On the 12th of October, Israel issued a military order for the residents of northern and central Gaza, encompassing a population of 1.1 million Gazans, to make their way to the south of the Gaza Strip. The directive mandated the residents of Gaza, including United Nations (UN) personnel present in the area, to evacuate within a mere 24-hour timeframe. The UN, while appealing the directive, indicated the impossibility of such a big wave of movement without devastating humanitarian consequences. On the other hand, for Gazans and Palestinians, such a directive for a temporary displacement evokes memories of the 1948 Nakba (“catastrophe”) where a staggering 750,000 Palestinians were forcibly displaced from their residences in the aftermath of Israel’s establishment as a country. Bearing the core memory of the first Nakba while experiencing an active exodus at the moment, Palestinians remain one of the largest internally displaced populations in the world. Although being recognized as an internally displaced person (IDP) provides a certain level of acknowledgement and can be a basis for protection, the overall protection depends on a combination of legal, humanitarian, and security factors. In this blog post, I will argue that what IDPs truly need is not an additional legal status but rather effective protection from the consequences of displacement.
Who are IDPs?
The largest group of displaced individuals worldwide is currently comprised of IDPs, surpassing the number of refugees by a significant margin. Although IDPs are significant in number, they do not fall within the scope of the 1951 Refugee Convention as they do not cross international borders. Additionally, until 1998, international law lacked a clear declaration of the rights of IDPs. These gaps were addressed by the UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement in 1998.
The Guiding Principles aimed to improve how the organization works with IDPs. It’s important to note that UNHCR and other UN agencies lack the legal authority to formally ‘protect’ people who were displaced within their own country. Cohen emphasizes that while international law, especially refugee and human rights law, provides some protection for those crossing borders, there is a significant gap in legal safeguards for IDPs within their own countries (pp. 310-311). While individuals who cross international borders are safeguarded by the principle of non-refoulement in refugee and human rights law, there is no equivalent protection in general international law for those internally displaced within their own country.
The lack of specific legal protection in the case of internal displacement leaves IDPs with serious human rights violations. Unlike refugees, IDPs are more likely to stay near or become trapped in conflict zones, exposed to crossfire, and vulnerable to being manipulated, targeted, or used as human shields by conflicting parties. The most recent example of these kinds of human rights violations can be seen in the case of Gazan IDPs after the eviction directives given by the Israeli government since the 12th of October.
Internal displacement in Gaza
As of 13.12.2023, about 1.9 million people in Gaza are internally displaced. This amounts to 85% of the population, including the people who have been displaced more than one time. Of these 1.9 million, around 1.3 million are sheltered in 155 UNRWA (The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East) facilities, 211,00 in government shelters, 96,000 in public shelters, and 219,000 at host families.
Numerous instances were reported of Israeli forces committing violence against Palestinian civilians evacuating south via Salah Al-Din Road as per Israeli instructions (see here). These incidents involve inhumane treatment, arbitrary arrests, unlawful detention, and killings. UN also reported the continuity of attacks near hospitals in the north that are sheltering a great number of IDPs.
Following the orders of the Israeli government, areas encompassing nearly 30 percent of the Gaza Strip have been marked for evacuation on the Israeli military’s online map that was launched on 1 December. According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), this suggests the possibility of permanent displacement of civilians from the north to the south of the Gaza Strip. The concept of permanent displacement is not unfamiliar to Palestinians, as over three-quarters of Gaza’s population consists of refugees who have been denied the right to return to their homes since 1948.
IDPs in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) are not formally registered. Because of this, defining Palestinians displaced within Gaza and the West Bank due to evictions, demolitions, or property confiscation is methodologically complex. While categorizing them as IDPs seems logical, some may also qualify as refugees under UNRWA’s definition due to displacement in the 1948 war. This distinctive circumstance leads to individuals in the OPT being recognized as both IDPs and refugees (see here).
