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<< 1) The Arab states encouraged them to leave so that they could destroy Israel. >>
To my knowledge, there were observers from BBC present, and they never heard arab ecourage the palestinians to leave. There were, however, several cases where jews forced the palestinians to leave their homes. >>
The following is a quote from the 1973 memoris of Haled al-Azem, the prime minister of Syria in 1948:
"Since 1948 we have been demanding the return of the refugees to their homes. But we ourselves are the ones who encouraged them to leave. Only a few months separated between our call to them to leave and our appeal to the United Nations to resolve on their return. Is this a wise and stable policy? Is there harmony in such a programme? We have brought destruction upon a million Arab refugees, by calling upon them and pleading with them to leave their lands, their homes, their work and their business, and we have caused them to be barren and unemployed though each one of them had been working and qualified in a trade from which he could make a living. In addition, we accustomed them to begging for hand-outs and to suffice with what little the UN organisation would allocate them."