One of the oft-repeated myths about the Middle Eastern conflict has been that Israel only occupied land abandoned by the Palestinians -- A land without a people for a people without a land, as the pompous slogan goes. Even a cursory look at history shatters this myth. In 1948, after the Israeli occupation of Lod and Ramla, the then Israeli Prime Minister David Ben Gurion ordered the driving out of the 50,000 civilians. In an interview to the New York Times [October 22, 1979], former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin said: "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 ... to explain why we were obliged to undertake such a harsh and cruel action."

Benny Morris, benefitting from his brief access to the archives of the Palmah (one of the pivotal Israeli forces in the 1948 war), writes that a vast majority of Palestinians left either under attack by Israeli troops, or were expelled by force -- Of particular interest here is a document signed by Yitzhak Rabin, calling for the expulsion of Lod's inhabitants without attention to age -- or 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% of cases." The forced (and in several cases, brutal) expulsion of Palestinians elicited this comment from Aharon Zisling, the 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