Assessing the Effectiveness
Receiving constant eviction orders with no prospect of Gazans returning home raises doubts about whether IDP status indeed provides any meaningful protection to the affected populations. Schimmel argues that international refugee law paradoxically and problematically reinforces sovereign borders’ legal, moral, and policy significance at the expense of human rights protection. By asserting that the right to international protection is only activated upon crossing an international border, the law emphasizes the importance of borders and systematically excludes individuals who are internally displaced. While doing so, IDPs’ rights and needs frequently go unnoticed, met with apathy and insufficient humanitarian response from the United Nations, its agencies, member states, and global humanitarian non-governmental organizations. On top of this, Kälin argues that establishing a distinct legal status for IDPs poses challenges as it ties their treatment to status determination rather than addressing their needs directly (pp. 53-54). Creating a legal category similar to refugees may relegate IDPs to a secondary status, potentially limiting their rights. Enshrining IDP status in law might hinder access to rights for those not formally designated as IDPs, leaving certain categories of IDPs unprotected. Additionally, tying rights to a legal status can complicate finding durable solutions, especially in protracted situations, where IDPs may fear losing the right to return.
On one hand, the Refugee Convention establishes enforceable regulations for the safeguarding of refugees, with binding rules applicable to every state party irrespective of the varying degrees of implementation. On the other hand, the situation for IDPs lacks a comparable international legal framework. The UN Guiding Principles, though informative in delineating the characteristics of IDPs, lack the force of law. Unlike the Refugee Convention, these principles fail to provide a legally binding status for IDPs, creating a soft law document that lacks a solid legal foundation for the protection of internally displaced individuals. The Guiding Principles highlight that the rights of IDPs are grounded in their humanity and citizenship, rather than being derived from an officially granted legal status.
Based on Schimmel and Kälin’s arguments, relying solely on the Guiding Principles to establish the legal status of IDPs is ineffective and practically impossible for two main reasons. Firstly, in the context of IDPs in Gaza, there is limited and fragmented state power to protect them. Secondly, unlike the Refugee Convention, which assigns responsibility to contracting states, the absence of IDPs crossing national borders makes it challenging to determine which state should bear the responsibility for their protection. This raises questions about how responsibility should be shared among neighbouring countries and those located far away and how cooperation in this regard could be effectively managed.
The Kampala Convention is one of the first legally binding documents that emphasizes cooperation among contracting states to address internal displacement challenges within a specific region. Through the convention, cooperation with international organisations, civil society, and relevant agencies is encouraged. The primary duty and protection for the protection falls to the nation-state of IDPs however, in situations where resources are insufficient, states are obligated to cooperate in seeking assistance from international organizations and other actors. While the Convention distinguishes itself by being legally binding, an argument can be made that its impact is limited, given that nearly half of the African Union members have not ratified it. The low ratification rate indicates a global trend of neglecting the needs of IDPs, regardless of having a legally binding document or not.
This shows an urgent need for effective protection for IDPs that must be provided at the supranational level. The protection although can be provided through the implementation of a legally binding document, the existing examples of legally binding rules shows that it requires large-scale ratification and cooperation. However, while providing effective protection to IDPs, the unique nature of the conflict has to be taken into consideration. Kalin argues that bringing an IDP lens helps identifying specific needs and ensures that they can be addressed. the current example of IDP Gazans underscores a broader deficiency in the international community’s perspective and sensitivity towards the issue. This awareness extends beyond the question of whether IDPs have legal status or not.
The “Bofaxe” series appears as part of a collaboration between the IFHV and Völkerrechtsblog.
Selin Altay is a Research Associate and PhD Candidate at Ruhr University Bochum’s Institute for International Law of Peace and Armed Conflict (IFHV)
Thank you for the interesting article!
The war could end any second if Hamas/ISIS releases the hostages and lays down its arms.
Let me add some further information:
1.
The author’s article only starts on October 12.
