Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Map 1 The United Nations Partition Plan, November 1947
- Map 2 Arab settlements abandoned in 1948–9
- Map 3 Jewish settlements established in 1948–9
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction to the revised edition
- 1 Background: a brief history
- 2 The idea of ‘transfer’ in Zionist thinking before 1948
- 3 The first wave: the Arab exodus, December 1947 – March 1948
- 4 The second wave: the mass exodus, April–June 1948
- 5 Deciding against a return of the refugees, April–December 1948
- 6 Blocking a return
- 7 The third wave: the Ten Days (9–18 July) and the second truce (18 July–15 October)
- 8 The fourth wave: the battles and exodus of October–November 1948
- 9 Clearing the borders: expulsions and population transfers, November 1948–1950
- 10 Solving the refugee problem, December 1948 – September 1949
- Conclusion
- Appendix 1
- Appendix 2
- Bibliography
- Index
- Titles in the series
Appendix 1
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Map 1 The United Nations Partition Plan, November 1947
- Map 2 Arab settlements abandoned in 1948–9
- Map 3 Jewish settlements established in 1948–9
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction to the revised edition
- 1 Background: a brief history
- 2 The idea of ‘transfer’ in Zionist thinking before 1948
- 3 The first wave: the Arab exodus, December 1947 – March 1948
- 4 The second wave: the mass exodus, April–June 1948
- 5 Deciding against a return of the refugees, April–December 1948
- 6 Blocking a return
- 7 The third wave: the Ten Days (9–18 July) and the second truce (18 July–15 October)
- 8 The fourth wave: the battles and exodus of October–November 1948
- 9 Clearing the borders: expulsions and population transfers, November 1948–1950
- 10 Solving the refugee problem, December 1948 – September 1949
- Conclusion
- Appendix 1
- Appendix 2
- Bibliography
- Index
- Titles in the series
Summary
THE NUMBER OF PALESTINIAN REFUGEES
Over the years, a minor point of dispute between Israel and the Arab states has been the number of Palestinian Arabs who became refugees during and as a result of the 1948 war. From 1949 onwards, Arab officials spoke of a total of 900,000 or one million. Israeli spokesmen, in public, usually referred to ‘about 520,000’. The United Nations Economic Survey Mission and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) put the figure at 726,000.
Other estimates ranged between the Israeli and Arab figures. For example, the British, in February 1949, thought that there were 810,000, of whom 210,000 were in the Gaza Strip, 320,000 in the West Bank and 280,000 in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan (East Bank). The director general of the Israel Foreign Ministry, Walter Eytan, in a private letter in late 1950 referred to the UNRWA registration in 1949 of 726,000 as ‘meticulous’ but thought that ‘the real number was close to 800,000’. However, officially, Israel stuck to the low figure of 520,000–530,000. The reason was simple:
If people … became accustomed to the large figure and we are eventually obliged to accept the return of the refugees, we may find it difficult, when faced with hordes of claimants, to convince the world that not all of these formerly lived in Israeli territory … It would, in any event, seem desirable to minimise the numbers … than otherwise.
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- Chapter
- Information
- The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited , pp. 602 - 604Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2003