Every clipping in this archive printed between 1940 and 1949: 239 of them, oldest first, as plain text that can be read, searched and quoted without running any code. Each entry links to its own record, where the scan is.
· Tulsa World · Tulsa · page 1
TROUBLE IN PALESTINE
“MINOR WARFARE in Palestine is important internationally and of tragic interest from racial and religious standpoints. Great Britain is deeply involved in the trouble between Arabs and Jews, and is now in a fairly definite struggle with Jewry… For the present, Great Britain is the policeman. But ahead of that job was the land-apportioning job. It seems that Arabs became restive over the rapid acquisition of lands by Jews, and the British government ordered cessation of sales. This appears to the Jews to be the final backdown of Great Britain under its mandate in Palestine. The hope for a great Jewish country there seems to have been blasted. Jews now proclaim betrayal by Great Britain. In this country a group of prominent and influential people urges the president to intercede with the British government ‘in the name of justice and humanity.’ The appeal states that the restriction on land sales in Palestine is of world-wide consequence. One statement is: ‘This calamitous decree comes at a time when Jews in central and eastern Europe must either emigrate or perish.’”
An editorial on the 1939 restriction of land sales, printed in Oklahoma in March 1940. The Arab objection gets one clause; the American appeal gets a paragraph.
Refugee Problem to Linger Even if Hitler Is Defeated
Palestine Believed Capable of Accommodating 3 Millions More; Miracle Wrought There in Decade
By DR. BERNARD JOSEPH, Legal Adviser of the Jewish Agency for Palestine. Special to the Buffalo Evening News.
“NEW YORK, April 23.—The refugee problem will not come to an end with the defeat of Fuehrer Hitler. On the contrary, this vast human tragedy which has grown increasingly acute with the expansion of Nazi power will confront the world with one of the most crucial issues of the day. Hundreds of thousands of men, women and children will have to be re-established and rehabilitated… Population 1,525,000. How many more Jews can Palestine take in? The total population of Palestine is 1,525,000. In Bibical times Palestine sustained a population of from 4,000,000 to 5,000,000 persons and those were not the days of the tractor and scientific cultivation of the soil which the Jewish pioneers have introduced during the past two decades. Immigration and absorptive capacity represent a cycle. Every new immigrant may be said to bring his own obsorptive capacity in his suitcase… Today there is a system of 257 agricultural colonies stretching from one end of the country to the other which support a rural population of more than 137,000 Jews… Since the issuance of the Balfour Declaration on Nov. 2, 1917, a series of governmental commission have made pilgrimages to Palestine with extraordinary regularity to determine how many settlers Palestine could maintain. More than ten years ago, when the Jewish population was less than 250,000, a distinguished British official declared that the country was so crowded that there was not room left in which to swing a cat… in Palestine in the past 20 years, the rebuilt Jewish homeland has the capacity to provide homes for an additional 3,000,000 immigrants… Desert wastes, malaria-infested swamps and rocky soil have been reclaimed and placed under cultivation for the first time in centuries through the toil and sacrifice of young Jewish settlers… If the Jewish problem is to be solved constructively, if anti-Semitism and the homelessness of a people are to disappear, the Jews have a right to expect that out of the peace treaties to follow the end of this war will emerge a Jewish Commonwealth in Palestine.”
A full page arguing that Palestine can absorb three million more people. It is signed by the legal adviser of the Jewish Agency and printed as reporting, not as opinion. The piece gives one number that includes Palestinians — “the total population of Palestine is 1,525,000” — and uses it as the denominator for how many more can fit. Palestinians are not named anywhere in the article, and no sentence asks what they thought. The one British finding that the country was already full is quoted only to be laughed at: “not room left in which to swing a cat.” Bernard (Dov) Joseph later wrote The Faithful City, the book a Duluth reader would cite in a 1979 letter held in this archive. “Bibical” and “obsorptive” are the paper’s own spellings.
“Beirut, Lebanon — (AP) — French sources said tonight that travelers from Palestine reported anti-semitic outbreaks and kidnaping of Jewish leaders in the Holy Land as a result of Arab reaction to events in the Balkans and Mesopotamia. This account said some Zionist leaders had been abducted by Arab nationalists as disturbances led to bloodshed in several parts of Palestine, but that the British believed they could keep the situation in hand. Anti-semitic feeling, these reports said, swelled with the mass arrival of Jewish emigrants from the Balkans and then was aggravated by the Iraq situation. The influential native Beirut newspaper published an editorial saying that British policy in Palestine had caused ‘bitterness on some minds.’ That bitterness is growing, it said, and the British ‘by no means have consolidated the ties which bound them to their allies of Iraq.’ Appeal To Arabs. New York —(AP)— The German radio said today that the Iraq government had directed an appeal to Arabs in Palestine requesting them to take up arms.”
One Associated Press dispatch out of Beirut ran in at least three American papers on 3 May 1941 under three different headlines. This one names the thing that happened as anti-Semitism. The Oakland Tribune (CP-1941-003) and the Spokane Chronicle (CP-1941-004) name Arabs instead. The body is the same in all three. La Crosse sets the Beirut editorial as “bitterness on some minds”; Oakland sets the same quotation as “in some minds.” Both are transcribed here as printed.
Zionists Kidnaped; Outbreaks Flare in Sections of Palestine
“BEIRUT, Lebanon, May 3.—(AP)—French sources said tonight that travelers from Palestine reported anti-Semitic outbreaks and kidnaping of Jewish leaders in the Holy Land as a result of Arab reaction to events in the Balkans and Mesopotamia. This account said some Zionist leaders had been abducted by Arab Nationalists as disturbances led to bloodshed in several parts of Palestine, but that the British believed they could keep the situation in hand… The influential native Beirut newspaper published an editorial saying that British policy in Palestine had caused ‘bitterness in some minds.’… Arabs in Palestine Urged to Fight British. NEW YORK, May 3.—(AP)—The German radio said today that the Iraq Government had directed an appeal to Arabs in Palestine requesting them to take up arms… A German wireless report from Beirut, Lebanon, said today that strong native troop contingents from Saudi Arabia had been concentrated along the south trans-Jordan border.”
The same Associated Press dispatch as CP-1941-002 and CP-1941-004, printed the same day. Oakland is the only one of the three that puts the kidnapping in a second line under the headline, and the only one that runs the Saudi troop paragraph. Its headline moves the story out of Palestine and into the Holy Land.
“BEIRUT, Lebanon, May 3. (AP)—French sources said tonight that travelers from Palestine reported anti-Semitic outbreaks and kidnaping of Jewish leaders ni the Holy Land as a result of Arab reaction to events in the Balkans and Mesopotamia. This account said some Zionist leaders had been abducted by Arab nationalists as disturbances led to bloodshed in several parts of Palestine, but that the British believed they could keep the situation in hand. Anti-Semitic feeling, these reports said, swelled with the mass arrival of Jewish emigrants from the Balkans and then was aggravated by the Iraq situation… ‘The appeal of the Iraq government caused the strongest reverberations in Palestine,’ said the German report. ‘Renewed attempts on the part of the Palestine Arabs or organize resistance are therefore to be expected.’ The broadcast said the Iraq government had arrested numerous British agents who tried to ‘incite’ the population by distributing money and propaganda leaflets.”
The third printing of the 3 May 1941 Associated Press dispatch, with La Crosse (CP-1941-002) and Oakland (CP-1941-003). Spokane is the only one of the three to hedge in the headline: Said to Be in Revolt. “ni the Holy Land” and “or organize resistance” are the paper’s own typesetting, kept here as printed.
“London—(WNS)— Modern science has made it possible to shoot with oranges as well as eat them. In a statement in the House of Commons by Colonial Undersecretary Hall it was revealed that the Palestine citrus crop is now being used for various acids needed in connection with the war industry. The Palestine government, Hall said, had guaranteed 517,000 pounds in advances to citrus growers over a two year period. The government, he added, was prepared to give financial assistance if Palestine’s resources were insufficient.”
Six sentences about Palestine’s largest export. The growers are guaranteed half a million pounds and never identified. Jaffa oranges were grown by Palestinian Arab and Jewish farmers both; the item leaves the reader no way to know that anyone but the British and the crop were involved.
British Food Expert Sees Possibility of Palestine Helping Feed Europe
“LONDON (JTA). — ‘An unusually important role’ for Palestine after the war is foreseen by Albert Van den Bergh, one of Britain’s authorities on the production and distribution of food supplies. ‘One of the remarkable things that we may see after our victory in the war, is the emergence of Palestine as a great food-growing country,’ Mr. Van den Bergh said in a statement to the press. ‘Countries are being overrun by the hordes of Hitler. Food crops are being destroyed. Fields are lying untilled. Food-giving animals are being slaughtered in vast numbers through lack of feeding-stuffs. All this will mean hunger, perhaps starvation for millions of people after the war. Strangely enough, precisely the opposite process is now taking place in Palestine. Forty-four per cent of Palestine wheat is now home-grown. Today Palestine produces 98 per cent of her vegetables and 92 per cent of her milk. If the process continues, a stage will be reached where Palestine may be able to export food t oEurope,’ Mr. Van den Bergh stated.”
A food expert counts what Palestine grows and never says who grows it. Wheat, the crop he leads with, was farmed overwhelmingly by Palestinian villagers. The country appears as an output figure. The right edge of this scan is trimmed and a few line-ending letters are cut; the text above is what can be read. “t oEurope” is the paper’s own setting.
“238 NEW GRADUATES AT HEBREW UNIVERSITY. An additional 238 men and women graduated from the Hebrew University at the end of the past semester. Of this number 80 are teachers, 33 scientists and 25 of other vocations. The graduates include a rabbi and a policeman… PALESTINE VEGETABLE PRODUCTION DOUBLED. The production of vegetables in Palestine for the first three months of 1941 has been doubled compared with the corresponding periods of the years of 1939 and 1940. For the first three months of 1941, the Jewish output of vegetables amounted to 7,000 tons. RED SEA FISH POPULAR IN PALESTINE. Arab and Jewish merchants in Palestine are jointly sponsosing the marketing of fish caught at Akaba, the biblical Ayaleth, on the shores of the Red Sea. The Red Sea fish are now in considerable demand by housewives in Palestine… RECORD WHEAT CROP IN PALESTINE. It is estimated that the surrent wheat crop harvest in Palestine will yield at least 150,000 tons, some 30,000 tons more than last year. In addition the transjordania crop will furnish an exportable surplus of 160,000 tons. Both crops will more than meet the demand of the Palestine population.”
A weekly column of short items from Palestine. Ten of them run on this page — graduates, a gift to a girls’ village, diamond cutting, vegetables, fish, wheat, doctors, sugar. One names Arabs, and it names them as business partners: Arab and Jewish merchants marketing Red Sea fish together. In the same column the wheat harvest is counted against “the Palestine population” without saying who that population is. “sponsosing,” “Ayaleth” and “surrent” are the paper’s own spellings.
Mayors of Leading Palestine Cities Plan Price Control
Conference of Arab and Jewish Leaders to Meet Wartime Problem.
Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Tel Aviv
“TEL AVIV (JTA).—A conference of the Arab and Jewish mayors of the four leading cities in Palestine was held here this week to discuss means of checking profiteering and hoarding which have caused the prices of essential commodities to rise to unprecedented heights. Present at the conference, which was presided over by Mayor Rokach of Tel Aviv, were Mustapha Bey Khalidi, Mayor of Jerusalem; Shabbatai Levi, Mayor of Haifa and Omar II Bitar, Mayor of Jaffa… The conference decided to form a permanent committee and to present a joint declaration to the High Commissioner outlining its proposals.”
The mayors of Jerusalem and Jaffa are Palestinian, are named, and are forming a joint committee. It runs as a story about the price of flour.
“About 40 representative Jewish residents of Atlantic City gathered at Kornblau’s Restaurant yesterday and unanimously resolved to support the movement for creation of a Jewish Army of Stateless and Palestinian Jews. They formed a local chapter of the national committee, comprising Jews and Gentiles and headed by Pierre Van Paassen, author and lecturer, which is seeking, through pressure of public opinion, to bring this about. Morris Batzer and E M Biron were elected associate chairmen of the local chapter. Principal speaker at the meeting, which was called and presided over by Dr Rudolph Hyman, was Ben Eliezer, of Palestine. He was introduced by Alex Wilf, of Philadelphia, chairman of the Philadelphia Chapter… It was explained by Biron that it is not the purpose to seek to enroll Jewish nationals of either this country or any of the United Nations in the proposed Jewish Army. These nationals will serve under the armies of their respective governments. It is proposed to constitute the Jewish Army with Palestinians and the numerous refugee Jews who are at present being interned in various countries for lack of passports and who are Stateless. Such an Army, if organized and equipped, would fight wherever the United Nations thought expedient, Biron declared.”
Here Palestinians means Jewish residents of Palestine. The subhead is “Speaker From Palestine.”
“NEW YORK, Nov. 16.—Declaring that ‘the defeat of Hitler will not of itself normalize Jewish life in Europe,’ 733 rabbis issued a pronouncement yesterday rebuking Jewish opponents of Zionism as dealing a ‘cruel blow’ to the Jewish people. The action, said to be without precedent in the history of American Jewry, is a rejoinder to a statement made recently by a group of reform rabbis regarded as unfriendly to the Zionist cause. Denying the charge that Zionism is a secularist movement, the statement asserts that ‘it has its origins and roots in the authoritative religious texts of Judaism’ and scores anti-Zionism as ‘a departure from the Jewish religion.’”
Seven hundred and thirty-three rabbis, in November 1942, answering the reform rabbis who had come out against Zionism. The archive holds the argument from both directions and this is the count on one side of it, in an American daily, while the war was still on.
Lo, the Anti-Zionist Rabbi! A Piece of Irony. How About A Vote? The Value of Jewish Democracy.
News and Views
By Dr. S. Margoshes
“It strikes me as a peculiar and remarkably illuminating piece of irony that a few days after the appearance in the Zionist official organ, ‘The New Palestine,’ of an article calling for the domination of American Jewish life by rabbis, there should be organized the American Council for Judaism, an organization of reformed rabbis, with the avowed purpose of fighting a Jewish State, a Jewish flag, and a Jewish army, in short, everything that Zionism stands for. Openly declaring war on Zionism in America, Rabbi Wolsey, in explaining the functions of the new rabbinical organization, said: ‘We have organized for the purpose of combatting nationalistic and secularistic trends in Jewish life. We are definitely opposed to a Jewish state, a Jewish flag or a Jewish army. We are interested in the development of Palestine as a refuge for persecuted Jews, but are opposed to the idea of a political state under Jewish domination in Palestine or anywhere else. We will seek to identify and define the Jew as a member of a religious community and nothing else.’”
The American Council for Judaism as it is founded, reported in a New York Yiddish daily by a columnist who thinks it is a piece of irony, with its own chairman quoted on what it is for. The scan is 236 pixels wide, so the transcription here is the headline stack and the opening columns, which were re-read enlarged; the rest of the column has not been.
Anti-Zionist Group Rejects American Democracy, Charge
Judge Levinthal, President of Z.O.A., in reply to published program of new council, declares that anti-Zionists are denuding Judaism
“WASHINGTON, D. C. — An announcement of the proposed organization of an anti-Zionist group under the leadership of Dr. Louis Wolsey, of Philadelphia, is but another manifestation of the irrational prejudice against our national movement which persists among a small minority of the Reform Rabbis of this country, Judge Louis E. Levinthal, president of the Zionist Organization of America, declared in a statement made public here today. In a rejoinder to the announced program of the new group recently organized under the name of ‘American Council for Judaism,’ in opposition to the establishment of a Jewish national homeland in Palestine, Judge Levinthal declared that ‘by their disavowal of Zionism in America these “Protestrabbiner” (counterparts of the small group of rabbis who protested against Zionism in the days of Dr. Theodor Herzl, founder of the movement) have repudiated American democracy itself.’”
The Zionist establishment answering Jewish anti-Zionists in the Jewish press, printed beside the community calendar of Hadassah meetings and a New Year’s Eve party at the Pythian Temple.
“JERUSALEM —(AP)— First steps toward creating a representative body of Palestine Arabs have been taken by a newly formed sponsoring committee at Haifa. No official political body representing all Arabs of the country has existed since dissolution of the Arab High committee by the Palestine government in October, 1936, during disturbances. Requests for support have been sent by the new committee to the government officials. A conference of leading Arab personalities from the entire country now is planned by the Haifa leaders.”
Twenty-one years before the PLO, and the reason there was no body already: the government had dissolved the last one.
Lessing Rosenwald’s Contribution — Less There Are Some Who Are Impressed With Him
“It is interesting to note that Dorothy Thompson, who has bitterly attacked every manifestation of industrial fascism and who has certainly been a far keener analyst and prophet of international affairs, takes the diametrically opposite point of view… Hitler is doing his utmost to reassure Lessing Rosenwald. He is seeing to it that there shall be no Jews in ‘central European countries’ to endure the humiliation… of a free, creative Jewish state in Palestine.”
An attack on Lessing Rosenwald, spokesman of the American Council for Judaism, after he wrote in Life magazine. Two things make it worth holding: it cites Dorothy Thompson as the counter-authority in 1943, seven years before she wrote the column about the indigenous Arab population; and the father whose fund it mentions, Julius Rosenwald, appears in this archive cabling $25,000 to Hadassah in 1929.
Demands of Arab Leaders Inspired By Events In Lebanon — New Partition Plan Submitted In Cairo
Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Jerusalem
“Jerusalem—(JTA)—Encouraged by the developments in Lebanon, where the parliament last week declared the mandate of the League of Nations to be non-existent and proclaimed its complete sovereignty despite the opposition of the French administration, the Arabs in Palestine this week issued a demand that a National government be established in Palestine. The demand was voiced in a resolution adopted at a conference of representatives of the Arab Chambers of Commerce in Palestine. The resolution also urged the British government to implement the White Paper by officially announcing the complete stoppage of Jewish immigration to Palestine… Meanwhile, the Palestine press reported that French military authorities in Lebanon have banned all the Hebrew newspapers arriving there from Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.”
A national government, demanded by name, in 1943, by the Arab Chambers of Commerce.
By Albert W. Quinn, Sun Staff Correspondent, Atlantic City
“Atlantic City, Oct. 16—Charges that prejudice against Jewish aims, comparable to anti-Semitism, exists even within the American Jewish community were made here today at the 47th annual convention of the Zionist Organization of America. Rabbi Arthur Lelyveld, executive vice-chairman of the Committee on Unity for Palestine… declared that ‘anti-Zionism exhibited by a small fraction of the American Jewish community is a manifestation of prejudice’ and that the ‘basic psychology can be compared to the psychology which underlies anti-Semitism.’ ‘It feeds on untruths,’ he said. ‘It is an emotional response to distorted images. Where the anti-Semite imagines a council of “the elders of Zion,” the anti-Zionist conjures up a “political nation-in-exile.” Where the anti-Semite generalizes: “Jews are aggressive,” the anti-Zionist generalizes: “Zionists are un-American.”’ … He must be convinced that Zionism will not destroy their cherished status as Americans, that Palestine cannot be an adequate haven of refuge for Jews unless it belongs to Jews, that a Jewish Palestine will benefit rather than harm the Arab masses…”
The argument that opposing Zionism is itself a prejudice, made at a Zionist convention and reported in full, in 1944.
Only the Rich Can Share ’Em In a Harem, Arab Gals Insist
Sam D. Souki, United Press, Cairo
“Cairo, Jan. 17 (U.P.) — The first Arab Women’s Congress, insisting that women’s place is no longer in the harem, demanded today that polygamy be limited to men who can financially afford it. The former veil-wearers kept the problem of plural marriage on a practical economic basis. They pointed out that when poor men marry as many as four wives, it leads to great misery. Therefore they called for an examination of a man’s financial status before he takes on more than one wife. Demand Single Code. Divorce is simple for the Arab man. He can divorce his wife simply by saying to her three times ‘I divorce you,’ but Arab women object. They also demanded today the same penal code for men and women. The current practice in divorce cases here is to give the children to the father, but the women’s congress insisted that children be left with the mother. The ladies of the harem demanded the right to vote and run for parliament and to hold public office. They blamed the inferior position of their sex on the fact that ‘the Arab male has up to now merely been a weak imitator of his western brother in economic, social and political spheres of life.’ Oppose Jewish Palestine. The congress women agreed to support Arab demands for a majority in Palestine and a suspension of Jewish immigration. Cables were sent to President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill protesting pro-Zionism in the United States and Great Britain. This first congress of 100 Arab women was an eastern version of the old-fashioned women’s rights demonstrations. But the veils and flowing costumes were gone — the delegates were all dressed in western clothes.”
A photograph of four veiled women, captioned “Them days are gone forever.”
A hundred women meet in Cairo and demand the vote, the right to stand for parliament and hold office, one penal code for both sexes, custody of their own children, and limits on polygamy. They also cable Roosevelt and Churchill about Palestine. The headline calls them Arab Gals and the photograph of four veiled women is captioned Them days are gone forever. Lebanon’s delegate to this congress was Louise Amin, who turns up in this archive a year later billed as a speaker in a Westchester school hall, and Alice Kandaleft Cosma, who chaired the Arab Women’s Congress for the Defense of Palestine, is here in 1947.
Palestinian Artist’s Work Will Be Shown at Library
“Oded Bourla of 415 County Street, a young Palestinian artist, has made his home in New Bedford for four years, and examples of his work will be introduced formally to New Bedford at a public reception from 8 to 9 Tuesday night in the upper foyer of the Free Public Library… Joint sponsors are New Bedford section of the National Jewish Welfare Board, headed by Special Justice Samuel Barnet, which includes among its aims the fostering of Jewish cultural works… Mr. Bourla’s family on his father’s side has lived in Palestine for four centuries. He was born there and feels a loving and intense sense of kinship with the scenes he painted. ‘My grandfather was caretaker there,’ he observed, pointing to one of his smaller paintings, depicting the tomb of Rachel at Bethlehem, a low-domed building nestled against a background of olive greenery and gray hills, with a foreground of rough, colorful earth. ‘I went there many times and painted the scene over and over. This one was done in New Bedford, from memory.’… ‘It is so hot in Summer,’ said Mr. Bourla, ‘that no outlines are really visible. Shadows scarcely show, for the intense light strikes into the shadows. Buildings are the color of the dust which covers them. Skies are sometimes white with heat, like the white heat of iron after it passes the red-hot stage.’… One of his most appealing oils is ‘Valley of Jezreel, Summer,’ paved with the golden stubble of a grain field. He identified the hills in the background as the place where Saul and Jonathan were killed, described in the Bible as accursed and doomed to be desert forever. Irrigation by the Jewish pioneers has lifted the curse.… The painter learned to love the Jezreel valley in boyhood, when he was a member of the Children’s Colony at Beth Alpha… He subsequently was graduated from the New Bezalel Art Academy in Jerusalem… The most imposing of his oils is ‘Tiberias on the Sea of Galilee.’ The opalescent blue of the sea is a pleasant foil for richly colorful buildings of the old Arab quarter at the foot of the mountain.”
In March 1945 “a young Palestinian artist” in an American paper means a Jewish painter from Palestine, shown under the auspices of the National Jewish Welfare Board and trained at the Bezalel academy. The Arabs of the country appear once, as a quarter of Tiberias seen from across the water. This is the noun before it moved.
Jerrier A. Haddad, Binghamton, N. Y., Oct. 24, 1945
“To the Editor of The Binghamton Press: The three replies to my letter of Oct. 2, 1945, have unanimously gone to prove that Americans and the world’s Jewry have been propagandized to the bursting point with half-truths by the Zionists. For example, note Dr. M. S. Bloom’s letter of Oct. 13. ‘What is wrong with a Jewish National State in Palestine? Historically that is what Palestine was——.’ Does Dr. Bloom mention that the Jews held Palestine for less than 500 years, while the Palestinian Arabs have lived and worked there for over 1,200 years? Does he mention the fact that it is the cultural and religious center for the Christians and Moslems of the world as well as for the Jews? He blithely states that the standard of living has gone up for the Arab since the Zionists entered the scene. Does he mention the fact that it has also gone up in those Arab countries which have not had the imposition of Zionism? At any rate I am pleased with one thing. The price for a man’s soul has gone up from 30 pieces of gold to an increased standard of living… Lastly, Isidore Friedland put forth some ‘facts.’ He states that ‘the proposed Jewish state will be based on the widest democratic principles offering to all the inhabitants of the land a freedom they have never enjoyed before.’ A clause from a lease of the Jewish National Fund as to the Jewish settlers on Palestinian land reads: ‘The leasee undertakes to execute all works connected with the cultivation of the holding only with Jewish labour.’ As Sir John Simpson states ‘It ceases to be land from which the Arab can go in any advantage either now or at any time in the future.’ Is this freedom Mr. Friedland? … Let me once more sound my plea that we as Americans insist that our government look into both sides of the question before making any commitments.”
An Arab-American reader conducting a multi-round argument in his local letters column in 1945, answering three correspondents by name and quoting a Jewish National Fund lease back at them.
“Jerusalem, Nov. 14—(INS)—British troops and local police stood by today for possible trouble resulting from a general strike called by Palestinian Jews in protest against the statement yesterday at London by foreign minister Ernest Bevin of Britain. Reaction to Bevin’s statement was swift among Jews in the Holy Land. They immediately called a general strike and curfew from Wednesday noon until midnight, during which time all of the Jewish faith were urged to stay away from shops, factories and schools. (London Evening newspapers said that the curfew imposed during the strike suddenly was revoked to enable the strikers to hold protest meetings and demonstrations.) Traffic between towns was to be held up and all the above establishments closed. Thursday was declared a day or prayer and fasting. In London, Bevin had suggested that the Holy Land eventually be placed under the trusteeship of the United Nations, and revealed that a joint Anglo-American commission of inquiry would examine the question of European Jewry and Palestine. A broadcast by a secret transmitter of the Jewish defense organization in Jerusalem announced that ‘no matter what decisions are taken, the Jewish people will return to build their homeland.’”
Palestinian Jews again, this time in a headline. “a day or prayer” is the paper’s.
Ex-President Says Model Migration Might Solve Racial Strife, Give Jews Home
By Scripps-Howard Service, New York
“NEW YORK, Nov. 19—There is a sane and practical solution of the Palestine problem in the opinion of former President Herbert Hoover. The idea, offered in response to an inquiry by the World-Telegram (a Scripps-Howard newspaper), approaches the problem from an engineering standpoint. As a result, emotional, racial and political aspects of the problem would be subordinated in a process by which both Jews and Arabs would benefit materially. In reply to the direct question from the World-Telegram as to whether he believes any sound or practical basis exists for settlement of the highly inflammatory Jewish-Arab question, Mr. Hoover replied: ‘There is a possible plan of settling the Palestine question and providing ample Jewish refuge. It is at least worth serious investigation for it offers a constructive humanitarian solution… My own suggestion is that Iraq might be financed to complete this great land development on the consideration that it be made the scene of re-settlement of the Arabs from Palestine. This would clear Palestine completely for a large Jewish emigration and colonization. A suggestion of transfer of the Arab people of Palestine was made by the British Labor Party in December, 1944, but no adequate plan was proposed as to where or how they were to go… There is room for many more Arabs than in Palestine. The soil is more fertile. They would be among their own race which is Arab speaking and Mohammedan. The Arab population of Palestine would be the gainers from better lands in exchange for their present holdings. Iraq would be the gainer for it badly needs agricultural population. Today millions of people are being moved from one land to another. If the lands were organized and homes provided, this particular movement could be made the model migration of history. It would be a solution by engineering instead of by conflict. I realize that the plan offers a challenge both to the statesmanship of the great powers as well as to the good will of all parties concerned. However, I submit it, and it does offer a method of settlement with both honor and wisdom.’”
The World-Telegram’s own version, with Hoover’s photograph, and it is the one that uses the word: a suggestion of transfer of the Arab people of Palestine, made by the British Labour Party in December 1944. The subheadings are “Population Shrunk,” “Might Be Financed” and “Solution by Engineering.” The line under the headline calls it racial strife. Printed above a four-line notice of a retired millworker who died at dinner.
Herbert Hoover Says Problem Might Be Solved by Engineering
United Press, New York
“NEW YORK, Nov. 19 (U.P.)—A solution of the Palestine problem ‘by engineering instead of by conflict’ was suggested today by former President Herbert Hoover. In response to an inquiry by the New York World-Telegram as to whether he believes any sound or practical basis exists for settling the Jewish-Arab question, the former president said: ‘There is a possible plan of settling the Palestine question and providing ample Jewish refuge. It is at least worth serious investigation for it offers a constructive humanitarian solution. In ancient times the irrigation of the Tigris and Euphrates Valleys supported probably ten million people in the kingdoms of Babylon and Ninevah… Some years ago it was proposed that this area should be developed for settlement by Jewish refugees. This did not, however, satisfy the Jewish desire for a homeland. My own suggestion is that Iraq might be financed to complete this great land development on the consideration that it be made the scene of resettlement of the Arabs from Palestine. This would clear Palestine completely for a large Jewish emigration and colonization.’”
The Pennsylvania headline names nothing at all: a way to end trouble. Nobody is moved in it and nobody is named. It is the same proposal, on the same day, as the Chicago Tribune’s banner reading MOVE PALESTINE ARABS TO IRAQ.
“NEW YORK, Nov. 20.—The New York World-Telegram yesterday quoted former President Hoover as saying that rebuilding of the irrigation system in Iraq ‘is a possible plan of settling the Palestine question and providing ample Jewish refuge.’ Mr. Hoover suggested ‘Iraq might be financed to complete this great land development on the consideration that it be made the scene of resettlement of the Arabs from Palestine. This would clear Palestine completely for a large Jewish emigration and colonization. There is room for many more Arabs in such a development in Iraq than the total of Arabs in Palestine. The soil is more fertile. They would be among their own race, which is Arab speaking and Mohammedan. The Arab population of Palestine would be the gainer from better lands in exchange for their present holdings. Iraq would be the gainer, for it badly needs agricultural population. If the lands were organized and homes provided, this particular movement could be made the model migration of history. It would be a solution by engineering instead of by conflict.’”
A former President of the United States proposing, in his own words, to move the Arab population of Palestine to Iraq and so “clear Palestine completely.” He calls it colonization, and he calls it a solution by engineering. Printed under a report of a Washington forum on the atomic bomb.
“New York, Nov. 19 [Special]—Reclamation of the Tigris and Euphrates valleys in Iraq thru irrigation, and resettlement in that potentially rich area of Arabs now living in Palestine was suggested today by former President Hoover as ‘a possible plan’ for solving the Palestine problem. Removal of the Arabs from Palestine would clear the Holy Land completely for Jewish emigration and colonization, the former President said, and at the same time would give the Arabs more room and more fertile land than they now have in Palestine. Approaching the problem entirely from an engineering standpoint, Hoover said in an interview that in ancient times the irrigation of the Tigris and Euphrates valleys supported probably 10 million people in the kingdoms of Babylon and Nineveh… Hoover suggested that Iraq, which has sovereignty over the Tigris and Euphrates valleys, be financed to complete this great land development on the consideration that it be made the scene of resettlement of the Arabs from Palestine. Iraq is in great need of an increased agricultural population, he added. ‘There is room for many more Arabs in such a development in Iraq than the total of Arabs in Palestine,’ Hoover said. ‘The soil is more fertile. They would be among their own race, which is Arab speaking and Mohammedan. The Arab population of Palestine would be the gainer from better lands in exchange for their present holdings.’ ‘Today millions of people are being moved from one land to another. If the lands were organized and homes provided, this particular movement could be made the model migration of history. It would be a solution by engineering instead of by conflict.’ Hoover said he realizes the plan offers a challenge both to the statesmanship of the great powers and the good will of all parties concerned. He gave his views on the subject in reply to a question from the New York World-Telegram as to whether he believes any sound or practical basis exists for settlement of the Jewish-Arab question.”
“Hoover Proposal (Story in adjoining column). The valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in Iraq, where former President Hoover suggested yesterday that Palestinian Arabs be settled.”
The Hoover proposal on a Chicago front page with a map drawn for it, the day after the Evening Star carried the wire version. The subheadings are “Cost Under 15 Million” and “Called Model Migration.” Beside it, a former United States senator favoring the use of American troops in Palestine, and two soldiers from Rockford joining the regular army in Iran.
“New York — (AP) — The New York World-Telegram yesterday quoted former President Herbert Hoover as saying that rebuilding of the irrigation system in Iraq ‘is a possible plan of settling the Palestine question and providing ample Jewish refuge.’ Hoover suggested ‘Iraq might be financed to complete this great land development on the consideration that it be made the scene of resettlement of the Arabs from Palestine. This would clear Palestine completely for a large Jewish emigration and colonization. There is room for many more Arabs in such a development in Iraq than the total of Arabs in Palestine. The soil is more fertile. They would be among their own race, which is Arab speaking and Mohammedan. The Arab population of Palestine would be the gainer from better lands in exchange for their present holdings. Iraq would be the gainer, for it badly needs agricultural population. If the lands were organized and homes provided, this particular movement could be made the model migration of history. It would be a solution by engineering instead of by conflict.’”
The Rochester headline files a plan to move a population out of the country as Jewish relief. The Arabs are in the body, not in the headline.
“A possible solution of the critical Jewish-Arab problem in Palestine may lie in a large irrigation project covering approximately 10,000,000 acres adjacent to the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in Iraq, a Middle East territory now little populated but which, when irrigated in Biblical times, provided a living for about 20,000,000 persons, a Tulsan said today. Former President Herbert Hoover, an engineer of international reputation, made the suggestion in response to a query of the New York World-Telegram. He suggested it might be possible to move the Arabs from Palestine to the irrigated territory in Iraq and that both Arabs and Jews would benefit from the project. Col. John H. Leavell, Tulsa, an expert on the Middle East and its economic and political problems, who returned home recently after spending four years as petroleum adviser to the United States state department, two years of which was spent in the Middle East and Africa, stated today irrigation of at least 10,000,000 acres in Iraq is entirely feasible. ‘The fact is,’ Col. Leavell said, ‘I recommended just such a project to the state department at least a year ago. The project should be much larger than Mr. Hoover suggested and there are two things absolutely necessary to make it a success. A harbor should be constructed on the Mediterranean north of Tripoli in Lebanon and a modern railroad should be built to that port from near the center of the irrigated area. Without these facilities the project would fail because of lack of a market.’ Col. Leavell stated the territory, if irrigated, would become one of the best farming areas in the world, where cotton plus wheat and other grains could be raised cheaper than anywhere else. ‘The area easily could become the bread basket for all southern Europe,’ the Tulsa oil and coal man said… Hoover said the irrigated land would provide room for more Arabs than there are in Palestine and would clear Palestine for a large Jewish emigration.”
Two days after the proposal, an oil and coal man in Tulsa who had been petroleum adviser to the State Department says he recommended the same thing a year earlier and that Hoover’s version is too small. Moving a country’s population is discussed here as a question of harbours, railroads and cotton yields. Printed above a notice of a crippled man killed by a car and a running tally headed “Metropolitan Tulsa Fatalities So Far in 1945.”