Due to the much-needed context, my commentary begins on October 7.
On that day, some 3000 Hamas terrorists invaded Israel, murdered 1,200 Israelis and took more than 250 hostages, 134 of whom are still being held in inhumane conditions in the tunnels of Gaza.
The murdered victims were mostly visitors to a music festival and residents of the kibbutzim, many of them peace activists.
Among the hostages are Holocaust survivors, the elderly, the sick and many children, including Kfir Bibas (9 months) and Ariel Bibas (four years).
But Hamas did not stop at the “mere” murder of 1,200 people. Their methods of torture and murder surpassed ISIS in their sadism.
Parents were shot in front of their children, children’s limbs were cut off in front of their parents and entire families were burned alive. Some of the victims were beheaded.
Women were systematically raped [1].
October 7 was the largest pogrom against Jews since the Holocaust.
It triggered a collective trauma in Israel and among Jews worldwide, as the sadistic actions of the Hamas terrorists brought back memories of the Nazis and the Holocaust [2].
Hamas has announced its plan to repeat the October 7 massacre again and again [3].
Until this moment, rockets are fired from Gaza on Israel. Every single rocket is aiming on Israeli civilians and has just one goal: To murder as many Israelis as possible, no matter if they are children, women or the elderly.
2.
In the beginning of the article, the author is referring to the military order by the Israeli Defense Forces.
In response to this ISIS-style pogrom, Israel exercised its legitimate right to self-defense, Article 51 of the UN Charter, and launched a large-scale military operation to crush Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Israel is doing everything in its power to avoid civilian casualties.
The evacuation of Gaza residents is just one of many efforts by Israel to protect the civilian population of Gaza.
This is not easy, as Hamas’ entire warfare is based on abusing civilians as human shields and converting civilian facilities, such as hospitals and schools, into rocket launching pads or military command centers [4].
As northern Gaza is a Hamas stronghold, Israel urged civilians in northern Gaza via various channels (such as leaflets) to cross into southern Gaza through safe corridors so that they would not be at risk of Israeli attacks [5].
Hamas terrorists often operate from residential buildings where weapons are also stored. Israel is fulfilling its obligations to protect civilians under Article 57 II (a) of Additional Protocol 1 of the Geneva Convention by calling the residents of these properties in a timely manner and asking them to leave their homes. Furthermore, it issues general warnings that asks Gazans to stay away from Hamas fighters and weapon depots [6].
John W. Spencer, a world-renowned expert in Urban Warfare, Chair of Urban Warfare Studies at the Modern War Institute at West Point and Co-Director of MWI’s Urban Warfare Project, summarized the enormous Israeli efforts of minimizing civilian casualties, with the following words: “Israel minimizes civilian casualties more than anyone in history.” [7]
Unfortunately, it is Hamas that has no regard for the lives of civilians and even wants to deliberately cause the deaths of as many civilians as possible. Dead civilians are a double benefit to Hamas: First, Hamas can use the images of dead civilians to carry out its anti-Semitic propaganda, which unfortunately is often successful. Second, every dead civilian leaves behind relatives who, in their grief, are much easier for Hamas to recruit. This has been admitted publicly by Hamas [8].
It is therefore no surprise that Hamas is actively preventing civilians from evacuating. This is even explicitly stated in the Al-Jazeera article cited by the author.
Hamas even shot on the evacuees [9].
3.
The article is about internally displaced people. I was therefore very surprised that there was not a single mention of the fact that 300,000 Israelis – Jews and Arabs – have been internally displaced in their own country since October 7th.
Countless houses in the kibbutzim around Gaza were burned down by Hamas terrorists, and hundreds of buildings were destroyed by rocket fire in southern Israel.
In northern Israel, the Lebanese Hezbollah fires dozens of rockets at civilians every day. Countless houses have been destroyed there too.
Both Hamas and Hezbollah have announced their intention to repeat the October 7 massacre.
