Talk:Causes of the 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight

You should include original documents from the Israeli Intelligence Service (Arab Section)
If you're going to document the expulsion of the Arabs from Mandatory Palestine, you really should consider including information from the Israeli Intelligence Service: https://www.haaretz.co.il/st/inter/Heng/1948.pdf] https://www.akevot.org.il/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/1948ISReport-Eng.pdf

''In reviewing the factors that affected migration, we list the factors that had a definitive effect on population migration. Other factors, localized and smaller scale, are listed in the special reviews of migration movement in each district. The factors, in order of importance, are: 1. Direct Jewish hostile actions against Arab communities. 2. Impact of our hostile actions against communities neighboring where migrants lived (here – particularly – the fall of large neighboring communities). 3. Actions taken by the Dissidents [Irgun, Lehi]. 4. Orders and directives issued by Arab institutions and gangs. 5. Jewish Whispering operations [psychological warfare] intended to drive Arabs to flee. 6. Evacuation ultimatums. 7. Fear of Jewish retaliation upon a major Arab attack on Jews. 8. The appearance of gangs and foreign fighters near the village. 9. Fear of an Arab invasion and its consequences (mostly near the borders). 10. Arab villages isolated within purely Jewish areas. 11. Various local factors and general fear of what was to come.'' 2600:1700:EB40:4530:F9E1:6072:E3A8:499A (talk) 04:25, 11 November 2023 (UTC)


 * It is present in the "Opening of archives" section and now includes a link to the document. Zerotalk 06:08, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

Should this article include plans to poison wells?
Apparently there were plans to use biological/chemical warfare against the native Palestinians, in part to make Palestinian villages unlivable. They, (Haganah I assume) called it operation "Cast thy Bread" apparently. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00263206.2022.2122448 https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2022-10-14/ty-article-magazine/.highlight/documents-confirm-israelis-poisoned-arab-wells-in-1948/00000183-d2b2-d8cc-afc7-fefed64d0000 Fanccr (talk) 03:12, 5 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Probably, and the development of those biological weapons by Zionist universities. DMH223344 (talk) 04:09, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

Causes
I started a thread here at 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight regarding the statement that "the causes of the 1948 Palestinian exodus are also a subject of fundamental disagreement among historians." This article says in its lead similarly that "The causes for this mass displacement is a matter of great controversy among historians, journalists, and commentators."

To the best of my knowledge there is only debate over the details of these expulsions and flights and not "fundamental disagreement". See for example this article by Ilan Pappé. IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 17:11, 4 April 2024 (UTC)


 * This is correct. The disagreement is primarily about whether there was a policy of comprehensive expulsions. Of course, most relevant records are still classified. DMH223344 (talk) 04:08, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

Wrong year
In "Master Plan" explanation > Planning by Ben-Gurion:

"... a group of eleven people, ... At a meeting on 10 March 1947, this group put the final touches on Plan Dalet ..."

I suspect that the correct date is 10 March 1948. What Google shows me of the cited source by Pappé lacks page numbers but includes this text:

"10 March 1948, a group of eleven men, veteran Zionist leaders together with young military Jewish officers, put the final touches to a plan for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine."

The passages seem to refer to the same meeting, and the context makes more sense if the year was 1948. Johntobey (talk) 23:02, 15 June 2024 (UTC)


 * Thanks, done. IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 02:26, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 20 June 2024
The heavy use of the word Zionist or Zionism is unnecessary. Jewish and Israeli forces clashed with Arab and Palestinian forces, By using the word Zionist you are skewing the article because of the strong opinions right or wrong of Zionists and Zionism. 50.170.171.146 (talk) 20:36, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Not done - this is too vague of an edit request to be actionable. IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 00:40, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

Why is the first section on inaccurate historiography?
The discussion on inaccurate historiography should not be the first section since it is not core to the topic. Also, the discussion gives the traditionalist Israeli mythology way too much credit. DMH223344 (talk) 04:16, 24 June 2024 (UTC)