6th Airborne Storms Palestine Villages in Hunt for Terrorists
By United Press, Jerusalem
“JERUSALEM, Nov. 26—British troops forced their way into two Jewish coastal villages with clubs and tear gas bombs today in search of Zionist terrorists who blew up two coast guard stations near Tel Aviv yesterday. Detachments of the Sixth Airborne Division were searching the villages of Shefayim and Givat-Hayim despite vigorous opposition from the Jewish settlers. The troops trailed the terrorists from the wrecked stations last night but were blocked by hostile Jewish mobs at the outskirts. Both villages were surrounded and the British forced an entry this morning, injuring several Jews in the process. A lineup of all inhabitants failed to uncover the terrorists, but a British communique said the search was continuing. Virtually all the Palestine coast was under curfew as a result of the new outbreak and British tanks and armored cars were joining in the manhunt. The attack on the stations was believed to have been in reprisal for the seizure of the Greek schooner Dimitrius off the Palestine coast with 20 illegal Jewish immigrants.”
November 1945. The word is in the headline, unattributed, in the paper’s own voice, and it means Zionist paramilitaries. The village lineup, the curfew and the house searches are being done to Jewish villages by the British army.
“JERUSALEM, Dec. 1. — Arab women are rapidly mobilizing to take an active and militant part in influencing political decisions concerning Palestine. At the same time their leaders are sponsoring a long-range educational program. Recently Mrs. Mateil Mogannam — whom Arabs like to call ‘our Mrs. Roosevelt’ — gave this reporter the exclusive news that plans are being discussed for a second World Arab Women’s congress. The first was convened during the 1929 Arab-Jewish disturbances, when Mrs. Mogannam organized huge mass meetings and helped to supply Arab rioters, hidden in the hills, with food and water. As president and founder of the Arab Women’s association and author of the book ‘The Arab Woman and the Palestine Problem,’ Mrs. Mogannam wields a tremendous influence in upper-class Arab circles here. She is an energetic, outspoken matron who believes that ‘Zionism has given the world a false impression of the Arab.’ Mrs. Mogannam is one of seven Arab women leaders — including both Chrisitans and Moslems — with whom this reporter has discussed current Arab-Jewish tensions. All are well educated, well to do and thoroughly versed in the feminist programs of Europe and America. All agree that Arab women must have a voice in the settlement of Palestine’s tangled racial problem.”
The woman who organized the first Arab Women’s Congress, named at last. This archive holds two American printings of that 1929 congress: one counts the cars in the motorcade, the other reports the resolutions and says it was the first time the country’s women had entered its political life. Neither names anybody. Sixteen years later a woman reporter in Jerusalem names Matiel Mogannam, cites her book, quotes her, and reports that seven Arab women leaders, Christian and Muslim, are reading European and American feminist programmes and intend to be heard. The paper’s spellings, Mateil and Chrisitans, are kept.
Terrorists Taunt Palestine Police With ‘Nerve War’
United Press, Haifa
“British sources said Jewish terrorists were conducting a telephone and mail ‘nerve war’ against British and Palestine police officials. The phrase ‘we shall fight on the beaches,’ taken from Winston Churchill’s address to the empire after Dunkirk, blossomed in painted signs on building walls of Palestine towns, posted at night by Jewish elements.”
Terrorists in a headline, applied to Jewish paramilitaries, in 1945. With the Stamford and Portland printings of 1946 the archive holds the word in that use three times in ten months, across two news agencies. Churchill’s Dunkirk sentence, painted overnight on walls in Palestine against the empire whose prime minister said it.
States the Arab Point of View Concerning Palestine
Ann Boggs Bakram
“To the Editor of The Sun: For some time past the newspapers have been full of stories which represent the Zionist viewpoint of the Palestine controversy. The Arab side is completely ignored. Some writers have even suggested that we need not go into the justice of the conflicting claims. Open Palestine to unlimited Jewish immigration, they say, and let the Jews rule it, regardless of Arab opposition… Certainly, the least we can do is consult the Arabs before we attempt to dispose of their fatherland. America today is the hope of the weaker nations. They look to us to lead this war-weary world into a new era of international relations—an era of good will, co-operation and peace. Let us not disillusion them.”
Correction: {'note': 'Arrived captioned Register-Guard 1982. The letter is addressed “To the Editor of The Sun,” so the paper is a Sun of some city, not the Register-Guard. It invokes the Four Freedoms, the Atlantic Charter and the “United Nations Organization,” and refers to Mr. Byrnes as Secretary of State, which places it around 1946. Neither the city nor the exact date can be read from the clipping.'}
“Jerusalem, Jan. 12 (Reuters) — The Palestine Arabs Medical Association today appealed to Palestine Arabs to boycott Jewish doctors ‘since the Jewish Medical profession was primarily interested in furthering Zionist aims.’ They also urged Arab doctors not to prescribe Jewish manufactured pharmaceutical preparations. The appeal said that Palestine was one of the ‘most highly doctored’ countries in the world with more than 2,500 Jewish doctors and 340 Arab doctors. The boycott will be a long-term plan with no apparent results for at least six months, Ali Dajani, secretary of the Palestine Arab Chambers of Commerce, who is working out technical details, said today. ‘It will be applied by peaceful persuasion and no violence will be used to those disobeying the Arab League edict (to boycott Zionist products and manufactures).’ ‘We completely disassociate ourselves from terrorist bodies such as “the Arab Blood Organization.”’ Dajani said that latest boycott moves by Arab economic experts include the formation of several new companies — with capital varying between 10,000 pounds sterling and 100,000 pounds sterling ($40,000 and $400,000 American) — designed in the long run to free Palestine Arabs from dependence on Jewish industry. In addition, an Arab trade drive for goods from Britain is now going on and Arab orders for British goods now waiting for import licences and shipping space total more than $4,000,000, Dajani said.”
One Reuters dispatch, two papers, the same morning. The Chicago Tribune ran it as “ARAB DOCTORS ASK BOYCOTT OF JEWISH MEDICOS” and stopped after the sentence about peaceful persuasion — cutting Dajani’s disavowal of “terrorist bodies,” the whole economic program and the British trade drive. Chicago also makes him secretary of “10 Palestine Arab chambers of commerce” and puts the boycott gloss in square brackets where Buffalo uses parentheses. Both scans are held.
“Six thousand Palestine railway workers and 2,000 port workers in Haifa decided tonight to accept the government’s wage proposals for settlement of their strike and return to their jobs at midnight. The action came after 50,000 Palestine Civil Service employees had returned to work…”
Fifty-eight thousand people stop work, hold out, and win — and the wire never once divides them by ethnicity. Not Arab and Jewish railway workers; just Palestine railway workers. In a collection where nearly every clipping sorts the country into two groups before it says anything else, this is the one story in which the categories never appear, and it is the one about wages.
“Two outstanding speakers have been added to the Larchmont Forum for Public Opinion to discuss ‘To Whom Palestine?’ at the final meting of the season tomorrow at 8:30 P. M. in the Chatsworth Avenue School auditorium. They are Miss Louise Amin, for the last seven years teacher of social sciences at Beirut Junior College, Republic of Lebanon, and Dr. John G. Hazam, professor of history, Asiatic Division, College of the City of New York… Miss Amin, who holds B.A. and M.A. degrees from American University in Beirut, is now working on her doctor’s degree at the University of Chicago. Her thesis will be ‘Palestine’. She is vice president of the Federation of Arab Women Clubs in Lebanon and was official representative of Lebanon to the Arab Women’s Congress in Cairo in 1944, at which the status of Arab women, the problems of the country, and the question of Palestine were discussed. Her report of the Congress was published by ‘Moslem World’, a quarterly magazine. Dr. Hazam, who holds a B.A. degree from Yale University and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of California, was born and raised near Damascus and is familiar with the entire Middle East. He will speak with Miss Amin in support of Arabs’ rights… Mr. Frank was held incommunicado by terrorist leaders whom he interviewed in Palestine, was arrested by the Secret Police in Lebanon, and was one of the few American correspondents to attend the censored trial in Cairo of the two Palestinian youths who assassinated Lord Moyne, British minister in the Middle East.”
Two things at once. An Arab woman academic is billed as a headline speaker in a Westchester school hall on the question of Palestine: vice president of the Federation of Arab Women Clubs in Lebanon, Lebanon’s delegate to the 1944 Arab Women’s Congress in Cairo, writing a Chicago doctorate called Palestine. With the 1929 congress in Jerusalem, the 1938 congress Sadhij Nassar was elected secretary of, and the second world congress Matiel Mogannam was planning in 1945, this archive now holds four of these gatherings reported in American papers across seventeen years. The second thing is in the last paragraph: the men who assassinated Lord Moyne were members of Lehi, and this paper calls them the two Palestinian youths.
Palestine Police Report Night of Terror; Entire Jewish Village Arrested
Associated Press, Jerusalem
“All the population of the Jewish settlement of Beth Haavara was reported arrested by Palestine police after a night of widespread terror… a British army unit surrounded the village and carried out a complete search… All persons found in the village were reported brought to a prison here for further investigation.”
The Night of the Bridges. The archive holds British collective punishment applied to Arab villages near Jaffa in 1921 and to eight thousand people in Gaza in 1938; this is the same instrument used on a Jewish village. One administration, one method, both peoples.
“Palestine police and troops pressed an intensive hunt through frontier settlements tonight for Jewish terrorists blamed by the police for the blowing up of eight bridges last night, and it was reported reliably that the population of one entire Jewish settlement was arrested and held for investigation… The clash with the Arabs occurred during celebrations of the escape from exile in France of the Mufti of Jerusalem, spirtual leader of Palestine’s Arabs.”
The same Associated Press story as the Stamford printing, a day later. One paper headlined the mass arrest; this one headlined the manhunt. “spirtual” is the paper’s spelling.
British Headquarters, Palestine Secretariat Blasted by Terrorists
By the Associated Press, Jerusalem
“JERUSALEM, July 22.—Terrorists today bombed and shattered part of the huge King David Hotel, headquarters of the British Army and the Secretariat of the Palestine government, killing at least 50 persons in a terrifying blast that shook the modern part of this ancient city. The attack came 23 days after the British Army occupied the Jewish agency and arrested 2,000 Jews and leaders. A police communique gave the estimate of dead. Among the 60 reported unofficially as injured was an American, Richard Mowrer, correspondent of the New York Post, who was reported to have suffered a broken leg while walking past the hotel. A curfew was clamped on… Postmaster General G. D. Kennedy, a veteran of 25 years of government service in Palestine, was known to have been killed. The explosion was likened by a British Army officer to the detonation of a 500-pound bomb. It shattered the uneasy calm of Jerusalem, torn by Jewish demands for more immigration and Arab opposition, at 12:30 p.m.… ‘I saw dead men lying on the streets,’ one eyewitness said. ‘There were severeal ATS (British Army Women’s Auxiliary) girls covered with blood from head to foot. One man was blown clear across the street and his body hit the side of the YMCA building.’ The telephone operator at the hotel said that 15 minutes before the explosion she received an anonymous call saying the hotel was to be blown up. She was advised to flee. Instead, she spread the alarm and many guests ran from the building. Others, accustomed to alarms, remained… While an excited crowd was standing in the street outside the hotel, 18 youth, 6 of them dressed as Arabs, appeared in a long corridor of the hotel basement. A British officer said the young men spoke in Hebrew.”
The King David Hotel, on the day, with terrorists under the headline and in the first word of the story, unattributed. The subheadings are “Postmaster General Killed” and “Warning Given By Phone.” “severeal” is the paper’s.
By Carter L. Davidson, The Associated Press, Jerusalem
“JERUSALEM — (AP) — Beneath the sound and fury of Palestine’s politico-racial miseries, one thing is often forgotten: Palestine is a land where people live, love, labor and listen to music. The world has a Palestine problem because the Jews and Arabs have religious and racial affinities that transcend national boundaries. But Palestinians are people and they have problems, too. They go to work in the morning, have tea in the afternoon and go to the movies at night. They hear symphony music and opera, they go dancing and gather in taverns. Sometimes they get drunk, they haggle with the butcher and miss buses. Palestine is a little orphan country waiting for its powerful uncles to decide its destiny. But its peoples’ lives go on. The land is a land of scenic beauty and healthful, sub-tropical climate. It has rock-crested mountains and verdant plains. Its scenic beauty is marred but little by the hundreds of miles of barbed wire entanglements, the sprawling military encampments and the thousands of military vehicles trundling over its winding roads.”
The word Palestinians here means everybody who lives there. The clipping ends at the subhead “Two Ancient Peoples.” An earlier version of this record carried three further sentences about the local press in English, Hebrew and Arabic; those sentences belong to the same AP dispatch and are printed on the Springfield Leader and Press copy held here, but they are not on this scan, so they have been moved to that record. The Springfield copy also omits the word labor from the first sentence.
By Carter L. Davidson, The Associated Press, Jerusalem
“JERUSALEM, Sept. 3—(AP)—Beneath the sound and fury of Palestine’s politico-racial miseries, one thing is often forgotten: Palestine is a land where people live, love, and listen to music. The world has a Palestine Problem because the Jews and Arabs have religious and racial affinities that transcend national boundaries. But Palestinians are people and they have problems, too. They go to work in the morning, have tea in the afternoon and go to the movies at night. They hear symphony music and opera, they go dancing and gather in taverns. Sometimes they get drunk, they haggle with the butcher and miss buses. Palestine is a little orphan country waiting for its powerful uncles to decide its destiny. But its peoples’ lives go on… Some two dozen foreign newsmen, representing the world’s big agencies and newspapers, live in Jerusalem’s hotels and report news as it happens, glean bits and pieces of intelligence from government ‘handouts,’ and write deep ‘think pieces.’ They visit the homes of Arab and Jew and are plied with coffee, brandy and political persuasion. Local newspapers in English, Hebrew and Arabic tell Palestine readers of the world’s events that affect this country. They tell it with vitriolic comment and often with little regard for objectivity. The British government scissors out the passages it contends might incite violence. The people read what’s printed and read into it what they will—and then turn to a review of last night’s performance of Brahm’s Fourth Symphony by the Palestine orchestra, or scan a list of the movies, of British, American, French or Egyptian origin, playing in Haifa, Tel Aviv, Jaffa or Jerusalem.”
The same AP dispatch the Saginaw News ran that day, set longer and under a different headline. This copy leaves the word labor out of the first sentence and keeps the passage about the foreign press corps and the British censor. The subhead is “Scenic, Healthful.” “Brahm’s” is the paper’s.
“Roving bands of underground Jewish Extremists, striking in the dark early hours today, have opened what appears to be a countrywide attack on Palestine’s railway system… explosions occurring every 10 minutes at various points along the railway from Ramleh to Jerusalem… the Jibne station south of Tel Aviv was attacked by Terrorists.”
A banner headline. Forty years earlier the Standard Times had carried a forty-two-word brief headed Palestine Railways, about a line being built for pilgrims, with no people in it at all. The same three words head both.
“In these days of turmoil in Palestine when careless press and radio commentators, as well as government officials who should know better, picture Palestinian Jews as law-breakers and gangsters, it is constructive to look at the record of crime. The Court of Criminal Assize tried 49 cases of murder involving 99 persons during the whole of last year. Twenty-three men were convicted — seven receiving the death sentence and 16 a prison sentence. Of this number, 20 were Moslems and three were Christians. No Jews. Of the 136 persons charged with carrying arms for unlawful purposes, 103 were convicted by the District Courts—96 Moslems, 4 Jews, 3 Christians. The record before the Magistrates’ Courts showed 233 Moslems were convicted for this crime, 10 Jews and 20 Christians. These figures become all the more significant when it is recalled that the Jews in Palestine have come from practically every country in the world and have brought with them different standards and viewpoints which might very readily serve as a basis for violent disagreements, even murder. Furthermore, quite a few of them have been driven desperate by the treatment accorded them in Europe and by their financial condition. That they have succeeded in living in harmony speaks well for the future. … from American Jewish Outlook.”
Palestinian Jews again, in a defense built out of court statistics.
Former Palestinian Native Tells Of Conditions There
“KEYPORT — Zvi Levavy, Perth Amboy, spoke on ‘Palestine’ at the dinner meeting of the Keyport Kiwanis club in Ye Cottage Inn, W. Front st., Tuesday evening. Levavy, a native of Palestine for many years, described the recent disturbances there as ‘unfortunate incidents’ condemned by the responsible citizens and termed them the result of political, not religious issues, promoted by subversive elements. He told of the struggle between Hitler’s regime and the Western powers for Palestine control, both for the Suez, Enland Suez life-line and Arab oil lands, and said that the Jews and Arabs were both secretly armed during the period previous to the actual outbreak of World War II. Levavy stated that Palestine, a mandate of Great Britain, has a population of one million and a quarter composed of Arabs, Jews and Christians, with less than 600,000 Jews and with the Arabs as the major population block. The speaker said that after the war the Jews hoped for the right to participate as a people in the peace conferences and were ready to develop Palestine’s undeveloped resources. However, he continued, they are disgusted with promises and a group of the population infuriated by the delay has taken direct action. He commented that there are still one and a half million Jews in European concentration camps and said that the Jews still want freedom and liberty which they feel they can obtain in Palestine. At the meeting Harold A. Woolley and Andrew Deane were welcomed as new members. The speaker was presented by Herbert Rothenberg, Keyport Kiwanian. The venison for dinner was provided by R. A. Beaman, a member of the club.”
The headline calls a Jewish speaker a Palestinian native, in 1946, without comment. He gives the population as a million and a quarter with the Arabs as the major block. The item ends by noting who supplied the venison.
“JERUSALEM, Palestine, Dec. 25 (UP)—Christmas Day assassins, believed to be members of the secret Arab army, shot and killed another wealthy Arab landowner, Emir Mohammed el Saleh, in full daylight in Haifa today amid a 24-hour Holy Land celebration of the birth of Christ. El Saleh, millionaire property owner who had sold thousands of acres to the Jewish National Fund for the establishment of Jewish settlements, was killed by assailants firing from a taxicab. Among land sold to Jews were the tracts on which the Jewish National Fund established the Tel Joseph, Ein Herod and other settlements in the Beisan area of northern Palestine near the Sea of Gallilee.”
The land question from the other direction, and the landowner is named.
“After a quarter-century’s experience in administering Palestine under mandate originally extended by the now defunct League of Nations, the British government appears helpless to settle upon a policy for the region’s future that would be acceptable to both Arab and Jewish populations. Britain’s trouble in that regard is mainly of its own making. It has not been the impartial, disinterested referee that the administrator of an international mandate should be. Britain’s own interests in the Near East often have moved its government to play one element against another in a series of events that have caused an irreparable schism between Palestine’s most powerful factions. London has become increasingly discouraged by its failure to obtain with the United States an agreement as to what the Palestine policy should be, as well as by American refusal to bear an equal share of the responsibility for maintaining order in the troubled region should Anglo-American proposals for settling the question be put into action. Former Prime Minister Churchill lately was moved to suggest that Britain resign its Palestine mandate — a drastic proposal for that longtime champion of empire. Actually, the Palestine question is an international issue — and one which could be reasonably interpreted as endangering the peace — that has reached the point where it should be handled by the United Nations. It should be placed on the agenda of the U.N. Assembly and Security Council at the earliest opportunity. The question involves many thousand displaced persons in devastated Europe who desire to emigrate to Palestine, the Jewish and Arab peoples in residence, and the Arabs in a half-dozen other states. Also interwoven in the issue are the opposing Near East interests, strategic and economic, of the Soviet Union and Britain and, to a lesser extent, the United States. The trouble simply is beyond the British government’s ability to settle. It also is too broad for satisfactory solution to be found by joint Anglo-American action, even could those two parties agree. The situation existing in Palestine poses a world problem of the type which the United Nations Organization was specifically designed to handle. Should it prove unable to do so with reasonable satisfaction to all parties’ legitimate interests, it would be time to recognize the failure of the organization as it is presently constituted.”
An American editorial in 1947 naming Britain’s own interests as the cause of the schism, and treating the Arab and Jewish populations as two peoples in residence.
Correction: {'note': 'arrived captioned The Recorder 2019; content places it around 1947'}
'America Should Lead in Solving Palestine Problem'
E. Marshall Bush, RD 2, Elmira
“Editor, Star-Gazette:—The situation in Palestine has reached a state where decision must be made now and carried out promptly to put an end to the lawlessness that is rampant there. It has become increasingly apparent that no decision can be made, or solution found, which will satisfy either the Arab or the Jewish extremists in Palestine at this time. But for the sake of the majority of them, who are peaceful law-abiding citizens, the persistent acts of terror and violence must be stopped. The most feasible solution would seem to be the partitioning of Palestine into separate Arab and Jewish communities… While Republican Senator Vandenberg and others make occasional statements designed to catch some Jewish votes, our government has also not only permitted, but aided in, the collection of funds in this country, part of which have gone to the Jewish underground, and which provided the bombs that caused the death of dozens of British soldiers… For it must be emphasized here that neither the Balfour declaration of 1917 nor the British mandate of 1922 made provision for a Jewish state in Palestine. What it did provide for was a Jewish homeland. It also appears necessary to be pointed out to some people, time and again, that Palestine is not a member of the British Commonwealth nor is it a colonial possession. It has simply been mandated to them for their protection. But the responsibility for the maintenance of law and order under the mandate does not rest solely upon the British government if lawlessness jeopardizes the peace of the world. It is a world problem, not a British problem, as the attitudes of some of our so-called statesmen seem to be. If the United States has presumed to have attained to a position of world leadership, then it should take the leadership in solving this problem.”
A reader arguing that the Balfour Declaration and the mandate promised a homeland and not a state, and that the United States, having funded the underground, should take the lead.
Correction: {'pub': 'Elmira Star-Gazette', 'note': 'Addressed “Editor, Star-Gazette.” The letter refers to partition and to the United Nations, which places it around 1947 rather than 1918 as the microfilm caption had it. The exact day is not readable on the clipping.'}
“Reasons for the fierce resentment of Palestinian Jews were presented by Rabbi Benjamin Friedman to the Women’s Alliance of May Memorial church yesterday afternoon. He reviewed a novel, ‘Thieves in the Night,’ by Arthur Koestler, which traces the fortunes of a young Jew among the new communities of Zionists. ‘They are in no mood to be trifled with,’ said the rabbi. ‘The greatest casualty in the war was the Jews. Of the 600,000 in Palestine, most came from Europe and probably half of them got in illegally. They arrived with bitter memories of 6,000,000 of their people exterminated.’ He illustrated the grim seriousness of life in Palestine by the fact that in all their papers and magazines there is no such thing as a comic section. Rabbi Friedman recommended the reading of the book, but with the warning that some of its pictures may be overdrawn and should be accepted with caution. The reading would take eight hours, he said.”
Palestinian Jews again, in a church hall in Syracuse, five months before the partition vote.
95 Percent of Palestinian Jews Oppose the Terrorists
By Reuven Dafni
“EDITOR’S NOTE: The author of this article was the commander of the group of Palestinian Jews who served in the British Military Intelligence behind German lines in Nazi Europe with the mission of rousing resistence and obtaining secret information. One of Palestine’s outstanding war heroes, Dafni founded the fishing village of Ein Geb. The following is excerpted from a speech made by Dafni February 23 before the United Jewish Appeal conference in Washington. I want you to realize that we in Palestine can have peace within 10 minutes—peace, protection (as if we need it), prosperity and praise by Mr. Bevin, I assure you, if we would say, ‘All right. We don’t care what happens to the Jews of Europe. What do we care if they die? What do I care if my mother lives or dies? What do I care? The main thing is that we live well.’ I would like to touch now one problem which I am sure must have been in your minds for the last number of months. It is the so-called terrorism. Let me tell you first of all that I have yet to meet that American Jew who is more opposed to terrorism than I am, and 95 percent of the Palestinian Jews. I have yet to meet him. On the contrary, I have found in this country (the United States) more moral and more financial support for the terrorists in Palestine than there exists in Palestine. And if you watch the newspapers coming from Palestine you would see that I am right, because why do you think the terrorists hold up banks, rob diamond factories and government buildings of money? Why do they do it? Because they are not getting any support from the Jews of Palestine. But I want to be very fair. They are no criminals either. They are good and fine and decent boys and girls, Jewish boys and girls, who have been driven into desperation so much that they are so mad they do not realize that by what they are doing they are playing the British game.”
Palestinian Jews under the headline and in the editor’s note. A speech telling American Jews that the money for the Irgun is coming from America, not from Palestine. The subhead is “Not Criminal, Just Desperate.” “resistence” is the paper’s.
“The breakdown in the negotiations in London… was due, rather, to a fundamental conflict between the British and the Jews as to whether the Jews are a people or simply a religious community… Mr. Bevin, on the contrary, reveals himself as a true and staunch disciple of Lessing Rosenwald. Jews to him are a religion only. Hence, they have no claim to statehood.”
The same test as the 1922 editorial, applied to a British foreign secretary. Forty-one years later the Associated Press would report that to Israelis “who is a Palestinian is almost as vexing a question as who is a Jew,” and that those who deny Palestinian nationhood say Palestinian Arabs. Whether a group is a nation or merely a category is the question that decides what you are permitted to call them, and this archive can now show it asked in both directions.
British Army Store In Palestine Blasted By Jewish Terrorists
By the Associated Press, Jerusalem
“JERUSALEM, Sunday, Mar. 16.—A group of persons identified officially as Jewish terrorists blew up a British army Naafi (post exchange) store near Hadera early today. A police source said he believed there were no casualties, but added that the building still was ablaze an hour after the blast… Meanwhile, the cordon of troops around Tel Aviv’s martial law zone was reinforced last night and reports from that all-Jewish city indicated the British army was preparing to meet an underground Jewish threat to crack the city’s defense. Posters were distributed Friday day by Irgun Zvei Leumi, Jewish resistance organization, declaring ‘we will break through the ghetto.’… Irgun and the Stern gang distributed ‘press releases’ in Jerusalem in which the Stern gang claimed ‘responsibility’ for three recent attacks on Palestine trains and Irgun denied reports that 12 of its members were among 78 ‘known terrorists’ the British announced had been arrested.”
The word is in the headline in the paper’s own voice and then carefully attributed in the first line of the story: identified officially as Jewish terrorists. The same column calls Irgun a Jewish resistance organization two paragraphs later, and puts responsibility and known terrorists in quotation marks.
“Lake Success, N. Y. —(U.P.)— The Arab states were defeated today in two more attempts to force the United Nations to consider the independence of Palestine and a spokesman threatened that they might walk out of UN ‘so far as Palestine is concerned.’ The political committee of the general assembly slapped down proposals by Russia and Poland which would have instructed the UN Palestine inquiry commission to consider establishing an ‘independent democratic state of Palestine.’ In view of the action there was speculation that the five Arab states might stage their protest demonstration today. They apprenly had lost their last chance to include the independence issue in the instructions for the Palestine inquiry. Faris El Khouri of Syria, considered spokesman for the Arab bloc, said the Arab states were considering a policy of ‘non-cooperation’ if they were not given their way. He claimed the UN Palestine probe could not possibly succeed if the Arabs did not cooperate.”
May 1947, before the partition vote. The proposal the committee refused was to let the inquiry commission consider an independent democratic state of Palestine. “Apprenly” is the paper’s.
“Behind the headlines of Arab-Jewish strife… Arab and Jewish workers go about their daily toil together… Together they voted for a general strike in May, 1946, in the same YMCA room where just a few months before the Anglo-American inquiry commission had heard government officials state that Arabs and Jews cannot get along together… The UN commission is the 19th to visit here since 1921.”
Officials testifying in a room that Arabs and Jews cannot cooperate, and the same room, months later, holding the joint strike vote. It also records the killing of Fausi Darwish, an Arab who advocated Jewish-Arab cooperation, and notes that news of his death was censored.
“Church groups, women’s clubs and other women’s organizations are especially invited to attend the lecture here Thursday evening by Mrs. Alice Kandaleft Cosma, educator and Syrian diplomat, Southern Illinois University officials have announced. Mrs. Cosma will be presented by the university as part of its summer cultural and entertainment program. She will speak at 8 p. m. in Shryock auditorium. A representative of the Syrian Government to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, Mrs. Cosma has headed several women’s colleges and universities in her native country. She founded the Arab Women’s National League and served as its first president, and also served as chairman of the Arab Women’s Congress for the Defense of Palestine. In 1946 she was the only woman to testify before the Anglo-American Committee on Palestine. Her lecture, on the subject ‘Current Problems in the Arab Middle East,’ will be open to the public.”
A college lecture notice that turns out to contain a biography. She founded the Arab Women’s National League, chaired the Arab Women’s Congress for the Defense of Palestine, and in 1946 was the only woman of any nationality to testify before the Anglo-American Committee. The headline calls her a Syrian. The archive holds the first Arab Women’s Congress, unnamed and uncounted except by its motorcade, eighteen years earlier.
“Since 1940 Palestine’s Jewish population has jumped from 163,000 to 630,000, immigration and natural increases being about equal. These figures are about 12 times that of 1919. The Arab population is approximately 1,110,000.”
Fifty-one words in a Black newspaper in Nebraska, five months before partition. No adjectives and no argument — the two populations, side by side, with the Arab majority stated last and plainly.
“Palestine Jews were heartened by Russian endorsement of the partition proposal but Falastin, an Arab newspaper, expressed Arab displeasure with a headline: ‘Dictatorial Communist Russia Supports Partition and Jewish State Jointly With Imperialist-Capitalist America.’”
A Palestinian newspaper’s headline, given in full translation inside an American wire story. For an archive whose unit of analysis is the American headline, a Palestinian headline arriving intact inside one is a category of evidence it does not otherwise have.
The vote itself, across the top of a Baltimore front page: 33 to 13. Thirty-three states voted to divide a country whose majority population was not among them. This archive holds the two days after it as well — the Princeton Daily Clarion’s banner on 2 December (CP-1947-029) is what the next stage looked like in an Indiana daily.
7 Syrians Killed in Rioting Over Palestine Partition
United Press, Damascus
“DAMASCUS, Syria, Nov. 30 (UP)—Seven Syrians were killed in a student-Communist clash over the partition of Palestine today after an enraged mob stoned the United States and French legations and hauled down the American flag. Turbulent crowds of Arabs surged through the streets of this capital and converged on the American and French legations, stoning both buildings and hauling down the flag flying in front of the United States building. Their rage mounting, the demonstrators moved on the headquarters of the Syrian Communist party with students in the lead. As the crowd stormed the building those inside fired and three students were killed. Roused to fury, the demonstrators set fire to the building and four Syrian Communists were burned to death.”
Two days after the vote. The archive previously held nothing at all from December 1947.
“WHILE THE DELEGATE FROM PAKISTAN, Sir M. Zafrullah Khan, was giving his views on the Palestine partition issue to the U.N. General Assembly at Flushing Meadows, New York, his address was received with divided interest. Thus, Senor Jose Arce (left), Argentine delegate was caught napping by a candid cameraman. Whereas, Russia’s Andrei Gromyko appears to be studying some figures—or just doodling.” (International)
The same International News Photos picture the Urbana Daily Citizen ran the same day.
“JERUSALEM, Dec. 1 — (INS)— New anti-American violence flared in the Syrian city of Beirut today and another Jew was shot to death in Lebanon, bringing to 19 the fatality toll in the first stages of the Arab-Jewish ‘holy war.’ The United Nations’ decision to partition Palestine touched off the new Beirut demonstrations. An estimated 10 thousand Arab students marched through the streets and stoned the United States Information office and the French legation. The demonstrators carried Arab flags and posters which read: ‘Fire and steel is the only language the Zionists understand.’ They shouted anti-American slogans, and were joined by thousands of other Arabs who went on strike in the cities of Tripoli and Saida as a protest against the partition. The new killing in Jerusalem occurred just outside the Damascus gate. The Holly Land seethed with Arab anger as heavily armed tribesmen swarmed down from the hills of central Palestine, apparently ready to wage ‘holy war.’”
“WHILE THE DELEGATE FROM PAKISTAN, Sir M. Zafrullah Khan, was giving his views on the Palestine partition issue to the U.N. General Assembly at Flushing Meadows, New York, his address was received with divided interest. Thus, Senor Jose Arce (left), Argentine delegate was caught napping by a candid cameraman. Whereas, Russia’s Andrei Gromyko appears to be studying some figures—or just doodling.” (International)
The paper sets Beirut in Syria and the Holy Land as the Holly Land. The same International News Photos picture runs above it that the Daily Herald ran the same day.
Palestine Partition Decision Incenses Arabs To Violence
Seven Jews Slain in Holy Land, Four Others in Damascus and American Legation in Latter City Stoned, Flag Ripped Down, Shutters Torn Off, Windows Broken
By the Associated Press
“Death, strikes, insults at the United States and grim threats of a Holy War developed swiftly in the eastern Mediterranean today in the wake of a United Nations decision to partition Palestine, a move which incensed Arabs throughout the area. Seven Jews were killed in the Holy Land. Four other persons were slain at the Syrian capital of Damascus during an attack on Communist headquarters and the cultural center of the Russians, who like the United States supported the move to create a Jewish state in part of the Holy Land. The American Legation in Damascus was stoned, its flag was ripped down, its shutters torn off and some of its windows broken. Shouts of ‘down with the United States,’ ‘down with the American University’ and ‘give us arms’ rang through the streets of ancient Cairo. Students also cried out against Jews. The threat of Holy War seemed implicit in utterances of Abdel Rahman Azzam Pasha, secretary of the Arab League of seven nations with 33,000,000 Arabs. He declared the Arabs would never submit to partition. ‘I cannot say where and when I will place my troops,’ he declared. ‘It is a question of life or death. We never wanted violence of war. Now our hands are forced to a definite course for which Palestine Arabs and the whole Arab world have no alternative.’ A Cairo informant said King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia had agreed to give oil revenues paid him by U. S. oil companies, estimated at $18,000,000 annually, to support Arab military resistance. There was no comment from the king. The Arabs called for a three-day general strike throughout Palestine beginning tomorrow and tightened the boycott of Jews. Sixteen Arabs were wounded slightly at Acre prison when guards opened fire on prisoners attacking Jewish inmates. Hagana, the Jewish underground army, was said to have 50,000 to 70,000 troops ready for battle. It called for mobilization of Jews, women as well as men, between the ages of 17 and 35. The Jews celebrated throughout Palestine with parades, street dancing and display of national banners. At Beirut, Lebanon, strikes were declared today at all schools here, including the American University, protesting the partition of Palestine. Students demonstrated throughout the day, shouting: ‘Palestine is Arab!’”
Everything in one column on the second day: the killings on both sides, the strike, the oil money, the Haganah mobilization, the Jewish celebrations and the students in Beirut.
“JERUSALEM, Dec. 2—(UP)—Arabs today began a three-day general strike with a burst of stabbings, shootings, arson and mob violence that forced the Jewish underground to line up with the British for the first time to try to maintain order. Arab mobs stormed through Jerusalem’s streets, smashing stores, stealing an estimated $1,000,000 worth of Jewish property, and attacking Jews wherever they were found. A Jewish mob formed and, shouting ‘Revenge! Revenge!’ started for the Arabs. The Jews, however, were turned back by British police assisted by members of the Hagana Jewish underground army… Burning Jewish shops sent smoke billowing over the Holy City shortly after the start of the Arab strike, which was billed as a peaceful demonstration against the United Nations decision to partition Palestine into Jewish and Arab states.”
