they will be able to rape the Jewish women and take their homes.
* The Palestinians have named this event Nakba or ‘catastrophe’. While the Arabs blame the Israelis for expelling them, ALL interviewees said it happened in just a small percentage of cases. They believe that the Palestinians know that they made a big mistake, know they lost the war and had they stayed, things would have turned out differently for them.

* The battle and killing at Deir Yassin scared many Arabs, as Arab leaders spread false stories and lies about Deir Yassin, about Israelis raping women and killing all the men. While ~100 Arabs were killed that day, no one was ever raped.



* Most Palestinians ran away on their own after hearing the false stories spread throughout the villages of massacre and rape in Deir Yassin.

* Israelis surrounded the cities of Lod and Ramla, on three sides. The Arabs ran away to the West Bank on the open side. No one pushed them out with guns, scared them or entered their homes. The 20% of the Palestinian population that stayed, when the Israelis showed up in Lod and Ramla, were not touched, and are living there even now.

The Israeli soldiers were ordered not to enter any house in these towns, as the Arabs booby-trapped the doorways with grenades. A soldier entered one of the houses, after hearing a noise inside, and found the beds still warm and food on the table, as people ran away before the soldiers arrived. The Arabs were told by their leaders to be worried about the coming “massacre”. They also were scared of being surrounded.



* The Arabs in Haifa were told officially by the Jews not to leave, when they signed the surrender document of Haifa. Even so, hundreds of boats left Haifa port to Acre and Lebanon. Many trucks, including rented trucks, also left for Acre and Lebanon. The mayor of Haifa came personally to the port to convince the Arabs not to leave, as he cared about them as members of his city. Nevertheless, many left and only few listened to him and stayed. In a few places around Haifa, the villagers stayed also.

A young boy saw few hundreds small boats in the Haifa bay, heading toward Acco (Acre).



* General Carmel wrote an official letter to the Arab residents of Haifa City telling them not to leave.

* There were hundreds of villages south of Tel-Aviv which were taken over by Israelis, who found them empty of inhabitants.
* Jaffa Arabs began firing into Tel Aviv even before the Arab armies invaded Israel. Jews were killed by snipers shooting from the holy Ba’al Bek mosque tower.
* Menachem Begin (former Prime Minister) told his Irgun fighters: “In this battle (Jaffa), show no mercy to the enemy, as he knows none towards our people. Spare women and children. Spare the life of anyone who raises his hands in surrender. He is your captive. Do not harm him.”
* Many Arabs left during the battle of Jaffa. They did so without any encouragement from Israel.
* Arab propaganda did have a role in encouraging them to leave. Their leaders told them: “When the Jews are wiped out you can live in the choicest Tel Aviv homes.”

* In the war the Israelis took over Acre and many Palestinians fled to Lebanon. Many Arabs ran away before the Israelis reached their homes.



* Arab countries convinced the Palestinians to leave, so the land would be free to be bombed by air and conquered by the Arab armies. Then the Palestinians would return to their homes and land devoid of Jews. Actually, the Arab countries that attacked Israel did not have the intention of returning the land and houses to the Palestinians living there at all, but to annex the land themselves - they wanted to exchange the population of Arab Palestinians with their own people.

* The Arabs’ confidence in success was high. Their imagination was fueled by their ‘oriental’ love of embellishing stories without concern for truth or reality. Their excitement made people dream about their success in winning a big war.



* Arab countries attacked Israel and arrived up to 10 Km from Haifa, 22 Km from Tel Aviv, and took part of Jerusalem, while Israel had only four stolen tanks and a few armored vehicles (at beginning of the war). Israel had enough soldiers but not enough rifles and ammunition. Each bullet was a treasure to the poor Israelis.

* The Iraqi army, led by Fawzi Kaukji, was stopped 10 Km east of Haifa, after a big battle.

* In Haifa, the front street facing the Arab neighbors had a thick wall, which protected the Israelis from the bullets. This wall was built in response to the bloody attacks on Jews in the years 1920, 1921, 1929 and 1936-1938.



