Palestine Political Storms Loom

By John Kimche, Overseas News Agency, Tel Aviv

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“Tel Aviv, Israel (ONA)—While Palestine is today enjoying a breathing spell from the war, political storms are looming on the horizon… No less difficult is the problem of the Arab refugees. There has been a remarkable change in public opinion. When the Arabs started leaving Haifa and villages near Jewish settlements, the Jews made frantic appeals to them to stay or return.

Jewish public opinion was obviously distressed, seeing the Arabs’ departure as part of some deep Arab scheme. Suddenly the Jews have now awakened to the fact that it is advantageous to have no large minority in the new state, and feeling is hardening that a permanent settlement might be considered which does not provide for the return of the refugee Arabs.

This has led to a demand by the parties of the right, including the orthodox Mizrachi faction, that plans be made immediately for the exchange of the Palestine Arab refugees for about 250,000 minority Jews in the Middle East.

While this plan in recent days has received considerable popular support and some cautious approval in government circles, its difficulties are gradually being recognized. For one thing the Arabs may not agree, and carrying out a mass tranfer without Arab support would be impossible.

Furthermore, once such a policy was proclaimed, a lasting settlement with the Arabs might be delayed for years.

The Tel Aviv Government remains undecided, but officials realize that the decision is the most fateful facing the Jews today… The talk had an undercurrent of almost hysterical fear that war might be resumed by irresponsible elements of both sides; in any event, it marked the first time that the Palestine Arabs had publicly suggested a settlement with the Jews.”

(Copyright, 1948, Overseas News Agency, Inc.)

Context added by this archive

Three months after Haifa, a correspondent in Tel Aviv writing down the moment the argument turned: first the appeals to stay, then the recognition that it was an advantage they had gone. The subheads are the paper’s: “Refugee Question Difficult,” “Arab Radio Changes Tone,” “Settlement With Jews Suggested.” “tranfer” is the paper’s.

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"Palestine Political Storms Loom," The Gazette and Daily, 11 August 1948, p. 1. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1948-060. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1948-060