Swope Dispels Misconception Israel is Cause of Arab Refugees’ Plight; Blames Arab Leaders

Herbert Bayard Swope, in a letter published in the New York Herald Tribune today, draws attention to the fact that on the question of the Arab refugees from Palestine there has been much confusion of thought and a general tendency to blame the Israelis for the plight of the refugees while “the opposite is nearer the truth.” To dispel the misconception that the Israelis are the cause of the Arab refugees’ plight, Swope quotes reports that either have not been given much emphasis or else have not been published in this country.

One such report which appeared in the London Economist pointed out that there is little doubt that the most potent factor which influenced the decision of the Arabs to flee from a city like Haifa was “the announcements made over the air by the Arab Higher Executive, urging all Arabs in Haifa to quit.” The Economist’s article emphasized that “the reason given was that upon the final withdrawal of the British the combined armies of the Arab states would invade Palestine and drive the Jews into the sea, and it was clearly intimated that those Arabs who remained in Haifa and accepted Israeli protection would be regarded as renegades.”

Another report quoted by Swope appeared on Sept. 6, 1948 in the Arabic newspaper “Telegraph” published in Beirut. It carried a statement made at a press conference by Emil el Ghory, representative of the Arab Higher Committee at the U.N. General Assembly, in which the Arab leader declared; “The problem of these refugees is the direct result of the policy of resistance to partition and to the establishment of the Israeli state. This policy was unanimously adopted by the Arab governments, and it is they who have to bear responsibility for the solution of the refugees problem.”