* Each Arab country wanted to take larger pieces of Israel. If they had cooperated and coordinated their moves, they would have made much better use of their manpower and weapons and would have won the war.
* Before the war of 1948, all the Jewish settlements were established on lands that were bought at full price from the Arabs.
= = = = = = = = =



Third: The following are the Interviews and Memories from 1948 Israeli Independence War:


Dov Yermia – former General

6/1/03 Interviewed by EG, Edited by SR



Dov Yermia was a General (It was 3rd level from the top) in the Haganah and IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) during the 1948 Independence War, and had personal contacts with Moshe Dayan and Prime Minister David Ben Gurion.

Dov’s unit took over 6 villages. According to Dov, there were no orders or instructions to push Palestinians out. Each commander in each village determined for himself what to do, depending on the situation he faced. There were no direct orders from the top leaders to clear the villages and towns of the inhabitants. He did not instruct anyone in his unit to uproot Palestinians nor did he do so himself.

Dov recalls the fight over the village of Zippori, near Nazareth. During the Arab uprising of 1936-39, and again in the 1948 War of Independence, the village was the 'hideout' of Arab squads operating against Jewish settlements in the region under the command of Mahmud Safuri.

On the night of 15th-16th July 1948, the Israel Defense Forces captured Zippori town, during the second stage of a military maneuver known as "Operation Palm Tree", under the command of Hayim Laskow, and its population abandoned the village. http://www.jafi.org.il/education/noar/sites/tzipor.htm . Dov remembers that most of the people left during the battle. Thousands of people ran away. The Israelis took over the town. The hundreds of inhabitants that stayed were not pushed out, but later they were transferred to the next Arab city of Nazareth. They were settled in part of the city known as the Zippori neighborhood.

Dov was familiar with one organized transfer. After the ceasefire, Arabs in Migdal, a town south of Tel Aviv, on a strategic point on the road to the Gaza Strip, were pushed out. He also recalls one village in the Galilee, near the Lebanon border, where a few Palestinians were murdered and others were told they would be killed also if they do not leave the village.

On the other hand there were also instances of Israelis asking the inhabitants to stay. General Carmel wrote an official letter to the Arab residents of Haifa City telling them not to leave.

While Dov is familiar with a few instances of uprooting and transfers, he maintains that most Palestinians ran away on their own after hearing the horrible stories spread throughout the villages of massacre and rape in Deir Yassin.



Ya’akov Poondik, a high-ranking officer

December 2000 – Interviewed by EG, Edited by SR



During Israel’s War for Independence, Ya’akov Poondik was a high-ranking officer in command of the west Galilee. Ya’akov tells that there were about 900,000 Palestinians before 1948. About 300,000 stayed and about 600,000 left. According to Ya’akov there were no orders to drive the Palestinians out of their villages.

The Israelis on three sides surrounded the cities of Lod and Ramla. The Arabs ran away to the West Bank on the open side. No one pushed them out with guns, scared them or entered their homes. The Arabs were told by their leaders to be worried about the coming “massacre”. They also were scared of being surrounded. Lod and Ramla were large cities. The twenty percent of the Palestinian population that stayed when the Israelis showed up were not touched (they stayed there).

There were hundreds of villages south of Tel-Aviv. Ten of these villages were Jewish and the rest were Arab. The Israelis took over the Arab villages, one after the other, finding that most of the inhabitants had left. Those villagers who had stayed were not pushed out.

Ya’akov’s son, Uri, adds that an important fact that many people do not know, is that before the war of 1948, all the Jewish settlements were established on lands that were bought at full price from the Arabs and in many cases the poor farmers (falachs) got additional compensation for their land.

It was not until the Arabs, that did not agree to the Division Plan of November 11, 1947 began the war, that things began to change. From that time the process of not listening to reason and abandoning their properties began. Sometimes the Haganah was responsible for helping them do so. Since that moment, Jewish settlements began to grow everywhere, including in neglected Arab villages and towns.



Shlomo Alfandari, a first-aid soldier

December 2000 – Interviewed by EG, Edited by SR



Shlomo Alfandari, a first-aid soldier, claims that Arabs were not pushed out of their villages in the 1948 War of Independence. Israel understood that it was not a politically wise thing to do, and tried to avoid inhuman actions.