Jewish Shops Are Fired, Wrecked; One Jew Slain; Retaliation Prevented
United Press, Jerusalem
“JERUSALEM — (UP) — Angry Arabs started an orgy of burning, beating and stone throwing in Jerusalem today and police, helped by troops and members of the Jewish Hagana, threw barricades across a street to stop a mob of Jews, advancing upon the Arabs with cries of ‘Revenge! Revenge!’ British troops, with their rifles pointed toward the crowd and backed by armored cars, contained the angry Jews in Zion square. The Jews threw stones through the windows of an Arab theatre, but the British and the Hagana men managed to hold them back… One Jew was killed and at least five Jews and one Arab were injured. The Arabs exchanged shots with police trying to stop their protest against the United Nations partition of Palestine. They set fires as fast to Jewish shops that firemen could not put out one before another was burning.”
A banner across the top of the page, and nothing else on the scan.
Correction: {'note': 'The presentation captions this scan as the Baraboo News Republic. The masthead printed on it reads STATEN ISLAND, N. Y., and it is the story column belonging to the Staten Island Advance banner of the same day, so it was merged into that record rather than filed as a separate paper.'}
Three days after the partition vote, the banner across a six-page Indiana daily, above a local Legion post moving house and an open murder trial. The people are a mob, and the second line gives them three verbs and a state of mind: Loot, Burn, Kill In Wild Frenzy. Nothing in the headline says what the vote was or that it had happened.
Moslems Call For Holy War · British Clamp Emergency Curfew Over Jerusalem To Quell Fighting
United Press, Jerusalem
“JERUSALEM, Palestine, Dec. 2.—(UP)—Wild Arab and Jewish mobs did damage estimated at more than $1,000,000 in Jerusalem today and a pitched night battle was fought in the turbulent ‘no man’s land’ between Arab Jaffa and Jewish Tel Aviv. In Cairo the holy men of 1,000-year-old Al Azher University called for a worldwide Moslem holy war in defense of Palestine. The Syrian Parliament in Damascus decreed compulsory national service, appropriated $860,000 for defense of Palestine and named the chief of the Iraq general staff its supreme commander in event of war. Hours of wild rioting here ended at dusk when an emergency curfew was clamped on the Holy City. At that time the reports of rifles, pistols and hand grenades broke the quiet on the Jaffa-Tel Aviv border and four hours later firing was still heard.”
“Residents of Tel Aviv, Palestine, rejoice as news of UN Assembly vote for the partition of Palestine brings parades of cheering throngs and a display of national banners in the all-Jewish city.” (NEA Telephoto)
A whole front page: the Palestine banner runs above a CIO wage story, an office-building sale and a stolen car. The photograph carries its own heading, “Palestine Partition Vote Cheered.”
· The State Journal-Register · Springfield · page 1
Partition Of Palestine
“Although the partition of Palestine by the United Nations general assembly reflects the two-thirds majority of world thought on the troublesome Middle East, there is danger in the violent resistance of the Arab minority that the decision will precipitate serious upheavals in the Moslem world. Although the Arabs themselves are not of sufficient strength nor in possession of adequate resources to threaten world conflict, the tie of Islam, the Moslem religion, makes their resistance to the Palestine solution of consequence to the hundreds of millions of Moslems in the Middle East and Asia. A new complicating factor will be inserted into the Indian situation. Hoping to profit by any and all confusion and dissidence, Soviet forces drawn up along the Suez lifeline and across the Siberian frontiers cannot but be pleased by the chaos which threatens. Demonstrations in Palestine, Italy and France can serve to benefit the Communists who thrive upon disgruntled, anarchic mass movements. It becomes the responsibility of the Jews in Palestine to liberalize their own policies of employment, religious tolerance and social practice. Political autonomy and economic prosperity can continue for any state only when that state is neighborly and eager to improve relationships with other sovereign powers. Today’s interdependent world cannot condone such continued outbreaks as those attendant to the Palestine partition. Here is an example which calls for the embodiment of the U.N. armed forces. Peace and order kept in Palestine can cut the fuse on a dangerous powder keg.”
Unsigned, so this is the paper arguing in its own voice four days after the vote. The Arab majority of Palestine is called the Arab minority in the first sentence.
Interviews With Arabs In Palestine Indicate Unity In Determination To Combat Partition
By Philip Potter, Sun Staff Correspondent, Jerusalem
“Jerusalem, Nov. 18 (By Mail)… a score or more Arab spokesmen with whom this correspondent has had interviews in the past two weeks. They include men and women, Moslems and Christians, labor leaders and newspaper publishers. On the record they are all opposed to partition. Let some of them speak for themselves. Mrs. Matiel Mogannon is president of the Ramallah chapter of the Arab Woman’s Union, which has units throughout the country and is affiliated with similar organizations in Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Trans-Jordan… Mrs. Mogannon, a Christian Arab, spent most of her childhood in the United States, coming back to Palestine after her marriage… ‘When it comes to national interest we are all, Christians and Moslems, Arabs. Our religion doesn’t count at all. It’s the Arabs against the Zionists. We have set aside petty quarrels in the interest of unity on Palestine.’ ‘It is true there have been family feuds—feuds between the Husseinis and the Nashashibi, and it may be there will be again once Palestine is an independent state. But on this issue we are united.’ … Raja el-Issa, proprietor of Felastin, Arab language paper of Jaffa, one of four Arab dailies in Palestine… ‘We’ll never come to any understanding with the Jews on the basis of partition or a separate state for them. We’ll give them equal rights here, but there is to be no more immigration.’ … Mustafa Ibrahim Mustafa, 35, is an Arab journalist who returned from a nine-month tour of the United States, where he visited New York city, Washington, Detroit, Chicago and Los Angeles.… Jaffa Mayor’s Opinion. The mayor of Jaffa, Yusuf Haikal, looks like the scholar he is, a doctor of philosophy who studied for two years under Prof. Harold Laski at the London School of Economics… Office Supported By Iraq. At the Arab Office, propaganda agency which was founded by Musa Al Alami, I met Darwish el Makdadi and Anwar Khatib, the latter in charge of a land development scheme under which agricultural properties in Palestine are bought up from their Syrian and Lebanese absentee landlords and distributed to small Arab landholders… Khatib was irritated by questions seeking to bring out the degree to which the Husseinis control Arab public bodies. ‘This business of the Husseinis maintaining a reign of terror over Palestinian Arabs is all Jewish propaganda,’ he said. ‘Family rivalries are something of 30 years ago. Now all the Arabs are united.’ People’s Attitude Cited. ‘The Arab Higher Executive, of which the Mufti is chairman, is a political body to represent the Arabs in the country,’ he said. ‘We have a definite role, that of presenting the Arab case abroad.’ Makdadi admitted that there are differences between various Arab rulers and governments, but insisted that in opposition to any partitioning of Palestine there would be growing unity. ‘It’s not a question of rulers, but a question of the people’s wishes,’ he said. ‘If they are united against the creation of a Jewish state, the rulers will have to go along.’… ‘The Jews say they can’t have security in an independent Palestine, only in a land of their own. Let them get an empty land.’ ‘Where is such a land?’ I asked him. ‘In hell, I don’t care,’ he replied.”
“ARABS LOOT JEWISH SHOPS—This was the scene in Jerusalem as Arabs looted Jewish shops.” (AP Wirephoto)
Nine Palestinians named and quoted in one American newspaper page, two weeks before the fighting began. The page also carries a Senate warning about U.S. troops, the naming of a U.N. body for Jerusalem, Dixie Belle gin at $3.17 a quart and a Kayser lingerie advertisement headed Dear Santa!
“Jerusalem, Dec. 2 (U.P.).—Arab and Jewish mobs did damage estimated at more than $1,000,000 in Jerusalem today, the holy men of 1,000-year-old Al Azhar University in Cairo called for a Mohammedan holy war against partition of Palestine, and a pitched night battle was reported fought in the turbulent no-man’s land between Arab Jaffa and Jewish Tel Aviv. Ten thousand men of the Hagana organization—the future Jewish army—who made their first appearance as peacemakers in the streets of Jerusalem today, moved in to form a living wall between Arabs in Jaffa and Jews in Tel Aviv. Late Monday night 2,000 picked men of Palmach, the Hagana striking force, started reconnoitering toward the Jaffa side of the border. Sheets of flame lighted the entire border area as rioters on the Arab side set fire to Jewish shops and Jews put the torch to Arab establishments on their side. Fire brigades of both cities were prevented from approaching the burning buildings for fear of snipers posted in the tortuous alleyways. During the day’s disorders the death toll in clashes throughout Palestine reached eight—seven Jews and one Arab, with 36 Jews and three Arabs wounded. (The Associated Press said an unofficial casualty list showed eight Arabs and six Arabs killed, with 32 Jews and six Arabs wounded.) The Syrian Parliament in Damascus decreed compulsory national service, appropriated $920,000 for defense of Palestine and named the chief of the Iraq general staff…”
“Asher Lazar, Jewish correspondent, is helped by passerby after being stabbed during Palestine riots.” (Associated Press Radiofoto)
Printed beside a story headed “20,000 Listen To Appeal for Arms for Zion,” an overflow rally at 31 W. 34th St. in Manhattan, and a Christmas shopping-days box. The parenthesis giving the Associated Press count reads “eight Arabs and six Arabs killed”; that is the paper’s.
14 Killed, 38 Wounded in Battles Raging Throughout Day · BURN, LOOT SHOPS · Mufti Blamed for Disorders; Jerusalem Damage Is $1,000,000
By Joseph C. Goodwin, Associated Press Staff Writer, Jerusalem
“JERUSALEM, (Wednesday), Dec. 3.—(AP)—An unofficial casualty list showed early today that eight Jews and six Arabs were killed yesterday in bloody armed clashes during the first 24 hours of an Arab general strike protesting the United Nations decision to partition Palestine. Thirty-two Jews and six Arabs were wounded in the same fighting, which raged throughout the day in Jerusalem and opened last night in Tel Aviv, the world’s only all-Jewish metropolis, as the fierce Arab mobs apparently shifted the scene of their operations… Haganah, the underground Jewish group whose organized army helped British troops gain control of the situation yesterday in Jerusalem, said last night in a communique that the riots were inspired by Haj Amin El Husseini, the exiled mufti of Jerusalem. ‘The hirelings of the mufti have succeeded in turning the first day of the strike into a day of bloodshed and rowdyism,’ the communique said.”
The blame-their-leaders frame, sourced to a Haganah communique and put in the subheading.
Arab Mobs Fire Jewish Lumber Yard · Vicious Gun Battle Creates No Man’s Land In Jaffa-Tel Aviv Area; British Ready to Act
United Press, Jerusalem
“Jerusalem, Palestine, Dec. 3 (UP)—Fresh rioting broke out tonight in Haifa, the great oil port of Palestine. Arabs and Jews earlier fought an hours-long engagement in the Jaffa-Tel Aviv no man’s land and British troops broke up with gunfire an Arab mob assault on the Jewish quarter of Jerusalem… Ten men—seven Arabs and three Jews—were reported killed in the fighting in the border areas between the twin cities of Jaffa, which is Arab, and Tel Aviv, which is Jewish… This brought the toll of casualties in two days of disorder following the country’s partition to 23 killed and 102 wounded. Hundreds more have suffered minor injuries.… Ten Killed in Battle. “Thirty-two men, 24 Jews and eight Arabs, were reported seriously wounded. This brought the unofficial toll of casualties in two days of disorder in Palestine riots over the country’s partition to 23 killed and 102 wounded.”… “The seven historic gates of the old city of Jerusalem were locked tonight, confining 30,000 Arabs and 5,000 Jews inside the ancient walls. British troops stood guard to prevent a reported Arab attempt to storm the Jewish quarter.”… “For the first time, men of the three Jewish militant organizations—Haganah, basis for the future Jewish army, and the extremist Irgun Zvai Leumi and Stern Gang—stood side by side to fight the Arabs in the battle between Arab Jaffa and Jewish Tel Aviv.”
Seven Arabs and three Jews reported killed; 24 Jews and eight Arabs reported seriously wounded. The same page carries “Army Fears Soviet Action In Holy Land” and a Cairo report of students demonstrating for a third day against the partition decision.
23 Killed, 102 Wounded as Arabs, Jews Battle Over Partition Plan
By Eliav Simon, United Press, Jerusalem
“JERUSALEM, Palestine, (UP)—Fresh rioting broke out last night in Haifa, the great oil port of Palestine. Arabs and Jews earlier fought an hours-long engagement in the Jaffa-Tel Aviv no man’s land and British troops broke up with gunfire an Arab mob assault on the Jewish quarter of Jerusalem. Arabs, re-emerging in Haifa after riots earlier in the day, set fire to a big Jewish lumber yard not far from the Shell company oil storage tanks on the outskirts. All available fire fighting equipment was sent to the scene, advices said. Ten men—seven Arabs and three Jews—were reported killed in the fighting in the border area between the twin cities of Jaffa, which is Arab, and Tel Aviv, which is Jewish. Thirty-two men, 23 Jews and eight Arabs, were reported seriously wounded. This brought the unofficial toll of casualties in two days of disorder in Palestine riots over the country’s partition to 23 killed and 102 wounded. Hundreds more have suffered minor injuries… The seven historic gates of the old city of Jerusalem were locked fast last night, confining 30,000 Arables and 5,000 Jews inside the ancient walls. British troops stood guard to prevent a reported Arab attempt to storm the Jewish quarter. For the first time men on the three Jewish militant organizations — Haganah and the extremist Irgun Zvai Leumi and Stern gang — stood side by side to fight the Arabs in the battle between Araba Jaffa and Jewish Tel Aviv. Moshe Neuman, Haganah Commander in Chief for the Tel Aviv area, was among the Jews killed.”
The subhead is “Gates Locked.” Printed beside a story about a currency crisis in Moscow. “Arables” and “Araba Jaffa” are the paper’s.
· San Francisco Chronicle · San Francisco · page 1
Arabs Call Partition Decision Russ Victory
United Press, Lake Success
“LAKE SUCCESS, N. Y., Dec. 4 (UP) — Arab officials, preparing to carry their fight against Palestine partition into the United Nations Security Council, characterized the plan to divide the Holy Land today as a diplomatic victory for Russia. Plans for a Security Council argument over the partition plan were laid by Faris El Khouri of Syria. El Khouri indicated he would challenge the legality of the U. N.’s decision when the Council convenes next week, perhaps provoking an important debate of the entire trouble-loaded program for splitting Palestine against the wishes of the Arab world. Arabs claimed in the wake of their defeat that the long-range result of the petition program would be a gain for Russia in the East-West diplomatic duel for dominance in the strategic and oil-rich Middle East. Bitter over America’s leading role in the General Assembly decision to convert the Holy Land into Arab and Jewish states, Arabs contended the partition blueprint would give Russia a long-sought toehold in that part of the world. ‘I can’t understand it,’ said Camille Chamoun of Lebanon, one of the leading opponents of partition in the recent Assembly fight. The United States fights to hold back Communism in Turkey and Greece, he remarked, and then invites Communism to come into the Middle East. ‘The Arab states always have been against Communism,’ Chamoun said, ‘and so far Communism has gotten nowhere in the Arab world. Russia had nothing to lose in backing partition,’ he said, noting that Arab-Russian relations couldn’t be pushed much lower by Soviet endorsement of Palestine partition. ‘But with the United States, it was different. Relations with the United States have always been friendly and fruitful,’ Chamoun said. ‘You can see what is happening to those relations now.’ The Palestine program will be on the Security Council’s agenda when it convenes next week — after a long delay. But even if it wanted to, the Council will not be authorized to take any steps to quell the internal violence set off in the Holy Land by the Assembly’s partition decision. The trouble in the Holy Land will be Great Britain’s responsibility until it gives up the mandate over Palestine. Holy Land Violence Called ‘Less Violent Than Expected.’ NEWARK, N. J., Dec. 4 (UP) — Dr. Nahum Goldmann, chairman of the World Jewish Congress Executive, said today the rioting in Palestine following the United Nations decision to set up independent Jewish and Arab states was ‘less violent than expected.’ Goldmann said the Jews would defend themselves if necessary and want to buy weapons in America. British May Give Up Palestine Mandate in May. LONDON, Dec. 4 — After earlier denials at the Colonial Office, a highly placed spokesman confirmed today that Britain could be expected to surrender her mandate in Palestine in May 1948…”
An advertisement occupies the lower half of the page: the Cliff House overlooking Seal Rocks, full course dinners $1.50 to $2.90, cocktails 10 a.m. to 12 p.m.
Five days after the partition vote. The Arab case is made entirely in Cold War terms, by a Lebanese delegate, in a San Francisco paper, beside a restaurant advertisement.
Fires raging out of control after Arab attack on Tel Aviv
Death toll from Palestine riots reaches 48—25 of them Jews
By the Associated Press
“Fires swept out of control in an Arab attack on all-Jewish Tel Aviv tonight as the week’s deaths in communal fighting in the Middle East passed the 100 mark. Flames illuminated a five-mile-long battle front centering on Tel Aviv. Thirty Arab-owned homes evacuated by Jewish families blazed up, and an official announcement said the fires were out of control. Bombs and Grenades added their din to the chatter of rifles and automatic weapons. The death toll in Palestine reached 48, 25 of them Jews. In the British protectorate of Aden, near the entrance of the Red Sea, deaths from anti-Jewish rioting were reckoned officially at 25 Arabs and 19 Jews. Deaths earlier in the week in Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East sent the total past 100. Gunfire sounded around Tel Aviv on a line from Arab Jaffa in the south around the Arab village of Salemeh. Jewish residents of the battle area began withdrawing this afternoon and the Arabs of Salemeh were withdrawing tonight. The troops of Hagana, the Jewish underground militia, returned the Arab fire. Arab casualties in the day’s fighting, the fourth in a row in the Jaffa-Tel Aviv area, were unannounced… Some 50,000 demonstrators met in the center of the Lebanese capital of Beirut protesting the partition decision. Arab sources said 3,900 men and 38 women from Lebanon had volunteered to fight partition.”
Printed beside the ousting of French Communists from the National Assembly and a report that French police had been given power to fire on crowds. The subhead over the Haganah paragraph reads “Jews reurn fire.”
“His anti-Zionist co-conspirators claim to be pro-Arab. But this is surely a screen for their anti-Zionism. They have not given one cent or one thought to any Arab cause…”
Fourteen years later The Caravan of Brooklyn reported the American Council for Judaism Philanthropic Fund giving $5,000 in interest-free loans to Palestinian refugees for sewing machines and cobblers’ tools, and its president saying he had been to Camp Wavell. Not one cent, said 1947. The page around this column is Chanukah greetings from a plumber, a plywood company and a mohel.
“JERUSALEM, Dec. 6—(AP)—Arab-Jewish warfare in Palestine claimed more lives tonight and boosted to 159 the Middle East’s number of slain since the United Nations decision to partition the Holy Land, which Arab national leaders were reported ready to oppose with force. Palestine’s death toll grew to 80—51 Jews, 27 Arabs and two Armenians—in the week’s fighting between Arabs protesting partition and Jews defending themselves—and striking back. In Aden, far to the south, 75 have been killed—50 Jews and 25 Arabs. In Syria, four have died. Leaders of the seven governments in the Arab League headed for Cairo for a council meeting Monday. Palestine Arab chieftains said the council would map a plan of armed opposition to partition and ‘in all likelihood’ would decide the hour to strike. League countries are Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Trans-Jordan, Iraq and Yemen. HOLY LAND trouble spots tonight were Jerusalem, Haifa and neighboring Jewish Tel Aviv and Arab Jaffa. Arabs and Jews fought with guns, bombs, sticks and stones, and houses were set on fire. In the old city of Jerusalem tonight, Arabs were reported to have attacked Jewish quarters and Jews to have counterattacked with bombs and gunfire, levelling in a row of Arab houses and burying some inhabitants beneath the debris. Officials said two Arabs were killed, two injured severely and one hurt slightly. Police said one Jew also was killed by Arab sniper fire that started the clash. In Jaffa, one Arab was reported killed and 19 injured, at least three of them women, in the bombing of a shop.”
“A young Arab is escorted through a Jerusalem street by two British soldiers after his arrest for inciting a Jew during current Arab-Jewish disorders touched off by decision to partition Palestine. Street fighting flared in the Arab town of Ramle on the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem road, as both Arab and Jewish leaders pleaded for a halt to the wave of violence in the Middle East.” (AP Wirephoto Via Radio From London.) The picture runs under the heading “British Soldiers Arrest Rioting Arab.”
The toll is broken out by side in the second paragraph: fifty-one Jews, twenty-seven Arabs and two Armenians. Printed above a local story about a garbage franchise.
“JERUSALEM, Dec. 8—(AP)—Eight Jews and an Arab died today in bitter, continuing communal strife over the partition of Palestine while both sides intensified mobilizations for the expected showdown. Unofficial tallies show 90 persons have been killed in nine days in wrangles over the future of the country, which the British said they intended to quit as mandate power next May 15. Five Jews were killed and a number of Arab stores and houses were set afire in a renewal of the fighting on the border between Jewish Tel Aviv and Arab Jaffa. Numerous Jews and Arabs were wounded in sporadic exchanges of small arms fire in various parts of the country. Seven Jews and an Arab were killed during the night. Sharing the spotlight with the situation in Palestine were developments in Cairo, where leaders of the seven member nations of the Arab league met to decide the steps they should take to prevent implementation of the partitioning plan. Some observer’s thought that the meeting might fix a zero hour for a general Arab uprising throughout the Middle East. Crowds of Arabs were reported lining up before ‘recruiting centers’ in all Middle Eastern countries, and in Palestine the Jewish press called Jewish youths to register for security duty at registration place which will be opened tomorrow. Irgun Zvai Leumi, extreme underground group, indicated that it was ready to unite with the more moderate Hagana in the event of an open Arab-Jewish war. Irgun officials issued a communique declaring: ‘There is no doubt that if this war should break out it will be for the very existence and future of all Jews. In such a war Hebrew forces will be united.’”
The photograph beside it: “THIS IS ‘MISS HUSH,’ the mystery voice of a radio contest sponsored by boost contributions to the March of Dimes. Miss Hush was correctly identified as Martha Graham, famed dancer, by Mrs. Ruth Annette Subbie of Fort Worth, Texas.” (NEA Telephoto)
Ninety dead in nine days, printed in one column beside the solution to a radio contest. The subhead is “8 Killed During Night.”
“JERUSALEM, Dec. 8—(UP)—Arab assassins today killed at least six Palestine Jews, including Joshua Globereman, one of the top officers of the Jewish Hagana defense force. Globerman was shot by two Arab gunmen when he impatiently drove his automobile ahead of an escorted motor convoy traveling from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv… Arab killers worked with more boldness and efficiency than at any time since the outbreak of wild rioting against the United Nations decision to partition Palestine.”
Arab assassins and Arab killers in the paper’s own copy, not in quotation marks.
‘Shoot to Kill’ Orders Given British Troops In Palestine Riot Area
Fighting Rages, Curfew Placed On 20,000
The Associated Press, Jerusalem
“Jerusalem — (AP) — British troops with ‘shoot to kill’ orders were moved into the bloodstained border area between Tel Aviv and Jaffa last night. They moved to end aggression on the battlefield where Arabs and Jews have waged their fiercest fighting in 10 days of Palestine communal warfare. Acting desperately to stamp out the disorders that have claimed 112 lives, injured approximately 600 persons and destroyed property with an estimated worth of 10 million dollars, British authorities placed a dusk-to-dawn curfew on the Tel Aviv-Jaffa ‘no man’s land’ and sealed it off with British troops. Palestine police were being used for patrols inside the area, where four Jews were killed yesterday, and soldiers formed lines along the border. The order put 20,000 Jews and Arabs under house arrest from 5 p. m. to 6 a. m. until further notice.” And, in a box on the same page: “Damascus, Syria— (AP) —The ‘Palestine Liberation Committee’ announced yesterday that 2,000 Arabs had volunteered for ‘commando’ duty and would be sent into Palestine as their training is completed to begin guerilla warfare against the projected Jewish state.”
“An angry, sullen mob of students and workers shouting ‘Give us arms,’ and carrying banners reading ‘Down with America,’ sulks through streets of Cairo, clamoring to be led in a Holy War to prevent the partition of Palestine.” (Acme Telephoto)
A boxed item on the same page reports a body in Damascus calling itself the Palestine Liberation Committee, seventeen years before the Palestine Liberation Organization was founded. The subhead over the fourth paragraph reads “4 More Jews Killed.”
Britain Warns “Severe Measures” to Be Taken To Halt Palestine Riots
Jews and Arabs Told Order Will Be Kept While British Mandate Remains in Force
United Press, Jerusalem
“JERUSALEM, Dec. 10—(UP)—Palestine High Commissioner Sir Alan Cunningham, alarmed by the ever-mounting death toll in the Holy Land, warned Jews and Arabs today that the government will take ‘severe measures’ against them unless disorders end. Cunningham said in a communique that Great Britain will keep order in Palestine ‘so long as the (British) mandate for Palestine remains in force.’ ‘Should these disorders continue, the high commissioner will have no option but to direct security forces to adopt severe measures against all those Jews and Arabs alike who are breaking the law,’ the communique said. The British maintained a strict curfew in the embattled Tel Aviv-Jaffa area during the night, and followed this up with searches and arrests in the area today. Jews and Arabs caught with illegal arms were hustled off to jail. Scattered disorders in other parts of Palestine, however, killed four Arabs and two Jews. In addition, a Spanish priest, Father Oriol, was seriously wounded in the stomach by an unknown sniper. The priest was standing on the roof of a school when hit. Arab leaders, attacking Indian fashion, killed a Jewish woman and two Jewish men as they worked in a field near Gaza, in an Arab area on the southern coast of Palestine. Only one Jew escaped the Arabs who suddenly swarmed across the settlement field. Another Jew was burned to death in the Beth Yakove settlement when Arabs set fire to his house during early morning darkness. Two Arabs were found slain in Jaffa. Even before today’s casualties were counted, the Palestine death toll stood officially at 111, in addition to the 70 Arabs reported killed Monday.”
Printed beside a Republican anti-inflation program and a defeated move to hand foreign aid to the Red Cross. The phrase “attacking Indian fashion” is the paper’s.
“TEL AVIV, Dec. 9 (U.P.)—British sources and the Jewish Haganah organization said today 70 Arabs were killed in a Haganah-Arab clash in the no man’s land between Jewish Tel Aviv and Arab Jaffa. British said 100 Arabs were wounded… Afternoon newspapers published the report that 70 Arabs were killed. However, tonight for some reason both British and Jewish authorities did their utmost to ‘play down’ the statement of Arab losses.”
The paper notices, in its own copy, that the authorities were trying to play the Arab death toll down.
“JERUSALEM. (AP). Palestine’s rioting is putting piasters into the pocket of Yacoub El Bokharia, dean of Jerusalem’s tarboosh makers. After the United Nations’ vote for partition, Arabs quickly began donning their traditional headdress—either the maroon velvet fezzes they call tarbooshes or the combination of hair rope binding a white shawl, called the agal and kuffieh. Bokharia, who fashions tarbooshes from Czechoslovak felt for about $8 apiece, said that before the riots he made two or three a day, but ‘now we are having to finish 30 to 40 every day.’”
A hatmaker, named and quoted, two weeks after the vote. The clipping records the moment a headdress became a statement.
· San Francisco Chronicle · San Francisco · page 1
Arab Leader Predicts Renewed Violence in Palestine
The Associated Press, Jerusalem
“JERUSALEM, Dec. 18 (AP)—The violence of Arab-Jewish strife waned further in the Holy Land today, but Arab leaders said ‘it is a lull that may end at any moment.’… The Associated Press count of dead in Palestine was brought to 266 since the U. N. vote on November 29 for Palestine’s partition. It was Hussein Khaldi, Arab High Executive Secretary, who described this calmest day since the U. N. vote as a ‘lull that may end at any moment’… Some 2000 Palestine Arab families were reported housed in temporary camps just inside the Lebanese border after having evacuated a ‘danger zone’ close to Jewish areas.” Alongside it, under the heading “Jewish Military Officer Says the Arabs Will Lose”: “In the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine, ‘we may suffer casualties of a thousand or two, but the Arabs will not be able to stop us,’ Major Ezekiel Saharov, security officer of the official Jewish Agency, declared in an interview here today.”
Two thousand Palestine Arab families already in camps over the Lebanese border, printed in an American paper nineteen days after the partition vote and five months before the state was declared. The same page runs a Chicago Daily News interview with an officer of the Jewish Agency.
“JERUSALEM, Palestine, Dec. 23 (UP)—A bomb squad of about 40 members of the Jewish extremist Irgun Zval Leumi organizations destroyed an Arab flour mill in the Tel Aviv-Jaffa no man’s land tonight and set off a melee in which Jews, Arabs and British soldiers and police fired wildly. AT LEAST ONE Arab was reported killed and possibly three. Ten Arabs or more were wounded. The Irgunists threw nine bombs into the flour mill and set it afire. A high wind spread the flames and the building was destroyed in about 10 minutes. Jew and Arab snipers exchanged fire and a British military and police patrol, in armored cars, opened fire when it was caught between the lines. THE IRGUNISTS withdrew into Jewish Tel Aviv, eluding the British armored cars which pursued them. Later the Irgunists telephoned newspapers that the flour mill was an Arab sniper center. There was another general fight in which Arabs, British policemen and reportedly Jews clashed over an open grave in Mount of Olives cemetery just outside the walls of the old city of Jerusalem. The shooting started while undertakers were lowering the body of Robert Stern, 35, a Jewish British correspondent killed Sunday by Arabs, into a grave.”
The Irgun telephones its justification to the newspapers after the fact, and the paper prints it as what they said. “Irgun Zval Leumi” is the paper’s spelling.
“JERUSALEM, Dec. 26. (UP)—Arabs, Jews and Britons in Palestine are adding up the heavy toll of casualties suffered in the holy land’s undeclared war today and yesterday. Unofficial reports say 25 Arabs, 10 Jews and two Britons lost their lives in violent battles on Christmas Day. And sniping between Jews and Arabs continues today. Incidents are reported from Safad, north of the Negev Desert area. Also from Galilee, where two Jews were seriously wounded this morning by marauding Arab bands. The latest casualty in Jerusalem is a former olympics athlete—Elo Katz of Finland. Katz—a coach of the First Jewish Olympics team this year — was shot outside a British camp.”
Twenty-five Arabs, ten Jews and two Britons, counted in one sentence, the day after Christmas.
“JERUSALEM, Dec. 26 (AP).—Jewish armed forces attacked Silwan village just southeast of Jerusalem, Friday night by moonlight, supposedly to avenge an Arab raid last week on a Mount of Olives funeral procession. The British army said casualties were not known. Police sources said they were ‘heavy and mostly Arab.’ Government hospitals admitted some wounded patients but would not say how many. The sound of tommygun fire and grenade explosions echoed over Jerusalem for two hours. Police sent flares soaring over the troubled areas. The Silwan raid topped off a day in which 22 persons died by violence in the Holy Land, 17 of them Jews shot by snipers. The Jewish victims included a prominent official of the Jewish Agency, a three-year-old girl and a 70-year-old woman. Three Arabs and two British civilians also were killed. The unofficial death toll grew to 369 in Palestine and 490 in the entire Middle East for the period since the United Nations assembly voted Nov. 29 to partition the Holy Land. Hagana, the Jewish defense army, laid the increase in snipers’ activities to the arrival in Palestine of 200 Syrian-trained volunteers led by five former German officers. The bulk of the attackers’ fire was directed against motor convoys. Two Jews were killed Friday night in a sniping duel in Haifa, one of them a woman peddler with milk cans. Earlier, two other Jews were found shot to death in the village of Holon just south of Jaffa. An 18-year-old Arab was wounded mortally in a grenade and rifle attack on the village of Beit Safara. An Arab watchman was killed by a land-mine explosion in an orange grove near the Lydda village airport.”
The Jewish dead are given ages and occupations — a three-year-old girl, a seventy-year-old woman, a woman peddler with milk cans. The Arab dead are a number, an eighteen-year-old, and a watchman.
“A STEEL-HELMETED Jewish policeman and a member of the Hagañah defense army in Tel Aviv, Palestine, arrest an Arab charged with flashing a dagger in the all-Jewish city. Between the Arab city of Jaffa and Tel Aviv is the ‘No-Man’s-Land’, scene of many skirmishes.” (International)
A wire photograph in a Black daily in the Jim Crow South, four weeks after the partition vote. The man being arrested is not named and is not accused of anything but flashing a dagger. The caption calls Tel Aviv the all-Jewish city and Jaffa the Arab city, and names the ground between them.
36 Jews, 11 Arabs Slain; Tossing of Bomb Starts Clash
By the Associated Press, Jerusalem
“JERUSALEM, Dec. 30.—The bitterest rioting since the United Nations decided to partition Palestine erupted today in the Consolidated refinery at Haifa, where 36 Jews and 11 Arabs were killed. Bloody fighting among about 1,800 Arabs and 400 Jews followed the bombing of a line of 100 Arabs before the employment office. At least 14 Jews and 47 Arabs were wounded. A Haifa informant said the bomb was thrown from a passing Jewish taxi, which sped away, covering its escape with gunfire. Most of the Arabs apparently were killed by the bomb, which shattered two days of quiet in the port city and set off reprisal attacks by Arabs on Jewish workers in the large refinery on the northern outskirts of Haifa. British troops roped off the plant and fought their way through refining stills and tanks to halt the bloodshed… A Jewish source said the bomb probably was hurled by members of Irgun Zvai Leumi, the Jewish underground organization which yesterday blasted and machine-gunned Arabs at the Damascus Gate in Jerusalem. The outbreak raised the Palestine death toll since the United Nations vote for partition November 29 to 478. Throughout the Middle East, 599 have been killed… Arabs, irked by Jewish punitive raids for three successive days, took the initiative in earlier communal rioting in Palestine today as the bloody strife, which broke out after the United Nations decision to partition Palestine, entered its second month.”
The refinery killings at Haifa, on the day, with the sequence in the paper’s own sentences: a bomb thrown into a line of a hundred Arabs waiting outside the employment office, then reprisal attacks on Jewish workers inside. Thirty-six Jews and eleven Arabs dead. The archive already holds the page that reports the Balad esh Sheikh raid four days later as revenge for this. The subheadings are “Troops Rope Off Plant,” “Jew Shot in Galilee” and “Arabs Take Initiative.”
· Mt. Vernon Register-News · Mount Vernon · page 1
JEWS TAKE TWO FORTS FROM ARABS
Defenders of El Ramle and Lydda Surrender to Israeli Army After 2-Day Battle. BIGGEST PALESTINE AIRPORT CAPTURED
The same July 1948 events as the three Lydda headlines in this archive (CP-1948-038, CP-1948-040, CP-1948-039), told as a military sequence: forts taken, defenders surrendered, airport captured. The word for the people of El Ramle and Lydda is defenders, and they appear only at the moment they stop. The masthead date is not legible on this scan, so the record carries the year alone.