A total of 300,000 Israelis are refugees in their own country.
4.
The article’s statement about actions of the Israeli Defense Forces at the Salah El-Din road is factually incorrect.
The article blames Israel for “inhumane treatment, arbitrary arrests, unlawful detention, and killings”, but is not providing one single sufficient source for this accusation. In the source the author stated, there is only one sentence about the Salah Al-Din Street.
I quote directly from the article’s source which should prove its baseless accusations: “Some IDPs reported that they had had to cross Israeli checkpoints to reach the area and had witnessed arrests by Israeli forces.”
Not one word confirms the author’s accusations of “inhumane treatment”, “killings”, “arbitrary arrests” or “unlawful detentions”.
The fact that Gazans had to go through Israeli checkpoints and arrests were made is easy to explain:
As already mentioned, northern Gaza is a Hamas stronghold. In addition, a three-digit number of Israeli hostages were held captive in northern Gaza.
The checkpoints therefore served two purposes:
On the one hand, the hostages should be prevented from being kidnapped by Hamas from northern Gaza to southern Gaza.
On the other hand, it should be prevented that Hamas terrorists, disguised as civilians, can drive from the north of Gaza to the south of Gaza in order to continue firing rockets at Israel from there.
The arrests of Hamas terrorists show that this was attempted by Hamas terrorists (these arrests are also used in the source used by the author).
5.
It is factually incorrect that “750,000 Palestinians were forcibly displaced from their residences in the aftermath of Israel’s establishment as a country,” as the author claims.
Contrary to what the source falsely claims on p. 7, it is important to remember, that a Palestinian state never existed. Until 1947, the area between the Jordan river and the Mediterranean Sea was under the British mandate. Before that, it was ruled by the Ottomans, also the Babylonian Empire once ruled about this area, and don’t forget the Romans. The Romans called this area “Syria Palestina” (yes, Palestine is a Roman, not an Arab term). Before the Romans, the area was called Judea and was under the rule of a Jewish kingdom. But there was never a Palestinian state.
Before the founding of the state on May 14, 1948, there was not one single Arab village on whose site a Jewish village was created (at that time, the Arabs in the British Mandate of Palestine did not yet call themselves ‘Palestinians’).
In 1947, the UN partition plan for this British ruled area was accepted by the Jewish leadership and rebuffed by the Arab League (there was no Palestinian leadership at this time, since the Palestinian national movement was not born yet).
But the Arab leadership did not just refuse the UN partition plan. It started an allout war against the State of Israel, whose aim was to drive the Jews into the sea. At this time, there were 600,000 inhabitants living in Israel, many of them Holocaust survivors.
The war against Israel, started by the Arab League, was a clear violation of the UN partition plan.
Some of the Arab armies were led by fanatical Nazis. Two particularly well-known examples are Amin al-Husseini, the Mufti of Jerusalem, and Fauzi al-Kaukji. Fauzi al-Kaukji had his fighters swear their oath with the Nazi salute [12].
The Arab leaders called on the Arab population to get out of the line of fire and clear the way for the Arab armies. The Arab leaders promised the Arab population that after a few weeks the Jews would be defeated and they could return to their homes.
There were indeed a few expulsions as a result of Israel’s war of defense, but the vast majority of Arabs followed the calls of their leaders or simply fled the war voluntarily [13].
It is completely normal for people to flee a war zone.
But it is important to emphasize that the Arab leaders started this war.
There was no Israeli plan, to expel the Arabs – they didn’t call themselves Palestinians at the time.
The best proof of this is that the proportion of Arab Israelis has been around 20% since the founding of the state until today. These Arab Israelis are the Arabs who did not follow the Arab leadership’s demands to leave their homes.
Arab Israelis are the only Arabs in the Middle East who live in a democracy that grants them complete equality.
It is unfortunate that the article does not mention the Jewish “Nakba” in a single word – this actually took place.