Shlomo was involved in the battle for Jaffa. It was a long battle. Jaffa Arabs began firing into Tel Aviv even before the Arab armies invaded Israel, on May 16, 1948. Jews were killed in the Carmel Market and surrounding areas. Snipers picked off Tel Aviv citizens at their leisure from the holly Ba’al Bek mosque tower. These snipers killed two of Shomo’s friends.

Three Israeli defense organizations fought together to take over Jaffa. Fighting alongside the Haganah were the Lehi (Lohamei Herut Israel or Stern gang) and the Etzel (Irgun Zeva'i Le'umi). It was a bloody battle with high casualties on both sides.

On April 24, 1948, Menachem Begin (former Prime Minister and Irgun’s top commander) told his Irgun fighters: “In this battle, show no mercy to the enemy, as he knows none towards our people. Spare women and children. Spare the life of anyone who raises his hands in surrender. He is your captive. Do not harm him.” According to Shlomo, many Arabs left during the battle. They did so without any encouragement from Israel. Arab propaganda did have a role in encouraging them to leave, which they did in a long convoy. Their own leaders told them: “When the Jews are wiped out you can live in the choicest Tel Aviv homes.” In Na’na, a village east of Tel Aviv, on the border of the west bank, (today known as Na’an) just a few elderly Arabs and two blind men remained.

According to Shlomo, twenty percent of the Arabs living in the towns of Lod and Ramla, towns 9-10 miles east of Jaffa, stayed in their houses and are still living in their houses. The other eighty percent left because Arab propaganda told them to leave and that when they come back, after the victory of the Arab army, they will be able to rape all the Jewish women.

The Israeli soldiers were ordered not to enter any house in these towns, as the Arabs booby-trapped the doorways with grenades. Shlomo gave first aid to a few soldiers who were wounded in this way. Shlomo himself entered one of these empty houses, after hearing a noise inside, and found the beds still warm and food on the table, as people ran away before the soldiers arrived.



Josef and Shoshanna Grinberger, Ehood’s parents

June 1, 2003 – Interviewed by EG, Edited by SR



During the time of the 1948 Independence War, Josef and Shoshanna Grinberger were farmers, living in Regba, a community farm, North of Acre, near Nahariya. Everyone was trained to hold a rifle and do basic fighting, but mostly they guarded their own kibbutz. Other trained soldiers, who came from outside, went to fight against Samariya.

According to Josef and Shoshanna, the Arab countries that set out to conquer Israel, did not go about it in a very smart way. They felt that each of the Arab countries had their own interests in mind. Each Arab country wanted to take larger pieces of Israel. If they had cooperated and coordinated their moves, they would have made much better use of their manpower and weapons and would have won the war.

Kaukji soldiers occupied the village of Samariya, after an internal fight with the quiet Palestinian people who didn’t accept Kaukaji soldiers. Samariya was located 1 mile from the Mediterrenean see, North of Acre, a few meters away from the road to Acre, which was a strategic point. This Iraqi army, led by Fawzi Kaukji, shot into Regba many times. The Kaukji soldiers scared the Arab villagers and convinced them to leave. Israeli soldiers attacked the Kaukji army in Samariya and the Israeli commander was killed. Three Kaukji soldiers were also killed in the fighting and the whole village escaped with food still on the tables, before the soldiers arrived. (The Israelis attacked along the old Turk water aqueduct, which supplied water from Cabri to Acre. The aqueduct is about ten miles long, and built in the same style as the Roman aqueduct. It is still visible today from the main road).

Another village that chose to clear out without seeing any Israelis was El Caucadi. The Israelis shot one shell with a very old gun with ineffective shells toward El Caucadi village (south of Nahariya and east of Regba). The old gun made a loud noise when it exploded but caused minimal damage. One shell fell on the field and the entire village ran away. The soldiers were over 2 Km from the village when the villagers fled. Only a few villages on the border of Lebanon were pushed out by the Israelis because they were on strategic points.

On the other hand, in the quiet Muslim village of Mazra, which was about 1 Km from Samariya, the villagers stayed and today enjoy good relations with their Israeli neighbors. In the mid 1950’s, Josef had a Muslim partner named Mohamed living in this village. They shared a small tractor and split the profits equally. The Kaukji soldiers did not enter this village and the people were not scared. The villagers even cooperated with the Israelis. Being good neighbors they met the Israelis in a deep gully in the fields, where it was difficult to be seen, to exchange information. Today there is lots of trading with the Mazra villagers, including the biggest market in the whole area, with mostly Jewish customers coming from Nahariya and the surrounding area.



