Exploring Why So Many Palestinians Become Refugees in 1948-49

In this essay I am going to look at the reasons why many Palestinians

became refugees in 1948-49. I am going to look at it from both the

point of view of the Palestinians and the Israelis.

Violence on both Israeli, and Palestinian sides increased during

1947. By December, Palestinians began to flee Israel, to the Western

Bank. In the areas where the Jews where strong, the wealthier

Palestinians decided to move out. This caused the morale of the

Palestinians to begin to drop. Between December 1947, and January

1948, many other Palestinians, who were richer, also moved, to escape

from the fighting. Many of the British employed Palestinians left, as

they thought that there was no future for them in the Jewish state.

This caused the morale to drop further. During March and April, many

of the roads linking Jerusalem to the Jewish heartlands on the coast

were targeted for yet more fighting. Many Palestinian families in

Jerusalem began to move out, to escape the fighting. People living in

the places involved in the fighting where often driven out by the

Jewish force, however villages where there was no fighting where left

alone. By March 1948, a large-scale movement of all kinds of

Palestinian people, the rich and the poor, fled the country, as they

feared the fighting. At this stage it did not look good for the

Jews. Palestinians surrounded many villages, and cut off the Jews

form Jerusalem. The Jews then changed their way of fighting. They

now disarmed or destroyed all villages that showed any support for the

Palestinians. In April 1948, 250 Palestinian villagers were killed,

many of them children, in Deir Yassin, not far from Jerusalem. This

was because the Jewish force met strong resistance there. The news of

this spread quickly, and people began to panic, because they could now

see what extremes the Jews were willing to go to. In 8 days in April,

around 60,000 Palestinians fled from Haifa, when it was attacked.