Jewish Reprisal Raids On Two Arab Villages Take Toll of 8 Lives
Hagana Drafts Palestine Youth · Machine-Gun, Grenade Assaults Seen Hagana Revenge for Killing Of 41 Persons at Haifa · Four Bombs Rip Jaffa Rail Line · Nazareth Bank Robbed Of $4,000 by Armed Band; Burial Society Opens New Cemetery
By the Associated Press, Jerusalem
“JERUSALEM, Jan. 1—Police said six Arabs and two Jews were killed today in a Jewish reprisal raid on the Arab village of Balad esh Shiekh, raising to 500 the deaths in communal strife since the United Nations decided 34 days ago to partition Palestine. The Jews, using machine-guns and grenades, also struck at another Arab village, Hawassa. At least 30 persons were wounded. The attacks, believed instigated by Hagana, the Jewish underground defense force, were reported as revenge for the killing of 41 Jews at the consolidated refinery plant at Haifa after the Jews had thrown a bomb into a group of Arabs lined up before the plant’s employment office. (The exiled mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin el Husseini, told reporters in Cairo he was ‘satisfied with Arab resistance’ to the UN decision. He had just conferred with Premier Mahmoud Fahmy Nokrashy Pasha of Egypt.)”
“Recruits for Hagana, the Jewish defense organization, are given medical examinations at Tel Aviv. They will get induction cards classifying them according to health, education and ability. Hagana has called to arms all Jewish boys and girls between 17 and 25 for the battle with the Arabs over partition.” NEA Telephoto.
The chain of reprisal is set out in the paper’s own sentence: the raid answers the killing of 41 Jews at the refinery, which answered a bomb thrown into a group of Arabs at the employment office. Printed beside a story about meat rationing. “Balad esh Shiekh” is the paper’s spelling.
Several Leaders Killed In Explosion At Hotel In Jerusalem
By Robert Miller, United Press Staff Correspondent, Jerusalem
“JERUSALEM, Jan. 5.—(UP)—Twenty persons were killed or missing today in the wreckage of an Arab Hotel bombed by the Jewish underground, raising to 38 the apparent death toll in two attacks made by the Jews in the past 24 hours. Five persons were known dead and 15 were missing in the bombing of the Semiramis Hotel early today and official reports placed the toll of the Jaffa explosion yesterday at 18 dead and 98 injured. Count Manuel Allen de Salazar, 29, Spanish consul, was among those killed when Jewish bombers blew up the Semiramis Hotel in the Katamon quarter of Jerusalem early today. Three bodies had been recovered from the tons of crumbled masonry. Sixteen were missing and authorities said they probably were dead. Seventeen were injured, one seriously. A spokesman for the Haganah Underground force said it blew up the hotel because it was an ‘important meeting place for Arab gangs where arms were distributed to villages surrounding Jerusalem.’ The blast wrecked the three-story stone hotel. Rescue work was hampered by torrential rains and high winds. Among the victims were six members of one family of Christian Arabs named Lorenzo. Subhi Taher, news editor of the Arab newspaper Al Wahda, was missing and believed dead… A government official said many casualties were Arab refugees, including some children, who had been given shelter in the building. The bombing was attributed to the Stern gang.”
The same first week of January, a second hotel, in Jerusalem. The dead are named: a Spanish consul, six members of one family of Christian Arabs, and the news editor of an Arab newspaper. The Haganah gives its reason for the bombing in the paragraph after the names. The phrase “Arab refugees… who had been given shelter in the building” appears here too, attributed to a government official.
“British said many of the victims were Arab refugees, including a heavy proportion of children, who had been sheltered temporarily in the building for lack of safe homes elsewhere… In the midst of the wildest day Jaffa has seen since the partition, the Jewish Agency threatened to shoot up roadblocks the Arabs had set up in front of all five gates to the Old City part of Jerusalem. The Arabs want to starve out some 1,500 Jews—all believed to be Haganah men—who have been besieged in the Jewish section of the Old City since Tuesday. Food trucks have not been able to get convoys since Tuesday and the Arabs want to stop the Haganah from running in food at night. Witnesses of the blowing up of Higher Committee headquarters in Jaffa said they did not believe more than four or five men were involved. The Stern Gang telephoned the United Press and said it was responsible for the bombing… ‘The front of the building was torn off. All windows were smashed. Doors were buckled. Shops all around the headquarters were badly damaged. Barclay’s Bank next door caught fire. Pedestrians were blown off their feet for a block or more.’ W. V. Fuller, the Lydda District commissioner, who supervised rescue work, said it looked as ‘if a buzz bomb struck here.’ Besides children, the victims included members of some of the most prominent Arab families in Palestine. Auni Hannoun, member of the Arab National Committee and a nephew of the mayor of Jaffa, was wounded. A member of the Abu Laban Clan, the most influential in the coastal belt, was wounded. Authorities could understand how members of the Stern ‘black gang’ could be taken for Arabs in an all-Arab town, but they could still not explain how the Jews got in and out of the check-posts about Jaffa without being found out. Clocks around the headquarters stopped at 12.40 p. m. (5.40 a. m., est), apparently the time the bombs went off.”
The fullest version of the dispatch, on the jump page. It names two of the wounded, reports the Stern Gang telephoning the United Press to claim the bombing, and carries the other half of the week in Jerusalem: fifteen hundred Jews besieged in the Old City whom the Arabs mean to starve out. The subheadings are “Wildest Day Since Partition,” “Front Torn Off” and “Storm Hampers Rescue.”
Jews Steal Into Jaffa, Set Blast Killing 14 Arabs and Injuring 90
Two Other Explosions Do Extensive Damage
United Press, Jerusalem
“JERUSALEM, Jan. 4 (UP). Jews, dressed as Arabs, slipped into all-Arab Jaffa today and blew up the crowded headquarters of the Arab higher committee and Arab underground army Najada with a truckload of dynamite hidden in orange crates. An official British report said 14 Arabs were killed and about 90 wounded, 20 seriously. The British said many of the victims were Arab refugees, including a heavy proportion of children, who had been sheltered temporarily in the building for lack of safe homes elsewhere. Officials believed that the casualty total would mount. The air about the wreckage of the headquarters was filled late tonight with the groans, shouts and curses of the wounded and trapped. Palestine government, British army and Arab Red Crescent (Cross) ambulances were still hauling off the wounded and all three hospitals in Jaffa were full. Hospital staffs could not handle all the patients and an emergency call was sent for every available Arab physician in Jaffa… Witnesses said the Jews — a spokesman for the Stern gang said they belonged to his organization — drove two trucks up to the front of the building and parked them. One truck was loaded with explosives. According to witnesses, all of the Jews got into the other truck. Since they looked like Arabs in their Arab garments, none suspected them of being up to anything. They sped away in the one truck and a few seconds later the dynamite in the truck that had been left behind went off in the most violent explosion since the King David hotel in Jerusalem was blasted in 1946, and more than 100 persons were killed. The explosion ripped the front from the building, smashed all its windows, buckled doors and extensively damaged shops in the mercantile center around the structure. Rescue work was hampered by a fierce wind and rainstorm that has been beating Palestine more than 24 hours.”
The phrase is in the fourth paragraph, in British official language, on 4 January 1948: Arab refugees, sheltering in a building in Jaffa for lack of safe homes elsewhere. That is three and a half months before Haifa and four and a half months before any Arab army crossed a border. The subheadings are “More Believed in Ruins” and “Storm Hinders Rescuers.”
Explosive Hidden in Orange Crates Destroys 2-Story Higher Committee Building in Jaffa; Many Women And Children Are Among Victims
By United Press, Jerusalem
“JERUSALEM, Jan. 4.—Dark-skinned Jews, dressed as Arabs, slipped into all-Arab Jaffa today and blew up the crowded headquarters of the Arab higher committee and Arab underground army Najada with a truckload of dynamite hidden in orange crates. An official British report said 14 high Arabs were killed and about 90 other persons wounded, 20 seriously. The British said many of the injured were Arab refugees, including a heavy proportion of women and children, who had been sheltered temporarily in the building for lack of safe homes elsewhere. Officials believed that the casualty total would mount. The air about the wreckage of the headquarters was filled late tonight with groans, shouts and curses of the wounded and trapped. Palestine government, British army and Arab Red Crescent (Cross) ambulances were still hauling off the wounded and all three hospitals in Jaffa were full. Hospital staffs could not handle all the patients and an emergency call was sent for every available Arab physician in Jaffa. A storm has been beating the Holy Land for more than 24 hours. Late tonight, rescue workers in dripping rain capes shoveled and pulled by torchlight at the wreckage. Lightning flashed and thunder rumbled across the sky… In the midst of the wildest day Jaffa has seen since the partition, the Jewish agency threatened to shoot up roadblocks the Arabs had set up in front of all five gates to the old city part of Jerusalem. The Arabs want to starve out 1500 Jews—all believed to be Haganah men—who have been besieged in the Jewish section of the old city since last Tuesday.”
The same United Press dispatch, on a Texas front page, opening with three words the other printings do not use: dark-skinned Jews. The subheadings are “Hospitals Crowded With Arab Wounded” and “Police Station Is Damaged By Blast.” The banner across the top reads DYNAMITE.
“Jerusalem, Palestine, Jan. 4 (UP)—Dark-skinned Jews, dressed as Arabs, slipped into all-Arab Jaffa today and blew up the crowded headquarters of the Arab higher committee and Arab underground army Najada with a truckload of dynamite hidden in orange crates. An official British report said 14 Arabs were killed and about 90 wounded, 20 seriously, including a heavy proportion of children, who had been sheltered temporarily in the building for lack of safe homes elsewhere. Officials believed that the casualty total would mount… A storm has been beating the Holy Land for more than 25 hours. Late tonight, rescue workers in dripping rain capes shovelled and pulled by torchlight at the wreckage… The Arabs want to starve out some 5100 Jews—all believed to be Haganah men—who have been besieged in the Jewish section of the old city since last Tuesday… Witnesses of the blowing up of higher committee headquarters in Jaffa said they did not believe more than four or five men were involved. The Stern gang telephoned the United Press and said it was responsible for the bombing.”
The Baton Rouge version. The refugee clause has been shortened to “children… sheltered temporarily in the building for lack of safe homes elsewhere” — the words Arab refugees are gone. The subheadings are “Still Working” and “Few Involved,” and the number of besieged Jews is set as 5100 where every other printing says 1500.
“Jerusalem, Jan. 4 (U.P.)—Jews dressed as Arabs slipped into all-Arab Jaffa today and blew up the crowded headquarters of the Arab Higher Committee and the Arab underground army Najada with a truckload of dynamite hidden in orange crates. An official British report said 14 Arabs were killed and about 90 wounded, 20 seriously. The British said many of the victims were Arab refugees, including a number of children, who had been sheltered temporarily in the building… Witnesses reported that two trucks and a limousine were involved. One truck was filled with dynamite or gelignite concealed in orange crates. Both trucks, it was said, drove up to the two-story well guarded headquarters building and parked. The Jews in the truck filled with explosives entered the other truck or the limousine and sped off. A few moments later Jaffa was shaken by the most violent explosion in Palestine since the King David Hotel bombing in Jerusalem in 1946. The front of the building was torn off. All windows were smashed. Doors were buckled. Shops all around the headquarters were badly damaged. Barclay’s Bank next door caught fire. Besides children, the victims included members of some of the most prominent Arab families in Palestine. Clocks around the headquarters stopped at 12:40 P. M. (5:40 A. M., New York time), apparently the time the bombs went off. Scores of men dressed as Arabs but ‘suspected of being Jews’ were rounded up by Jaffa police for questioning.”
The New York tabloid version, by the same correspondent who filed the Haifa lull story in December. It drops the word dark-skinned, keeps Arab refugees, and its last sentence is scores of men rounded up for being suspected of being Jews. The subheadings are “Jaffa’s Wildest Day” and “Worst Since King David Blast.” It runs beside a Queens borough president trying to dynamite Robert Moses out of three jobs.
“Arab landowners in the Middle East, threatened with loss of power through the introduction of democracy, are the ones waging war there, Dr. Ruth Gruber, foreign correspondent with the U. N. Palestine Committee, told a Youth Aliyah rally of the Senior Hadassah in the Jewish Community Center last night. ‘Ordinary Arabs and Jews can be brothers,’ she said, ‘but the handful of landholders are terrified by the Jews, who have brought the most democratic, cohesive and intelligent unit to the Near and Middle East.’… Palestine partition was inevitable, according to Dr. Gruber, for ‘the Jews had already created a state within a state; the Jews themselves made the map of partition by their settlements.’”
The same explanation as the 1936 Gazette piece, twelve years later, and a second claim beside it: that settlement had already drawn the partition line.
Haganah Squads Bomb Houses in Arab Haifa; 30 Are Killed
Heavy Weapons Used In Attack
United Press, Jerusalem
“JERUSALEM, Jan. 16 (UP) — Jewish Haganah squads struck at Arabs in Haifa in a two-hour attack before dawn today and reports of casualties ranged to 30 Arabs killed with an equal number wounded… Jewish sources said the attack was made by 400 Haganah members who invaded Haifa… and fought into the heart of the Arab section. The Jews blew up five houses and an Arab garage, where scores of Arab-owned vehicles were parked… The attack, described as the largest made by Jews in Haifa, was carried out with mortars, automatic weapons and fire bombs. Among the buildings destroyed was a three-story house, alleged to be the headquarters of the Arab National Organization.”
Three months before the fall of Haifa, and eleven weeks before Deir Yassin. The left edge of the scan is trimmed; only what is fully legible is transcribed.
Correction: {'note': 'The presentation captions this scan 16 January and the other on its slide 18 May. The datelines are the other way round, and both records follow the datelines.'}
“To the Editor: George Schuyler’s recent article on the Palestine question is the most disgraceful and misleading article of many written on the subject. It is obvious that Mr. Schuyler has no facts on the present situation in Palestine, nor on the conditions existing at any other time and why they existed. These facts aren’t picked up at the corner newsstand. Palestine is not owned by either of the peoples contesting for it, Jews or Arabs. It is controlled by moneyed interests, British and American, lock, stock and barrel. The people there now are suffering from a condition imposed upon them, ‘divide and rule.’ We have seen the picture of it enough in America, and the results: race riots, lynchings, jim crow politics, and every other form of division among the people.”
A reader in San Francisco answering the Courier’s own columnist, and reading partition as the same machinery that produces race riots and lynchings at home. The letter above it is about young men on street corners not reading the paper.
A London paper arguing the case in its own headline in January 1948, in the imperative: why the Jews should have it. Whoever else was living there does not appear in the sentence. Five months later the same paper printed They massacred Arab babies (CP-1948-036).
“To the Editor: World powers have formed the United Nations Organization, but I feel that it is doomed just like the League of Nations. Both were set up to rule the lesser nation. No world power is good enough to rule others. They will make slaves of the smaller countries. For instance, the Palestine affair is essentially wicked and was arranged by the United States and Britain. It is rank imperialism and colonialism and is heading the whole world for war again. It will be the poor as usual who will have to shed their blood and die while the rich sit home. The Arab and the Jew should be allowed to settle their own affair. Pure greed is behind the great powers meddling in the situation.”
A reader in Farrell, Pennsylvania, in February 1948, naming it imperialism and colonialism in a letters column, and saying the poor will do the dying. Signed with initials and a town.
Did United States delegation to the United Nations jeopardize our National Honor and National Security by use of many un-American, non-American, and anti-American ways to win votes needed to recommend Zionist Palestine Partition Plan?
Ten weeks after the partition vote, a Chicago headline asking in seventy-two point type whether the United States delegation bought it. The question is entirely about American honor: what the vote did to the country being partitioned is not in the sentence. The word for the plan is Zionist, printed without quotation marks, in the paper’s own voice.
Security Council Meets In Extraordinary Session To Discuss War
Kept in the archive for the noun. Whenever this ran, the sentence has a state on one side and Arabs on the other: one party with a name and a seat, one party that is a population. The line underneath calls it war.
Correction: {'note': 'the caption says Chicago Tribune, 9 February 1948, but the text refers to “Israel”, so it is after May 1948. Still to be confirmed.'}
11 Lives Lost, 14 Houses Destroyed in Raid by Haganah
United Press, Jerusalem
“Jerusalem, Feb. 15 (UP). — Bomb squads of the Jewish Haganah organization attacked an Arab village and dynamited five bridges in predawn operations today over a wide area of Northern Palestine bordering on Lebanon and Trans-Jordan. An official announcement said that the death toll in Palestine in 24 hours had been 13 Arabs and one Jew killed. Thirteen Jews, nine British soldiers and an Italian civilian were wounded. There were unconfirmed reports that six Jews and one British policeman were killed in clashes at Haifa which continued all day. Official reports said that 11 Arabs were killed and 14 houses destroyed in an attack on Susa village, which lies at a crossroads leading to 10 Jewish settlements bordering the Lebanon frontier. Three Arabs were wounded. Haganah said that Arabs had used” (Continued on page two.)
Haganah’s own account of why begins in the last line on the front and runs onto page two, which is not part of the clipping.
Palestine Question Important to Negroes Throughout World—Bunche
By Theodore Stanford, Courier New York Bureau, Lake Success, L. I.
“LAKE SUCCESS, L. I.—Negroes in the United States—and colored peoples throughout the world, generally—are fully justified in the deep interest with which they have followed the developments of the United Nations’ decision on Palestine. That is the sober opinion of Dr. Ralph J. Bunche, himself an American Negro and an accredited authority in the field of international relations and colonial administration. From the opening guns of the initial debate on the issue here, last year, observers noted that the general American Negro public brought to this question a depth of day-to-day interest far greater than that shown in any previous subject placed before the United Nations. The reasons were simple. For one thing, the victims of jim-crow racial practices in this country did not have to use their imagination to understand the fears of the Jews whom Hitler’s master-race theories had left crushed and scattered across the face of Europe. On the other hand, a color-based tendency on the part of colored Americans to sympathize with the problems of the Arabs caused Negroes to lend an open ear to the arguments of this dark-skinned people who were protesting the proposal to set up two States in Palestine against their will… ‘The Palestine problem,’ he said by way of illustration, ‘involves a clash between two communities of peoples who have ethnic, cultural and religious differences. There is involved in this problem a fundamental issue of the ability or the inability of two such peoples to live together peacefully within a common area. This gives rise to problems of group relationship with which the American Negro has long been thoroughly familiar.’… In the national press, recently, many commentators have expressed a fear that the partitioning of the Holy Land will solve one problem merely to be followed by the creation of new and equally difficult conditions. It is believed, as an instance, that the bitterness resulting on both sides will give rise to increased antagonisms between young folk of the two groups. There is expected to be a descent into the use of abusive racial stereotypes—on the one side, the slander that all Jews are mercenary; on the other, the slander that all Arabs are lazy. There is a very real fear that the Holy Land will experience a substitution of racial antagonisms for what were previously less intense economic and political antagonisms… ‘What is to happen in Palestine,’ he points out, ‘is that two peoples, Arabs and Jews, both of whom have been governed under what is essentially a colonial regime, are to realize their national aspirations and are to be given their independence. The realization of independence by any non-self-governing people, anywhere in the world, is inevitably a source of hope and inspiration to other dependent peoples similarly situated.’”
A Black newspaper in 1948 setting out why its readers were following partition more closely than anything the United Nations had done, and getting Ralph Bunche to call the mandate what it was: essentially a colonial regime. The subheadings are the paper’s own: “Understand Fears,” “More Than Modest,” “Crucial Test,” “Peculiar Reason,” “Fear Expressed” and “Important Decision.” It runs beside an advertisement for a kerosene stove and one for asthma powder.
“NEW YORK, N. Y.—The Republic of Haiti has answered the Arab Higher Committee’s recent charge that pressure from the United States caused Haiti to vote for the partition of Palestine. In a press release dated February 10, Ernest Chauvet, the Permanent Delegate of Haiti to the United Nations declared: ‘Such allegations show that the authors ignore the directives followed, since the proclamation of our independence, by Haitian Governments. Because Haiti is a small country which constitutes on the continent a minority of race, language and culture, it has no other alternative but to follow a policy of dignity and to stand, with its modest resources, at the side of all who are oppressed… It is therefore perfectly natural that the Haitian Government did not remain indifferent to the fate of the Jewish peoples throughout the world…’ Mr. Chauvet concluded: ‘(The Haitian Government) affirms that it has remained consistent both in its present moral obligations, as with the historical necessities of the past, in giving its approval and its collaboration to a cause supported by the United Nations.’”
The first Black republic answering a charge that the United States leaned on it to vote for partition, in a Black daily in Atlanta. Haiti’s delegate does not deny the pressure; he argues that a small country of a minority race has no alternative but to stand beside the oppressed.
Weinsaft of Haganah Army Tells Hartford Zionists of Conflict
“Jews in Palestine have no doubts that victory will be theirs in the Arab-Jewish conflict now raging in the Holy Land. Harry Weinsaft, a member of the Haganah Jewish Army, told Hartford Zionist District members Monday night that Palestinian Jews mean business; that they intend to hold their borders given them by the United Nations at any cost and that they can make democracy work in Palestine. He stated that the 250,000 Jews in European displaced camps and the 700,000 Jews in Palestine are ‘sick and tired’ of betrayal, of double dealing and of the charity of the world. Mr. Weinsaft told the more than 200 local Zionists present that they must stop applauding with their hands and applaud with their hearts those who come to America bringing the message of Palestine Jewry. American Jews must speak to their elected representatives to deal out justice if such a thing as justice still prevails in the world. He added that Jews here can ‘shake hands’ with their Jewish brothers fighting and dying in Palestine by giving funds. He warned that they must be backed up now for if the Jews do not win out, the days of Jews everywhere are numbered.”
The headline calls them Palestinian Jews. In 1948 the adjective still attaches to either people in these papers, which is the point the section on the word for the people makes with the chart.
“Jerusalem, (AP)—Haganah, the Jewish Agency’s militia, and Irgun Zvai Leumi, Jewish underground fighting force, made attacks Monday upon the Arabs, Jewish sources said. It was the first report of action by both groups since the disclosure Sunday that they had agreed to consolidate their forces in a common front against the Arabs. The Jewish informants said the Irgun fighters attacked Arabs in a village 10 miles east of Natanya. A number of Arabs were reported wounded and six houses wrecked. The Haganah force blew up an Arab house near Beth Dajan, in the Tel Aviv-Jaffa area. In Palestine one Jew and four Arabs were killed in scattered incidents.”
Seven houses in one four-paragraph brief, a month before Deir Yassin.
“NORTHERN PALESTINE, March 10 (AP)—Fawzi Bey Al Kaukji tonight ordered martial law in all northern Palestine, effective at dawn tomorrow. Fawzi Bey is commander of Arab forces gathered here to fight the partition of Palestine voted last year by the United Nations. His headquarters said military courts, conducted by Arab lawyers attached to his army, would begin sitting in all major towns and cities. Prisons are being established in a mountain top village where Fawzi Bey’s headquarters are located. Several persons already have been arrested and awaiting trial before military courts. The Arab commander said ‘every order from his headquarters will become the law of the land (northern Palestine) for civil and military alike.’ Punishment ordered by the courts will be ‘strict and severe,’ he added. Fawzi Bey and his general staff aides are studying maps and intelligence reports in preparation for the offensive against the Jews.”
The one clipping here from the period the leaders-told-them-to-leave claim is usually made about. It reports a commander declaring martial law and setting up courts and prisons. It does not report anyone being told to leave.
“VETERAN ARAB WARRIOR Fawzi el-Kawukji (second from right) poses with members of his bodyguard on arriving at the village of Tubas, in northern Palestine, presumably to take command of the Arab People’s Army of Liberation. After inspecting his armed forces, he declared: ‘Everything is ready. The battle starts when I give the word.’ The Arab leader headed the revolt in the late thirties against the British forces and the Jewish settlers in Palestine.” (International Radiophoto)
A wire photograph in a Black daily two months before the state was declared. The caption calls the 1936 revolt a revolt and calls the people it was against the British forces and the Jewish settlers.
“Jerusalem —(U.P.)— Four major clashes that included some hand-to-hand fighting erupted in the Holy Land over the week-end, leaving 72 Arabs and 17 Jews dead, Jewish sources said Monday. The heaviest fighting was in the southern desert region around Gaza, where the Haganah militia reported 40 Arabs and Jews killed in two battles. Armored Column. The fighting broke out Saturday night when a Jewish column of armored supply trucks attempted to lift a two weeks Arab siege of the Jewish settlement of Gat in the Negev desert region. The Jewish convoy was attacked by Arabs at Faluja, northeast of Gaza. The convoy broke through, with 10 Arabs and seven Jews reported killed. The Jews returned early Sunday and demolished the village, blowing up the three-story city hall and 10 other buildings on both sides of the road. Seige Reported Lifted. In the fighting here, and in other fighting around Gat, 30 Arabs and seven Jews were reported killed. Haganah claimed that the siege of Gat was lifted and that agricultural produce from the area was shipped to Tel Aviv for the first time Sunday. Haganah also claimed that its squads raided the Arab village of Ein Ghazal, 11 miles south of Haifa, and occupied the town for two hours Sunday night. Twelve Arabs were reported killed in the raid.”
Every figure in the story is attributed to one side: “Jewish sources said,” “the Haganah militia reported,” “Haganah claimed.” The demolition of Faluja is reported in a single sentence. “Seige” is the paper’s.
“JERUSALEM, March 15 (UP)—Shock troops of the Jewish militia Haganah virtually razed the Arab village of Taha, near Haifa, last night after a three-day mortar, machine gun and rifle attack, a government communique said today.”
The whole item, four lines, sourced to a communique from the government that ran the country.
“JERUSALEM (U.P.) — The Jewish Haganah organization asserted yesterday that 67 Arabs and 14 Jews had been killed, and many scores of Arabs wounded, in three separate clashes. Unconfirmed reports said last night that 12 Arabs had been killed also in a Jewish attack on the village of Ein Ghazal, south of Haifa. If confirmed, this would bring the total death toll in 24 hours to 93.”
The same day two other papers in this archive carried a razed village and four invaded ones.
“Jerusalem, March 15 (INS)—Haganah threw strong forces today into a series of punitive expeditions against Arab villages from which snipers have been shooting up Jewish highway traffic. Four Arab villages have been invaded by the Jewish militiamen since Saturday in scattered parts of Palestine. Theses attacks, coupled with Arab attacks on Jewish settlements, helped make last week the bloodiest of the Arab-Jewish partition war. A total of 420 persons were killed or wounded in the seven days ending at midnight Sunday. This brought the number of casualties, since the United Nations voted to partition Palestine, to 5445, including 1970 dead. A British constable was killed and two soldiers wounded today when a booby trap went off in a Jewish house in Haifa.”
Two months before the state was declared, a news agency printed the word for it: punitive expeditions. Not reprisals, not operations. The villages are four, and not one of them is named. The people in them are not counted either: the casualty figures in the next paragraph are for the whole week and the whole war, so a reader learns that 420 were killed or wounded somewhere and cannot tell how many of them were in the four villages. Named in the clipping: a British constable. “Theses” is the paper’s spelling.
“Munich — (JTA) — Jewish displaced persons in Germany will be able to register for Palestine visas beginning this week, the International Refugee Organization announced in Heidelberg. Registration will be conducted by the Jewish Agency under the IRO’s sponsorship. Information obtained during registration will serve to determine emigration priorities for the DP’s. All displaced Jews who apply will ultimately receive Palestine visas, the announcement said.”
Seven weeks before the declaration, a registration desk opens in Heidelberg and a visa is promised to everyone who applies. The item is about who may enter Palestine and nobody already living there appears in it. Printed the same month as the punitive expeditions against four unnamed villages (CP-1948-064).
U. S. Zionists Will Support Any Plan of Palestine Jews
Washington Yielded to Oil Interests, Rabbi Silver Declares
Two months before the state, the headline is about who decides. The plan will be the Palestine Jews’, and American Zionists will back whichever one it is. The explanation offered for Washington’s position is oil. The Palestinians are not a party to the sentence.
“WHEN President Harry Truman announced his civil rights program to the nation, THE NEW YORK AGE commended the President highly for his stand on an important issue. The commendation by this paper for Mr. Truman’s pronouncement was made, not because we happen to be a Negro newspaper, but because we are a patriotic, American organization and we automatically stand up and cheer for anything which we sincerely feel is good for America. Mr. Truman has made another pronouncement. He has made a pronouncement on Palestine. The Truman statement on civil rights was a confirmation and reaffirmation of faith in the basic principles of the Constitution and human decency. The Truman statement on Palestine is a denial and betrayal not only of a people, but also of a promise and of justice itself. It was not good for America. It was not good for the world.”
An unsigned editorial in a Black weekly, setting Truman’s civil rights program beside his retreat from partition and refusing to separate them. The paper says exactly why it is making the comparison, and exactly why it is not making it as a Negro newspaper.
Deir Yassin Also Seized; Women and Children Among 200 Arab Dead
The headline is the highway. Deir Yassin is in the second line, and the 200 dead are in the second half of the second line. Two days later the Times Leader (CP-1948-015) ran the two stories the same way round, with a higher count. On the same day in Montreal, Le Devoir (CP-1948-012) put the killing in the main headline and Kastel in the line underneath.
Deir Yassin Also Seized; Women and Children Among 200 Arab Dead
The Associated Press, Jerusalem
“JERUSALEM, April 9 — Jewish fighters today stormed and recaptured Kastel, the most fought-over village in Palestine, in a new drive for control of the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem Highway, a Jewish Agency spokesman announced. The victory restored to Haganah, the Jewish militia, positions lost yesterday during a determined Arab attack in which the Arabs’ Judean Army commander was killed. Haganah and the extremist groups, the Stern Gang and Irgun Zvai Leumi, participated in the Jewish counter-attack. While one Jewish force knifed into Kastel the other seized Deir Yassin, four miles to the southeast. Commanders of the Irgun-Stern force which occupied Deir Yassin claimed their men killed 200 Arabs and said that half of the dead were women and children. A spokesman placed Jewish losses there at four killed and 40 wounded. He said: ‘About half our force was killed or wounded.’ Earlier an Irgun source had said that approximately 100 Arab women and children found in the village had been turned over to the Red Cross. The battle for Deir Yassin itself lasted about two hours but fighting raged on the outskirts for another 14 hours. The Stern and Irgun commanders declined newsmen’s requests to be taken to Deir Yassin because Arabs on surrounding hillsides still are sniping at the village. Prepare for New Assaults. Tonight the 300 Jews holding Kastel prepared themselves for further assaults on Arab positions in the Judean hills. Kastel, classified for centuries as a military strongpoint, is five miles west of Jerusalem. Police announced the wireless mast of the Enab police station was damaged when a plane, believed to be Jewish, dropped six bombs. No casualties were reported. Enab is about three miles west of Kastel. The battle came on the first day of the Khamsin winds which blow hot and dusty off the desert. The Irgun fighters wore steel helmets and new khaki uniforms with the shoulder patch emblem of their organization — a rifle held by a clenched fist over a map of Palestine and Trans-Jordan. Arab Opposition Weak. Arab units were said to have put up only slight opposition at Kastel. This was in contrast to yesterday’s bitter fighting when the Arabs took the town after it had been held six days by the Jews. That attack cost the Arabs the commander of their Judean Army, Abdul Khadder Husseini, a cousin of the exiled Mufti of Jerusalem. Five other Arabs and nine Jews also were slain. Today in the compounds of the Mosque of Omar in Jerusalem’s old walled city 30,000 persons attended Husseini’s funeral. He was entombed as he fell in the fight — in uniform and with a revolver strapped to his waist. Arab shops and restaurants in the area were closed. Jewish sources pointed out that if their men can hold Kastel and Deir Yassin the Jews will have ac…”
Deir Yassin reported the day it happened, in the subheading, with the number and the words “Women and Children.” The count of 200 and the detail that half the dead were women and children are the attackers’ own claim, made by their commanders. The reporters asked to be taken to the village and were refused.
Jerusalem Outskirts Shelled by Arab Guns; Fall of Kastel Claimed
Associated Press, Jerusalem
“Arab field guns stationed in the Judean mountains hurled eight 25-pound shells into the Jewish suburb of Givat Shaul (Hill of Saul). This is 1,000 yards from Deir Yassin, which a Jewish striking force occupied yesterday.”
Day one of three. The village appears once, as a way of locating an artillery strike. Occupied. No casualties, and no perpetrator beyond “a Jewish striking force.” The paper sets the same village three ways inside two days — Kastel, Kassel and Kasel.
Arab Field Artillery Bombards Jews in Jerusalem Suburbs
Associated Press, Jerusalem
“This was only 1,000 yards from Deir Yassin, which was seized yesterday by Irgun Zvai Leumi and the Stern gang, extremist underground groups. They said 200 Arabs were killed, half of them women and children… By unofficial count, 2,471 persons have been killed in Palestine since the United Nations voted last November 29 to partition the country. These include 1,049 Jews, 1,251 Arabs, 141 British, four Americans and 26 others.”
Day two. Same wire, same dateline day, the same sentence rewritten: occupied becomes seized, the groups are named, and the casualties arrive attributed to the people who caused them. A separate subhead on the page records that the figure was given to American reporters by the attacking forces, who put their own dead at four.
A Deir Yassin, sur la route de Jérusalem à Tel-Aviv — L’Irgun et la bande Stern infligent des indignités aux survivants — Le village voisin de Kastel pris et repris 10 fois en autant de jours
Montreal, in French, on the same day the Wilkes-Barre Times Leader led with the hill (CP-1948-015). The verb is in the main headline and it is massacrent. Kastel, which the American headlines lead with, is the last line here: the neighboring village taken and retaken ten times in as many days. The line under the headline names the Irgun and the Stern gang and says they inflicted indignities on the survivors.
“In the early morning Friday they (the Jews) swooped in and practically exterminated women, children and old men. The only ones who managed to escape were the young men. After that massacre in which some 250 were killed by guns and grenades the remaining 150 women and children were dumped into trucks, paraded through Jewish areas, spat on and stoned.” The attack at Deir Yassin was carried out by the Jewish extremist groups, Irgun Zvai Leumi and the Stern Gang. Haganah, the Jewish militia, disclaimed direct control over the operation and described it as an outrage. Representatives of the international Red Cross who moved into Deir Yassin said the 254 Arab bodies counted included those of 130 women and children. One hundred and fifty bodies had been thrown into a cistern, complicating the task of removal.
Deir Yassin, three days after, under the subhead “Women Stoned.” The paragraphs beneath the quotation name the groups, record Haganah’s disclaimer and give the Red Cross count. Whoever is being quoted is named above this part of the column, which is not in the clipping.
The Jewish extremist groups, Irgun Zvai Leumi and the Stern gang, took Deir Yassin Friday and still are entrenched there. All Arabs and many Jews now describe the Irgun-Stern attack on the village as a 'horrible massacre.' A Red Cross check showed many women and children among the 254 Arab dead there.