After the founding of Israel, 900,000 Jews from Arab countries were expelled from their countries and lost everything they owned. To date they have not been compensated [14].
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/28/world/middleeast/oct-7-attacks-hamas-israel-sexual-violence.html and https://www.rnd.de/politik/hamas-massaker-in-israel-netanjahu-buero-veroeffentlicht-schockierende-bilder-K5BALBICVVKHZCU5TUCOWJMGVU.html and https://www.heute.at/s/hamas-massaker-in-israel-auch-babys-enthauptet-100295971 and https://www.bild.de/politik/ausland/politik-inland/grausige-details-ueber-hamas-die-terroristen-assen-als-sie-kinder-folterten-85802656.bild.html and https://www.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-782663 and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UpClxURrSc and https://www.timesofisrael.com/adi-vital-kaploun-33-amazing-mother-killed-in-front-of-her-children/
[2] https://www.spiegel.de/ausland/psychiater-ueber-trauma-in-israel-gefuehl-als-koenne-sich-der-holocaust-wiederholen-a-ef090241-8b29-4282-99ee-66dce34bf0b9
[3] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12699265/Hamas-calls-annihilation-Israel-repeat-attacks-October-7.html
[4] https://stratcomcoe.org/cuploads/pfiles/hamas_human_shields.pdf
[5] https://www.forbes.com/sites/erictegler/2023/12/27/30000-weapons-and-50000-phone-callshardware-and-intel-from-gaza/ and https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/idf-drops-leaflets-warning-palestinians-that-gaza-city-now-a-battlefield/
[6] https://lieber.westpoint.edu/idf-hamas-duty-to-warn/
[7] https://www.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-784307
[8] https://www.welt.de/politik/ausland/plus248288564/Gaza-Wir-sind-diejenigen-die-dieses-Blut-brauchen.html and https://www.merkur.de/politik/kampfbereitschaft-hamas-logik-kalkulation-opfer-kollateralschaden-zivilisten-krieg-angriffe-israel-zr-92649181.html and https://www.rbb24.de/panorama/beitrag/2023/11/krieg-in-nahost-hamas-propaganda-social-media-tiktok.html
[9] https://www.ynetnews.com/article/bjqk4hpft and https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-770242
[10] https://www.thejc.com/news/leaders-of-groups-behind-london-pro-palestinian-march-have-links-to-hamas-ng34ql4i
[11] https://www.facebook.com/palestinesolidarityuk/
[12] https://www.spiegel.de/politik/mit-deutschem-gruss-fuer-palaestina-a-9582b8ae-0002-0001-0000-000041123966
[13] https://www.jstor.org/stable/26801117 and https://www.jstor.org/stable/25834907 and https://www.city-journal.org/article/the-nakba-obsession
[14] https://taz.de/Arabische-Juden/!5894964/ and https://www.bpb.de/themen/antisemitismus/dossier-antisemitismus/321671/flucht-und-vertreibung-von-juden-aus-den-arabischen-laendern/ and https://www.nzz.ch/meinung/flucht-emigration-vertreibung-das-drama-der-arabischen-juden-ld.1712279 and https://www.nzz.ch/international/zweierlei-vertreibungen-zweierlei-integration-ld.1471990
Thank you for the interesting article!
The war could end any second if Hamas releases the hostages and lays down its arms.
Let me add some further information:
1. The author’s article only starts on October 12.
Due to the much-needed context, my commentary begins on October 7.
On that day, some 3000 Hamas terrorists invaded Israel, murdered 1,200 Israelis and took more than 250 hostages, 134 of whom are still being held in inhumane conditions in the tunnels of Gaza.
The murdered victims were mostly visitors to a music festival and residents of the kibbutzim, many of them peace activists.
Among the hostages are Holocaust survivors, the elderly, the sick and many children, including Kfir Bibas (9 months) and Ariel Bibas (four years).
