The Philadelphia Inquirer · Philadelphia, Pennsylvania · 7 August 1949
CP-1949-006
Tension Along the Jordan
Problem of Arab Refugees in Israel Threatens to Start Another Uprising
By Nadia Lourie, Tel Aviv, Israel
Transcribed from the clipping
“Today, in fact, one of Israel’s greatest difficulties, at home and abroad, is the question of what to do with some 800,000 Arab refugees now living in surrounding areas. At Lausanne, at Lake Success and elsewhere, this problem is being discussed. Up until now the Arabs have insisted that before boundaries can be discussed, Israel must accept, in principle, the General Assembly resolution calling for the repatriation of those Arab refugees who want to return to Israel. The Israelis have insisted that the question of how many Arab refugees are to return can be settled only as a part of the Palestine peace treaty. Meanwhile, many Arabs have taken the law into their own hands and are trying to get back into Israel by any means available… The Arabs in these villages were given the choice of getting out or becoming citizens of Israel. Without exception, they chose the latter… One town, Kafr Kassim, had 5000 regular residents, plus another 5000 refugees.”
Photograph caption
“These Arab refugees are being detained at an Israeli police station.” · “Arab explains why he wants to enter Israel; many returned illegally.” · “Israeli guards questioning Arabs at one of the triangle border pockets.” · “Captured infiltrees wait to be sent out of Israel.”
Context added by this archive
A full page of Everybody’s Weekly. It opens by calling Israel “an island of efficient, modern ideas in an ancient sea of Arab backwardness,” and then photographs the people being detained for walking home. Kafr Kassim appears here seven years before the massacre.
Cite this item
"Tension Along the Jordan," The Philadelphia Inquirer, 7 August 1949. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1949-006. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1949-006
Elsewhere in the archive
- Israel Plans to Claim Entire Palestine AreaThe Philadelphia Inquirer · 8 September 1948 · the same newspaper
- Palestine Partition WaitsThe Philadelphia Inquirer · 23 July 1937 · the same newspaper
- Arabs and Jews in PalestineThe Philadelphia Inquirer · 23 May 1936 · the same newspaper
- MODERN MADONNAThe Waukesha County Freeman · 12 January 1949 · the same year
- Palestinian refugees have received from the American Red Cross typhus vaccine sufficient for the inoculation of 450,000 personsPortland Press Herald · 13 February 1949 · the same year
- Arab Refugees Are ProblemEscanaba Daily Press · 14 June 1949 · the same year
This record is part of Covering Palestine, an archive of American and Anglophone newspaper clippings about Palestinians, 1812 to 2022. Researched and assembled by Maria Robles.
The clipping belongs to the newspaper that printed it, or to the wire service that supplied the copy. It is reproduced here for research, criticism and commentary. The city is derived from the masthead, not read off the clipping.
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