150 Arab Women and Children Among 250 Slain at Deir Yassin · JEWISH EXTREMISTS BLAMED FOR BLOW
Three lines, in this order: Arabs recover Kastel, Jews ravage village; 150 Arab women and children among 250 slain at Deir Yassin; Jewish extremists blamed for blow. The recapture of a hill is the news and the killing is the elaboration. Le Devoir in Montreal printed the same two events the same day the other way round (CP-1948-012).
150 Arab Women and Children Among 250 Slain at Deir-Yassin · Jewish Extremists Blamed For Blow · Kastel, Fortress West of Jerusalem, Has Changed Hands Many Times
Carter L. Davidson, Associated Press, Jerusalem
“Jerusalem, April 11 (AP) — Counterattacking Arabs tonight recaptured Kastel in an assault against the Jewish garrison there, the British Army reported. Fighting still was going on in the hilly terrain where 100 Jews and 300 Arabs already have lost their lives in a series of bitter clashes. Heavy shooting sounded in the area. The extent of the casualties in tonight’s fighting was not known. Kastel, a key hilltop fortress five miles west of Jerusalem, has changed hands almost daily for the last nine days. Haganah, the Jewish militia, had reentered the town only last night. Kastel and the nearby village of Deir Yassin command a section of the vital Jerusalem-Tel Aviv Highway. Ultimately the side which holds the highway likely will determine whether the 100,000 Jews in Jerusalem can remain unconquered. The Jewish extremist groups, Irgun Zvai Leumi and the Stern Gang, took Deir Yassin Friday and still are entrenched there. All Arabs and many Jews now describe the Irgun-Stern attack on the village as a ‘horrible massacre.’ A Red Cross check showed many women and children among the 254 Arab dead there. Haganah announced it had laid waste Kalonia, a village west of Kastel, and blown up most of the houses. It said one British and one Iraqi officer had been killed as well as most of the Arab fighters quartered there. A large quantity of ammunition was captured, Haganah said. Bloodshed was also reported from scattered other places in Palestine. At Rehovoth, one British soldier was killed and six others wounded in a Jewish arms raid, police said. There was widespread sniping in Jerusalem’s suburbs, and an assistant Lebanese Consul was one of those injured. The Arab Higher Committee called on Moslems and Christians everywhere to consider the facts of the massacre of innocent people by Jews at Deir Yassin and to decide the world’s reaction to it. The committee’s General Secretary, Dr. Hussein el Khalidi, handed newsmen this statement: ‘Deir Yassin where this outrage occurred is practically the only (Arab) village in the Jerusalem area which had not yet appealed to any Arab authority as being in danger of Jews. It lives surrounded by Jews and for four months has been living under an agreement of non-molestation. In the early morning Friday they (the Jews) swooped in and practically exterminated women, children and old men. The only ones who managed to escape were the young men. After that massacre in which some 250 were killed by guns and grenades the remaining 150 women and children were dumped into trucks, paraded through Jewish areas, spat on and stoned.’ A Jewish Agency spokesman said members of Haganah in Jerusalem rescued a number of the Arab women and children who had been paraded by their captors and turned them over to the British. Representatives of the International Red Cross who moved into Deir Yassin said the 254 Arab bodies counted included those of 130 women and children. One hundred and fifty bodies had been thrown into a cistern, complicating the task of removal. El Khalidi said the Arab higher committee had tried to recover the bodies and give them decent burial but the Jews had refused. He added: ‘We wanted to send a Moslem priest to say a short prayer over that cistern but that too was refused. Finally we sent word through the Red Cross asking the Jews in the name of common decency to place those bodies still lying about the cistern with their mothers, sisters and children and to seal it up.’”
Two days after the first reports, with the Red Cross count and the Arab Higher Committee’s statement printed at length. The paper notes that Deir Yassin had been living under an agreement of non-molestation, and prints both the accusation that survivors were paraded and the Jewish Agency’s account that Haganah rescued some of them.
Arabs Claim Capture Of Kastel, but Jews Say Town Is Theirs
By the Associated Press, Jerusalem
“JERUSALEM, April 12.—The see-saw battle for Kastel reached a verbal stand-off today. Both Jews and Arabs claimed the hilltop fortress which commands part of the vital Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway… Irgun Zvai Leumi and the Stern Gang—Jewish extremist groups—still hold the strategic village of Deir Yassin, which they took Friday. Deir Yassin is near Kastel. Both Arabs and Jews describe the extremist attack on the village as ‘a horrible massacre.’ A Red Cross investigation showed many women and children were among the 254 Arab dead there. The Arab Higher Committee asked Moslems and Christians everywhere to ‘consider the facts of the massacre of innocent people by Jews at Deir Yassin and to decide the world’s reaction to it.’ The committee’s general secretary, Dr. Hussein el Khalidi, said: ‘Deir Yassin, where this outrage occurred, is practically the only (Arab) village in the Jerusalem area which had not yet appealed to any Arab authority as being in danger of Jews. In the early morning Friday they (the Jews) swooped in and practically exterminated women, children and old men. The only ones who managed to escape were the young men. After that massacre in which some 250 were killed by guns and grenades the remaining 150 women and children were dumped into trucks, paraded through Jewish areas, spat on and stoned.’ A Jewish Agency spokesman said Hagana members in Jerusalem rescued a number of the Arab women and children and turned them over to the British. The spokesman said the Agency had cabled Trans-Jordan’s King Abdullah the text of its statement repudiating the Irgun-Stern massacre. He also released a statement by the Chief Rabbinate, describing the killings as a ‘foul crime.’ The statement called on Irgun and the Stern Gang to ‘realize the depth of the shame you have inflicted on Jewry, to whom such acts are utter abomination.’ In a government hospital here, 12-year-old Fahimeh Ali Moustafa Zeidan, who suffered a grenade wound in the Deir Yassan attack, told her story of what happened in the village. She lost her mother, her grandmother, her grandfather, two brothers and a baby sister, 3 months old. ‘The whole village was asleep,’ she said. ‘About 500 Jews with heavy guns and tanks started attacking. Our 30 or 40 guards tried to stop them, but it was useless.’ The crying of her baby sister betrayed the family after they hid, she said, and then: ‘The put us all in line, my old grandmother included, and shouted insults at us. They started firing with Bren guns. Some of us ran away and got back into the house and hid. The Jews came in and took our olives and lemons and turned all the jars over. This was about 9 o’clock in the morning. They took us to the edge of the village and made us stand there until 5 o’clock in the afternoon and just laughed when the older women asked for food for the children. They searched the village for men and shot them dead when they found them. Two trucks came for us about 7 o’clock and we were hauled through Givate Shaul (a Jewish suburb), where the Jews laughed at us and mocked us. Then they drove us into the main road of town and made us get out. They told us: ‘Give us everything you’ve got or we’ll shoot you.’ Then the men formed a circle and the Jewish girls stripped us naked and took our rings and earrings. While we were naked they made pictures of us and then told us to get dressed and walk to Jaffa Gate (Jerusalem).’”
Four days after Deir Yassin, an American daily gives a twelve-year-old girl five paragraphs in her own words, under the subheading “Baby’s Cry Betrayed Family.” The same column carries the Arab Higher Committee, the Red Cross count, the Jewish Agency’s repudiation and the Chief Rabbinate calling it a foul crime. The paper sets the village “Deir Yassan” in the sentence that introduces her and “Deir Yassin” everywhere else.
Zionist Leader and Minister Debate Palestine Strife At Conference Here
The Arab people 'hold the American Government principally responsible for the present tragic situation in Palestine,' Amin Mumayiz, minister in the Iraq Embassy at Washington, said. He warned that unless the United States re-established the good will in the Middle East the success of the Marshall plan in Europe would be jeopardized.
“Fanimeh Ali Mustapha Zeiden, 12, comforts her 2-year-old sister Khadra in a hospital at Jerusalem, where both are being treated for wounds suffered when Jewish extremists attacked their Arab village of Deir Yasin, near the Holy City. ‘They killed my mother and my grandparents and some of my cousins,’ Fanimeh said.”
A West Virginia weekly runs her photograph across most of the page, with her words in the headline. Two papers, two days apart, spell her name differently: the Evening Star sets Fahimeh Ali Moustafa Zeidan, this one Fanimeh Ali Mustapha Zeiden. Both are transcribed as printed.
“Jan Christiaan Smuts, Prime Minister of South Africa, sees ‘no alternative to partition’ in Palestine but adds that ‘nobody wishes it to be achieved through massacre and international complications.’ The former Boer General recognizes that Great Britain has her difficulties and ‘suffers from bitter disappointment over Palestine,’ but does not assume that the plan to partition Palestine is in immediate danger, expressing the view that the American trusteeship proposal was intended to ‘prevent a terrible situation.’ The situation in Palestine is certainly deplorable, with both sides resorting to terrible atrocities in the name of freedom and the likelihood that more widespread fighting may occur.”
A Black newspaper in the Jim Crow South, printing the Prime Minister of South Africa on how another country should be divided. Smuts was five weeks from the election that put the National Party in and made apartheid the law. The paper calls the dilemma deplorable and does not say whose.
“PALESTINE (Continued from page one) …the Arab countries to send help to the Palestine Arabs.’ Stiff fighting preceded the new Jewish captures near Jerusalem. The Haganah troops were said to have incurred losses in capturing the Arab strongholds of Beitiksa and Shafat, and in a continuing assault of Nebisamwil. They launched their new offensive as Haganah fighters in Haifa consolidated their hold on the port city from which 60,000 Arabs are evacuating a mass exodus. Used As Bases. Arabs in these villages were said to have used them as bases for attacks on the adjacent Jewish settlements of Neve Yacov, Ataroth and others.”
A jump page, under the standing word PALESTINE. It is one of the eleven clippings in the archive from 23 April 1948, and one of the four whose headline does not carry the number or the people. The sixty thousand are in the body, in a subordinate clause.
“JEWISH FORCES WIN CONTROL OF HAIFA; ARABS LEAVING. HAIFA, April 23 (Friday) (INS) — Jewish forces won complete military control of Haifa last night and today 60,000 Arabs began a mass evacuation from the great port city on Palestine’s northwest coast. (The London Daily Mail said the Arab decision amounted to a ‘surrender by evacuation.’) The Arabs were reported to have agreed to yield their arms to the Jews before leaving Haifa — the richest plum in the current Arab-Jewish war. (A Reuters dispatch said a breakdown of truce negotiations brought renewal of Jewish attacks on Haifa’s Arabs which had been suspended Thursday after an all-out offensive began Wednesday.)”
One of the eleven clippings here from 23 April 1948, and one of the seven whose headline carries the number or the people. The parenthetical from Reuters, at the foot, says the attacks resumed after truce talks broke down.
“JERSUALEM, April 23. (INS)—Jewish militiamen consolidated their positions in the port city of Haifa today following a mass exodus of Arabs who fled under attack. Jewish and Arab officials planned a renewal of truce talks to settle the strife in the strategic port with Britons acting as mediators. Events at Haifa yesterday during which the Jewish Haganah forces seized vital parts of the city in a swift drive which caught the Arabs by surprise caused considerable uneasiness among Arabs in the Jerusalem area. Alarmed Arabs, suspecting that complete control of the Holy City might be the next aim of the Jews, kept up a steady barrage with mortars and rifles against Jewish quarters around Jerusalem. A considerable portion of Haifa’s 60,000 Arab population fled the city. Although Arab leaders formally rejected original truce terms submitted by the Jews, the city was in effect surrendered by Arab agreement to evacuate.”
The dispatch carries both accounts: fled under attack in the first paragraph, surrendered by Arab agreement to evacuate in the last. The sixty thousand are in the body and not in the headline. “JERSUALEM” is the paper’s spelling.
One of four American papers carrying the 23 April 1948 Haifa dispatch. This headline gives the 60,000 the verb: they are leaving, in a mass exodus. The Idaho Statesman that day said they were forced out (CP-1948-024).
“HAIFA, (UP) — The Arab population of Haifa was reported fleeing by land and sea today after refusing a Jewish truce demanding they lay down their arms and submit to search. More than 6,000 fled to sea in small fishing boats across the bay to Acre, Arab stronghold near the Syrian border. Other thousands, mostly women and children, streamed out by road to Arab strongholds in the hills. A Jewish agency spokesman in Jerusalem, Walter Eyetan, said all Arabs had been evacuated from Haifa, the last of them being taken out by British army transport. He said at a press conference the evacuation was prompted by a policy to show up the Jews as ruthless, to influence Arab governments to send more armed men to Palestine, and to prepare a pretext for a later invasion of Arabs from foreign countries. Expect Counterattack. Jewish Haganah forces fanned out from the city in expectation of a quick Arab counterattack. They captured the Arab area of Suq, on Haifa’s eastern gate, and assaulted the southern Arab suburb of Tireh. Not more than 10,000 Arabs were reported left in the city, with more than 40,000 already evacuated. Three-way efforts for a truce broke down last night after six hours of conferences when members of the Arab National committee refused to sign despite British urgings. It was understood that the British commander, Maj. Gen. H. C. Stockwell, virtually ordered the Arabs to sign the Jewish truce terms. The Arabs remained adamant, apparently planning to re-enter Haifa when they received reinforcements. King Issues Call. AMMAN, Trans-Jordan (AP). — King Abdullah urged all Arab nations to send their armies into Palestine to battle the Jews when the British give up their mandate May 15. Trans-Jordan’s monarch told reporters yesterday the Arab world must act against Zionism — the push for a Jewish homeland in the holy land — because ‘our peace and liberty are at stake.’ ‘I call on all Arab countries,’ he said, ‘to join my army in a movement to Palestine to retain the Arab character of that country.’”
One of the eleven clippings here from 23 April 1948. This one prints the Jewish Agency spokesman’s explanation of the exodus — that the Arabs left in order to make the Jews look ruthless — as the only explanation offered, and gives no Palestinian answer to it.
“(Continued from Page One) tory won in a 24-hour battle that began Wednesday, fears of new military moves in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv were felt in Arab and British quarters. One rumor said the Jews planned to seize strategic buildings in the Holy City. The Jews were reported building concrete pillboxes around their positions in Jerusalem and sinking steel spikes in the ground to halt tank attacks. As the British evacuated Jerusalem buildings in line with their withdrawal program, Arabs and Jews moved in. Arab men, women and children began leaving the city by boat, truck and other means when the battle began. Additional thousands of the 30,000 Arabs in the important communications center crowded docks in the British-controlled port area and assembly centers for evacuation across the bay to Acre and other Arab cities. It was learned the only Arabs due to remain in Haifa will be Moslem and Christian clergymen who will watch over religious shrines. British army transport assisted in the evacuation, which will continue today.”
The jump page. The headline says sixty thousand and the body says thirty thousand, in the same clipping. The subheads are “Building Pillboxes” and “Clergymen Remain.”
60,000 Arabs Forced Out of Haifa As Jews Win Military Control
Agreement On Yielding Arms Made
The Associated Press, Haifa
“HAIFA (Friday) (INS)—Jewish forces won complete military control of Haifa Thursday night and today 60,000 Arabs began a mass evacuation from the great port city on Palestine’s northwest coast. (The London Daily Mail said the Arab decision amounted to a ‘surrender by evacuation.’) The Arabs were reported to have agreed to yield their arms to the Jews before leaving Haifa—the richest plum in the current Arab-Jewish war. Attacks Renewed. (A Reuters dispatch said a breakdown of truce negotiations brought renewal of Jewish attacks on Haifa’s Arabs which had been suspended Thursday after an all-out offensive began Wednesday.) (The Reuters dispatch added that Arab troops were on the march to aid the Haifa Arabs). A Syrian commander in Haifa left the city ‘to obtain reinforcements’ but was forced to return at 6 p. m. (Haifa time) Thursday night. Haifa has been virtually encircled by victorious Jews who seized control of most of the strategic points in the big port, rail and oil hub. Arab resistance died down upon his return and the mass Arab evacuation swung into full gear. Terms Refused. An Arab spokesman declared: ‘We will not accept the Jewish truce terms. We would rather leave Haifa.’ The truce talks were scheduled to be resumed Friday morning. One report said a number of Arab troops who had participated in the battle for Haifa had surrendered. While Jews throughout Palestine were jubilant over the Haifa vic…” (Please turn to Page 3, Col. 5.)
One International News Service dispatch out of Haifa ran in at least four American papers on 23 April 1948. This is the only one of the four whose headline says the 60,000 were forced out. The Patriot-News (CP-1948-026) says Jewish forces are in control; the Sidney Daily News (CP-1948-021) says they are leaving in a mass exodus; the M’Alester News-Capital (CP-1948-025) says Jewish troops attack. Boise is also the only one that prints the sentence the spokesman actually said: “We will not accept the Jewish truce terms. We would rather leave Haifa.” Everything above the fold on this page is the Boeing strike in Seattle.
The fourth of the 23 April 1948 Haifa headlines. This one does not mention the 60,000 at all. The subject is Jewish troops, the verb is attack, and the town is not named. Compare CP-1948-024, CP-1948-026 and CP-1948-021, printed the same day off the same news-agency copy.
“Haifa, April 23 (Friday) (INS).—Jewish forces won complete military control of Haifa last night and today 60,000 Arabs began a mass evacuation from the great port city on Palestine’s northwest coast. The Arab spurned Jewish truce terms starting their exodus.”
The same International News Service lead as the Idaho Statesman (CP-1948-024), cut to two sentences. The second one is the paper’s own compression: where the fuller printing quotes a spokesman refusing the terms, this reads “The Arab spurned Jewish truce terms starting their exodus” — a reason given in the paper’s voice instead of the man’s. “The Arab” singular against “their” plural is the paper’s own setting.
· The State Journal-Register · Springfield · page 1
Arabs Forced To Evacuate Haifa
International News Service, Haifa
“Haife, April 23 (Friday) (INS)—Jewish forces won complete military control of Haifa last night and today 60,000 Arabs began a mass evacuation from the great port city on Palestine’s northwest coast. (The London Daily Mail said the Arab decision amounted to a ‘surrender by evacuation.’) The Arabs were reported to have agreed to yield their arms to the Jews before leaving Haifa—the richest plum in the current Arab-Jewish war. (A Reuters dispatch said a breakdown of truce negotiations brought renewal of Jewish attacks on Haifa’s Arabs which had been suspended Thursday after an all-out offensive began Wednesday.) (The Reuters dispatch added that Arab troops were on the march to aid the Haifa Arabs.) A Syrian commander in Haifa left the city ‘to obtain reinforcements’ but was forced to return at 6 p. m. (Haifa time) last night. Haifa has been virtually encircled by victorious Jews who seized control of most of the strategic points in the big port, rail and oil hub. Arab resistance died down upon his return and the mass Arab evacuation swung into full gear. An Arab spokesman declared: ‘We will not accept the Jewish truce terms. We would rather leave Haifa.’”
A different news agency on the same day. Forced, and evacuate, in one headline — and in the last paragraph an Arab spokesman saying they would rather leave. “Haife” is the paper’s.
Jews capture city as British withdraw; neighboring nations may intervene
The Associated Press, Haifa
“HAIFA, Palestine, Friday (AP)—Arab leaders bowed to a Jewish blitz yesterday and agreed to evacuate Haifa, one of the most important port cities in the Middle East. Zionist militia began a whirlwind attack for control of Haifa Wednesday when the British withdrew from all but the port area, a headquarters sections and a narrow strip linking the two. By noon yesterday they had forced the Arabs to sue for peace through British mediation. Arabs called the battle a ‘massacre … another Stalingrad’ for which they were unprepared. The Jews issued a cease-fire order and laid down a stringent set of terms for an Arab surrender, including the surrender of all Arab arms and the capitulation of all foreign Arab troops who would be deported by Haganah. At a conference attended by seven Arab and seven Jewish representatives, the British district commissioner and the British commander, the Arabs reject—” (Turn to HAIFA, Page Thirty-nine.)
The verb in the headline is fleeing. The dispatch under it says the attack came first, and quotes Arabs calling it a massacre. The story is cut off at the jump; the terms the Arabs rejected are on page thirty-nine, which is not part of this clipping.
“JERUSALEM, April 23 (AP).—Jewish militia units occupied two more Arab villages in the rocky Judean Hills today, Jewish sources reported. Jews said their Hagana troops moved into Shufat, on the Jerusalem-Ramallah road, and Beit Iksa, between that highway and the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv convoy lane. Beit Iksa is one of three Arab villages which the Jews attacked during morning operations. The others were Biddu and Nebi Samuel, also in a strategic area in the Judean Hills. Haifa, where Hagana defeated the Arabs yesterday, was reported quiet overnight… Hagana opened a drive for Haifa day before yesterday when the British withdrew to a limited area. Yesterday the Arabs agreed to evacuate the city, whose port serves Palestine, Trans-Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq. Official sources here estimated 105 Arabs were killed in yesterday’s Haifa fighting. Haifa reports yesterday listed four Hagana men and one Mauritian soldier also among the dead… By unofficial count, 3,281 persons have died by violence in Palestine since the United Nations partition recommendation of last November 29. Arab leaders agreed on evacuation of Haifa yesterday rather than accept surrender terms requiring them to deliver up ‘foreign Arab fighters’ for deportation. At that time, the British said 35,000 to 40,000 Arabs already had left Haifa and 10,000 to 25,000 still were to be moved out. Many refugees went to Acre, across the bay. The city has had about 130,000 inhabitants, about half Jewish. British military sources said Arabs departing would be stripped of their arms and the arms would be given to the Jews as war spoils with the end of the British mandate May 15.”
The subheading over the last four paragraphs is “Arabs Evacuate Haifa.” This is the contemporaneous version of the claim the leaders fold treats as retrospective, in Associated Press copy, the day after: Arab leaders agreed on evacuation rather than accept the surrender terms.
“JERUSALEM, April 23 (AP) David Ben-Gurion, premier-designate of the Jewish state, declared in a Passover broadcast Friday night that Jews are buckling on the sword and called upon them to ‘mobilize all hidden resources of strength, will power, devotion and ability.’ The Russian-born Ben-Gurion, who also has been designated war minister and commander-in-chief, spoke as thousands of Arabs streamed out of Haifa, Palestine’s big port, in a self-imposed exodus following Jewish conquest of the city… British army reports said the city was quiet after Haganah, the Jewish militia, stormed Arab strongholds and demanded the surrender of the remaining 2000 to 3000 armed Arabs… Jewish authorities said they had made themselves responsible for protection of Arab property in Haifa.”
A self-imposed exodus, in Associated Press copy, on the day the city emptied.
Jews Battle to Seal Off Haifa; Arab Thousands Fleeing City; Truce Aids Women, Children
Haganah Presses Drive Along Road To Nazareth
By the Associated Press, Jerusalem
“JERUSALEM, April 24.—Jewish militia fought today to take possession of a buffer area to seal off their greatest prize, the port city of Haifa. While thousands of weary Arabs streamed from the city which was captured by Jews in a spectacular battle Thursday, Hagana guns blazed out at Balad Esh Sheikh and nearby Tirah, two villages about five miles east of the big port. The Arab villages are on the road to Nazareth and Tiberias, a city on the Sea of Galilee from which the Arabs also have been driven by the Jews. The British said the Arabs asked for a truce at dawn after an all-night fight and agreed to surrender their arms. When only 22 rifles were turned in, however, the Jews delivered a new ultimatum for the delivery of all guns and the fighting was renewed. The latest reports said the British had arranged a temporary truce for the evacuation of women and children from the villages. Dispatches from Haifa said the Jews were trying to prevent the evacuation of the 37,000 Arabs remaining in the city. The Jews considered the evacuation a political rebuff, and wanted them to remain to demonstrate that Arabs and Jews can live side by side. They offered the Arabs co-operation in solving food and supply problems. Arab leaders replied to Jewish persuasions, however, that they could not ‘subject ourselves to conquerors.’ Indications were that most of the Arabs would leave the city as a silent protest against the Jewish blitz of the parts of the town not controlled by the British… Arabs in the city were under a Jewish curfew, virtual house arrest. Hagana said five field guns, mortars and other arms had been found in an inch-by-inch search of Arab quarters. Arab civilian leaders ordered the evacuation because they were unwilling to attempt to enforce Jewish terms for surrender of arms upon armed Arab volunteers. The city of 130,000 is about half Arab. The Arab population was being moved across the bay to Acre by British army landing craft and small boats, and plans were being made to move other thousands by British army trucks overland to Nazareth, neighboring Lebanon and Nablus in the Arab’s so-called ‘triangle of strength’ in Central Palestine. The evacuation was being carried out at the time Jews observe the passover in commemoration of their own exodus from Egypt, and from docks where the British customarily deported intercepted Jewish immigrants to Cyprus. Thousands still huddled in refuges without food.”
The two subheadings on this page are “Jews Oppose Evacuation” and “Arabs Won’t Enforce Terms.” Both halves of the argument about Haifa are in one column of Associated Press copy, three days after: the Jews trying to prevent the evacuation and wanting the Arabs to stay, and Arab civilian leaders ordering it because they would not disarm their own volunteers. The same column reports the Arabs of Tiberias “driven” out, a curfew described as virtual house arrest, and the passover comparison.
“CAIRO, April 24 (AP).—Leading Egyptian newspapers bitterly attacked the Arab League tonight for the first time in its three-year history, accusing it of inaction in the face of the ‘Arab catastrophe in Palestine.’ Editorials denouncing the league’s leadership appeared in Al Balagh and Al Zamane after 200 Palestinian Arab students staged an angry demonstration at the league headquarters during the day. Al Balagh, organ of the powerful Wafdist Party, declared: ‘We can no longer suffer one catastrophe after another. Zionism in Palestine means no Arabs will be left. Is this realized by leaders who fly from one place to another, meet and then adjourn to take secret decisions that remain forever secret?’ The politically independent Al Zamane said: ‘We can no longer bear to hear what happened today in Haifa and what may happen tomorrow in Jaffa. Arab countries had pinned their hopes to the Arab League. We were told—wait and you will see the flag of Arabism waving over Palestine. But Palestine cities are disappearing one after another while we still are making speeches and promises. Arab countries are raging and demand to know what the Arab League will do.’ Resentment against the league’s Palestine policy was reported widespread not only in Egypt but in Syria and Iraq where protest strikes have occurred.”
“BLAST REMOVES JERUSALEM MENACE—British Army sappers set the charge that blasted a 90-year-old windmill overlooking the Montefiore section of Jerusalem April 15. Hagana troops had used the windmill for a military post and had constructed an observation tower on top. Constant rifle and mortar fire from Arab forces aimed at the tower endangered people in the area and resulted in British demand for its removal.” —AP Wirephoto.
The subheadings are “Catastrophes Cited” and “Resentment Widespread.” The word the archive dates to the 1990s is here in April 1948, in translation, inside quotation marks, in Associated Press copy: the Arab catastrophe in Palestine. The same page carries the jump of the main Palestine story, where every street of Jerusalem is blocked by road barriers twenty feet high, and Gen. Ismael Safwat Pasha, commander-in-chief of the Arab volunteers, admits publicly that present Arab forces in Palestine are incapable of saving the situation.
Arabs Flee by Thousands as Jews Pound Jaffa in Fiercest Fighting Yet in Palestine
United Press, Jaffa, Palestine
“Jaffa, Palestine, April 25 (UP)—Thousands of Arabs fled this ancient city today as men of the Jewish extremist Irgun Zvai Leumi battered the city with mortars in the fiercest attack of the five-month ‘war,’ police said tonight. Police Superintendent J. M. Flanagan said that at least four persons were killed and 82 wounded as Irgunist mortars, firing from the ‘no-man’s-land’ between Jaffa and Tel Aviv, hammered the heart of the Jaffa business section… A Haganah broadcast tonight accused Irgun of ‘indulging in dangerous adventures.’ … Flanagan said that Arabs fled the city after British forces broke up an Irgunist road block on the Jerusalem highway, only land link between Jaffa and the rest of Palestine. He said the mortar bombardment blew a hole in the roof of a moving picture theater on King George Ave. and caused some damage to the Jaffa post office.… He said the mortar bombardment blew a hole in the roof of a moving picture theater on King George Ave. and caused some damage to the Jaffa post office… Police Estimate. The police official estimated casualties at two Arabs and two Jews killed and two British soldiers, 60 Arabs and 20 Jews wounded… Reports from the vicinity of Lydda said Arab troops had occupied the German village of Wilhelma near the airport. The village had been deserted since the evacuation of its residents to Cyprus two weeks ago… British officials, questioned about the reported invasion of Palestine by troops of the British-trained Trans-Jordan legion, said flatly that there was ‘no question’ of the Trans-Jordan government taking any such action… Irgun opened its attack on Jaffa at 5 a.m. after 36 hours of preparation during which it seized hundreds of motor cars in Tel Aviv, all-Jewish twin city of Jaffa.”
Two casualty counts from the same police source on one page, twenty lines apart: at least four killed and 82 wounded in the lede, and under the subheading Police Estimate, four killed and 82 wounded broken out by nationality. The archive had the first only.
“Jaffa, Palestine, April 25 (UP)—Thousands of Arabs fled this ancient city today as men of the Jewish extremist Irgun Zvai Leumi battered the city with mortars in the fiercest attack of the five-month ‘war,’ police said tonight. Police Superintendent J. M. Flanagan said that at least four persons were killed and 82 wounded as Irgunist mortars, firing from the ‘no-man’s-land’ between Jaffa and Tel Aviv, hammered the heart of the Jaffa business section… A Haganah broadcast tonight accused Irgun of ‘indulging in dangerous adventures.’ … Flanagan said that Arabs fled the city after British forces broke up an Irgunist road block on the Jerusalem highway, only land link between Jaffa and the rest of Palestine. He said the mortar bombardment blew a hole in the roof of a moving picture theater on King George Ave. and caused some damage to the Jaffa post office.”
The same dispatch with the agent removed from the headline. Whose bombs is not said.
Irgun Troops Attack Ancient City; Haganah Men Seize Road at Jerusalem
United Press, Jaffa, Palestine
“Jaffa, Palestine, April 25.—(U.P.)—Thousands of Arabs fled this ancient city today as men of the Jewish extremist Irgun Zvai Leumi battered Jaffa with mortars in the fiercest attack of the five-month ‘war,’ police said tonight. Police Superintendent J. M. Flanagan said that at least four persons were killed and 82 wounded as Irgunist mortars, firing from the ‘no man’s land’ between Jaffa and Tel Aviv, hammered the heart of the Jaffa business section. Flanagan said that Irgun forces, reported driven back after seizing the railroad station and the big Manshieh police station, had not been able to hold any part of the Arab city. A Haganah broadcast tonight accused Irgun of ‘indulging in dangerous adventures.’ Lydda airport, near here, was closed down tonight, with all scheduled flights cancelled. Reports that Trans-Jordan’s Arab Legion had seized the great international airfield could not be confirmed. Reports that heavy Arab Legion reinforcements had crossed the River Jordan to join the battle for the Holy Land also were unconfirmed. Neither Jewish nor British sources would admit knowledge of the rumors. Flanagan said that Arabs fled the city after British forces broke up an Irgunist roadblock on the Jerusalem highway, only land link between Jaffa and the rest of Palestine. He said the mortar bombardment blew a hole in the roof of a moving picture theater on King George Avenue and caused some damage to the Jaffa postoffice. One projectile fell in the postoffice yard.”
The Haganah broadcast disowning the Irgun runs in the fourth paragraph, and the reason the Arabs left is attributed to a named British police superintendent. Printed beside a story about American troops quelling a riot in Kobe. The subhead is “Airport Closed.”
“Fighting is continuing in the Arab city of Jaffa, which has been under attack by Irgun Zvai Leumi, Jewish underground group. British Army sources said Arab refugees fled the Arab port at the rate of about 20 vehicles an hour all day yesterday. Thousands put to sea in all kinds of craft. Many were believed trying to reach Egypt. Another shipload of 600 visaless Jewish refugees, the second in three days, appeared in Palestine waters. The vessel is called the Nashon. An Amman, Trans-Jordan, dispatch said 66-year-old King Abdullah will lead the armies of Trans-Jordan, Syria and Lebanon against the Jews. Abdullah said the Arab League military council gave him the command. Questioned about moving his armies before the expiration of the British mandate, Abdullah told newsmen in Amman: ‘Instead of waiting to May 15, Jews started to attack peaceful villages, Haifa and Jaffa and a great part of Jerusalem. This is sufficient provocation for Arab states to send their armies and I consider that no one government in the Arab states can dare resist the wish of its people.’ Although he did not say it in so many words Abdullah’s statement was in effect a declaration of war against Palestine’s Jews.”
“Arrow points to Jericho, Palestine, into which one company of the Arab Legion entered ‘under British orders,’ according to an official British spokesman in Jerusalem. Reports that Haifa is being shelled from Acre (both underlined), across the bay, were unconfirmed. Another report, later denied, said Egyptian troops had invaded Palestine at an unidentified point along the border.” —AP Wirephoto.
Twenty vehicles an hour, all day, attributed to British Army sources, on 26 April 1948. On the same page King Abdullah gives his reason for moving before 15 May, in his own words, and the paper explains what it amounts to in the sentence underneath. Jewish refugees arriving without visas and Arab refugees leaving by sea are in consecutive paragraphs.
Irgun Zvai Leumi Captures Entire Mansheih Quarter of All-Arab Jaffa
A Canadian paper naming all three things exactly: which force (Irgun Zvai Leumi), which part of the city (the Mansheih quarter), and whose city it was (all-Arab Jaffa). The Chicago Tribune the next morning had the same event as Jewish forces seizing a mile of Arab Jaffa (CP-1948-030). A named militia becomes an army, and a quarter becomes a distance.
Arabs Flee Jaffa as Zionist Forces Battle Way Into City
United Press, Jerusalem
“JERUSALEM, April 28 (UP)—British tanks went into action today against Jewish forces in the Irgun Zvai Leumi which hammered their way into Jaffa, the big Arab city next to Tel Aviv. The British army intervened in the siege of Jaffa as Irgunist units battered into it from the northeast and Haganah troops struck from the south… An Arab defeat seemed probable, and some 60,000 civilian Arabs in the city were seeking to escape. Some boarded Lebanese schooners and sailing ships in the harbor, and others sought to flee through the Jewish lines… The Irganists mopped up the entire Menshiya suburban area, and pressed on toward the port, while Arab defenders, hard pressed from three sides and with their backs to the sea, fought back desperately.”
ARABS FLEE JAFFA AS ZIONS ATTACK — Thousands of Arabs were fleeing Jaffa today as Zionist troops launched a second large scale attack on the Palestine port. An earlier attack on the city failed. A reported 60,000 civilian Arabs were reported attempting to escape the city.
Sixty thousand people leaving one city, counted twice on the same page.
One day after the Expositor named the Irgun and the Mansheih quarter (CP-1948-029), the same advance is Jewish forces taking a mile. A mile of what is left to the reader. Jaffa is the subject of its own fold in this archive, which follows the city from 70,000 to 2,000.
“The main head on Page 1 of the same edition reads: ‘Jews take over control of Haifa, richest port city in Palestine; Arabs beg peace in night battle.’ Which of these writers shall we believe—the letter-writer or the headline writer?”