 * This article should be rewritten as the "Historiography of the 1948 Palestinian expulsion". IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 04:25, 24 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Great point. The title is ridiculous in my opinion; what could be the cause of expulsion other than...... expulsion? DMH223344 (talk) 04:40, 24 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I agree, particularly since expulsion was the cause of the expulsion as DMH points out, and expulsion was also the cause of the flight. I think this article suggests there is some kind of debate or something about the causes, which there isn't. Another option is to recast this as "causes of the Nakba" and include the debate about whether it was pre-planned or not and to what extent. But that, itself, could just be covered in a broader "historiography of the Nakba." But bottom line, I don't really think, per WP:NOPAGE etc., that this article should be a stand-alone as its currently titled/scoped. To use an analogy, "causes of the Holocaust" makes sense as an article, but "causes of the deaths in the gas chambers" does not make sense, because it's obvious what caused that. Levivich (talk) 15:51, 24 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I'd be open to initiating a requested move. Would "Historigraphy of the Nakba" or "Historiography of the 1947-1949 Palestinian expulsion" be a better title? (or an alternative?) IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 16:00, 24 June 2024 (UTC)
 * The WP:SCOPE is usually the title + the opening sentence so atm, the second para is about the historiography and causes is not the same as historiography. (See Causes of WWI and Historiography of WW1 for example. Selfstudier (talk) 16:09, 24 June 2024 (UTC)
 * In keeping with WP:LEDE, I think the previous lede text was a better summary of the body. I think "flight" here means departure that was not directly forced, and much of the article is about different views on the main drivers of that flight. — xDanielx  T/C\R 05:35, 24 June 2024 (UTC)
 * If the lede and the body don't match, is that always the fault of the lede? This article needs a lot of work, but the lead should say that "Most historians today agree that forceful expulsion was the primary driver of flight." IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 06:02, 24 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I'm a bit confused about your and DMH223344's position here. I understand "flight" to mean departures that are not directly forced. That seems consistent with how it's used in this article and the parent article. Do you agree with that definition?
 * If so, the sentence you mentioned and restored isn't really coherent - expulsion and flight are disjoint events, so one doesn't cause the other at all.
 * Is the idea to change the article to be about expulsion only? That would be a drastic change that should be discussed a lot more before being enacted.
 * I do also think that rewriting a lede to summarize a "hypothetical" overhauled body isn't really a good practice, since it breaks the consistency that WP:LEDE calls for, at least until the overhaul is complete (which might not really happen, depending on consensus about specific body changes later). — xDanielx  T/C\R 14:31, 24 June 2024 (UTC)
 * The flights were in response to and in anticipation of violence and expulsions. It's probably not necessary for either article to be titled "expulsion and flight", and this has likely been insisted on by those who promote the discredited (but still widely believed) idea that a significant number of refugees were not driven out but that they fled for other reasons and of their own volition. IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 14:51, 24 June 2024 (UTC)
 * For some additional sources on the fact that the Palestinian exodus was the result of intentional expulsion, see @Levivich's recent comment on another thread here (One of which states "serious scholarship has left little debate about what happened in 1948"). IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 15:06, 24 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks for clarifying, but this view that flight had one clear (uncontroversial) primary cause seems to fly in the face of a lot of reliably sourced content in the body. If you think other views are fringe and should be removed or given far less weight, then it seems you're proposing a drastic change which should be discussed much more broadly.
 * I did read all the excerpts User:Levivich supplied; while they're related they're mostly about those departures that were directly forced, not about analyzing the causes of those that weren't. — xDanielx  T/C\R 15:17, 24 June 2024 (UTC)
 * As I said above, this article should be rewritten as the "Historiography of the 1948 Palestinian expulsion", so yes I do believe it requires drastic change. But that change can be made incrementally. It's not sensible to retain the previous inaccurate statement of the lead that "there is significant debate over the causes...", the lead now reads that there "was" significant debate. IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 15:34, 24 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes, the traditionalist Israeli history is now considered fringe. This article cites traditionalist historians on issues where their work has been widely discredited, especially by the opening of the archives.
