Rutland Daily Herald · Rutland, Vermont · 3 May 1948
CP-1948-066
Despairing Arab Refugees Flee in Wake of Successes By Palestine Jewish Forces
Say Talk of Rescuing Holy Land Now Is Another Example of ‘Too Little Too Late’; Turn Against Former Heroes as Military Achievements of Jews Over Voluntary Army Shatter Morale · Skeptical About Arab League
By Daniel De Luce, Associated Press
Shown from the top. The whole column — 3 times taller than it is wide — is in the enlargement.
Transcribed from the clipping
“JERICHO, Palestine, May 2 (AP)—A road of Arab despair winds eastward across the Jordan. Many refugees passing Jericho en route to Trans-Jordan, a few miles away, are from Jerusalem and Jaffa. They fear Jewish offensives are crashing through weakened Arab volunteer resistance.
Haifa was described as almost a ghost town with its population dwindling to less than 20,000 from a normal figure at least five times that. This was the muttered comment of a formerly wealthy merchant from Maillah road in Jerusalem: ‘Talk of Arab governments rescuing Palestine sounds like another case of “too little too late.”
If they send all the 30,000 regulars they’re supposed to have promised to send, the Jews have 45,000 trained soldiers here in this country and inexhaustible riches to draw on from overseas.’ Like Poles who denounced Marshal Edward Smigly-Rydz when Poland collapsed in 1939, these Arabs today are quick to attack those they once glorified.
They talk slightingly of the exiled Jerusalem Mufti Haj Amin El Husseini.”
Context added by this archive
Twelve days before the state was declared, an Associated Press correspondent stood on the Jericho road and counted who was on it. The people leaving are from Jerusalem and Jaffa, and Haifa is described as a ghost town at under 20,000 from a normal five times that. The reporter went and looked, and a merchant is quoted at length by occupation and street.
What the piece does not do is ask any of them where they are going to live, and the headline turns the road into a story about Arab morale. “Maillah road” is the paper’s setting of Mamilla Road.
Cite this clipping
"Despairing Arab Refugees Flee in Wake of Successes By Palestine Jewish Forces," Rutland Daily Herald, 3 May 1948. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1948-066. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1948-066
More from Rutland Daily Herald
- After Joy, What's Next In Middle East?Rutland Daily Herald · 8 May 1994
- 2,000 Palestinian prisoners join hunger strikeRutland Daily Herald · 12 October 2011
- Palestinian prisoner on 55th day of hunger strikeRutland Daily Herald · 10 February 2012
- Israel to free Palestinian hunger strikerRutland Daily Herald · 22 February 2012
More from the 1940s
- Jewish Reprisal Raids On Two Arab Villages Take Toll of 8 LivesThe News Journal · 1 January 1948
- Palestine Blasts Rip Arab OfficesThe New York Times · 5 January 1948
- Jews Blow Up Military Post Of Jaffa ArabsMorning Advocate · 5 January 1948
- Ninety Wounded In Truck Blast At HeadquartersThe Beaumont Enterprise · 5 January 1948
- Jews Dynamite HQ of Arabs’ High CommandDaily News · 5 January 1948
- 15 Arabs Die In Jaffa BlastTerre Haute Tribune · 5 January 1948
- All 334 clippings from the 1940s →
In these collections
The same copy, in 1 other paper
Most of the shorter text appears in the longer one. Found by comparing transcriptions, not by reading them side by side, so this establishes that the text overlaps and not that these papers ran the same dispatch. How this was done.
Last updated 2 November 2026
This record is part of Covering Palestine, an archive of American newspaper clippings about Palestinians, 1724 to 2023. Researched and assembled by Maria Robles.
The clipping belongs to the newspaper that printed it, or to the news agency that supplied the copy. It is reproduced here for research, criticism and commentary. A city here is where the newspaper was published, not where the story came from, and on most records it was taken from the masthead.
Something wrong here, or something you know about this clipping? The archive is still being built and corrections are wanted: maria@rozumstudio.com, quoting CP-1948-066.
Everything printed in 1948 · Printed on this day · See it in the archive reel · Full text of every clipping · Dataset