The long fight
I have two comments on Josh Morrel's letter "Who really asked Palestinians to leave" (April 30). First, Israeli "Defense" forces killing Palestinian civilians and Palestinian suicide bombers killing Israeli civilians both constitute terrorism, not defense. A refusal to recognize this amounts to dehumanization of the victims.
Second, even a cursory look at history shatters the myth that Israel only occupied land "abandoned" by the Palestinians. After the 1948 Israeli occupation of Lod and Ramla, "Great Suffering was inflicted upon the men taking part in the eviction action ... There were some fellows who refused to take part ... Prolonged propaganda activities were required after the action," former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin said. Author Benny Morris writes that a vast majority of Palestinians left either under attack by Israeli troops, were expelled by force, or left under fear of an attack, particularly after the April 1948 massacre of 250 inhabitants of Deir Yassin.
As opposed to this, an Israeli army report titled "The Emigration of Palestinian Arabs in the Period 1/12/1947 - 1/6/1948" attributed the Arab calls for flight "to be significant in only 5 percent of cases." I believe the forced (and in several cases, brutal) expulsion of Palestinians elicited this comment from Aharon Zisling, then Israeli Minister of Agriculture: "I couldn't sleep all night. I felt that things that were going on were hurting my soul, the soul of my family and all of us here ... Now Jews too have behaved like Nazis and my entire being has been shaken."
Ra Ravishankar
graduate Student
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