Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle · Milwaukee, Wisconsin · 3 December 1948

CP-1948-059

Arab Refugees’ Plight Caused by Own Leaders

Jewish Telegraphic Agency, New York

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Transcribed from the clipping

“New York — (JTA) — Herbert Bayard Swope, in a letter published in the New York Herald Tribune, draws attention to the fact that on the question of the Arab refugees from Palestine there has been much confusion of thought and a general tendency to blame the Israelis for the plight of the refugees while ‘the opposite is nearer the truth.’ … One such report which appeared in the London Economist pointed out that there is little doubt that the most potent factor which influenced the decision of the Arabs to flee from a city like Haifa was ‘the announcements made over the air by the Arab Higher Executive, urging all Arabs in Haifa to quit’… Another report quoted by Swope appeared on September 6, 1948 in the Arabic newspaper ‘Telegraph’ published in Beirut.

It carried a statement made at a press conference by Emil el Ghory, representative of the Arab Higher Committee at the UN General Assembly, in which the Arab leader declared: ‘The problem of these refugees is the direct result of the policy of resistance to partition and to the establishment of the Israeli state.

This policy was unanimously adopted by the Arab governments, and it is they who have to bear responsibility for the solution of the refugees’ problem.’”

Context added by this archive

The argument in full, with its sources named, in December 1948. This is the document the leaders-told-them-to-leave claim rests on, and the archive now holds it.

Cite this clipping

This clipping is read closely in the section below

• The argument that Palestinians’ own leaders caused their expulsion

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