Friday, December 22, 2006
Palestinian Media Watch reports: PA columnist: Arab leaders initiated departure and made false promises of a speedy return
A backbone of PA ideology, and indeed of anti-Israel propagandists worldwide, is the myth that Israel expelled hundreds of thousands of Arabs from Israel and created the Palestinian "refugee" situation.
However, a regular writer for the official PA paper, Mahmud Al-Habbash, writes in a recent column that in 1948 the Arabs left their homes willingly under the instruction of their own Arab leaders and their false promises of a prompt return. He refers to these promises as “Arkuvian,†after Arkuv – a figure from Arab tradition - who was known for breaking his promises and for his lies – and states that the Arabs who left their homes, and became refugees did so believing their leaders’ deceptive promises. He places the blame and the responsibility on the shoulders of the Arab leaders and does not mention any so-called "Israeli expulsion."
Following is this most recent article, as well as earlier statements by Arab "refugees" that have appeared in the PA press, all of which corroborate Israel's historical narrative. The latter two testimonials are significant because they were corroborated by still other more public Palestinians, indicating that the responsibility of the Arab leaders is known in the Palestinian world. One was confirmed by Arab Member of Knesset, Ibraham Sarsur, who was then Head of the Islamic Movement in Israel, and the other by a Palestinian journalist, Fuad Abu Higla, in the official PA daily...
Update: More in this old story at SFGate: A Time Of Change Israelis, Palestinians And The Disengagement
"They asked people in Salameh to leave, because a war was going to happen there," he said. "They said, 'Go for a week, or a month -- then come back.'