David Nizan - Intelligence Officer

8/5/00-5/17/03 Interviewed by EG, Edited by SR



David Nizan worked as an intelligence officer for the Haganah and the IDF (Israeli Defense Force) in 1948. According to David, Israelis did not scare the Palestinians into leaving, did not tell them it would be better for them to leave by themselves, and in most cases did not push them to leave. In most cases, the Palestinians left of their own will, village by village. More than eighty percent left on their own, with no Israeli involvement.

The Palestinians have named this event Nakba or ‘catastrophe’. While the Arabs blame the Israelis for expelling them, Nizan knows that they did not, and believes that the Palestinians know that they made a big mistake. He believes that they know they lost the war and had they stayed, things would have turned out differently for them. They might even have won the war had they stayed.

David relates that the battle at Deir Yassin scared many Arabs. A battle occurred in the village of Deir Yassin, where many villagers were killed and more than thirty Israelis were wounded. Arab leaders spread stories about Deir Yassin throughout the Arab villages. They told stories and lies about Israelis raping women and killing men. While many people were killed that day, no one was ever raped.

David, as an intelligence officer, would have known about Israeli policy or orders to push out Palestinians. It was his job to check out information about the enemy in the field. He received all his information and instructions from the Haganah. In his position he would have known about every order, instruction and report. He never got any orders to scare Palestinians or to encourage them to leave.

David met Aliza Shinerman the evening before she joined the bloody convoy to kibbutz Yechiam, where forty-nine soldiers were killed in an Arab ambush. David saw her body when it was returned to them by the Arabs. They had cut off her breasts. Aliza’s brother was also killed in the ambush on this day. In retaliation, the Israeli soldiers went to attack the nearby village of Cabri, 5 Km east of Nahariya, but found it empty. Other villages in the area were also abandoned.

It didn’t take too much to spread fear in people involved in the conflict. David remembers when the Lebanese army rolled up in armored cars to attack Kibbutz Manara. One brave Israeli woman stopped the convoy at the entrance gate, shot the commander and the entire convoy was shaken so badly they went back to Lebanon.

Arab countries convinced the Palestinians to leave, so the land would be free to be bombed by air, and conquered by the Arab armies. Then the Palestinians would return to their homes and land devoid of Jews. David believes the Arab countries that attacked Israel did not have the intention to return the land and houses to the Palestinians living there at all, but to annex the land themselves -they wanted to exchange the population of Arab Palestinians, by their own people.



Ze’ev Amit, a soldier

June 1, 2003 – Interviewed by EG, Edited by SR



Ze’ev Amit was a soldier during the War for Independence and became a high school teacher. He is from Nahariya. He summarized the history he knows and teaches: Before 1918 there were no Arab countries. The Turks controlled all the Middle East. On November 29, 1947 the United Nations decided to partition Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state. In 1938 an international division committee decided that 6000 sq km. would be for the Jews. This area allotted to the Jews was about half the size that Israel is today. David Ben Gurion, Israel’s first Prime Minister, accepted this small area. It was better than nothing. The Jews celebrated. There was dancing in the streets even though the area they were given was so small. Arab leaders rejected the partition. They wanted everything. They declared that they will join forces with the armies of other Arab countries and will take over all Palestine.

The Arabs’ confidence in success was high. Their imagination was fueled by their ‘oriental’ love of embellishing stories without concern for truth or reality. Their excitement made people dream about their success in winning a big war.

Seven countries attacked Israel on May 16, 1948, one day after she declared independence:

Egypt - reached Ashdod and Beit Lechem – West Bank

Jordan - Jordan’s Arab legion was led by a British colonel – took all the West Bank

Syria - took east Galilee, up to south of Lake Kineret (Galilee lake)

Iraq - Fawzi Kaukji, the commander of the ‘rescue and occupation forces’ took most of the Galilee up to the north of Acre and east of Haifa.

