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On May 15, 1948, Israel declared itself a new, independent state, and was soon thereafter attacked by assembled forces of the Arab world determined to destroy this proud, determined newcomer to the region -- or so the legend has been perpetuated for some 60 years, propelled by the novel and film, Exodus.
But a few salient facts have been conspicuously omitted from the legend.
Three Zionist terrorist (so designated by the United Nations) groups systematically planned and executed the expulsion of the native Palestinian population, who owned 93% of Palestine in 1947.
These were: the Haganah, formed in 1920; Irgun formed in 1931 and headed by future Israeli Prime Minister Menachim Begin; and LEHI (or the Stern Gang as it was known to the British) in1937, headed by future Israeli Prime Minister Yitzac Shamir after its founder, Avraham Stern, was killed by the British.
These terrorist "militias" had ethnically cleansed a third of the Palestinian population before the British departed and by the end of 1948 had driven over 3/4 million Palestinians into 59 refugee camps hastily constructed to accommodate them by UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency), newly created to respond to what Palestinians called their "catastrophe" -- al Nakba.
Scattered Arab forces intervened after the British withdrawal, but were no match for the well-organized, well-armed and well-funded Zionist militias. Since most Arab countries had recently emerged from post-WWI mandates under British or French administration, the only credible Arab army was the Arab Legion of Transjordan which the Zionists co-opted by promising them Judea and Samaria (now the West Bank) in exchange for their non-intervention in the rest of Palestine.
By the end of the ethnic cleansing campaign, the Zionists had destroyed and/or dispossessed the populations of 531 Arab villages and eleven urban areas, and had committed 33 documented massacres which killed some 13,000 largely defenseless Arabs.
Reports of these massacres terrorized other Arab villages into fleeing their homes as Jewish forces approached. Palestinian leaders, when unable to protect the villages, sometimes advised the residents to flee. This has been used by Zionist propagandists to claim that the Palestinians left voluntarily or unnecessarily upon direction by their leaders.
Israeli historian Ilan Pappe has declared that "catastrophe" is the wrong term with its connotations of natural disaster. Rather, he clearly identifies these acts as crimes against humanity.
Following these atrocities, some Jews who had lived in peace with Arabs for centuries throughout the Middle East and who had found refuge in Arab communities from Christian persecution in Europe, were expelled from communities in Egypt and Libya since their Arab neighbors suddenly feared them after what happened in Palestine. This has been used by Zionist propagandists to imply that some sort of balanced population exchange occurred and invalidate the Palestinian right of return. Most of these Jewish immigrants to Israel were in fact recruited by Zionism and motivated by incentives and subsidies offered by the new state rather than escape from Arab persecution. Notably large Jewish populations immigrated to Israel from Morrocco and Yemen in response to Israeli invitations and incentives. Jewish exodus from North Africa was also motivated by contemporaneous upheavals in the region against the French colonials, especially in Algeria.
This "ingathering" was actively encouraged by false flag attacks committed by the Mossad to frighten Jews in Egypt and Iraq into seeking refuge in Israel.
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