"One of the biggest myth about the 1948 war is that the occupation and consequent expulsion of Palestinians was a response for the Arab armies ‘invasion’ of Palestine on May 15, 1948. The truth is that the Jewish leadership decided on December 7, 1947 to begin operations that were meant to destroy entire villages and expel their people. Contrary to the accepted mythology, the Arab world decided to responds to this massive ethnic cleansing that began immediately after Israel accepted the partition resolution on 29 November 1947 only after the urban space of Palestine was destroyed by the Jewish forces before May 15, 1948.
It was the Jewish actions in the first week of May which brought the first stage of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine to such an extent that the Arab governments reluctantly had to intervene.
As Yeshayhau Gavish (a former general and a commander of a Palmach battalion) testified on that week describing the Jewish actions:
‘We have bombarded Biesan (today Beit Shean) so to cause its people to flee. We bombarded again with mortar and heavy fire and it helped. By the time the state came into being we have expelled all the Bedouins from Beisan down to Beit Hashitah (near Afula). We have harassed the people of Akka and those living in the town’s surrounding.
Our main mission [in that week] in the battalion was what was called Broom (cleansing operations) – to cleanse all the road from Tabarias up to Metula (the border with Lebanon). In a day and a half we expelled all the villages, demolished all the houses – we cleaned the area.’"
(interview with Yeshayahu Gavish, Palmach Archives, page 14).
Ilan Pappe
*The title is mine: PaYmaN PieDaR
It was the Jewish actions in the first week of May which brought the first stage of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine to such an extent that the Arab governments reluctantly had to intervene.
As Yeshayhau Gavish (a former general and a commander of a Palmach battalion) testified on that week describing the Jewish actions:
‘We have bombarded Biesan (today Beit Shean) so to cause its people to flee. We bombarded again with mortar and heavy fire and it helped. By the time the state came into being we have expelled all the Bedouins from Beisan down to Beit Hashitah (near Afula). We have harassed the people of Akka and those living in the town’s surrounding.
Our main mission [in that week] in the battalion was what was called Broom (cleansing operations) – to cleanse all the road from Tabarias up to Metula (the border with Lebanon). In a day and a half we expelled all the villages, demolished all the houses – we cleaned the area.’"
(interview with Yeshayahu Gavish, Palmach Archives, page 14).
Ilan Pappe
*The title is mine: PaYmaN PieDaR
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