 * The body itself lists expulsions as the most important of the factors which caused the exodus. DMH223344 (talk) 15:45, 24 June 2024 (UTC)
 * There were no causes that were not the result of force. The causes were, in sum: physical violence (i.e., direct physical expulsion), and flight away from the threat of physical violence (i.e., indirect expulsion via threat of violence). That's the "expulsion and flight." If you're thinking of "the Arab states told them to leave" or "they decided to leave because they didn't want to live there," those are both debunked myths. To the extent they "fled" instead of being "expelled," they fled because somebody was coming to kill or expel them. Not like, "Oh, I'd rather go live in a refugee camp in Jordan" as an actual voluntary choice. Levivich (talk) 15:48, 24 June 2024 (UTC)
 * That is simply untrue, there are more than enough sources, including that of Benny Morris, that mention evacuation orders issued by Arab authorities. If we stick to just point of view, we create nothing but systemic bias. We should acknowledge the complexity of the topic, and making such sweeping claims is unfortuantely not very helpful for improving the article. ABHammad (talk) 17:13, 24 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Where does Benny Morris say that? Levivich (talk) 04:45, 26 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Fact is, by the way, that many stayed behind - those we call in Arabic, "the 48-Arabs", because, in many cases, nobody was coming to kill them or expel them. ABHammad (talk) 17:15, 24 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Except those who are internal refugees; they were kicked out of elsewhere. And those who survived the massacres and other violence and stayed. And those who successfully returned. Of course there were some Arabs who were not killed or expelled, but I don't think there was any place in Mandatory Palestine where someone wasn't coming to kill or expel Arabs during the Nakba. I believe sources cover expulsions and deadly violence in literally every part of Israel and the occupied territories, even the desert. Levivich (talk) 04:50, 26 June 2024 (UTC)
 * In any case, what @IOHANNVSVERVSsays is correct, this article reads like a discussion of historiography rather than an overview of the causes.
 * Also I should note that the article really does try to spin the entirely debunked "endorsement of flight" story. DMH223344 (talk) 15:52, 24 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I restored the last good version, nothing is "entirely debunked", it only depends of what you read. There are LOTS of causes debated throughout the years. Even if a few scholars say that X is right and Y is wrong, they may be wrong, and Y may be right. The debate was never settled, especially with the growing politicization of the topic in academic research. ABHammad (talk) 17:10, 24 June 2024 (UTC)
 * "nothing is "entirely debunked", it only depends of what you read." WP:CIR IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 17:15, 24 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Aside from flight, I think it's also coherent to talk about causes of expulsion, as the discussion of Plan Dalet and other Zionist planning or decision making. — xDanielx  T/C\R 05:46, 24 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I agree, the lead should summarize the main debates and talking points, the various causes suggested throughout the history of the research of the topic, and the opposing view on each. That is, I am afraid, our only option to build a much needed, encyclopedic and balanced coverage of this extremely controversial topic. ABHammad (talk) 17:11, 24 June 2024 (UTC)
 * WP:FALSEBALANCE. IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 17:14, 24 June 2024 (UTC)
 * could also be, Systemic bias. All I'm saying is we all should try to be more critical of the sources and accept the simple fact that this subject is (a) controversial (b) hugely debated in RS, regardless of trends. When dealing with it, we have to be the best version of ourselves as editors. ABHammad (talk) 17:17, 24 June 2024 (UTC)
 * A very weak argument. If you read the page you linked, you'll quickly realize that it is very unlikely to apply here, other than in the *opposite* of what you claim. DMH223344 (talk) 17:20, 24 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I don’t think that this devolving into which organisation has bias against what group will have a productive outcome.
 * Ignoring the issues caused by the title (likely due to the change from exodus to expulsion and flight, but I could be wrong), I think we need to figure out a clearer structure of the article, which may address the issues brought up by both sides? FortunateSons (talk) 17:44, 24 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Ignoring the issues caused by the title (likely due to the change from exodus to expulsion and flight, but I could be wrong), I think we need to figure out a clearer structure of the article, which may address the issues brought up by both sides? FortunateSons (talk) 17:44, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