But Hamas did not stop at the “mere” murder of 1,200 people. Their methods of torture and murder surpassed ISIS in their sadism.
Parents were shot in front of their children, children’s limbs were cut off in front of their parents and entire families were burned alive. Some of the victims were beheaded.
Women were systematically raped [1].
October 7 was the largest pogrom against Jews since the Holocaust.
It triggered a collective trauma in Israel and among Jews worldwide, as the sadistic actions of the Hamas terrorists brought back memories of the Nazis and the Holocaust [2].
Hamas has announced its plan to repeat the October 7 massacre again and again [3].
Until this moment, rockets are fired from Gaza on Israel. Every single rocket is aiming on Israeli civilians and has just one goal: To murder as many Israelis as possible, no matter if they are children, women or the elderly.
2. In response to this ISIS-style pogrom, Israel exercised its legitimate right to self-defense, Article 51 of the UN Charter, and launched a large-scale military operation to crush Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Israel is doing everything in its power to avoid civilian casualties.
The evacuation of Gaza residents is just one of many efforts by Israel to protect the civilian population of Gaza.
This is not easy, as Hamas’ entire warfare is based on abusing civilians as human shields and converting civilian facilities, such as hospitals and schools, into rocket launching pads or military command centers [4].
As northern Gaza is a Hamas stronghold, Israel urged civilians in northern Gaza via various channels (such as leaflets) to cross into southern Gaza through safe corridors so that they would not be at risk of Israeli attacks [5].
Hamas terrorists often operate from residential buildings where weapons are also stored. Israel is fulfilling its obligations to protect civilians under Article 57 II (a) of Additional Protocol 1 of the Geneva Convention by calling the residents of these properties in a timely manner and asking them to leave their homes. Furthermore, it issues general warnings that asks Gazans to stay away from Hamas fighters and weapon depots [6].
John W. Spencer, a world-renowned expert in Urban Warfare, Chair of Urban Warfare Studies at the Modern War Institute at West Point and Co-Director of MWI’s Urban Warfare Project, summarized the enormous Israeli efforts of minimizing civilian casualties, with the following words: “Israel minimizes civilian casualties more than anyone in history.” [7]
Unfortunately, it is Hamas that has no regard for the lives of civilians and even wants to deliberately cause the deaths of as many civilians as possible. Dead civilians are a double benefit to Hamas: First, Hamas can use the images of dead civilians to carry out its anti-Semitic propaganda, which unfortunately is often successful. Second, every dead civilian leaves behind relatives who, in their grief, are much easier for Hamas to recruit. This has been admitted publicly by Hamas [8].
It is therefore no surprise that Hamas is actively preventing civilians from evacuating. This is even explicitly stated in the Al-Jazeera article cited by the author.
Hamas even shot on the evacuees [9].
The article mentions that Israel operates near hospitals.
This is because Hamas has been holding hostages in the hospitals.
It should also be mentioned that Palestinian terrorists themselves hit directly both Al-Ahli Hospital and Shifa Hospital.
3. The article is about internally displaced people.
I was therefore very surprised that there was not a single mention of the fact that 300,000 Israelis – Jews and Arabs – have been internally displaced in their own country since October 7th.
Countless houses in the kibbutzim around Gaza were burned down by Hamas terrorists, and hundreds of buildings were destroyed by rocket fire in southern Israel.
In northern Israel, the Lebanese Hezbollah fires dozens of rockets at civilians every day. Countless houses have been destroyed there too.
Both Hamas and Hezbollah have announced their intention to repeat the October 7 massacre.
A total of 300,000 Israelis are refugees in their own country.
4. The article’s statement about actions of the Israeli Defense Forces at the Salah El-Din road is factually incorrect.
The article blames Israel for “inhumane treatment, arbitrary arrests, unlawful detention, and killings”, but is not providing one single sufficient source for this accusation. In the source the author stated, there is only one sentence about the Salah Al-Din Street.