Lebanon - operated in east and central Galilee

Yemen and Morocco - sent troops to help fight and kill all the Jews

Palestinian leaders told the Palestinian people to leave their homes, properties, and lands, as the plan is to conquer and kill all the Jewish people, at which time they could return home. They would be able to return not only to Jaffa, which was an Arabic city, but also to Tel-Aviv, a Jewish city, and to all the other Jewish cities/villages. These places were to be occupied by seven Arab countries. (Written documentation of these declarations exists). Their ‘oriental’ imagination was blooming and the Palestinian people believed their leaders. The invasion army had begun to reach their villages.

Israel had only four stolen tanks and a few armored vehicles. Israel had enough soldiers but no rifles and not enough ammunition. The fighting started in November 1947. Haifa was a city divided into an Arab section and a Jewish section. In April of 1948, after a battle of three days, the Jews took over the entire city. The Arabs were told officially by the Jews not to leave, when they signed the surrender document. Even so, hundreds of boats left Haifa port to Acre and Lebanon. Many trucks, including rented trucks, also left for Acre and Lebanon. The mayor of Haifa came personally to the port to convince the people not to leave. Nevertheless, many left, but in a few villages for example, Wadi Nisnas, Faradis, Tira, Taibe and Mazra, the villagers stayed.

After May 15, 1948 the Israelis took over Acre and many Arabs/Palestinians fled to Lebanon. After that the Israelis advanced north to Nahariya up to the Lebanon border. Many villagers ran away before the Israelis reached their villages. This included Samariya where Iraqi soldiers were fighting against the Israelis. Only in a few strategic places like Ikrit and Bir’am, which were on the road, close to the border, were the people told by the Israelis to leave at gunpoint. This was less than ten percent of all the Palestinians who fled.

In most cases, the Palestinians ran away before the Israelis even reached their villages because they believed the Arab propaganda, that the Israelis will kill them and rape their women. This is what the Arabs planned to do to the Jewish settlers if they had been able to.

Arab leaders scared the villages of Um-Farage, Tarshiha, and Achziv, among many others into leaving ahead of the ‘awful’ Israelis in 1948. In 1967, the same thing happened when Israel fought and took over the Golan Heights. The villagers of Tel Phaher fled and ran to Syria before the Israelis reached their village. After the Six Day War of 1967 was over, Israel offered three days of amnesty to those villagers who wished to return to their villages. Some did, many did not. This flight was similar to the flight of the Palestinians in 1948. There was no political decision by the Israelis to clear out Arab villages. However, once the Arabs started fleeing in 1948, the villages fell in a domino effect – one village after another. During the years, Israel allowed 140,000 Palestinians to return to reunite with their families.

Before 1948, Jews volunteered to become British soldiers. They were called Gapeers. These soldiers helped the British control Arab terror gangs and Arab uprisings. They were issued British rifles, uniforms and horses. In order to smuggle ammunition to the Israelis, these soldiers made up fights, reported losses of used ammunition and received replacement supplies. These were smuggled to the Israelis. Each bullet was a treasure to the poor Israelis. After the British withdrew on May 15, 1948 only a small amount of the weapons and ammunition were transferred to the Israelis.



Mola Rozental

Dec 2000 Interviewed by EG, Edited by SR



During the 1948 Israel War for Independence, Mola Rozental was working on kibbutz "Hachotrim", south of Haifa. Mola estimates that about ninety-five percent of the Palestinian population fled their villages without any Israeli involvement while only about five percent were actually pushed out of their villages.

During the thirties and forties, a Syrian, Fawzi Kaukji, was known for leading a mixed band of Syrian and Iraqi mercenaries in an extended terrorist campaign directed mainly against the Jewish villages. On April 10, 1948, al- Kaukji surrounded the Jewish settlement of Mishmar Ha-Emek. The moral of his officers was beginning to sink as they learned of the death of Abdel Qader al Husseini at Qastel. Word of the Deir Yassin “massacre” was spreading throughout the countryside as well. Fearing that this news would further shatter the moral of his men, al-Kaukji insisted that Arab radio stations broadcast the news of the massacre, in graphic detail, along with news of exaggerated military accomplishments.