break
We do have Causes of the Armenian genocide, which I started, although I'm thinking it could be renamed "Origins of the Armenian genocide". It might be possible to have Causes of the Nakba but I think historiography is likely to result in a better article. (t &#183; c)  buidhe  02:16, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

Changes to lead
Recent changes to the lead have been undone by @ABHammad in this diff.

This needs to be discussed and obviously I strongly disagree with this reversion. IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 17:12, 24 June 2024 (UTC)


 * The discussion is ongoing just one thread above this one. ABHammad (talk) 17:18, 24 June 2024 (UTC)
 * WP:STATUSQUOSTONEWALLING IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 17:20, 24 June 2024 (UTC)
 * You said you believe that the article requires drastic changes. Per WP:LOCALCONSENSUS, Consensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time, cannot override community consensus on a wider scale. The previous stability of this article, and of the closely related parent article, suggests a broad and long-standing consensus that the article was reasonably balanced.
 * These drastic changes were proposed less than 24 hours ago, and so far have been supported by three editors (one who was pinged) and opposed by two editors. There isn't much evidence yet that the broader consensus has actually changed; we should await such evidence before initiating drastic changes to an otherwise stable article. — xDanielx  T/C\R 17:35, 24 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I would set about editing the article body with best and most recent sources and that will determine the lead in the end (and maybe the title too, but if it changes here, why not at the main?). Selfstudier (talk) 17:57, 24 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Instead of head counting the editors in favour of each position, you might try counting the reliable sources which have been cited in favour of each position.
 * @ABHammad, why have you removed the citation to Abigail Bakan from the article? How is your heavy handed reverting -which has removed sourced content- in line with the requirement to edit "carefully and cautiously" in this contentious topic area? IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 20:00, 24 June 2024 (UTC)
 * If you're thinking of the excerpts Levivich compiled, I'm not sure they're very applicable here. Are any of them concretely taking the view that flight was uncomplicated, that Arab leaders didn't play a real role, that analysis like that of Morris are without merit, etc? I haven't seen that. — xDanielx  T/C\R 16:12, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
 * The operative parent of this page is the 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight. "Expulsion and flight" is the operative phrase. If you are uncomfortable with the use of the word "expulsion" here then you are uncomfortable with the scholarship, including that of Morris. Iskandar323 (talk) 16:22, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I was never questioning whether expulsions occurred of anything of that sort, of course that's established fact. — xDanielx  T/C\R 17:12, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
 * "I haven't seen that." Have you read any of the sources Levivich presented? IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 03:02, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

Proposed change to lead
This has been discussed above but here I propose again (with further sourcing; see the Slater citation which itself contains numerous references) that the lead be changed from:

"The causes of this mass displacement are a matter of controversy among historians, journalists, and commentators."

to:

"There has been significant historiographical debate as well as denialism regarding the causes of the Palestinian exodus, however today most historians agree that forceful expulsion was the primary driver of flight."

Note especially that these two sources are recent (2020 and 2022) and that they both say "There is no serious dispute among Israeli, Palestinian, or other historians about the central facts of the Nakba."(Slater) and "In light of the ever-growing historiography, serious scholarship has left little debate about what happened in 1948."(Abu-Laban & Bakan) It is simply not accurate to say that the debate about the cause(s) of the Palestinian expulsion is ongoing, as there is consensus among WP:BESTSOURCES that the vast majority of the Palestinians were directly expelled or fled from fear of violence/expulsion.

- IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 23:29, 30 June 2024 (UTC)


 * These three authors have clear anti-Israeli stances, but setting aside any concerns of bias and taking the excepts (which do seem reasonable enough at first glance) at face value, I don't quite follow your interpretation of them. I don't see anything in the excerpts that seems similar to forceful expulsion was the primary driver of flight.
 * Both sources support that expulsions occurred, which I would say is an established fact. But that doesn't tell us that flight didn't also occur, or that they were largely in anticipation of expulsions, and didn't have other nontrivial causes. It seems like we would need other sources that make that more specific argument.
 * It's also not obvious to me why Nakba denial would be topical here; is the idea that the analyses of Morris etc. are downplaying the expulsions of the Nakba by focusing on other aspects of the exodus? I think we'd need an RS to make the connection, and putting it in the lede might still be a WP:WEIGHT issue.
 * Overall it feels like you (plural) are taking the article in an expected direction relative to the scope implied by the title, as well as the previous content. If you disagree with the fundamental premise of the article (that the exodus had nontrivial causes worth examining), maybe an AfD would be the best course of action, or an RM to explicitly modify the scope in some way. — xDanielx  T/C\R 03:13, 1 July 2024 (UTC)
 * "These three authors have clear anti-Israeli stances" - You'll need reiable sources to support this claim.
 * "I don't see anything in the excerpts that seems similar to forceful expulsion was the primary driver of flight." - WP:IDHT; see my response to this in the discussion below.
 * - IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 04:36, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

Present scholarship
I added a section title "Present scholarship" in this edit stating that "Present day scholarship generally considers that violence and direct expulsions perpetrated by Zionist forces throughout both phases of the 1947-1949 Palestine war (both during the civil war phase and during the 1948-1949 Arab-Israeli war) as the primary cause of the displacement of the Palestinians."

Obviously this needs to be reviewed.

- IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 01:31, 1 July 2024 (UTC)


 * Just to echo my concern from the previous talk thread - the sources don't appear to use language similar to primary cause of the displacement, and don't seem to discuss causes in general. My understanding is that you're viewing them as challenging the analyses of Morris, Pappe, etc, but those are the New Historians that seem more aligned with these sources, not their main target of criticism. — xDanielx  T/C\R 03:31, 1 July 2024 (UTC)
 * "The sources don't appear to use language similar to primary cause of the displacement, and don't seem to discuss causes in general."
 * You've clearly not read the sources themselves and have either not read or misunderstood the quoted excerpts.
 * To repeat: "The work of the ‘new’ (or revisionist) Israeli historians from the late 1970s also challenged the official state narrative of a miraculous wartime victory through access to material in the Israeli archives. This has established what Ilan Pappé has summarised as the ‘ethnic cleansing of Palestine’, a process involving massacres and expulsions at gunpoint."
 * "Reviewing the evidence marshaled by Morris and others, Tom Segev concluded that "most of the Arabs in the country, approximately 400,000, were chased out and expelled during the first stage of the war." & "Even Israeli "Old Historians" now admit that during the 1948 war, the Israeli armed forces drove out many of the Palestinians".
 * Another quotation from Slater is "While a number of studies have found no evidence to support the Israeli claim of an Arab propaganda campaign to induce the Palestinians to flee, well before the Arab invasion some 300,000 to 400,000 Palestinians (out of a population of about 900,000 at the time of the UN partition) were either forcibly expelled—sometimes by forced marches with only the clothes on their backs—or fled as a result of Israeli psychological warfare, economic pressures, and violence, designed to empty the area that would become Israel of most of its Arab inhabitants.”
 * That the Palestinians were violently expelled or else fled from violence is what Slater is referring to when he speaks of the "the central facts of the Nakba", of which he says "There is no serious dispute among Israeli, Palestinian, or other historians".
 * I'm not sure how you can say the sources provided "don't seem to discuss causes in general". IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 04:33, 1 July 2024 (UTC)
 * There's a difference between leaving because of a direct expulsion (in the narrow sense Morris uses - an order to leave within a specific time period), fear of violence, psychological warfare, economic pressures, and yes, Arab influences. It seems like you're hand waving away these differences, suggesting that they aren't important since they're all broadly attributable to Zionist actions. That may be so, but the point of the article is to break down and examine these different causes. If you don't believe this is a useful exercise, then it seems you disagree with the fundamental premise of the article, and AfD would be the place to register your objections.
 * Regarding Arab influences in particular, I'm not talking about the Arab propaganda campaign Slater mentions. See e.g. Morris' Response to Finkelstein and Masalha: No one, including Finkelstein and Masalha, disputes the fact that much of the Arab middle and upper classes fled Palestine - as they had done during 1936-39 - between December 1947 and early April 1948. Local leaders, bankers, doctors, lawyers, teachers, shop-keepers and factory-owners, government officials, judges, pharmacists, land-owners - perhaps 75,000 souls in all-moved to the safer climes of Beirut, Nablus, Hebron, Cairo, Amman, to be out of harm's way. Did this flight of the privileged weaken Palestinian society economically, politically, and militarily? Did it undermine the staying power and self-confidence of those left behind, especially the increasingly unemployed masses in the towns and cities? Did it provide a model of escape for those who were to take to their heels in April-June? The evidence all points to the affirmative, and not too much imagination is required to understand the dynamics of the situation.
 * Broad statements about the central facts of the Nakba don't get into the substance of the topic at hand and aren't really relevant here. — xDanielx  T/C\R 05:43, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

Change article to become about the historiography
This was discussed above with multiple users expressing support for the idea. So I propose it here: This article should be changed to focus on the historiography rather than on the causes. As the article stands now it would require less changes to make it about the historiography than to make it a good article about the causes. By that I mean most of the material in this article is from pre-1980s and is wildly out of date and inaccurate. It would require a massive overhaul with massive removals of content to improve this article, or if we make it about the historiography almost all of the current content can remain. I think it would be better to change the article to focus on the historiography and to make this page inclusive of all views and historians' opinions/analyses. IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 17:15, 1 July 2024 (UTC)


 * Make a new article about the historiography. Then start setting it up using newer material as well as material from here. At some point, the new article can be summarized in this one and then we will see whether this one should be deleted or kept. This will save arguments. Selfstudier (talk) 18:25, 1 July 2024 (UTC)