Palestinian “Refugees”, why did they leave?
Arab Leaders Provoked Exodus A plethora of evidence exists demonstrating that Palestinians were encouraged to leave their homes to make way for the invading Arab armies. The U.S. Consul-General in Haifa, Aubrey Lippincott, wrote on April 22, 1948, for example, that “local mufti-dominated Arab leaders” were urging “all Arabs to leave the city, and large numbers did so.” The Economist, a frequent critic of the Zionists, reported on October 2, 1948: “Of the 62,000 Arabs who formerly lived in Haifa not more than 5,000 or 6,000 remained. Various factors influenced their decision to seek safety in flight. There is but little doubt that the most potent of the factors were the announcements made over the air by the Higher Arab Executive, urging the Arabs to leave… it was clearly intimated that those Arabs who remained in Haifa and accepted Jewish protection would be regarded as renegades.” Time’s report of the battle for Haifa (May 3, 1948) was similar: “The mass evacuation, prompted partly