Mola tells that during the 1948 war, the Kaukji army convinced villagers to leave. The Kaukji soldiers went from one village to another to convince the Palestinians to leave. Some of the villages that were visited by al-Kaukji’s troops were Sameriya, Um Farage, El Caucad, and Cabri. The villagers of Kufer Yasif did not run away even though the Kaukji army soldiers tried very hard to convince them to. To this day, the Arabs of Kufer Yasif are good neighbors, citizens of Israel and much better off then their countrymen who chose to flee. The only towns Mola knows were deliberately pushed out by the Israelis were the villages of Idmit, Ikrit and Biram on the Lebanon border, located close to the main road (strategic places).

Mola recalls that Haifa’s legendary mayor at the time, Abba Hushi, urged the Arab residents of his city not to flee during the War of Independence, but to stay instead, and help build a city together with Jewish citizens. He personally went to the port, reached them on their boats, and convinced many of them not to leave.

The fled by boats was confirmed by Moshe Bohrer, San Jose, CA: As a young boy he saw few hundreds boats in the Haifa bay heading toward Acco (Acre).



Rivka Zimering, Ehood’s teacher, Nahariya

June 1, 2003 – Interviewed by EG, Edited by SR



Rivka Zimering was an elementary teacher since 1946 in Nahariya. She recalls listening to the experiences of a man by the last name of Yosifon, who knew many Arab villagers. He visited the villagers often and they considered themselves friends. He received an order from the Israeli military organization, the Haganah, to urge the villagers not to leave. He got this task since he was friendly with the Arab villagers and can speak their language. The order was to convince them they have nothing to be afraid of and they won’t be harmed. Most of the villagers fled anyways, choosing to believe the Arab leaders and not the Israelis.



Andreas Mayer, a soldier

June 1, 2003 – Interviewed by EG, Edited by SR



During the time of the War for Independence in 1948, Andreas Mayer was a soldier, handyman and all-purpose repair person, who worked in many villages, fixing cars, pumps etc. He drove on his motorcycle to the villages and knew many Palestinian villagers.

Andreas tells that the Palestinian villagers he visited were fond of telling and hearing what he calls ‘oriental stories’ which he describes as big on imagination and false evidence, which they would continue to embellish with more untruths, until by the end they believed their own stories.

In the northern part of Nahariya, a wealthy Palestinian man named Moograbe owned lots of land. He was friendly with his Israeli neighbors. The Israeli defense organization, the Haganah suggested to Moograbe that he stay, that he would be unharmed, in fact protected by them. The Iraqi army, led by Fawzi Kaukji, was nearby at the time. Moograbe’s son decided to join Kaukji’s army to fight the Israelis. Moograbe was afraid and ran away.

Andreas remembers that small aircraft called Flying Hornets bombed the large village of Tarshiha, which was east of Nahariya. The bombs were small – mostly grenades. Five minutes after the bombing started all the Palestinians ran away, except for two mentally ill people. Andreas recalls that the nearby village of Achziv was empty when the Israelis soldiers arrived.



Reuven Peri

May 28, 2003 – Interviewed by EG, Edited by SR



During the 1948 War of Independence, Reuven Peri was in Kiryat Mozkin, North of Haifa, on the way to Acre. He was about sixteen years old. He helped to dig bunkers in the ground and to supply materials to the soldiers. Reuven recalls that the war inside the town of Haifa started in November of 1947. In April of 1948 the city was taken over by Israeli Jews in two days of fighting. The Arab citizens were not pushed out, but left for Acre and Lebanon in convoys by their own decision. Abba Hushi, the mayor of Haifa, called for the Arab citizens not to get in the boats in the harbor, which were leaving, and tried to stop the escape to Lebanon. He cared about them as members of his city. Some of them listened to him and stayed but those who left and tried to get back to Haifa later, were stopped on the way from Acre and Kiryat Mozkin.

Reuven relays that the Iraqi army led by Fawzi Kaukji was stopped in Mishmar Ha’emek, ten miles east of Haifa, after a big battle. On the east entrance to Haifa, is the neighborhood of Wadi Rushemia. There is a deep canyon with a bridge across it. The Arabs blocked the bridge. A group of soldiers were stuck in a house for two days next to the bridge. In Haifa, the front street facing the Arab neighbors had a thick wall, which protected the Israelis from the bullets. This wall was built in response to the bloody attacks on Jews in the years 1920, 1921, 1929 and 1936-1938.