A reader setting a letter’s claim against the same edition’s front page and asking the paper which to believe — this project’s method, performed by a reader, in the paper, in the week the archive’s Haifa section covers. The Evening Star now runs in this collection on 10, 11, 12 and 29 April 1948.
Battle for Holy City Reported On; Jaffa Virtually Isolated
By the Associated Press, Jerusalem
“JERUSALEM, April 30.—Hagana, Jewish militia, virtually isolated the Arab port of Jaffa today and threw a two-pronged attack at Arab positions in the strategic Katamon quarter dominating the southern part of Jerusalem. Hagana captured Salama, toughest Arab stronghold village in the ring of Jaffa’s outer defenses… The quarter, formerly mixed Arab and Jewish, was evacuated by the Jews early in the current strife. Arab national guards later moved in and were said to be reinforced by Iraqi volunteers… Hagana closed in on Salama in a pincers movement during the night, leaving a narrow lane open. The Arabs fled through the opening. When the Jewish militia took over in the morning the town’s entire civil population of 12,000, as well as the Arab armed forces, had fled. The maneuver left neighboring Yazur, the second major strong point in the eastern perimeter of Jaffa, in a similar position of virtual encirclement. It, too, could be cut off, if it is not abandoned first by the Arabs… If the British leave Jaffa at the end of their mandate, May 15, Jaffa would be left cut off from all but the sea and with its defense line pierced and its defenders outnumbered.”
Salama, on the day, under a subheading that reads “Civil Population Flees.” A pincers movement at night with a narrow lane left open, and by morning the whole town of twelve thousand gone. The verb is fled and the sentence before it describes how. Both are on the page.
“Arabs Fleeing Haifa Under Attack by Jews. Arabs with their belongings wait on the waterfront at Haifa, Palestine, for boats to take them across the bay to the all-Arab city of Acre. Thousands of Arab men, women and children fled from Haifa as Jewish forces seized major portions of that important seaport.”
“Arabs with their belongings wait on the waterfront at Haifa, Palestine, for boats to take them across the bay to the all-Arab city of Acre. Thousands of Arab men, women and children fled from Haifa as Jewish forces seized major portions of that important seaport.” AP
A picture page, a week after the fall of Haifa. The headline says under attack, and the caption says fled. The archive holds eleven clippings from the day itself; this is what the same story looked like once the photograph caught up with it.
JEWISH AGENCY Urges Quick U.N. Action to Halt Invasion.
By the Associated Press, Jerusalem
“JERUSALEM, May 1.—The regular armies of Arab nations of the middle East invaded Palestine today, striking in the north and south with troops and armored forces. Jewish and Arab accounts said Syria, Lebanon and Egypt sent powerful military formations sweeping across the border at dawn 15 days before the termination of the British mandate over the Holy Land… The invasion accounts came as thousands of Arab refugees streamed out of Jerusalem and Jaffa. In both cities the Jews have scored marked military gains. Jaffa, an Arab port, was completely surrounded and its defense lines pierced. The British by guns and negotiations have prevented the city from falling to the Jews. An estimated 30,000 of Jaffa’s 70,000 civilian residents have left the city by sea and road during the last two weeks… Fighting continued in Jerusalem where 100,000 Christians of the Greek Orthodox, Coptic, Syrian and Armenian churches prepared for their observance of Easter tomorrow. In the late afternoon Arab men, women and children streamed onto roads leading to Jericho, Bethlehem and the north.”
Thirty thousand of Jaffa’s seventy thousand gone in two weeks, counted on 1 May 1948, a fortnight before the mandate ended. The subheadings are “British Troops Out of Area,” “Believed Ordered by Abdullah” and “Hagana Wins Key Positions.” The verb in both displacement sentences is streamed.
“ARAB REFUGEES—Fearing for their lives, Arab refugees waited last Sunday along the Haifa, Palestine waterfront for boats to take them across the bay to the all-Arab city of Acre. Thousands of Arab men, women and children sought refuge in the Haifa dock area as Jewish forces seized the seaport as the first step in their campaign to dominate Palestine after British troops withdraw two weeks from today.” (AP)
The photograph of the Haifa dock, two weeks before the mandate ended. The caption says fearing for their lives, says seized, and says the campaign is to dominate Palestine.
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
“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.”
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.
By Daniel De Luce, Associated Press, Jericho, Palestine
“JERICHO, Palestine, May 2 (AP)—A road of Arab despair winds eastward across the Jordan. Many refugees passing Jericho enroute 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 Mallah Road in Jerusalem: ‘Talk of Arab governments rescuing Palestine sounds like another case of “too little and 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.’ The once daunted Arab liberation army of Yarmuk is described by the refugees as a hodgepodge collection of adventurers, ne’er-do-wells and soap-box orators who never numbered more than 3,000 and who relied on Palestinian Arab villagers for cannon fodder. The reported agreement by five Arab states to wipe out the Zionist state meets with acid skepticism from the refugees. They claim: King Abdullah seeks to expand Trans-Jordan to include southern Palestine, but will not really endanger his Arab Legion in big battle because he fears King Ibn Saud may take the opportunity to annex rabia and other southern Trans-Jordan territory to Saduia Arabia. The Iraqi government has failed to solve an economic crisis and is in no position to weaken its army by a Palestine campaign because the Kurds in northern Iraq, a million strong, are close to another rebellion.”
Daniel De Luce on the road out, six days before he stood in Jaffa. Haifa down from about a hundred thousand to under twenty thousand, and the refugees quoted at length on what they think of the Arab armies coming to save them. The subheadings are “Muttered Comment,” “Acid Skepticism” and “Egyptian View.” It runs beside a tornado that killed ten in Kansas.
Truce Continued In Jerusalem But Jewish Fighters Raid Nearby Mount
The Associated Press, Tel Aviv
“TEL AVIV, Palestine—Irgun Zvai Leumi, Jewish warriors, said Tuesday they had captured the strategic Arab city of Yehudia, 12 miles east of Tel Aviv, after an all-night battle with Arab defenders… Yehudia, one of the wealthiest Arab towns in Palestine, barred the main highway approach to Lydda airport, four miles to the south… Most of Yehudia’s normal population of 10,000 left in recent weeks, but Irgun said the city was defended by Arab troops. Irgun said the Arab population fled from the nearby village of Kafr ’Ana when Yehudia fell.”
Ten thousand people, and a second village emptying when the first one fell.
Reginald Siegel, International News Service, Jerusalem, May 4
“JERUSALEM, May 4.—Jews said tonight their troops knocked out twenty Arab armored cars in an all-day battle against a big Arab force attacking four Zionist settlements in the Hebron hills… In Jerusalem itself a British Government spokesman said truce talks are proceeding ‘satisfactorily.’… The International Red Cross also took its first formal step in trying to win a truce in the Holy City. It invited Arab-Jewish response without any immediate reaction… Earlier, Trans-Jordan’s King Abdullah offered the Jews equal rights in a unified Arab Palestine. He warned through the U.N. that if they don’t accept this solution, violence will reach ‘the pinnacle of horror’ in the Holy Land after May 16.”
An offer of equal rights in a unified Arab Palestine, reported ten days before the state was declared.
Correction: {'note': 'The presentation captions this scan 15 May. Both datelines on it read May 4, so it is filed to the day after.'}
Irgun Takes Key Arab City After All-Night Conflict
Haganah Reports Lebanese Artillery Shelled Ramat Naftali, Northern Jewish Village
The Associated Press, Tel Aviv, May 4
“Tel Aviv, Palestine, May 4 (AP)—Irgun Zvai Leumi, Jewish warriors, said today they had captured the strategic Arab city of Yehudia, 12 miles east of Tel Aviv after an all-night battle with Arab defenders… Yehudia, one of the wealthiest Arab towns in Palestine, barred the main highway approach to Lydda airport, four miles to the south. The Irgun attack was the first operation since it pulled out of captured Manshieh Quarter in all-Arab Jaffa, where British forces are enforcing a truce. Irgun said its attack on Yehudia was made with knowledge and approval of Haganah.”
King Abdullah I.
The same Associated Press dispatch the Miami Herald ran that day, under a different headline.
More Than 20,000 Arab Refugees Go to Lebanon Since Fall of Haifa April 22
By Leigh White, Chicago Daily News, Tyre, Lebanon
“TYRE, LEBANON—ARABS REFUGEES fleeing Palestine in recent weeks have far outnumbered Jewish refugees entering Palestine in the past year. More than 20,000 Arab refugees have been admitted into Lebanon since the fall of Haifa April 22. The total number of newcomers since the first of the year is reliably estimated at more than 60,000—or 6 percent of this little country’s population. This ancient walled Phoenician city of Tyre is the center of relief operations organized by the Permanent Palestine Office of Lebanon. Hordes of miserable Arabs, mostly old men, women and children, arrive here daily by sailing craft from evacuation centers along the Palestinian coast. Few refugees have been able to escape by land since the Jewish Haganah mined the highway north of Haifa to prevent removal of Arab-owned motor vehicles. A THIRD OF THE 59 WOUNDED NOW confined in a temporary hospital here are civilian victims of Jewish terrorists who seized control of Haifa following the sudden evacuation of British forces from the center of the city. Six of the wounded are women. One of them, a first-aid girl, was shot while trying to treat a wounded Arab. Another was machine-gunned while fleeing with her family by automobile… THE HOSPITAL IS OPERATED BY VOLunteer doctors, nurses and senior medical students from the American University of Beirut. Dr. Saadallah El Khalil, chief surgeon, recently returned from the United States where he worked for a year at the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn. The director of the university’s medical relief committee is Dr. George Fawwaz, a young biochemist who lectured last year at Harvard University… I ACCOMPANIED DR. FAWWAZ ON AN inspection tour of medical aid posts along the Palestinian frontier. Everywhere I encountered great bitterness regarding American policy in Palestine. More articulate persons with whom I spoke considered themselves the victims of the same sort of totalitarian behavior as the Jews themselves suffered at the hands of the Germans. They asked me why Americans, who previously opposed anti-Jewish terrorism of the Nazis, should now excuse and even encourage anti-Arabian terrorism of Zionists. Nothing I could say would convince them that the American government, press and radio are not 100 percent against the Arabs and 100 percent in favor of Jews.” (Copyright, 1948, by Chicago Daily News, Inc.)
An American correspondent in Lebanon eleven days before the state was declared, counting the refugees as they land, naming the Palestinian doctors treating them, and writing “Jewish terrorists” in his own voice. The last three paragraphs are what Palestinians told him about the United States. Printed above a Memphis Commercial Appeal filler about a woman who could not buy two screws for an iron cord. A second scan of this same page is held in the sprint folder; it is the same clipping.
Typhoid Epidemic Is Feared In Arab-Packed City Of Acre
Associated Press, Acre, Palestine
“Acre, Palestine, May 5. (AP)—Authorities expressed fear today of a typhoid epidemic. Eighty-two cases—46 of them British—already have been reported in this crowded city. A city official said the mayor and head of the Acre Health Department are in Lebanon appealing for serum to innoculate Acre’s 15,000 inhabitants. An Arab spokesman in Haifa said the Lebanese government had promised to send typhoid serum and a team of about 10 doctors and nurses to fight the disease. Forty of the British victims are soldiers from one company of the Middlesex regiment. The other six are constables… Ahmed Abdu, vice mayor of Acre, said that in addition to 36 known cases among the city’s civilians, another 50 persons are under observation. He complained there was no place in the hospital for typhoid victims. ‘We already have almost 200 wounded Arab soldiers under treatment,’ he said. Both Abdu and municipal engineer B. S. Behouth blamed the Acre water supply for the disease. They said British army tests showed the presence of typhoid germs in the water. Acre is located across the bay, eight miles from Haifa. After Jewish forces occupied Haifa two weeks ago, thousands of Arabs fled to Acre.”
Two weeks after Haifa, the town they were taken to is out of hospital beds and the water has typhoid in it. The vice mayor and the municipal engineer are named, and the last sentence says occupied and fled in the same breath. The subheading is “100 British Isolated.” “innoculate” is the paper’s.
Authorities Fear Typhoid Epidemic In Palestine With 82 Already Sick
46 Stricken Are Britons; Serum Is Being Rushed.
Associated Press, Acre, Palestine
“Acre, Palestine, May 5 (AP).—Authorities expressed fear today of a typhoid epidemic. Eighty-two cases—46 of them British—already have been reported in this crowded city… Ahmed Abdu, vice mayor of Acre, said that in addition to 36 known cases among the city’s civilians, another 50 persons are under observation. He complained there was no place in the hospital for typhoid victims. ‘We already have almost 200 wounded Arab soldiers under treatment,’ he said. Both Abdu and Municipal Engineer B. S. Behouth blamed the Acre water supply for the disease. They said British army tests showed the presence of typhoid germs in the water. Acre is located across the bay, eight miles from Haifa. After Jewish forces occupied Haifa two weeks ago, thousands of Arabs fled to Acre.”
The same dispatch as the Stamford Advocate the same day, with the British casualties promoted into the line under the headline. Beside it, the United Nations Truce Commission meeting Arab representatives in Jericho, and Haganah loudspeakers moving up to the Arab quarters of Jerusalem overnight broadcasting an appeal in Arabic to live in peaceful cooperation with the Jews and urging the Arabs to change your leaders.
Arab Refugees Flee to Egypt — This shipload of 700 Arab refugees is shown as it arrived in Port Said, Egypt, after voyage from Haifa, the Palestine port city which was captured by Jewish forces. The Egyptian government gave sanctuary to the refugees.
A full-width photograph on page 42 of an Iowa evening paper, under a one-word headline. There is no story: the picture and its caption are the whole item.
Arab Refugees from Haifa Pitch Tents to Provide Sanctuary
“Some of the 700 Arab refugees from Haifa who arrived at Port Said, Egypt, are shown pitching tents given them by Egyptian authorities to provide temporary shelter accommodations are found. The group fled Haifa after Jewish forces overran the big Palestine port city following the withdrawal of British forces.”
Seven hundred people from Haifa putting up tents in Egypt, photographed and captioned three weeks after the city fell and eight days before the mandate ended. The verb in the caption is fled and the verb in the clause after it is overran.
Jaffa Is Caught in Jewish Vise; Political Disputes Plague Arabs
100 Left of 90,000 Who Inhabited Port Until 2 Weeks Ago
By Daniel De Luce, Associated Press Foreign Correspondent, Jaffa
“JAFFA, Palestine, May 8.—Jaffa, the largest Arab city in Palestine a few days ago, now is a forsaken hostage of the Jewish State. If it were not for Jewish tanks and artillery—all due to leave next Saturday—a corporal’s guard of Jews could march through Jaffa today without firing a shot. Sandbagged Arab quarters are deserted. Fewer than 100 Arab civilians are to be seen dazedly wandering in the streets. They are the hungry, impoverished remnants of a population which numbered 90,000 until two weeks ago. The Jews control the territory around Jaffa to a depth of 10 miles. No Arab vehicles can enter or leave the city without passing within close range of Jewish machineguns and mortars. A few score Arab refugees are boarding two small coastal sailing vessels in the ancient harbors, the last of an Arab exodus unequalled in the modern history of the Holy Land. Along docks, where once Lebanese cedar was brought to build Solomon’s Temple, $10,000,000 worth of foreign imports are under guard of Royal Irish Fusiliers. They have shot 22 Arab looters in the past two nights… Jaffa’s remaining inhabitants, who now scarcely number 2,000, are on the verge of starvation. At the French hospital on Jaffa Hill Catholic sisters are caring for the sick, wounded and orphans. Nowhere else in the city is there any public relief for victims of the undeclared war. ‘The French nuns have been the only people with guts enough to stay and carry on,’ the Fusiliers’ officer declared. ‘We’ve sent them some food from the warehouses without bothering about paper formalities.’… Jaffa, even more than Haifa, typifies Arab military weakness, unpreparedness and disunity. British military observers say the battle of Jaffa pitted 2,000 commando-trained Jews of Irgun Zvai Leumi against 250 Iraq volunteers. An internal Arab quarrel developed with Jaffa’s mayor demanding the removal of the Iraq commander. Fawzi Bey al Kaukji, Syrian chieftain of Arab volunteer forces outside Jaffa, ordered the commander to leave. He did, but his men went with him… The air center itself has been looted. Idling Tommies watched from the control tower, but the field, too, will be an easy prize for the Jews when the British march off next week.”
“HAGANA RIFLEMEN ESCORT NUNS IN JERUSALEM TRUCE—Hagana soldiers, armed with rifles, escorted a group of Catholic nuns on their way to visit St. Theresa’s Convent in the Katamon district of Jerusalem, May 4, during the 48-hour truce in the fighting between Arabs and Jews. Picture made by Associated Press Staff photographer James Pringle.” —AP Wirephoto.
An Associated Press correspondent standing in Jaffa on 8 May 1948, a week before the state was declared and before any Arab army entered. Ninety thousand to a few thousand in two weeks, written down at the time. The page disagrees with itself and is transcribed as it stands: the line under it says a hundred are left of ninety thousand, the first paragraph says fewer than a hundred are to be seen, and the eighth says the remaining inhabitants scarcely number two thousand. The subheadings are “Arab Looters Shot,” “Typifies Arab Weakness” and “Easy Prize for Jews.”
Important Arab Center Is Deserted, Sealed Off by Strong Jewish Forces
By Daniel De Luce, Associated Press Staff Writer, Jaffa
“JAFFA, May 8—Jaffa, largest Arab city in Palestine a few days ago, now is a forsaken hostage of the Jewish state. If it were not for British tanks and artillery—all due to leave next Saturday—a corporal’s guard of Jews could march through Jaffa today without firing a shot. Sandbagged Arab gunposts are deserted. Less than 100 Arab civilians can be counted in the streets. They are the hungry, impoverished remnants of a population which numbered 90,000 until two weeks ago. The Jews control the territory around Jaffa to a depth of 10 miles. No Arab vehicles can enter or leave the city without passing within close range of Jewish machine guns and mortars. A few score Arab refugees are boarding two small coastal sailing vessels in the ancient harbor, the last of an Arab exodus unequaled in the modern history of the Holy Land… Jaffa’s remaining inhabitants, who now scarcely exceed 2000, are near starvation. At the French Hospital on Jaffa Hill, Catholic sisters are caring for the sick, wounded and orphans. Nowhere else in the city is there any public relief for victims of the undeclared war… The airport, 11 miles southeast of Jaffa, is deserted. Arab shepherds graze their flocks along the runways. Except for Gaza in the south, the Arabs have no adequate Palestine port left. Off Tel Aviv 16 big ocean-going freighters are discharging thousands of tons of supplies for the Jewish state. Motoring across Arab populated Palestine from the Jordan river to Jaffa, I have seen no signs that the Arabs retain any military punch. Perhaps 150,000 Arab townsmen now are refugees, but the peasants cling to their land, regardless of their fear of Jewish arms.”
The same Daniel De Luce dispatch the Evening Star ran, here on a full page with a hand-drawn map of Palestine across the top and a Stromberg-Carlson radio-phonograph advertisement under it. The subheadings are “British Moved In” and “Full Warehouses.” This version ends on a sentence the Star’s did not carry: the peasants cling to their land, regardless of their fear.
Jaffa Plum for Jews as Soon As Britain’s Troops Pull Out
Largest Arab City in Palestine Now Completely Surrounded by Jewish Forces; Royal Irish Fusilier Guard Will Leave Saturday
By Daniel De Luce, Jaffa, Palestine
“JAFFA, Palestine, May 8.—(AP)—Jaffa, the largest Arab city in Palestine a few days ago, now is a forsaken hostage of the Jewish state. If it were not for British tanks and artillery—all due to leave next Saturday—a corporal’s guard of Jews could march through Jaffa today without firing a shot. Sandbagged Arab gunposts are deserted. Less than 100 Arab civilians are to be seen dazedly wandering in the streets. They are the hungry, impoverished remnants of a population which numbered 90,000 until two weeks ago… Six warehouses protected by the fusiliers are jammed with everything from Australian butter and English chocolate to American electric refrigerators and German symphonic records. Where looters have broken in cases of food lay spilled in insane waste, their contents trampled into the dirty pavement. Jaffa’s remaining inhabitants, who now scarcely exceed 2,000, are on the verge of starvation. At the French hospital on Jaffa hill Catholic sisters are caring for the sick, wounded and orphans. Nowhere else in the city is there any public relief for victims of the undeclared war. ‘The French nuns have been the only people with guts enough to stay and carry on,’ the fusiliers officer declared.”
“Arab boys admire tank—Two Arab youngsters question British soldiers about a 28-ton Cromwell tank, a road block in Jerusalem. The station is one of many set up by British to protect neutrals during Arab-Jewish warfare in the Holy Land.”
The fourth headline for the same dispatch, and the only one that calls a city of ninety thousand people a plum. The subheadings are “Great Arab Exodus,” “Riches in Warehouses” and “Pawn in Negotiations.”
Jews Expected To Take Over Jaffa When British Pull Out
By Daniel De Luce, Jaffa, Palestine
“Jaffa, Palestine, May 8 (AP)—Jaffa, the largest Arab city in Palestine a few days ago, now is a forsaken hostage of the Jewish state… Sandbagged Arab gunposts are deserted. Less than 100 Arab civilians are to be seen dazedly wandering in the streets. They are the hungry, impoverished remnants of a population which numbered 90,000 until two weeks ago… ‘The Jews will take over here in five minutes when we pull out,’ said a junior officer of the Fusiliers. ‘They will find goods worth a king’s ransom. Most of it was consigned to Jewish merchants in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem but never got delivered because of the Arab boycott.’… Jaffa’s remaining inhabitants, who now scarcely exceed 2,000, are on the verge of starvation… Under the United Nations partition plan of last November Jaffa was to be an Arab enclave in the Jewish state. Virtually deserted at present it is likely to become a vital pawn for Jewish diplomats in future peace negotiations with the Arab powers… Rumors that the Trans-Jordan Arab Legion would seize the field for an Egyptian air base appear to be fantastic… In the fields Arab peasants are threshing grain, tilling orchards and dozing beside flocks. Perhaps 150,000 Arab townsmen now are refugees, but the peasants cling to their land regardless of their fear of Jewish arms.”
The subheadings here are “Arab Exodus Near End,” “On Verge Of Starvation,” “Typifies Arab Disunity,” “Jews Biding Time,” “Lydda Airport Deserted” and “Peasants Cling To Land.” The headline turns the dispatch into a question of what the Jews will do next.
“Washington—The inability of the United Nations to solve the Palestine crisis—or even to make partial headway toward a solution of that aggravating and dangerous problem—is the great tragic fact that emerges as the British prepare to give up their mandate over the Holy Land at midnight Friday. But behind the failure of the UN to fulfill its role as the great peace keeping agency in the world are other more fundamental facts, which many may overlook in their haste to blame the UN and the very idea on which it is founded for its shortcomings… AS IT STANDS we have alienated just about everybody concerned in the Palestine question. The Jews resent American policy in failing to carry through with partition. The Arabs resent our ever having supported partition in the first place. The British resent our efforts to keep them saddled with the burden of the Palestine mandate.”
A syndicated Washington column, five days before the declaration, reckoning up who resents the United States and why. Printed under the comic strip Louie.
A caravan of trucks lines a street in Jaffa as residents of the Arab port city in Palestine pile their household goods aboard the vehicles during the evacuation of the city in the face of Jewish forces advancing from neighboring Tel Aviev. AP Wirephoto.
The picture and its caption are the whole item. Tel Aviev is the paper’s own spelling.
Military Censors Hampering News Coverage in Palestine
Associated Press, London
“London (AP)-Military censorship in some areas is hampering news coverage of the Arab-Jewish war for Palestine. An Associated Press survey shows censorship to be strictest in Syria and Lebanon, where all foreign correspondents’ dispatches must pass through the hands of censors. In Palestine Haganah, the Jewish defense force, censors all Jewish papers, paying most attention to reports of military operations but also watching for political developments. The only instances of Haganah censorship of foreign correspondents’ dispatches have been on stories the correspondents agreed to submit before starting on field or operational trips with Haganah forces. Associated Press correspondents have submitted several such stories and so far Haganah censors have made no changes or deletions. AP correspondents filing from Amman, chapital of Trans-Jordan, have been free to cable their stories without interference, but have been threatened repeatedly with expulsion if they write ‘unfavorably’ about the government. There is no censorship of stories cabled from Egypt, but films must be developed before being sent aboard. British censorship of the Palestine press, practiced to some degree since before World war II, ended April 30. It was stiffened considerably during the past year to protect British forces and to ban publication of Jewish-Arab news deemed likely to lead to violence.”
A news agency auditing the censorship around it, the day before the declaration. The spellings “chapital” and “aboard” are the paper’s.
“Thousands of Arabs fled there from Haifa, across a bay, when Haifa fell to Haganah a few weeks before Israel came into being last Friday midnight. Haganah claims to have reached Ras En Naqura on the frontier to the north by bypassing Acre. Haganah’s upper Galilee radio station, said a Haifa dispatch, announced last night that a striking force had gone seven miles into Lebanon and destroyed a strategic bridge over the Litany River at a cost of one man wounded. The army said the raid was in the Merj Uyun district.”
A subheading inside a war report, four weeks after Haifa. The sentence above it ends on the United Nations partition plan.
Report 500 Arabs Drowned When Jews Opened Power Dam And Flooded A Plain
Haganah Fighters Drove Into Acre, Arab Seaport North of Haifa
The Associated Press, Haifa
“HAIFA, Palestine, May 17 (AP)—A Jewish source said tonight that up to 500 Arab soldiers were drowned when the Jews opened a hydro-electric dam and flooded a plain south of the Sea of Galilee. The source said Arab troops with tanks and heavy equipment were trapped in a rush of swirling water unleashed from a dam near Deganya on the southern tip of the Biblical Sea. Some of the Arab tanks were mired in the muddy torrents… Haganah fighters drove into Acre today, the old Arab seaport city 12 miles north of Haifa. Their commander said an estimated 4,000 Arabs were penned in the ancient walled area… Acre is just outside of the territory of Israel as defined in United Nations partition plan.”
A banner headline carrying a figure attributed to one unnamed source on one side. The story says soldiers; the headline says Arabs.
Correction: {'note': 'The presentation captions this scan 18 May and the other on its slide 16 January. The datelines are the other way round, and both records follow the datelines.'}
“HISTORY often repeats itself and we are reminded at this time of the attitude of the nations of the world to the Ethiopian situation when Italy ravaged and raped that little sovereign country. The nations of the world were callous about the whole situation and Haile Selassie dramatically stood up in the League of Nations Conference and warned them that what was happening to Ethiopia would be attempted all over the world. It is not too inconceivable that this is another sign of things to come. Washington Dailies, please copy.”
One week after the state was declared, a Black weekly reaches for the precedent its readers knew best: Ethiopia in 1935, and Haile Selassie telling the League of Nations that what was done to his country would be attempted everywhere. It ends by instructing the white papers in the capital to reprint it.
“HAIFA, Palestine, April 25 (AP)—Covoys of British army trucks took hundreds of Arab refugees to the all-Arab town of Acre today. They cleared the port area of homeless persons who sought refuge there during the Jewish seizure of the main parts of Haifa. Throughout the day, Army landing craft and Arab small boats also moved back and forth across the bay from Haifa to Acre loaded with refugees and household belongings.”
Four sentences. The British army does the carrying, the word for what happened to Haifa is seizure, and the people are cleared from the port like an obstruction. “Covoys” is the paper’s.
Parched Throats, Hungry Bellies Mark Bathless City of Jerusalem
Ask Council For ‘Terms’ In Palestine · Vow to Continue Battle as Long as Israeli Exists
Associated Press, Lake Success
“We Won’t Stop Fighting—Arabs to UN. LAKE SUCCESS, May 26 (AP) —The Arabs rejected tonight a United Nations cease-fire order for Palestine. But they asked the Security Council to state promptly whether it could offer any acceptable terms for a political settlement that might stop their war with Jewish Israel in the Holy Land. The result tonight of long conferences here and at Arab League headquarters in Amman, Trans-Jordan, is that the fighting goes on and the Jews have declared unacceptable the conditions laid down by Arabs for a truce. Israel replied — through the Jewish Agency for Palestine — that the Arab answers were a flagrant rejection of the Council’s appeal. The Jews said if the Arab States want peace with Israel then can have it and if they want war they can have it. After hearing the Arabs and Jews, Warren R. Austin, United States, said the situation is so serious that it needs the careful consideration of the American government… The Arab countries individually said they could not stop fighting as long as Israel claimed existence as a nation. They demanded also that the UN ban imports of arms to the Jews and limit Jewish immigration in Palestine… Dr. Naji Al-Asil of Iraq read the Arab League reply to the Council. He said the arabs have no guarantee that the cease fire would stop Zionist violence.”
The front page runs four stories side by side: the Arab rejection at Lake Success, a United Press correspondent reaching besieged Jerusalem by telephone, trapped Israeli fighters at Latrun, and a Carbondale railroader killed under a freight car. The Palestine news shares the page with the Republican nomination and a Chrysler strike.
“AN ARAB SPOKESMAN sharply criticized U. S. press ‘freedom’ last week for unfairness in reporting Zionist-Arab controversy in Palestine. How true! Arabs have right, justice and common sense on their side, but the Zionists have great financial power, several million U. S. votes and unparalleled propaganda agencies on their side. Zionist arguments and actions have an uncomfortably familiar sound reminiscent of Der Fuehrer.”
A signed column in a Black weekly, agreeing with an Arab complaint about American press coverage. What it then says about financial power, votes and propaganda is an antisemitic trope, and the last sentence compares Zionists to Hitler. It is here because the Black press run in this archive is not a set of clippings chosen for being right.
Five words, in the same London paper that in January had headlined Why the Jews should have Palestine (CP-1948-002). Only the headline survives on this scan, so who they are and who is saying it are not on the page. What the page does show is that the sentence was printable in a mainstream British paper in June 1948, in that vocabulary, without quotation marks.
“CHICAGO—Thousands of Black Jews in Palestine live in complete democracy with white Jews from four of the world’s most racial bigoted nations, says author-journalist Roi Ottley in a July Negro Digest article describing the color problem in the Near East. ‘Jewish immigrants from Germany, United States, Union of South Africa and Britain are heavily represented in Palestine. Yet to publicity display racial or religious prejudice in the Holy Land is to have the public denounce one for bad taste, fascism, and bigotry.’ Black Jews enter Palestine mostly from Yemen, the Negro Digest feature says, and this greatly lowers the number of white Jewish immigrants that can enter from other countries. Despite this quota problem, however, Ottley continues, these Yemenites are welcomed by white Jews. ‘Black Jews in Palestine range from deepest black to very light brown,’ the author points out. ‘And they are today playing a very prominent part in raising the standards of the new state by their strict adherence to orthodox Hebrew religion.’”
A Black daily in Atlanta reporting on Palestine as a question of color, six weeks after the state was declared, and naming the four countries the white immigrants came from. The United States is on the list.
“The Israeli government has acted with commendable and reassuring firmness in preventing Irgun Zvai Leumi from landing a shipload of arms in the vicinity of Tel Aviv. Leaders of Irgun, an underground organization of Jewish terrorists which has broken with the government and caused a grave internal crisis leading to the resignation of two cabinet members, have threatened to retaliate in a way that conceivably could lead to civil war in the new state, but at the moment they seem to be checked. In effect, if the Israeli government had permitted the landing, it would have been guilty of violating its truce with the Arabs. As evidence of its good faith, however, it did not hesitate to send its troops against the Irgun force in a shooting engagement that has left several individuals dead on both sides… Every friend of the new Jewish state must hope that such a war will be avoided or that it can be brought to a speedy finish by the Israeli government, with the Irgunists, the Stern gang and other Jewish terrorists decisively and permanently shattered. The fact that these terrorists may have the power to stage a coup is one of the reasons why the United States has extended only provisional recognition to the Israeli regime. If that regime is overthrown, then our attitude toward the whole idea of a partitioned Palestine is likely to undergo a fundamental change… It is more than probable that the United States and other free countries would refuse to recognize that state if the extremists—suspected of pro-Soviet aims—should succeed in taking it over. Their ascendancy in Palestine could mean the end of all Zionist aspirations.”
An unsigned editorial, six weeks after the state was declared, using “Jewish terrorists” twice in its own voice, with no quotation marks and nobody to attribute it to. The paper is on the government’s side against them, and calls the government a regime.
“A dead village and a live one—Tantura and Fureidis, jostling each other, two miles apart. Tantura had to be taken by force. Fureidis peacefully surrendered and agreed to cooperate with the Jewish forces. Tantura, which formerly had a population of about 2,000, not a single Arab is left. Of its men, some fled, some were taken prisoners, while the women and children were evacuated by the Haganah to neighboring Arab villages… In the abandoned fields of Tantura we see Arabs and Jews working together under the supervision of the special government department for Arab property… By American standards—for that matter, by Jewish Palestine standards—this home is hardly fit for more than the donkey and the chickens that are part of the household… The mutcha (village chairman), a portly man named Ismael Abd el Halim Baree, greets us… The mutcha makes only one request: that a doctor be sent to look after the sick. By now I know better than to ask the question I put to the mukhtar of another Arab village: whether his people would be content to live in the Jewish state. No doubt I would have received the same reply: ‘If I answer your question I may not live.’”
Mutcha is the paper’s own spelling of mukhtar and is kept as printed.
Israeli Troops Close in on Lydda, Er Ramle After Capturing Airport · TRUCE HOPES FADE · Arab States Reject UN Proposal for New 10-Day Armistice
Three American papers carried Lydda and Er Ramle across 11 and 12 July 1948. This is the only one of the three whose main headline has the people in it, and it has them at one remove: they are reported fleeing. The Morning News the next day made the town the object of a capture (CP-1948-040); so did the Telegraph-Journal (CP-1948-039). The two towns held tens of thousands of people between them. In two of the three headlines nobody lives there.
By Robert Hewett, Associated Press, Tel Aviv, Israel
“TEL AVIV, ISRAEL—(AP)—It’s only a 25-minute taxi ride from the sunny, quiet streets of Tel Aviv to the hot, dusty battlefield of Lydda airport. But even if you can take a taxi to the front, it is a real war which has broken out again in the Holy Land. That is what a group of correspondents found out Saturday noon when they rode out to look over the big airbase seized from the Arabs yesterday by Jewish troops. We never got quite into Lydda airport. Instead, we were caught in an Arab counterattack on Wilhelma, tiny German-founded settlement a short way across the fields from the airport. ‘Just like Saipan,’ commented Keith Wheeler, Chicago Sun-Times correspondent who covered wartime landings in the Pacific. We snuggled a little deeper in a hole beside a stone well as Arab mortar shells whammed into the village and machine gun bullets crackled overhead. Tough young Jewish soldiers wearing American army-type battle dress fired back at Arab positions on a nearby hill. In the pre-dawn darkness the Jews had blasted holes through booby-trapped barbed wire emplacements around Wilhelma. By 6 a.m., a sturdy Jewish company commander reported, one company of the Arab legion’s crack troops and 200 Arab irregulars had been driven out in house-to-house fighting… ‘The Arabs will never make us give up Lydda now that we have it,’ a Jewish escorting officer said grimly. In just 25 minutes we were back in Tel Aviv. Sabbath promenaders walked the streets unmindful of the fight only 15 miles away. The fifth air raid alert of the day sounded shortly afterward, but nobody got excited. The people in Tel Aviv seem more worried these days about inflation prices than the few bombs dropped by the Egyptians.”
