Approximately 720,000 Arabs, encouraged by their leaders to leave,
fled from what is now Israel between April and December, 1948.(1)
The Arab leaders promised them that they would soon be able to return
following Israel's destruction. In some cases the Jews, including
Israel's first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, urged the Arabs
to remain, promising that they would not be harmed.(2) Those who
remained became full and equal citizens of Israel, while those who
chose to leave went to neighboring Arab states. Instead of welcoming
their Arab brothers, and integrating them into the mainstream of
their societies, the Arab states kept them in squalid refugee camps
and used these Palestinians refugees as political pawns in their
fight against Israel.
1. Irving Howe and Carl Gershman (eds.), Israel,
the Arabs and the Middle East (New York: Bantam, 1972), p. 168.
2. See, for instance, The Economist, Oct. 2, 1948, for
a description of Jewish efforts in Haifa to persuade the Arabs to
stay.