Ms. Montell,
Some time ago I agreed to take over the dialogue with you from some military Associates since my identity is public and by law, theirs could not be.
Since that time I have faithfully read and distributed Bt'selem reports to the communities that evaluate your efforts as being destructive to Israel as well as being destructive to the Palestinians.
Personally, I have suggested several positive activities that Bt'selem could undertake in the West Bank to ease some of the conditions that you complain about…. rather than encouraging the confrontational approach which can only lead to continued hatred and bloodshed.
The attached article is factual. I have every reason to believe (based on my personal contacts) that the current Palestinian authority and Hamas leadership still subscribes to these basic positions.
If you want peace , Bt'selem must address itself to changing this underlying thrust. But 1st you must read and acknowledge the baseline from which the current circumstances emanate.
Hence ,I am sending you this article and hope that you will give it the same thorough reading that your opponents and I give to your materials.
Howard Laitin
Palestinian Refugees – Reality Test
By: Yoram Ettinger
Published: December 30th, 2013
The actual number of the 1948/9 Palestinian refugees was 320,000,
The Root Cause Then and NowAccording to the German Middle East expert, Fritz Grobba (Men and Powers in the Orient, pp. 194-7, 207-8, Berlin, 1957), the 1948 Palestinian leadership, headed by the Grand Mufti, Haj Amin Al-Husseini, wanted to apply Nazi methods to massacre Jews throughout the Middle East.In1941,the Mufti drafted a proposal requesting that Germany and Italy acknowledge the Arab right to settle "the Jewish problem” in Palestine and the Arab countries in accordance with national and racial Arab interests, similar to the practice employed to solve "the Jewish problem” in Germany and Italy. On Nov. 24, 1947, Acting Chairman of the (Palestinian) Arab Higher Committee, Jamal Al-Husseini, threatened: "Palestine shall be consumed with fire and blood," if the Jews get any part of it. On April 16, 1948 Jamal Husseini told the UN Security Council: "The representative of the Jewish Agency told us yesterday that they were not the attackers, that the Arabs had begun the fighting. We did not deny this. We told the whole world that we were going to fight.”
On January 9, 2013, Mahmoud Abbas pledged allegiance to the Grand Mufti, who collaborated intimately with the Nazi leadership, especially with Himmler, Hitler's most ruthless right hand man: "On the anniversary of Fatah, we renew the pledge to our fortunate martyrs…. We pledge to continue on the path of the martyrs…. Here we must remember the pioneers – the Grand Mufti of Palestine, Haj Amin Al-Husseini….”
On January 9, 2013, Mahmoud Abbas pledged allegiance to the Grand Mufti, who collaborated intimately with the Nazi leadership, especially with Himmler, Hitler's most ruthless right hand man: "On the anniversary of Fatah, we renew the pledge to our fortunate martyrs…. We pledge to continue on the path of the martyrs…. Here we must remember the pioneers – the Grand Mufti of Palestine, Haj Amin Al-Husseini….”
Who Is Responsible? The Chairman of the PLO and the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, admitted that in 1948, "Arab armies forced Palestinians to leave their homes (the PLO's weekly, Filastin A-Thawra, March 1976).” On May 13, 2008, Al Ayyam, thesecond largest pro-Mahmoud Abbas Palestinian daily, claimed: "[In 1948] the Arab Liberation Army (ALA) told Palestinians to leave their houses and villages, and return a few days later, so the ALA can fulfill its mission.”
The Head of Britain's Middle East Cairo Office, John Troutbeck, reported in June 1949: "Arab refugees speak with utmost bitterness of Egypt and other Arab states. They know who their enemies are. Their Arab brothers persuaded them unnecessarily to leave their homes.” Sir Alan Cunningham, the last British High Commissioner in Palestine, wrote on April 28, 1948 that the total evacuation was urged on the Haifa Arabs from higher Arab quarters. The US Consul General in Haifa telegraphed on April 25, 1948 that "Reportedly, Arab Higher Committee is ordering all Arabs to leave."
The Secretary General of the Arab League, Azzam Pasha told the Lebanese daily, Al Hoda, on June 8, 1951: "In 1948, we were assured that Palestine's occupation would be a military promenade…. Brotherly advice to Arabs in Palestine was to leave their homes temporarily.” The London Economist wrote on October 2, 1948: "The most potent of the factors [triggering the Arab flight] were the announcements by the Higher Arab Executive, urging the Arabs to quit…. It was clearly intimated that those Arabs who remained in Haifa and accepted Jewish protection would be regarded as renegades….” Syria's Prime Minister, Khaled al-Azam,admitted, in his 1973 memoirs, that "We brought destruction upon the refugees, by calling on them to leave their homes.”
According to the first US Ambassador to Israel, James G. McDonald (My Mission In Israel,Simon and Schuster, NY, 1951, pp.174-6): "These Arabs… fled from Palestine as the result of mass panic when the wealthy Arabs, almost to a man, began running away in Nov. 1947…. The flight was provoked by lurid tales of Jewish sadism issued by the Mufti and his followers… Superstitious and uneducated, the Arab masses succumbed to the panic and fled… The refugees were on [Arab leaders'] hands as the result of a war, which they had begun and lost….”
The Head of Britain's Middle East Cairo Office, John Troutbeck, reported in June 1949: "Arab refugees speak with utmost bitterness of Egypt and other Arab states. They know who their enemies are. Their Arab brothers persuaded them unnecessarily to leave their homes.” Sir Alan Cunningham, the last British High Commissioner in Palestine, wrote on April 28, 1948 that the total evacuation was urged on the Haifa Arabs from higher Arab quarters. The US Consul General in Haifa telegraphed on April 25, 1948 that "Reportedly, Arab Higher Committee is ordering all Arabs to leave."
The Secretary General of the Arab League, Azzam Pasha told the Lebanese daily, Al Hoda, on June 8, 1951: "In 1948, we were assured that Palestine's occupation would be a military promenade…. Brotherly advice to Arabs in Palestine was to leave their homes temporarily.” The London Economist wrote on October 2, 1948: "The most potent of the factors [triggering the Arab flight] were the announcements by the Higher Arab Executive, urging the Arabs to quit…. It was clearly intimated that those Arabs who remained in Haifa and accepted Jewish protection would be regarded as renegades….” Syria's Prime Minister, Khaled al-Azam,admitted, in his 1973 memoirs, that "We brought destruction upon the refugees, by calling on them to leave their homes.”
According to the first US Ambassador to Israel, James G. McDonald (My Mission In Israel,Simon and Schuster, NY, 1951, pp.174-6): "These Arabs… fled from Palestine as the result of mass panic when the wealthy Arabs, almost to a man, began running away in Nov. 1947…. The flight was provoked by lurid tales of Jewish sadism issued by the Mufti and his followers… Superstitious and uneducated, the Arab masses succumbed to the panic and fled… The refugees were on [Arab leaders'] hands as the result of a war, which they had begun and lost….”
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