The same week as Lydda, and the story is that the correspondents went out in a taxi and got shot at. Twenty-five minutes each way. The subheadings are “Caught In Attack” and “We’ll Hold Lydda.” Beside it, an Associated Press item headed “Christian Buildings Hit by Jewish Mortars,” in which an Armenian woman is killed at the convent of Saint James.
Take Lydda After Arab Surrender; Jerusalem Is Bombed
The shortest of the three Lydda headlines and the only one with no noun for the inhabitants at all. An army takes a town after a surrender; the surrender is the Arabs’, and that is the only place they appear. Compare CP-1948-038 and CP-1948-040 from the same two days.
Fall of Twin Village Of Er Ramle Would Open Way for Push on Last Barrier to Holy City
Lydda is a town when it is captured and Er Ramle is a village when it falls, and the reason either matters is the road to Jerusalem. Printed the same day as the Telegraph-Journal (CP-1948-039) and a day after the Bridgeport Telegram (CP-1948-038), which was the only one of the three to put the people in the headline.
Lydda, With Airport, and Er Ramle Surrender; Thousands of Arabs Taken Captive in Dramatic Victory
By Kenneth Bilby, Special to the Post-Gazette and the New York Herald Tribune, Lydda, Palestine
“LYDDA, Palestine, July 12—The army of Israel concluded its greatest offensive Monday with the conquest of Lydda and Er Ramle, the seizure of thousands of Arab prisoners and the subjection of nearly 200 square miles of Arab-held territory. In this district capital, where sporadic sniping still continues, from 3,000 to 4,000 Arab men of fighting age are in captivity at the city’s central mosque. Three miles south, in front of Er Ramle’s central police station, another 1,500 are jammed into barbed-wire enclosures. Abandoned at midnight Sunday by its Arab Legion garrison, Er Ramle ended resistance Monday morning when the municipal authorities formally surrendered the town to Palmach assault troops who had penetrated its outskirts. Large quantities of ammunition, in addition to heavy guns, airplane engines and armored vehicles fell into Jewish hands. When the battle seemed nearly over, 100 mixed Arab troops, whom Jews said were commanded by British officers, barricaded themselves in Lydda’s fortress-like central police station. The city’s mayor, Mohammed Ali Khiarly, was killed when he walked to the station’s entrance and pleaded with the Arabs to surrender.”
The non-Associated Press account of Lydda and Ramle, filed from Lydda the day it happened. Where the AP wrote that refugees reached the Judean Hills, this one writes conquest, seizure, subjection and captivity, counts the men held in the mosque and behind the wire, and names the mayor of Lydda and how he died. It runs beside a murder in Hazelwood.
Jews Claim Victories In North, South and Middle Palestine
Relief of Water Shortage In Jerusalem Promised By Capture of Town
By the Associated Press, Cairo
“CAIRO, July 14.—The Jews announced military successes today in North, South and Middle Palestine. They claimed to have captured Shafa ’Amr, 12 miles east of the major port of Haifa. It was the nearest base of Fawzi Bey al Kaukji, who leads Arab volunteer forces, to Haifa… In the center the capture of Ras el Ein, 9 miles northeast of Tel Aviv, promised to ease the water shortage to the 100,000 besieged Jews in Jerusalem. The town is the terminus of the Jerusalem pipeline. The Jews also have taken Suba, 5 miles west of Jerusalem, on the Tel Aviv road… A decisive battle appeared to be shaping up around Latrun, which the Trans-Jordan Legion held against increasing Jewish artillery fire. The Jews are pressing an offensive from the coastal plain in an effort to open the road to Jerusalem, now blocked by Arab positions at Latrun. Capture of Suba, however, opened a by-pass route. Some 10,000 more Arab refugees reached the Judean Hills from Er Ramle and Lydda. Observers said 250,000 Palestine Arabs have been made homeless since the fighting started… To the south other Jewish forces stamped out the last resistance in Lydda by capturing the police station, where a handful of Arabs had held out after the rest of the town surrendered. It was in the Lydda area that the Jews were applying pressure from the West against Arab Legion forces blocking the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway at Latrun.”
Lydda and Ramle, in Associated Press copy, the day it happened. Ten thousand refugees “reached” the Judean Hills, as though they had walked there of their own accord, and two hundred and fifty thousand “have been made homeless” by no one the sentence names. The town is reported as having surrendered. Neither sentence has an agent in it. The subheadings are “Commando Attack Made,” “Pumps Not Damaged” and “Extremist Offices Bombed.”
LATEST CABLE - From our special correspondent in Palestine, Major E. Laserson
Major E. Laserson, special correspondent in Palestine, Tel Aviv
“TEL AVIV, July 15.—Israeli successes in the Lydda and Ramleh areas are influencing Arab morale considerably. Palestinian Arabs, both in Palestine and abroad, are completely downhearted, and Count Bernadotte’s plebiscite—if carried out—might produce most surprising results among Palestinian Arabs.”
The whole cable is two sentences. Palestinian Arabs appear twice in them, once as a morale problem and once as a likely vote.
Bernadotte Would Permit Arab Refugees To Return To Homes In Jewish-Held Areas
Recommendation to U. N. Security Council
By Daniel De Luce, The Associated Press, Amman, Trans-Jordan
“AMMAN, Trans-Jordan, Aug. 1—(AP)—Count Folke Bernadotte said tonight he had recommended to the United Nations Security Council that Arab refugees be permitted freely to return to their homes in Jewish-held areas of Palestine during the present truce regardless of Jewish objections… The mediator’s staff estimates there are more than 300,000 homeless Arabs who fled the Holy Land during the fighting there. Bernadotte said: ‘We will not waste one hour in starting detailed plans for their relief.’ The number of Jewish refugees, he explained, is not large. If the Security Council does not compel the Jews to accept the Arab repatriation, he said, international relief organizations are expected to extend aid to countries where the Arab refugees now are sheltered.… Seeks Solution. “Describing the problems of Arab refugees and Jerusalem as ‘those nearest my heart,’ he said his current tour of Arab and Jewish capitals would chiefly be devoted to attempts at solution of the two.”… “Bernadotte said, ‘but I have told the Security Council that from a humanitarian point of view, and despite the enormous difficulties, there should be no conditions on the return of these poor people to their homes.’”… “‘Jerusalem’s demilitarization cannot be effected without an international police force and to build up such a force might take as long as two months,’ Bernadotte said.”… “Bernadotte’s staff meanwhile expressed concern at failure to obtain a full corps of truce observers. Only 127 have arrived from the United States, France and Belgium of the 300 requested by the mediator.”… “King Abdullah will grant an audience to Bernadotte tomorrow before the mediator leaves for Jerusalem.”
Six weeks before Bernadotte was assassinated in Jerusalem. He puts the return of refugees to the Security Council as a humanitarian question with no conditions attached, and says so while standing in Amman.
“The world, it seems, does not learn from past mistakes. When Hitler came to power and publicly declared his determination to liquidate Jewry, his announcement was met with ominous silence by the statesmen of the world. Germany was a great power and whose business was it to interfere in the internal affairs of that country? National sovereignty was a sacred cow whose sanctity must not be defiled even by a whisper. It was only after the democracies felt the touch of Hitler’s sword that their statesmen awakened to the dangers implicit in Nazi thinking. It was only then that our propaganda apparatus was focused on the threat Nazi ideology held to world civilization. Only a few years have passed since the defeat of Germany, and our democracies again are displaying that complacency which made the rise of nazidom and Hitlerism possible. And again the core of the trouble is the so-called ‘non-interference-in-foreign-affairs’ principle. A case in point is what is happening to the Jews in the Moslem countries. Ever since the Arab League declared war against Israel in defiance of a United Nations decision, the Jews in those countries have been subjected to pogroms, horrors, blackmail, threats of extermination and confiscation of property in the good old Nazi style. Only this week it was reported that several rulers of the Arab countries are planning to confiscate Jewish property as indemnity for Arab losses in the war, throw Jews into camps and give their homes to Arab war exiles from Israel. The fact that those Jews, as citizens, are entitled to equal protection of the laws is conveniently dismissed, since the action is based on the Nazi concept that Jews have no rights. We have learned much about the horrible word ‘genocide’ during the U. N. debate on that subject. But what is happening to the Jews in the Arab states today is ‘genocide,’ albeit on a smaller scale than in Germany. And again the so-called moral forces in the world are tied by the convenient concept of non-interference in the internal affairs of sovereign states. The situation of the Jews in the Arab countries is a precarious one, a dangerous one. They are faced with physical and economic starvation. They can be saved only if the United Nations acts its role as the moral conscience of the world.”
The earliest use of the word in this archive, in 1948, and it is used of Jews in Arab countries — written while the U.N. debate on the Genocide Convention was still going on, and citing that debate.
“TEL AVIV, Aug. 6—Arab radio broadcasts flatly rejected tonight Israel’s bid for a peace conference on the Holy Land. The situation in Jerusalem — where sniping and sporadic shelling have continued since the new truce began—appeared more grave and UN truce observers rushed to the scene. In the first Arab reaction to the peace talks proposal made yesterday by Israel Foreign Minister Moshe Shertok, the Beirut radio declared: ‘We don’t recognize the existence of the Jewish state. We will not speak with terrorists. We decided in 1936 not to sit at a conference with Jews and there is no reason for a change today.’ The Arab radio at Ramallah, 10 miles north of Jerusalem, also lashed out violently at the Jews in a broadcast turning down the peace bid. King Abdullah of Trans-Jordan, in commenting on the Jewish peace proposal, indicated that the refugee problem must be settled first before any possible negotiations could be undertaken. The problem of an estimated 300,000 refugees who fled from Jewish-held areas during the Palestine fighting continues to complicate peace negotiation efforts of Count Folke Bernadotte. Shertok had agreed to consider the return of hardship Arab refugee cases but refused to consider the return of the full 300,000 until proposed peace talks are completed.”
Both refusals in one column: the Arab radio will not sit down, and Israel will not take the refugees back until after talks. The subheads over the two paragraphs read “Refugee Problem Urgent” and “Situation Tense.” It runs beside a story headed “Blind Fisherman Sits Helpless As His Bride Drowns.”
“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.)
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.
· The Philadelphia Inquirer · Philadelphia · page 1
Israel Plans to Claim Entire Palestine Area
Maurice F. X. Donohue, Inquirer Foreign Correspondent, Tel Aviv
“TEL AVIV, Israel, Sept. 7.—In response to Arab ‘intransigeance’ the Jews will ‘revert to their original position and claim all of Palestine,’ while at the same time the Government here bars ‘any mass return’ of 400,000 Arab refugees from Israel, Foreign Minister Moshe Shertok said today… Britain Is Obstacle. The major obstacle to any real peace settlement remains Great Britain, which ‘still thinks it can bring us to our knees by the truce, the growing vexation of international control and the limits imposed on our sovereignty.’… The Jews believe they can hold western Galilee and their other war gains, and hope to persuade the world to internationalize only the Arab-held walled square mile of the Old City of Jerusalem, while Israel absorbs the Jewish-held new city… A forthright declaration on the delicate question of Arab DPs came in response to my comment on the systematic destruction I’ve seen of Arab villages and houses, the commandeering of dwelling quarters in Arab cities and the destruction of Arab household goods. Shertok said: ‘The Government does not expect a mass return of the refugees. In the long run they will be happier with their own people, and our relations with the Arab States will be on a sounder basis if there is not this irritant of a very large minority—which we were, however, prepared to accept before this exodus, which did not come on Jewish initiative.’ ‘Points of Friction’ ‘However fair and generous we would have been with the Arab minority, there would always have been complaints—any minority always complains—and thus cause for repeated interventions from outside Israel. The answer is to remove these points of friction.’”
The sentence about systematic destruction is the correspondent’s, not the minister’s: he is describing what he had seen and the question he put. The answer follows it. Both halves are on the page and both are here.
Israel Faces Problem Of Arab ‘Refugees’ Who Stayed At Home
By the Associated Press, Haifa
“HAIFA, Israel, Sept. 11.—The problem of tens of thousands of Arabs who never left home is becoming nearly as grave in the Middle East as that of the nearly half million who did. The displaced Arabs, scattered through neighboring countries as a result of fleeing from the Palestine war, have become an international issue. But throughout Northern Palestine—inscide Israel and out—Jewish authorities are having to cope with Arab ‘refugees’ who stayed put as Isareli armies swept over them. War smashed their economy. Jewish occupation made them virtual prisoners. The flight of some split families. The Israeli military government is ruling the remaining Arabs with a lenient hand, but a watchful eye. Those without money are fed. Those who want work are employed. In Acre 4,000 Arabs remain of the town’s 16,000. Only a few hundred have jobs. The rest idle beneath historic battlements from which flutter Israeli flags. The port of Haifa, once one of the Middle East’s busiest harbors, echoes daily with the rumbling of dynamite in a Jewish slum clearance program. Arab quarters are being leveled. Undoubtedly Haifa will be improved by removal of the shantytown, but another result of the dynamiting is the removal of homes to which displaced Arabs could return. About 4,000 of Haifa’s 40,000 Arabs remain. They walk about freely. Few have reopened their shops. They show no animosity toward their Jewish conquerors. There is work for all of them in Haifa and they buy their food as Haifa Jews do. Life is normal for these Arabs except for absence of their compatriots, the fact they can’t leave Haifa and the methodical destruction of that part of the city they once built and held. Nazareth, sacred to Christendom as the home of Jesus, appears normal. There was no mass flight there. Israeli officers have erected signs over all church doors saying in Hebrew: ‘Holy place. Do not enter.’ Two or three souvenir shops have reopened in Nazareth. The main coffee shop serves Jewish beer and Arab food. But between Haifa and Nazareth there are dozens of villages deserted and in ruins. Homes of those half—”
The Palestinians who stayed, four months in. Military rule, in newspaper voice, in September 1948: Jewish occupation made them virtual prisoners. The demolition of the Arab quarters of Haifa is described as slum clearance and then explained — it removes the homes displaced Arabs could return to. The sentence beginning “Life is normal for these Arabs except for” takes the whole claim back in one line. “inscide” and “Isareli” are the paper’s. The subheadings are “Workers Are Given Jobs” and “Nazareth Appears Normal.”
· Wilkes-Barre Times Leader · Wilkes-Barre · page 1
Jerusalem Guns Silent
Bodies Of Bernadotte And Serrot Go To France
The Associated Press, Jerusalem
“Jerusalem, Sept. 18 — (AP) — Guns fell silent in Jerusalem this morning as Count Folke Bernadotte, United Nations Palestine mediator, achieved fleetingly in death the Holy Land peace he cherished during life. A couple of rifle shots broke an unusual calm and contrasted with the bombardment which rocked Jerusalem last night. The stunned quiet was marred only by a report from the Arabs that the Jews had moved back into the Arab college in the area of former government house. The college is in the Red Cross zone from which both sides were forced to evacuate at Bernadotte’s insistence… Dr. Ralph J. Bunche, chief of the United Nations Palestine Secretariat, officially described the attack on Bernadotte’s automobile as a ‘planned and cold-blooded assassination.’ Bunche was notified today by U. S. Consul General John J. MacDonald, chairman of the Palestine Truce Board of appointment, that Arkady A. Sobolev, acting secretary-general of the U. N. at Lake Success, had designated Bunche acting Palestine mediator. The acting mediator said the seat in which Bernadotte and Col. Serrot were sitting contained 10 certain and two possible bullet perforations.”
A United Nations mediator shot dead in his car in Jerusalem, and this printing names nobody as having done it. The killing is a planned and cold-blooded assassination in the acting mediator’s words, the bullet holes are counted, and the agent is absent. The archive holds the same paper-voice question in dozens of later headlines about Palestinian deaths; this one is useful because the victim was a Swedish count.
Bernadotte Report Asks U. N. Halt Palestine War, Rule Jerusalem; Arab League Starts Own Regime
Mediator Also Urges Changes In Partition Plan
By the Associated Press, Paris
“PARIS, Sept. 20.—A posthumous report by the murdered Count Folke Bernadotte declares the United Nations should step in to end the Palestine war if the Arabs and Jews fail to make peace. The mediator wrote that ‘Israel exists in Palestine,’ and the future of Arab Palestine should be left to the Arab states, ‘in full consultation with the Arab inhabitants’ of the Holy Land. His 35,000-word report was distributed to the 58 U. N. member states as his body and that of French Lt. Col. Andre Pierre Serot were being flown home… All of Galilee should be ‘defined as Jewish territory,’ he added. The partition plan gave Western Galilee to Arab Palestine, but it is now under control of the Israeli Army. While Count Bernadotte left the disposition of Arab Palestine to the Arab States, he recommended that ‘in view of the historical connection and common interests of Trans-Jordan and Palestine, there would be compelling reasons for merging’ Arab Palestine and neighboring Trans-Jordan. Count Bernadotte’s report also recommended: The Jewish port of Haifa, including oil refineries and terminals, should be declared a free port. The airport at Lydda should be declared a free airport. The right of 360,000 Arab refugees to return to their homes in Jewish-controlled territory, or payment of compensation by Israel to those ‘choosing not to return.’ The United Nations should provide special assurance that Jewish-Arab boundaries are ‘respected and maintained.’ The political, economic, social and religious rights of all Arabs in Jewish territory and all Jews in Arab territory of Palestine ‘should be fully guaranteed and respected by the authorities.’”
Return or compensation, on an American front page, three days after the man who wrote it was shot in Jerusalem. The number in the report is 360,000. The same front page carries the Arab League announcing its own government for Palestine over the protests of Trans-Jordan and Iraq, with King Abdullah’s reply printed beside it: creation of such a government is “an arbitrary act without the consent of the Palestinian people, a thing I will not agree to and will oppose.”
U. S. Negro Ignores Threats In Palestine Mediator Role
The Associated Press, Haifa, Palestine
“Haifa, Palestine, Sept. 26 (AP)—An American Negro professor is calmly keeping the lid on the Palestine truce in spite of warnings from Jewish terrorists that he is the next man marked for death. Dr. Ralph Johnson Bunche, acting United Nations mediator since Count Folke Bernadotte’s assassination nine days ago, is hard to scare. ‘IT WAS the count’s policy not to request personal protection but to leave it to the responsibility of the Jews and Arabs to determine what protection was necessary,’ the former Howard university political science professor said today. ‘That’s still our policy. Last Wednesday when I went to Jerusalem it seemed as if half of Haganah had turned out to guard me. I never felt so safe! But I hadn’t asked it.’… The new mediator has been told how Sternists told Americans in Tel Aviv a few hours after the cold-blooded murder of Bernadotte—‘We are ready to do away with any man who succeeds him.’… Probably no other Negro ever held such an important international post. His word is an order for 300 white officers, including generals assembled from the armed forces of the United States, France and Belgium.”
The race of the man is the headline, and the paper counts the white officers under his command.
Palestinian Arabs Ready to Live With Jewish “Cousins”
A Rabbi’s Report
Rabbi Aaron Decter
“While there is war between Arab League invaders of Palestine and Israel, the Israeli Government and Jewish leaders have always claimed that the Arab and Jewish communities of Palestine are not mutually exclusive, and that Palestinian Arabs are satisfied to live side by side with their Jewish neighbors as they did in pre-invasion days. What is the answer to this contention? What is the relation of Arabs in Palestine to their Israeli cousins? There are some Arabs in Israel who have volunteered to fight together with the Israeli Army. The Arab tribe led by Abu Yussef in upper Galilee near Rosh Pina is an interesting example of this group. I interviewed some of them. One said that they were fighting with the Israelis because Allah was with them. Another espoused the Israeli cause because it was just. To have remained neutral would have earned them the security of their homes. Their act was one of unusual sensitivity to elemental justice… Nazareth is the great Arab refugee center in the north of Israel. Before the war, Nazareth was a predominantly Christian Arab city of 14,000. Today its population has swollen to 35,000 — predominantly Arab. Nazareth was to have been included in Arab Palestine according to the Partition Plan of November, 1947. It is one city where the inhabitants did not fight, nor did they run away. Because of their Christian orientation they refused to fight. Because of their faith in the democratic forces in Israel they refused to be coerced by Arab League leadership into an exodus that would turn them into refugees. So, they remained in Nazareth, and made peace with the Israelis. Soon they welcomed thousands of other Arabs who had left their homes. Nazareth is a model ‘occupation’ city because the Israeli Army has not acted like an ‘occupation’ army. If any criticism is to be made of Elisha Sulz, the military governor, it is that he has been too easy on the Arabs. He treats them as citizens. Arabs in Nazareth have adequate food and housing. They have postal connections with the outside world. They have Red Cross contacts, and they have freedom and opportunities to approach the UNO representatives… leaders of the National Liberation League, the League for a Free Palestine and the Arab Workers’ Trade Congress in a long and earnest interview. Among them, Walil Beep and Shafik Peshara gave me an interesting program for long-range Arab-Jewish cooperation as well as the immediate problems of unemployment and overcrowding. They said that the Arabs of Nazareth did not fight the Israelis because they believed in democracy. They, therefore, expected different treatment than other Arabs. Of other Palestinian Arabs they asked that they put away their arms, and that they place Arab refugees in homes belonging to anti-Jewish leaders who were fighting in the hills. During the occupation of Nazareth by Arab ‘irregulars’ these progressives were imprisoned. Freed by the Israelis, they have undertaken the task of establishing gainful occupations among all the Arabs now in Nazareth. They believe that there is no difference between Jewish and Arab masses. They believe that economic unity between Israel and a democratically constituted Palestine-Arab state is the beginning of real political unity and entity… I asked them how there could be unity between a progressive, advanced Israeli economy and a backward Arab economy. They answered, ‘A government that is democratic will strain its efforts to solve this problem.’ And they had great faith in the democratic forces in the Jewish society of Israel. At the same time they were quite keen about the reactionary forces such as the Irgun. Long ago these Arabs had fought Jamal Husseini. They would continue to fight him for the liberation of the Palestinian Arabs. I smiled inwardly as I left them. Here was another group of ivory tower liberals who had beautiful visions and ideals. But I was wrong. They do represent the masses of Arabs. U.N. headquarters in Haifa announced that these demonstrations for peace are ‘Communist-inspired.’ Since when is it a crime to be vitally interested in peace? Incidentally, isn’t that supposed to be the function of the U.N. mission in Palestine? What about those Arabs who fought against Israel, or joined the mass exodus of Palestinian Arabs? It should be known at the outset that the Israeli Government begged the Arabs to remain in Haifa, Jaffa and a host of other communities. They fled under pressure from the Arab League and Arab military authorities. Thus, the Arab League forced the Arabs to evacuate Palestine. Having created the Arab ‘refugee’ problem, they now present it as an international issue. What the Middle Eastern Arab countries have failed to publicize is that they have settled Palestinian Arab ‘refugees’ in the homes of their respective Jewish subjects, and have herded the latter into concentration camps. What about the Arabs who are slowly returning to their homes after screening? Beni Naier, an old Boy Scout leader, the adjutant of the occupation forces at Ramle, told me that the aim of the Israeli army is ‘to inspire the feeling that Jews want the Arabs to be integrated in the life of the country.’”
An American rabbi reporting from Israel in 1948, interviewing Palestinian Arabs who stayed and naming them. He argues the Arab League forced the exodus, and in the same column records Nazareth’s people refusing to leave and refusing to fight. The Palestinian trade unionists he meets are quoted at length on a shared Arab-Jewish economy.
Palestinian Arabs Ready to Live With Jewish “Cousins”
A Rabbi’s Report
Rabbi Aaron Decter
“While there is war between Arab League invaders of Palestine and Israel, the Israeli Government and Jewish leaders have always claimed that the Arab and Jewish communities of Palestine are not mutually exclusive, and that Palestinian Arabs are satisfied to live side by side with their Jewish neighbors as they did in pre-invasion days. What is the answer to this contention? What is the relation of Arabs in Palestine to their Israeli cousins? There are some Arabs in Israel who have volunteered to fight together with the Israeli Army… That sensitivity is not shared by those Arabs who have returned to their homes in Jaffa, Haifa, scattered Arab villages throughout the land and the villages concentrated around Nazareth. In Nazareth, however, there is some feeling for justice, but it is more sophisticated… Nazareth was to have been included in Arab Palestine according to the Partition Plan of November, 1947. It is one city where the inhabitants did not fight, nor did they run away. Because of their Christian orientation they refused to fight. Because of their faith in the democratic forces in Israel, they refused to be coerced by Arab League leadership into an exodus that would turn them into ‘refugees.’ So, they remained in Nazareth, and made peace with the Israelis… Nazareth is a model ‘occupation’ city because the Israeli Army has not acted like an ‘occupation’ army. If any criticism is to be made of Elisha Sulz, the military governor, it is that he has been too easy on the Arabs. He treats them as citizens. Arabs in Nazareth have adequate food and housing. They have postal connections with the outside world. They have Red Cross contacts, and they have freedom and opportunities to approach the UNO representatives… I met the leaders of the National Liberation League, the League for a Free Palestine and the Arab Workers’ Trade Congress in a long and earnest interview. Among them, Halil Beep and Shafik Peshara gave me an interesting program for long-range Arab-Jewish cooperation as well as the immediate problems of unemployment and overcrowding. They said that the Arabs of Nazareth did not fight the Israelis because they believed in democracy. They, therefore, expected different treatment than other Arabs. Of other Palestinian Arabs they asked that they put away their arms, and that they place Arab refugees in homes belonging to anti-Jewish leaders who were fighting in the hills.”
A rabbi reporting from Israel, in a Boston paper, stating that the Arab League forced the evacuation. The same piece records Palestinians who stayed, and names the Arab organizations he sat down with. The heading over it is “A Rabbi’s Report.”
“Lebanon and Syria published announcements today that they have recognized the Palestine Arab government set up at Gaza, Palestine.”
Two sovereign states extended diplomatic recognition to a Palestinian government. The headline makes both halves of the sentence the same word, so the act becomes a tautology. The forty words underneath are accurate and complete.
“Lebanon and Syria published announcements today that they have recognized the Palestine Arab government set up at Gaza, Palestine.”
The same forty words as the Sarasota printing. The copy says two states recognized a government; the headline says they back a regime. This scan was labelled 4 October; the dateline reads Oct. 14.
“TEL AVIV, Israel, Oct. 19. (AP) — Israeli air force bombing of Gaza roared into its fourth straight day today and the Arab civilian population was reported in flight from the capital of the Arab-proclaimed Palestine state. United Nations observers already have left the port city. How nearly deserted it was could not be learned, but its use as a seat of the Arab government seemed to have been abandoned for the time being. Egyptian forces have occupied it. The Israeli army announced it had shot down two Egyptian Spitfires in southern Palestine today. One plane fell when struck by the fire of anti-aircraft guns aboard a Jewish patrol ship it was attacking, the communique said. The second was reported downed over the Negev front lines. Israeli military authorities here said it is not their intention to capture Gaza during the present Jewish-Egyptian battle for the Negev desert in southern Palestine. The Israelis, who have rejected the latest United Nations proposals for a cease fire in the Negev fighting, have blasted open a…”
Gaza as the seat of a government: the paper calls it the capital of the Arab-proclaimed Palestine state, and reports the civilians leaving it. The story continues on another page that is not in this clipping.
Gaza Bombed For Fourth Day, Civilians Fleeing Arab Capital
Associated Press, Tel Aviv
“TEL AVIV, Israel, (AP) — Israeli air force bombing of Gaza roared into its fourth straight day today and the Arab civilian population was reported in flight from the capital of the Arab-proclaimed Palestine state. United Nations observers already have left the port city. How nearly deserted it was could not be learned, but its use as a seat of the Arab Government seemed to have been abandoned for the time being. Egyptian forces have occupied it. The Israeli Army announced it had shot down two Egyptian Spitfires in Southern Palestine today. One plane fell into the sea in Israeli waters when struck by the fire of anti-aircraft guns aboard a Jewish patrol ship it was attacking, the communique said. The second was reported downed by an Israeli plane in a dogfight over the Negeb front lines. Israeli military authorities here said it is not their intention to capture Gaza during the present Jewish-Egyptian battle for the Negeb desert in southern Palestine. The Israelis, who have rejected the latest United Nations proposals for a cease fire in the Negeb fighting, have blasted open a supply road to 23 Jewish settlements in the Negeb through infantry and armor attacks with air support. Jewish planes, striking again by full moon, raided El Arish airfield, Beersheba, Biet Jibrin, Majdal and Faluja last night. The Egyptian Air Force, hitting back for the first time in the present truce-breaking battle, was reported to have bombed the Jewish settlements of Nir Am and Dorot.”
The same Associated Press dispatch as the Havre Daily News of the same day, run here under a headline that names the flight of the civilians. Directly below it, a story about two women and a houseman holding a door shut against a prowler.
“Gaza, bombed last week by the Israeli Air Force during Palestine fighting, is a grubby, gray town of 40 thousand Arabs. It has had a bloody history of war from Genesis to the present day. Mentioned in Genesis (10:19) as the southernmost city of the Canaanite Kingdom, Gaza was biblically noted as the place where Samson was blinded and imprisoned. It was sacked and rebuilt innumerable times. Alexander the Great besieged it. Genghis Khan and Napolean played roles in its history. The British stormed it in early November, 1917. Gaza became world renowned two thousand years ago by its production of light cloth of peculiar quality. This ‘Gaza cloth’ went into the English language as gauze.”
A boxed explainer beside a political advertisement. Forty thousand Arabs, a grubby gray town, and the etymology of gauze. “Napolean” is the paper’s.
“On genocide, Palestine, and the basic issue of colonies, the American position has been, to date, unfortunately weak and vacillating.”
The secretary of the NAACP, back from five weeks as a consultant to the United States delegation in Paris, filing Palestine in a list with genocide and colonies. A Black newspaper in Alabama, October 1948. Dorothy Thompson would cite him fifteen months later as a friendly witness on the cost of criticism.
Bunche Says Palestine War Threatens Peace Of World
Lucille Selz, National Negro Press Association, Paris
“PARIS (NNPA) — Dr. Ralph J. Bunche, UN acting Palestine Mediator, has warned the UN General Assembly that if the ‘precarious truce’ got out of hand it would mean a threat to peace in the Middle East and the world, it was learned last Wednesday. War may break out again in the Holy Land unless the United Nations can force upon Jews and Arabs better cooperation with the UN truce supervision, Dr. Bunche declared to the Security Council, Thursday, October 14. He told the fifty-eight nation Assembly’s Political Committee, where the Palestine issue is being reexamined, that it was ‘indispensable’ for ‘it to take a firm stand towards its solution.’ He said the ‘time is ripe’ for a settlement. He said that the General Assembly’s decision of last November 29 in regard to the ‘special position of Jews’ in Palestine could not be ignored. For himself he said he was ‘rigidly bound’ by that resolution. He stated that the General Assembly should set forth its position on the following political factors: Permanent peace in Palestine, the Jewish State, the boundaries of such a state, Jerusalem, international guarantee for boundaries, Arabs and Palestinian guarantees for the rights of all Palestinians, repatriation and resettlement of Arab refugees, and the machinery of UN intervention in the problem of Palestine. Dr. Bunche spoke at some length of how the late mediator Count Folke Bernadotte pursued his task with impartiality in Palestine and did not favor one view or the other. The mediator was not influenced by either Jewish claims to a historic right to Palestine or, on the other hand, by decisions previously taken by the international community in regard to Arab claims.”
A Black American newspaper covering Palestine through the Black American mediator at the United Nations, beside its own front-page stories on the NAACP, Jim Crow and segregated schools in Oklahoma.
· The Hebrew Standard of Australasia · Sydney · page 1
New Israeli Success in Galilee
Lebanese Forces Crushed
Major E. Laserson
“TEL AVIV, November 2.—The Negev and Galilee victories have put Egypt, Syria and the Lebanon out of the fight for a long period. The Hashemite bloc, comprising Transjordan and Iraq, is now the only remaining Arab military force capable of seriously opposing Israel.”
A Sydney paper’s own correspondent in Israel, six months after the declaration, writing the war as a balance sheet of states. Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Transjordan, Iraq. Palestinians are not one of the parties, and the Galilee, where the victory is, has no inhabitants in this sentence.
“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.’”
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.
“For no other word than ‘disaster’ can better describe the desperate plight of a swarming mass of refugees—nearly half a million men, women and children—who fled from their former homes in Palestine… Most of the refugees are poverty-stricken Fellaheen and Bedouins dislodged by the hazards and strategy of the armed conflict between Arabs and Jews in Palestine. Their exodus resulted from panic created by fighting in their communities, and by rumors concerning alleged acts of terrorism or expulsion… The Israeli Government refused to re-admit the Arab refugees to the territory under its control because of ‘overriding immediate security considerations.’ It believed that the return during the truce of thousands of displaced Arabs to the state of Israel, which is still surrounded by hostile armies, would gravely prejudice its position… An early settlement is a matter of life and death to both peoples most immediately concerned, the Israelis and the Palestinian Arabs.… “In Arab Palestine the refugees were without the care or protection of any recognized government, and the existing local and community authorities were unable to cope with the emergency. In some instances the refugees outnumbered the local residents by approximately 2 to 1.”… “The Jews have also appealed for U. N. assistance. In the early stage of the campaign, however, the mediator felt that, as the Israeli community was better organized and equipped, ‘it was not necessary to provide medical aid for refugees in their territory’. Later on, in view of acute shortage of milk for infants, ICEF sent to Haifa some $60,000 worth of powdered milk and cod liver oil.”… “Maintaining that the root of the conflict was in the refusal of the Arab League to recognize the state of Israel, the Jewish note pointed out that ‘any attempt to tear the problem of Arab refugees out of its context and treat it in isolation can only aggravate the issue.’”… “An early settlement is a matter of life and death to both peoples most immediately concerned, the Israelis and the Palestinian Arabs: To the Arabs because nearly a third of their numbers are homeless refugees; to the Israelis because until a permanent peace settlement is reached, the strength of their new state is sapped by the need to keep armies in the field.”
“EPIDEMICS KNOW NO FRONTIERS—Countless flies that follow the swarming mass of refugees, harass children, can spread infection on disastrous scale… 850 new cases were reported in one small area alone.” · “ALL SHELTERS OVERFLOW—The congestion in camps has reached the limits of human endurance… there is absolutely no sanitary accommodation.” · “DDT-SPRAYING CAMPAIGN BEGINS—every man, woman and child in the refugee camps have their clothes disinfected with DDT.” · “OVER 2,000 TENTS and 45,000 blankets have been rushed by the U. N. to shelterless refugees, 22 per cent of whom simply have been camping on the ground under trees.” · “VICTIMS OF THE CONFLICT—Young woman and child. It is estimated that roughly 66 per cent of refugee population consisted of children up to 18 years of age.”
