"The United Nations proposed the creation of two states in the region - one Jewish, one Arab. The Jews accepted it gratefully.
Sorry, wrote a long reply and lost it, so my reply will be even less coherent than usuall.
The Jews accepted it grudgingly, with Ben Gurion accepting it as a stepping stone to a Jewish state in the whole of Palestine, by force of arms if neccessary.
It's interesting to note the Arab objections to the UN plan:
"... the question of creation of a Jewish State cannot be taken without two other connected problems; that is, the question of immigration and that of foreign subsidies. A Jewish State would, of course, be master of the immigration into Palestine. It might decide that immigration would be without limits and the economic argument, which would be that it is impossible for a very large number of people to live in a very small territory, would become void if the Jewish State can still reckon with foreign financial support. Therefore, with the doors of the country wide open to immigration, and financial support from outside, the Jewish State would become extremely populated. Therefore, it might not be 1 million, but 2, 3, 4 million, since it would not depend on its own economy or its own produc- tion. As soon as it goes beyond a certain limit in numbers, it is no longer a State where Jews can come and be safe but it becomes a bridgehead against the Arab world. This is what we absolutely want to avoid."
and the Egyptians:
""... the Egyptian Government certainly views with grave concern the establishment of Jewish colonies near the Egyptian frontier. That is only an indication of the first step towards the execution of Jewish ambitions towards Sinai which is already mentioned in the different proclamations, and certainly the Egyptian Government has taken measures against this danger which is getting nearer and nearer to the Egyptian territories;..." "
They were wide of the mark, weren't they?
The British submission:
""The right of any community to use force as a means of gaining its political ends is not admitted in the British Commonwealth. Since the beginning of 1945 the Jews have implicitly claimed this right and have (sic) supported by an organized campaign of lawlessness, murder and sabotage their contention that, whatever other interests might be concerned, nothing should be allowed to stand in the way of a Jewish State and free Jewish immigration into Palestine. It is true that large numbers of Jews do not today attempt to defend the crimes that have been committed in the name of these political aspirations. They recognize the damage caused to their good name by these methods in the court of world opinion. Nevertheless, the Jewish community of Palestine still publicly refuses its help to the Administration in suppressing terrorism, on the ground that the Administration's policy is opposed to Jewish interests. The converse of this attitude is clear, and its result, however much the Jewish leaders themselves may not wish it, has been to give active encouragement to the dissidents and freer scope to their activities ...""
Arab leaders urged Arabs to leave the area so they would not be caught in the crossfire.
Try and find some evidence for that. You won't find any serious historian who supports it, or any evidence to back it up.
There have been in depth studies of the BBC listening serivce's archives, but they show nothing of the sort, just broadcasts uring Arabs to stay in place, and calling those who flee cowards.
It doesn't make sense to encourage your own people to become refugees anyway. They block roads you need to advance along, deny you support and shelter in forward areas, and place strains on logistics immediately behind your army.
It didn't work out that way. By most counts, several hundred thousand Arabs were displaced by this war - not by Israeli aggression, not by some Jewish real-estate grab, not by Israeli expansionism.
Certainly by Israeli expansion. Haifa and Jaffa, the largest Arab town in Palestine, were both shelled and occupied by Jewish irregulars, before partition, despite being assigned to the Arabs under partition.
Those poor unfortunates could be settled in a week by the rich Arab oil states that control 99.9 percent of the Middle East landmass, but they are kept as virtual prisoners, filled with misplaced hatred for Jews and armed as suicide martyrs by the Arab power brokers.
Firstly, why should other Arab countries take them in? They had perfectly good homes to go to in Israel.
Secondly, would you apply the same principles elsewhere? Europe should take in all the Kosovans, Bosnians and Croats so the Serbs can keep their ethnically cleansed lands? Perhaps the Poles could have been absorbed by the rest of the Slavs, giving Germany it's Lebensraum?
Thirdly, the most hate filled, the most troublesome Palestinians, are those who live in the West Bank and Gaza, which is ruled by Israel. They already have homes.
At no time did the Jews uproot Arab families from their homes.
Deir Yassin? Even if the sources you seem to have read don't admit to a massacre, it's a simple fact that after capturing the village, all the inhabitants were bussed to Jerusalem and dumped, and the village razed.
Ramleh and Lydda were both cleansed at the express orders of Ben Gurion, with thousand of Arabs rounded up and shipped off.