I quote directly from the article’s source which should prove its baseless accusations: “Some IDPs reported that they had had to cross Israeli checkpoints to reach the area and had witnessed arrests by Israeli forces.”
Not one word confirms the author’s accusations of “inhumane treatment”, “killings”, “arbitrary arrests” or “unlawful detentions”.
The fact that Gazans had to go through Israeli checkpoints and arrests were made is easy to explain:
As already mentioned, northern Gaza is a Hamas stronghold. In addition, a three-digit number of Israeli hostages were held captive in northern Gaza.
The checkpoints therefore served two purposes:
On the one hand, the hostages should be prevented from being kidnapped by Hamas from northern Gaza to southern Gaza.
On the other hand, it should be prevented that Hamas terrorists, disguised as civilians, can drive from the north of Gaza to the south of Gaza in order to continue firing rockets at Israel from there.
The arrests of Hamas terrorists show that this was attempted by Hamas terrorists (these arrests are also used in the source used by the author).
5. The article’s source regarding the “Nakba” includes anti-Semitic content and uses anti-Semitic language. In this source, Israel’s existence is not accepted – just look at the photo on the last page of the source. Add to that, the source speaks on page 10 of an “occupation since 1948” – it thus regards the entire territory of Israel as occupied land, which means that Israel’s existence is not accepted.
The source used by the article to prove the false statement about the alleged “Nakba” comes from the “Palestine Solidarity Campaign UK”. This organization does not accept the existence of Israel. It has several links to Hamas and one of its leaders has called for the annihilation of Israel [10].
“Palestine Solidarity Campaign UK” uses hateful and discriminatory language towards Jews, and the source used is unfortunately no exception.
Israelis are portrayed by this organization as bloodthirsty monsters [11]. The parallels with Nazi propaganda are unmistakable.
It is very sad that such hateful and discriminatory sources are being used in academic discourse – especially in Germany.
Regarding the content of the source and its historical inaccuracies:
It is factually incorrect that “750,000 Palestinians were forcibly displaced from their residences in the aftermath of Israel’s establishment as a country,” as the author claims.
Contrary to what the source falsely claims, a Palestinian state never existed. Until 1947, the area between the Jordan river and the Mediterranean Sea was under the British mandate. Before that, it was ruled by the Ottomans, also the Babylonian Empire once ruled about this area, and don’t forget the Romans. The Romans called this area “Syria Palestina” (yes, Palestine is a Roman, not an Arab term). Before the Romans, the area was called Judea and was under the rule of a Jewish kingdom. But there was never a Palestinian state.
Before the founding of the state on May 14, 1948, there was not a single Arab village on whose site a Jewish village was created (at that time, the Arabs in the British Mandate of Palestine did not yet call themselves ‘Palestinians’).
In 1947, the UN partition plan for this British ruled area was accepted by the Jewish leadership and rebuffed by the Arab League (there was no Palestinian leadership at this time, since the Palestinian national movement was not born yet).
But the Arab leadership did not just refuse the UN partition plan. It started an allout war against the State of Israel, whose aim was to drive the Jews into the sea [12]. At this time, there were 600,000 inhabitants living in Israel, many of them Holocaust survivors.
The war against Israel, started by the Arab League, was a clear violation of the UN partition plan.
Some of the Arab armies were led by fanatical Nazis. Two particularly well-known examples are Amin al-Husseini, the Mufti of Jerusalem, and Fauzi al-Kaukji. Fauzi al-Kaukji had his fighters swear their oath with the Nazi salute [13].
The Arab leaders called on the Arab population to get out of the line of fire and clear the way for the Arab armies. The Arab leaders promised the Arab population that after a few weeks the Jews would be defeated and they could return to their homes.
There were indeed a few expulsions as a result of Israel’s war of defense, but the vast majority of Arabs followed the calls of their leaders or simply fled the war voluntarily [14].
