Hamas: “No Peace, Ever, Without the Return of Millions of Arabs”

August 3, 2006

The Hamas announcement repeats, several times, the claim that the Arabs were cruelly thrown out of their homes by Israel in 1948 when, in fact, the largest number of Arab refugees fled only at the urging of their own leaders, who promised them a swift victory over the fledgling Jewish state and a quick return to their homes.

For instance, a British police commander in Haifa said in April 1948, “Every effort is being made by the Jews to persuade the Arab populace to stay and carry on with their normal lives, to get their shops and businesses open and to be assured that their lives and interests will be safe.” Abu Mazen himself, now the chairman of the PA, wrote in 1976, “The Arab states succeeded in scattering the Palestinian people and in destroying their unity.”

Excerpts from the Hamas Nakba announcement:

“Ho, sons of the Palestinian Jihad-fighting nation…Modern history has never seen a crime equal to that of the eviction of the Palestinians from their homes in 1948 by the Zionist conquerors…

“In these days of the month of May each year, the nation recalls the bleeding wound of the Nakba, which has a special place in our nation’s heart. For the refugees, the Nakba means homeland, home, orchard, fig tree, harvest, and everything that is connected to the land from which they were evicted…

“On the 58th anniversary of the accursed Nakba, we emphasize that: “The resistance—all forms of the struggle [i.e., terrorism–ed.]—is a legitimate right as long as the conqueror sits on Palestinian land and as long as he continues his aggression against the Palestinian nation and arrests thousands of its sons…

“Sons of our Palestinian nation, the commemoration of the Nakba and its grave consequences teach us that we must adhere even more strongly to the Jihad, to resistance, to the strong stand, and to the non-concession of the right of return, self-definition and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with its capital in Jerusalem. Without all this, there will never be peace or security in the entire region…”

Source: Excerpts from an article by Hillel Fendel, Arutz 7