Written and distributed by the United Nations itself, and printed as a full page. It gives the Israeli government's stated reason for refusing re-admission, “overriding immediate security considerations,” and the Arab League's position, and closes by saying a settlement is a matter of life and death to both.
2 Arab States Fight Abdullah’s Plan for Rule in Palestine
By the Associated Press, Cairo
“CAIRO, Egypt, Dec. 11.—Open opposition in two Arab countries to King Abdullah’s apparent plan to annex Palestine to his Trans-Jordan realm was reported today. The weekly Cairo newspaper Akhbar El Yom said King Farouk had summoned the ministers of all Arab governments except Trans-Jordan and given them this oral message for their kings and presidents: ‘Egypt has not sacrificed the blood of her sons to throw the future of Palestine in the hands of those who attended the Jericho conference.’ A congress of Palestine Arabs at Jericho a few days ago petitioned Abdullah to proclaim himself king of a united Trans-Jordan and Palestine… Al Pachachi said the government was busy with a plan to carry out a parliament resolution for united political and military plans by all Arab governments to guarantee ‘the liberation of Palestine from the Zionists.’ King Farouk was reported in his message to other Arab governments to have stressed that the Arab ‘refugees who attended this (Jericho) conference were not in a position to give their views freely. Palestine Arab refugees will return to their homes when the hour of liberation of their country comes. They will then decide the future of their country in complete freedom.’ Meanwhile dispatches from Amman, Trans-Jordan capital, said the union of that country and Palestine was likely to be speeded by the impressions received by King Abdullah on his two-day tour of the districts of Bethlehem and Hebron this week. The Arab Legion of Trans-Jordan occupies those areas. The dispatch said Abdullah was greeted by hundreds and thousands everywhere who acclaimed him king.”
December 1948: Arab states arguing with each other about who will rule Palestine, and an Egyptian king saying the Palestinian refugees at Jericho were not in a position to give their views freely. The word the paper uses for the Arab Legion in Bethlehem and Hebron is occupies.
Palestinian Arabs In Distress, Hope For Speedy War End
Want to Go Back to Homes, Work; Bid for Abdullah to Take Over Palestine
By John Roderick, The Associated Press, Kyrenia, Cyprus
“EDITOR’S NOTE: The writer of the following dispatch backgrounding the situation in Arab Palestine has served several months in Arab capitals and with Arab armies in the Holy Land war.) KYRENIA, Cyprus, Jan. 11, (AP)—Palestinian Arabs, disillusioned and embittered, are hoping for a speedy end to the war which has cut up the Holy Land and driven many of them from their homes. It was in this mood that some invited King Abdullah of Trans-Jordan last month to take over the rule of Palestine. Why has Abdullah taken so long to answer? He is seeking a formula which would make the merger palatable to the outside world.”
The word Palestinian is in the headline in 1949, and the line under it says what they want: to go back to their homes and their work. This copy of the dispatch is cut off at the subhead “Tries to Force C—”. An earlier version of this record carried four further sentences about the Arab Legion and the military government; those belong to the same AP dispatch and are printed in full on the Sun Journal copy held here, so they have been moved to that record.
By John Roderick, The Associated Press, Kyrenia, Cyprus
“(EDITOR’S NOTE: The writer of the following dispatch backgrounding the situation in Arab Palestine has served several months in Arab capitals and with Arab armies in the Holy Land war.) KYRENIA, Cyprus, Jan. 11 (AP)—Palestinian Arabs, disillusioned and embittered, are hoping for a speedy end to the war which has cut up the Holy Land and driven many of them from their homes. It was in this mood that some invited King Abdullah of Trans-Jordan last month to take over the rule of Palestine… Palestinian Arabs vaguely hope, however, that he will recover cities and towns lost to Israeli forces and restore peace and order. Thousands of unemployed clerks, government workers and peasants ask nothing more than a chance to resume their old way of life. Many recall the British mandate with a sigh that it ended… In any event, Abdullah’s Arab Legion has controlled most of Arab Palestine since August. Through a military government, he has given Palestinian Arabs services for education, health, transportation, communication and passports.”
Palestinian Arabs, Embittered At War’s Course, Invites Abdullah To Act in Hope for Speedy Peace
By John Roderick, The Associated Press, Kyrenia, Cyprus
“(Editor’s note: The writer of the following dispatch backgrounding the situation in Arab Palestine has served several months in Arab capitals and with Arab armies in the Holy Land war.) KYRENIA, Cyprus-(AP)-Palestinian Arabs, disillusioned and embittered, are hoping for a speedy end to the war which has cut up the Holy Land and driven many of them from their homes. It was in this mood that some invited King Abdullah of Trans-Jordan last month to take over the rule of Palestine. Why has Abdullah taken so long to answer? He is seeking a formula which would make the merger palatable to the outside world. Through two tours of Arab areas, in which he was met with what certainly appeared to be a genuine welcome, he hoped to prove to the big powers as well as to his Arab allies that unity with Trans-Jordan is Palestine’s own choice. His next step is expected to be an effort to mollify the United States and Russia, who could not be expected to recognize him as King of Palestine so long as a large part is patently occupied by the Jewish state of Israel. To get around this difficulty, he may seek to annex the Arab territory and proclaim himself king of an enlarged Hashimite kingdom of Jordan. That would avoid any reference to Jewish-held Palestine. Abdullah made it plain in his most recent tour that he is making no promises. Palestinian Arabs vaguely hope, however, that he will recover cities and towns lost to Israeli forces and restore peace and order. Thousands of unemployed clerks, government workers and peasants ask nothing more than a chance to resume their old way of life. Many recall the British mandate with a sigh that it ended. Their feeling is, in asking Abdullah to set their house in order, that the British will be somewhere in the background… In any event, Abdullah’s Arab Legion has controlled most of Arab Palestine since August. Through a military government, he has given Palestinian Arabs services for education, health, transportation, communication and passports.”
The same AP dispatch the Ada Evening News ran that day, set in full. The subhead over the second half is “No Promises.”
“MODERN MADONNA—An Arab woman comforts her hungry son while awaiting milk distribution by the UN International Children’s Emergency Fund. Over 700,000 Palestinian refugees are quartered in an improvised tent city in Lebanon.”
“MODERN MADONNA—An Arab woman comforts her hungry son while awaiting milk distribution by the UN International Children’s Emergency Fund. Over 700,000 Palestinian refugees are quartered in an improvised tent city in Lebanon.”
A photograph filling most of the page, with its caption. The woman and the child are not named; the caption gives them a title from a painting instead.
“GAZA, Palestine.—Forty-six Arab families who fled Holy Land fighting are now jammed into a single barnlike building the size of a modest American home. The 300 people who live in this former British Army barracks have hardly enough room to lie down. Families are separated from neighbors only by 5-foot partitions of loose rocks and burlap bags. On frequent cold, rainy days the air is heavy with smoke from fires on the concrete floor. At night the refugees sleep on the floor, protected to some extent by mats and comforters from Egypt. This concentration of refugees is the heaviest observed by an Associated Press correspondent during a survey of towns and refugee camps in the Egyptian-held part of Southern Palestine. Several other barracks are crowded almost as badly. Refugees also are packed into the cells of a former British prison and some are living in caves. Others, more fortunate, are sheltered by 2,450 tents supplied by the United Nations, the Egyptian Army and the Red Crescent (the Arabic Red Cross). Homes in Arabic towns like Gaza and Khan are bulging with additional thousands. Egyptian Army representatives estimate there are 225,000 refugees behind the Egyptian lines in this part of Southern Palestine. They place the number in Gaza at 70,000 and count 95,000 more at Khan Yunis, a town which normally numbers 12,000. Special camps and the towns of Rafah and Deir El Balah account for the rest. The refugees on the southern front are less than half of the total for whom the United Nations have pledged $29,000,000 and actually advanced $5,000,000 until member governments contribute the larger sum. Estimates of the number displaced by the Palestine conflict range between 500,000 and 750,000. Most are Arabs. Townspeople as well as farmers and Bedouin tribesmen are among the refugees. Old people, children and pregnant women are numerous in every camp… In the camps their principal food is half a pound of flour per day. In towns the flour ration is less… Under the direction of Capt. Mohamed Wahid El Dine Mahmoud, refugee officer for the Egyptian Army, central baking ovens have been established in each camp. The baker charges one piaster (about 4 United States cents) to bake 20 flat loaves; if a family has no money, he takes one of the 20 loaves instead.”
“This is one of the better tent camps of Arab refugees in the Egyptian-held sector of Southern Palestine. Egyptian Army representatives estimate there are 225,000 refugees behind the Egyptian lines.” —Wide World Photo.
January 1949, eight months after the state was declared. Khan Yunis normally holds twelve thousand people and is holding ninety-five thousand. Half a pound of flour a day. The baker takes one loaf in twenty from families who cannot pay. The subheadings are “Flour Principal Food,” “Red Cross Helping” and “Supplies Increasing.”
Palestinian refugees have received from the American Red Cross typhus vaccine sufficient for the innoculation of 450,000 persons
Palestinian refugees have received from the American Red Cross typhus vaccine sufficient for the innoculation of 450,000 persons. The UN disaster relief commission made the request as a preventive measure for while there has been little typhus among the refugees as yet, the disease crops out under abnormal living conditions and now can be fully controlled with adequate vaccine.
A brief with no headline of its own; the first sentence stands in for one. The spelling of “innoculation” is the paper’s.
Sharett Suggests Exchange of Arab Refugees for Jews Living in Arab Countries
By Milton Friedman, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Washington
“Washington, (JTA)—Israel would welcome an exchange of Arab refugees for Jews living in Arab countries, Moshe Sharett, Foreign Minister of Israel, said this week at a press conference at the Israeli embassy here. Earlier, Sharett conferred briefly with Secretary of State Dean Acheson. He said at the press conference, in answer to a pointed question about Arab refugees being repatriated to Israel, ‘If you cannot make a homogeneous community, why try to swim against the stream?’ The plight of Arab refugees is entirely the fault of the Arab aggressors, he said, adding that there were not 750,000 as generally reported but closer to 500,000. Sharett made it known that Israel has developed far differently than if there had been no war and exodus of Arabs. Their interpretation now in the communities of Israel would be ‘very complicated.’ He said that Israel has no intention of giving up any territory assigned it by the U. N. partition decision. This statement was in answer to a question concerning the Israeli occupation of the Elath coast of the Gulf of Aqaba. He said that the Elath strip was always considered an integral part of Israel. Sharett insisted that Israel will exercise full sovereignty in the Jewish portion of Jerusalem. He said that there was some possibility that parts of the Old City would have to be divided into three zones — Christian, Moslem, and Jewish. The Israeli Foreign Minister told newsmen of the vast expanses of undeveloped territory in Arab states which could be settled with great benefit to Arabs, in response to repeated questions about the fate of Arab refugees. He said that Israel will pay for the Arab-owned deserted lands in Israel.”
A foreign minister asked in Washington whether the refugees will be let back, and the answer printed in his own words. The number is disputed downward in the same paragraph. Printed beside a story headed “U. S. Ambassador Says No Zionists Executed in Iraq.”
Exchange of Arab Refugees For Jews In Moslem Lands
Looked Upon Favorably in Israel, Says Moshe Sharett, Israeli Foreign Minister.
Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Washington
“WASHINGTON, (JTA) — Israel would welcome an exchange of Arab refugees for Jews living in Arab countries, Moshe Sharett, Foreign Minister of Israel, said this week at a press conference at the Israeli embassy here. Earlier, Sharett conferred briefly with Secretary of State Dean Acheson… He said at the press conference, in answer to a pointed question about Arab refugees being repatriated to Israel, ‘If you cannot make a homogeneous community, why try to swim against the stream?’ The plight of Arab refugees is entirely the fault of the Arab aggressors, he said, adding that there were not 750,000 as generally reported but closer to 500,000. Sharett made it known that Israel has developed far differently than if there had been no war and exodus of Arabs. Their integration now in the communities of Israel would be ‘very complicated.’ He said that Israel has no intention of giving up any territory assigned it by the U.N. partition decision… He said that Israel will pay for the Arab-owned deserted lands in Israel.”
The same dispatch a week later, headlined on the exchange rather than on the man.
Exchange of Arab Refugees For Jews In Moslem Lands
Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Washington
“He said at the press conference, in answer to a pointed question about Arab refugees being repatriated to Israel, ‘If you cannot make a homogeneous community, why try to swim against the stream?’ The plight of Arab refugees is entirely the fault of the Arab aggressors, he said, adding that there were not 750,000 as generally reported but closer to 500,000.”
The lowest of the five refugee counts in this archive, given by Israel’s foreign minister while disputing a higher one.
“Nearly 70 percent of the area of the state of Israel consists of… land abandoned by Arabs and as such is administered by the custodian of absentees’ property. The custodian’s office has arranged for the bringing-in of grain and fruit harvests from these lands and also for their partial cultivation during the current season. The custodian also considers claims by Jews against absentee Arab property owners and vice versa, and guarantees the restitution of their possessions to Arab residents of Israel. So far, 200 claims have been proffered in Jaffa alone; out of 100 claims which have already been investigated, 40 proved to be unfounded. During the fighting, thefts and even wanton destruction of abandoned Arab property were common, but order has since been restored and land, houses and equipment of all kinds from this source are now being disposed of systematically and legally. The army has priority on all such transactions… It has been widely recognized that the cultivation of small orchards by a few hired hands ceased to be an economic proposition as soon as Arab cheap labor was eliminated.”
Disposed of systematically and legally. The main headline is trimmed off the scan; the section head above the passage is what is legible.
Correction: {'note': 'Slide 7 of the presentation pairs the El Reno American caption with a crop of this article. The two crops on that slide are one Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle piece; the El Reno scan is the wirephoto filed separately.'}
· Santa Barbara News-Press · Santa Barbara · page 1
Problem of Refugees in Palestine
Washington Calling
By Marquis Childs, Washington
“WASHINGTON — No one knows better than Dr. Ralph Bunche, the skilled United Nations trouble-shooter, that the present peace in Palestine is no more than a temporary truce so long as certain causes of friction exist in the explosive Middle East… There can be no permanent peace, he reported, until some solution is found for the problem of the 700,000 to 800,000 Arab refugees who fled from their homes during the war. These refugees are now being cared for with United Nations funds in temporary camps that are seriously overcrowded… A somewhat similar proposal comes from the American Zionist Emergency Council in a memorandum prepared by Eliahu Ben-Horin urging the extensive development of Iraq as a home for the refugees. A political issue arises here. Israeli officials until recently opposed the return of Arab refugees to communities within Israel from which they fled, making an exception for broken families — where the man of the household left behind his wife and children. They have just announced their willingness to restore a larger number in the framework of a general peace treaty. The Arab countries insist that the refugees be returned to the villages from which they came.”
The typesetting instruction ZIONIST PROPOSAL — 10 pt. was printed by mistake in the middle of the column.
“WASHINGTON — No one knows better than Dr. Ralph Bunche, the skilled United Nations trouble-shooter, that the present peace in Palestine is no more than a temporary truce so long as certain causes of friction exist in the explosive Middle East… There can be no permanent peace, he reported, until some solution is found for the problem of the 700,000 to 800,000 Arab refugees who fled from their homes during the war. These refugees are now being cared for with United Nations funds in temporary camps that are seriously overcrowded… A somewhat similar proposal comes from the American Zionist Emergency Council in a memorandum prepared by Eliahu Ben-Horin urging the extensive development of Iraq as a home for the refugees. A political issue arises here. Israeli officials until recently opposed the return of Arab refugees to communities within Israel from which they fled, making an exception for broken families — where the man of the household left behind his wife and children. They have just announced their willingness to restore a larger number in the framework of a general peace treaty. The Arab countries insist that the refugees be returned to the villages from which they came.”
Palestine Peace Depends on Solving Arab Refugee Problem
TVA for Near East
By Marquis Childs, Washington
“WASHINGTON — No one knows better than Dr. Ralph Bunche, the skilled United Nations trouble-shooter, that the present peace in Palestine is no more than a temporary truce so long as certain causes of friction exist in the explosive Middle East… There can be no permanent peace, he reported, until some solution is found for the problem of the 700,000 to 800,000 Arab refugees who fled from their homes during the war. These refugees are now being cared for with United Nations funds in temporary camps that are seriously overcrowded… A somewhat similar proposal comes from the American Zionist Emergency Council in a memorandum prepared by Eliahu Ben-Horin urging the extensive development of Iraq as a home for the refugees. A political issue arises here. Israeli officials until recently opposed the return of Arab refugees to communities within Israel from which they fled, making an exception for broken families — where the man of the household left behind his wife and children. They have just announced their willingness to restore a larger number in the framework of a general peace treaty. The Arab countries insist that the refugees be returned to the villages from which they came.”
Run beside an advertisement for oil-burning water heaters.
“WASHINGTON — No one knows better than Dr. Ralph Bunche, the skilled United Nations trouble-shooter, that the present peace in Palestine is no more than a temporary truce so long as certain causes of friction exist in the explosive Middle East… There can be no permanent peace, he reported, until some solution is found for the problem of the 700,000 to 800,000 Arab refugees who fled from their homes during the war. These refugees are now being cared for with United Nations funds in temporary camps that are seriously overcrowded… A somewhat similar proposal comes from the American Zionist Emergency Council in a memorandum prepared by Eliahu Ben-Horin urging the extensive development of Iraq as a home for the refugees. A political issue arises here. Israeli officials until recently opposed the return of Arab refugees to communities within Israel from which they fled, making an exception for broken families — where the man of the household left behind his wife and children. They have just announced their willingness to restore a larger number in the framework of a general peace treaty. The Arab countries insist that the refugees be returned to the villages from which they came.”
A syndicated Washington column proposing Iraq as the answer, thirty-three years before the Jordan Is Palestine Committee bought advertisements making the same kind of case.
Criticize Vatican for “Meddling” in Jerusalem Issue
Arab Knesseth Member Blames Arab States for Refugees’ Plight
Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Tel Aviv
“One of the high points of the debate was an attack on Britain and the Arab states for their responsibility for the plight of the Palestine Arab refugees by one of the two Arabs in the Knesseth, Seif el Din el Zabi… On the other hand, El Zabi took issue with the official government position that the Arab refugees must not be readmitted to Israel because of the security risk involved. He insisted that after experiencing life in the Arab states, the refugees would make the most loyal of citizens of Israel… In conclusion, the Arab deputy appealed to the Arab states not to use the refugees as ‘pawns.’”
An Arab member of the Israeli parliament, quoted in a Milwaukee Jewish weekly, making the leaders-are-to-blame argument and rejecting the security argument in the same speech.
Israel Suggests A Plebiscite on Arab Palestine State
Arab Delegates in Knesset Suggest Government Consideration of Refugees. Score Arab States’ Leaders For Imperialistic Policies and Absolve Jews For Condition of Arab Refugees.
Special Dispatch, Tel Aviv
“TEL AVIV, Israel (Special Dispatch) — Moshe Sharett, Israeli Foreign Minister, told the Knesset Monday that he had advised the Lausanne delegates to advocate a plebiscite in Arab Palestine to determine whether the inhabitants desired a separate state or annexation to Transjordan. The aim of such a move, apparently, was to dispel the uncertainties of the present situation in Palestine in which no one knows what Arabs are represented by whom… Mr. Sharett said that plans had been formulated to receive the refugee wives and children of Arabs already here. These, he said, will be special cases and subject to screening.”
The subheading carries the blame-the-Arab-states argument and attributes it to Arab members of the Knesset.
Britain Gives $2,000,000 To Resettle Arab Refugees
The Associated Press, London
“LONDON, Aug. 2.—Britain has given Hashemite Jordan (Trans-Jordan) £500,000 ($2,000,000) to help the Arab kingdom resettle Palestine Arab refugees on its territory. An official British source reported today he understands the United States is matching the gift with a similar amount. (The State Department said in Washington there is ‘no foundation’ to the report that the United States will match Britain’s gift…) This is believed to be the first time the British have made a direct contribution to an Arab government to resettle the refugees who fled when war came to Palestine. Authoritative estimates place the number of Arab refugees at 500,000 to 800,000. Many of them sought safety in King Abdullah’s territory.”
The earliest clipping here of the answer that would be offered for the next forty years: settle them somewhere else.
· The Philadelphia Inquirer · Philadelphia · page 1
Tension Along the Jordan
Problem of Arab Refugees in Israel Threatens to Start Another Uprising
By Nadia Lourie, Tel Aviv, Israel
“The State of Israel, now entering its second year of nationhood, is an island of efficient, modern ideas in an ancient sea of Arab backwardness.”… 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.… “The attitude of the original Arab villagers to Arab refugees is one of pity mingled with contempt. Jobs are not plentiful, and the original villagers want them for themselves. They seem equally unwilling to share their fields and crops with the refugees.”… “‘Honestly,’ one Arab, the Mukhtar of Taybeh, said to me, ‘we are very happy to be in Israel. The Israeli commanders are all educated men and they deal justly with us. They don’t take things from us, and they don’t force us to work, and they don’t do bad things in the village—all of which the Iraquis did. Instead they brings things to us. They brought us petrol, and the doctor, and the Tnuva (a food agency).’”… “One town, Kafr Kassim, had 5000 regular residents, plus another 5000 refugees.””
“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.”
Villages named as taken into Israel under the armistice: Kalansawa, Ara, Taybeh, Baqa el-Gharbiyeh, Jatt, Kafr Kassim. The piece opens by calling Israel an island in a sea of Arab backwardness, and then quotes a Palestinian village head at length saying he is glad to be there. Both are on the page.
Re-Entry to be Limited by Original Proposal, Government Insists
Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Tel Aviv
“Tel Aviv — (JTA) — For the time being Israel is not inclined to repatriate Arab refugees nor to pay them compensation except within the framework of an overall peace, as it outlined earlier, Gordon R. Clapp, chairman of the UN economic survey mission, told newsmen just before he and his party boarded a plane for Beirut… He revealed that these projects would affect in Israel about 30,000 Arabs and 18,000 Jewish refugees. He also said that his party had met with no rebuff on the plan in any Arab capital where it had discussed the matter and that the Arabs were prepared to collaborate in such projects.”
The position stated plainly by a United Nations official: no return, and no compensation, outside a full peace.
Even Ear Muffs Will Not Silence The Case of the Homeless Arabs
Editorial page. Mark Ethridge, Publisher · Barry Bingham, President · Editorial Page Staff: Barry Bingham, Editor; George Burt, Chief Editorial Writer. Adele Brandeis, Molly Clowes, Tarleton Collier, Weldon James, Grover Page, John Ed Pearce.
A Louisville editorial page in September 1949, with the whole staff named across the top, headlining the Palestinian refugees as a case that will not be quieted — and using homeless, not displaced or Arab refugees. Four and a half years later the same paper’s letters column printed a reader telling Yasir A. Khammash to produce the evidence for the massacre at Deir Yassin (CP-1954-004). The paper had already printed the case in its own voice.
“Jerusalem, Oct. 20—(AP)—Arab sources say the Arab population of Israel is now less than 100,000 and claim that the Jews are forcing small numbers of Arabs to leave the country almost every day. Hundreds of thousands of Arabs who fled Israel after the start of Palestine hostilities now live in refugee camps in the Arab border area surrounding the Jewish state or are crowded into nearby Arab villages and towns. Ahmad N. Sabi, external liaison officer for the Hashemite Jordan government in Arab Palestine, estimates the Arab population of what is now Israel at 785,000 before the fighting started. ‘The most tragic and ironic part of the picture,’ he said, ‘is that for every Jewish refugee or emigree brought into Israel, an Arab refugee was created—forced out of his homeland.’ Sabi told a reporter that Israel is pushing small numbers of Arabs out of the country almost daily—chiefly on the ground that they have illegally infiltrated across the border… He said an official protest had been made to the United Nations Security Council over an incident at Qalqilya last June in which four Arabs were killed. As Sabi told the story, this is what happened: Three cousins operating an orange grove and a young neighbor were ordered into a jeep by unknown Israelis, taken to the border, ordered to ‘get out’ and machine gunned as they crossed the line. Then, Sabi said, other Arabs running orange groves in the vicinity, were told that ‘irresponsible’ persons had killed these four and warned that the Israel government could not guarantee protection to those remaining. As a result, Sabi said, about 100 other Arabs fled.”
Calls them Israel Arabs rather than Palestinians, and their leaving an exodus.
“Jerusalem, Oct. 20—(AP)—Arab sources say the Arab population of Israel is now less than 100,000 and claim that the Jews are forcing small numbers of Arabs to leave the country almost every day. Hundreds of thousands of Arabs who fled Israel after the start of Palestine hostilities now live in refugee camps in the Arab border area surrounding the Jewish state or are crowded into nearby Arab villages and towns. Ahmad N. Sabi, external liaison officer for the Hashemite Jordan government in Arab Palestine, estimates the Arab population of what is now Israel at 785,000 before the fighting started. ‘The most tragic and ironic part of the picture,’ he said, ‘is that for every Jewish refugee or emigree brought into Israel, an Arab refugee was created—forced out of his homeland.’ Sabi told a reporter that Israel is pushing small numbers of Arabs out of the country almost daily—chiefly on the ground that they have illegally infiltrated across the border… He said an official protest had been made to the United Nations Security Council over an incident at Qalqilya last June in which four Arabs were killed. As Sabi told the story, this is what happened: Three cousins operating an orange grove and a young neighbor were ordered into a jeep by unknown Israelis, taken to the border, ordered to ‘get out’ and machine gunned as they crossed the line. Then, Sabi said, other Arabs running orange groves in the vicinity, were told that ‘irresponsible’ persons had killed these four and warned that the Israel government could not guarantee protection to those remaining. As a result, Sabi said, about 100 other Arabs fled.”
The dispatch with the agent taken out. Nobody forces anybody; a population is smaller.
“Jerusalem, Oct. 20—(AP)—Arab sources say the Arab population of Israel is now less than 100,000 and claim that the Jews are forcing small numbers of Arabs to leave the country almost every day. Hundreds of thousands of Arabs who fled Israel after the start of Palestine hostilities now live in refugee camps in the Arab border area surrounding the Jewish state or are crowded into nearby Arab villages and towns. Ahmad N. Sabi, external liaison officer for the Hashemite Jordan government in Arab Palestine, estimates the Arab population of what is now Israel at 785,000 before the fighting started. ‘The most tragic and ironic part of the picture,’ he said, ‘is that for every Jewish refugee or emigree brought into Israel, an Arab refugee was created—forced out of his homeland.’ Sabi told a reporter that Israel is pushing small numbers of Arabs out of the country almost daily—chiefly on the ground that they have illegally infiltrated across the border… He said an official protest had been made to the United Nations Security Council over an incident at Qalqilya last June in which four Arabs were killed. As Sabi told the story, this is what happened: Three cousins operating an orange grove and a young neighbor were ordered into a jeep by unknown Israelis, taken to the border, ordered to ‘get out’ and machine gunned as they crossed the line. Then, Sabi said, other Arabs running orange groves in the vicinity, were told that ‘irresponsible’ persons had killed these four and warned that the Israel government could not guarantee protection to those remaining. As a result, Sabi said, about 100 other Arabs fled.”
Prints the verb as being sent across the land borders.
Jordan Liaison Officer Says Arab Population in Israel Dwindling
By Fred J. Zusy, The Associated Press, Jerusalem
“Jerusalem, Oct. 20.—(AP)—Arab sources say the Arab population of Israel is now less than 100,000 and claim that the Jews are forcing small numbers of Arabs to leave the country almost every day. Hundreds of thousands of Arabs who fled Israel after the start of Palestine hostilities now live in refugee camps in the Arab border area surrounding the Jewish state or are crowded into nearby Arab villages and towns. Ahmad N. Sabi, external liaison officer for the Heshemite Jordan government in Arab Palestine, estimates the Arab population of what is now Israel at 785,000 before the fighting started. ‘The most tragic and ironic part of the picture,’ he said, ‘is that for every Jewish refugee or emigree brought into Israel, an Arab refugee was created—forced out of his homeland.’ Sabi told a reporter that Israel is pushing small numbers of Arabs out of the country almost daily—chiefly on the ground that they have illegally infiltrated across the border. Some of these Arabs are fleeing across the land borders, Sabi said, and others by coastwide sailing vessels into Lebanese territory… He said an official protest had been made to the united nations security council over an incident at Qalquilya last June in which four Arabs were killed. As Sabi told the story, this is what happened: Three cousins operating an orange grove and a young neighbor were ordered into a jeep by unknown Israelis taken to the border, ordered to ‘get out’ and machine-gunned as they crossed the line. Then, Sabi said, other Arabs running orange groves in the vicinity, were told that ‘irresponsible’ persons had killed these four and warned that the Israel government could not guarantee protection to those remaining. As a result, Sabi said, about 100 other Arabs fled.”
Seven hundred and eighty-five thousand before the fighting, under a hundred thousand after, attributed throughout to a Jordanian official and to Arab sources. The account of Qalquilya is given as his account, in his words. Printed beside an advertisement for a car loan. “Heshemite” is the paper’s.
Says Minority Population Now Less Than 100,000 and Still Dwindling
By Fred J. Zusy, The Associated Press, Jerusalem
“Jerusalem, Oct. 20—(AP)—Arab sources say the Arab population of Israel is now less than 100,000 and claim that the Jews are forcing small numbers of Arabs to leave the country almost every day. Hundreds of thousands of Arabs who fled Israel after the start of Palestine hostilities now live in refugee camps in the Arab border area surrounding the Jewish state or are crowded into nearby Arab villages and towns. Ahmad N. Sabi, external liaison officer for the Hashemite Jordan government in Arab Palestine, estimates the Arab population of what is now Israel at 785,000 before the fighting started. ‘The most tragic and ironic part of the picture,’ he said, ‘is that for every Jewish refugee or emigree brought into Israel, an Arab refugee was created—forced out of his homeland.’ Sabi told a reporter that Israel is pushing small numbers of Arabs out of the country almost daily—chiefly on the ground that they have illegally infiltrated across the border… He said an official protest had been made to the United Nations Security Council over an incident at Qalqilya last June in which four Arabs were killed. As Sabi told the story, this is what happened: Three cousins operating an orange grove and a young neighbor were ordered into a jeep by unknown Israelis, taken to the border, ordered to ‘get out’ and machine gunned as they crossed the line. Then, Sabi said, other Arabs running orange groves in the vicinity, were told that ‘irresponsible’ persons had killed these four and warned that the Israel government could not guarantee protection to those remaining. As a result, Sabi said, about 100 other Arabs fled.”
Official Says Less Than 100,000 Arabs Remain of Over 785,000 Before War.
By Fred J. Zusy, The Associated Press, Jerusalem
“Jerusalem, Oct. 20—(AP)—Arab sources say the Arab population of Israel is now less than 100,000 and claim that the Jews are forcing small numbers of Arabs to leave the country almost every day. Hundreds of thousands of Arabs who fled Israel after the start of Palestine hostilities now live in refugee camps in the Arab border area surrounding the Jewish state or are crowded into nearby Arab villages and towns. Ahmad N. Sabi, external liaison officer for the Hashemite Jordan government in Arab Palestine, estimates the Arab population of what is now Israel at 785,000 before the fighting started. ‘The most tragic and ironic part of the picture,’ he said, ‘is that for every Jewish refugee or emigree brought into Israel, an Arab refugee was created—forced out of his homeland.’ Sabi told a reporter that Israel is pushing small numbers of Arabs out of the country almost daily—chiefly on the ground that they have illegally infiltrated across the border… He said an official protest had been made to the United Nations Security Council over an incident at Qalqilya last June in which four Arabs were killed. As Sabi told the story, this is what happened: Three cousins operating an orange grove and a young neighbor were ordered into a jeep by unknown Israelis, taken to the border, ordered to ‘get out’ and machine gunned as they crossed the line. Then, Sabi said, other Arabs running orange groves in the vicinity, were told that ‘irresponsible’ persons had killed these four and warned that the Israel government could not guarantee protection to those remaining. As a result, Sabi said, about 100 other Arabs fled.”
“Jerusalem, Oct. 20—(AP)—Arab sources say the Arab population of Israel is now less than 100,000 and claim that the Jews are forcing small numbers of Arabs to leave the country almost every day. Hundreds of thousands of Arabs who fled Israel after the start of Palestine hostilities now live in refugee camps in the Arab border area surrounding the Jewish state or are crowded into nearby Arab villages and towns. Ahmad N. Sabi, external liaison officer for the Hashemite Jordan government in Arab Palestine, estimates the Arab population of what is now Israel at 785,000 before the fighting started. ‘The most tragic and ironic part of the picture,’ he said, ‘is that for every Jewish refugee or emigree brought into Israel, an Arab refugee was created—forced out of his homeland.’ Sabi told a reporter that Israel is pushing small numbers of Arabs out of the country almost daily—chiefly on the ground that they have illegally infiltrated across the border… He said an official protest had been made to the United Nations Security Council over an incident at Qalqilya last June in which four Arabs were killed. As Sabi told the story, this is what happened: Three cousins operating an orange grove and a young neighbor were ordered into a jeep by unknown Israelis, taken to the border, ordered to ‘get out’ and machine gunned as they crossed the line. Then, Sabi said, other Arabs running orange groves in the vicinity, were told that ‘irresponsible’ persons had killed these four and warned that the Israel government could not guarantee protection to those remaining. As a result, Sabi said, about 100 other Arabs fled.”
Set beside a cinema advertisement for I Was a Male War Bride.
“Jerusalem, Oct. 20—(AP)—Arab sources say the Arab population of Israel is now less than 100,000 and claim that the Jews are forcing small numbers of Arabs to leave the country almost every day. Hundreds of thousands of Arabs who fled Israel after the start of Palestine hostilities now live in refugee camps in the Arab border area surrounding the Jewish state or are crowded into nearby Arab villages and towns. Ahmad N. Sabi, external liaison officer for the Hashemite Jordan government in Arab Palestine, estimates the Arab population of what is now Israel at 785,000 before the fighting started. ‘The most tragic and ironic part of the picture,’ he said, ‘is that for every Jewish refugee or emigree brought into Israel, an Arab refugee was created—forced out of his homeland.’ Sabi told a reporter that Israel is pushing small numbers of Arabs out of the country almost daily—chiefly on the ground that they have illegally infiltrated across the border… He said an official protest had been made to the United Nations Security Council over an incident at Qalqilya last June in which four Arabs were killed. As Sabi told the story, this is what happened: Three cousins operating an orange grove and a young neighbor were ordered into a jeep by unknown Israelis, taken to the border, ordered to ‘get out’ and machine gunned as they crossed the line. Then, Sabi said, other Arabs running orange groves in the vicinity, were told that ‘irresponsible’ persons had killed these four and warned that the Israel government could not guarantee protection to those remaining. As a result, Sabi said, about 100 other Arabs fled.”
A week after the others, and the only one of the eight to use the word ejecting.
Part of Covering Palestine, an archive of 1262 newspaper clippings about Palestinians printed in 512 papers between 1799 and 2023. Researched and assembled by Maria Robles. Nothing here was printed after 6 October 2023.