It is completely normal for people to flee a war zone.
But it is important to emphasize that the Arab leaders started this war.
There was no Israeli plan, to expel the Arabs – they didn’t call themselves Palestinians at the time.
The best proof of this is that the proportion of Arab Israelis has been around 20% since the founding of the state until today. These Arab Israelis are the Arabs who did not follow the Arab leadership’s demands to leave their homes.
Arab Israelis are the only Arabs in the Middle East who live in a democracy that grants them complete equality.
It is unfortunate that the article does not mention the Jewish “Nakba” in a single word – this actually took place.
After the founding of Israel, 900,000 Jews from Arab countries were expelled from their countries and lost everything they owned. To date they have not been compensated [15].
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/28/world/middleeast/oct-7-attacks-hamas-israel-sexual-violence.html and https://www.rnd.de/politik/hamas-massaker-in-israel-netanjahu-buero-veroeffentlicht-schockierende-bilder-K5BALBICVVKHZCU5TUCOWJMGVU.html and https://www.heute.at/s/hamas-massaker-in-israel-auch-babys-enthauptet-100295971 and https://www.bild.de/politik/ausland/politik-inland/grausige-details-ueber-hamas-die-terroristen-assen-als-sie-kinder-folterten-85802656.bild.html and https://www.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-782663 and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UpClxURrSc and https://www.timesofisrael.com/adi-vital-kaploun-33-amazing-mother-killed-in-front-of-her-children/
[2] https://www.spiegel.de/ausland/psychiater-ueber-trauma-in-israel-gefuehl-als-koenne-sich-der-holocaust-wiederholen-a-ef090241-8b29-4282-99ee-66dce34bf0b9
[3] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12699265/Hamas-calls-annihilation-Israel-repeat-attacks-October-7.html
[4] https://stratcomcoe.org/cuploads/pfiles/hamas_human_shields.pdf
[5] https://www.forbes.com/sites/erictegler/2023/12/27/30000-weapons-and-50000-phone-callshardware-and-intel-from-gaza/ and https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/idf-drops-leaflets-warning-palestinians-that-gaza-city-now-a-battlefield/
[6] https://lieber.westpoint.edu/idf-hamas-duty-to-warn/
[7] https://www.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-784307
[8] https://www.welt.de/politik/ausland/plus248288564/Gaza-Wir-sind-diejenigen-die-dieses-Blut-brauchen.html and https://www.merkur.de/politik/kampfbereitschaft-hamas-logik-kalkulation-opfer-kollateralschaden-zivilisten-krieg-angriffe-israel-zr-92649181.html and https://www.rbb24.de/panorama/beitrag/2023/11/krieg-in-nahost-hamas-propaganda-social-media-tiktok.html
[9] https://www.ynetnews.com/article/bjqk4hpft and https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-770242
[10] https://www.thejc.com/news/leaders-of-groups-behind-london-pro-palestinian-march-have-links-to-hamas-ng34ql4i
[11] https://www.facebook.com/palestinesolidarityuk/
[12] Alec Kirkbride, From The Wings: Amman Memoirs, 1947-1951, Page: 24.
[13] https://www.spiegel.de/politik/mit-deutschem-gruss-fuer-palaestina-a-9582b8ae-0002-0001-0000-000041123966
[14] https://www.jstor.org/stable/26801117 and https://www.jstor.org/stable/25834907 and https://www.city-journal.org/article/the-nakba-obsession
[15] https://taz.de/Arabische-Juden/!5894964/ and https://www.bpb.de/themen/antisemitismus/dossier-antisemitismus/321671/flucht-und-vertreibung-von-juden-aus-den-arabischen-laendern/ and https://www.nzz.ch/meinung/flucht-emigration-vertreibung-das-drama-der-arabischen-juden-ld.1712279 and https://www.nzz.ch/international/zweierlei-vertreibungen-zweierlei-integration-ld.1471990