Thread by @YousefMunayyer

This provides a good opportunity to dispel some myths about the Nakba that are all too common, particularly among western audiences. Let’s take a brief stroll through history, shall we?

https://twitter.com/Israel/status/1657697642208436226

The state of Israel was declared in Palestine on May 14th, 1948. On May 15th, 1948, Arab armies from neighboring states to Palestine entered the battlefield. Here you can see one of the most common myths repeated in a NYT narrative around the Nakba. #Nakba75

Note the sequence of events. The refugees are a result of the war. The war is the result of the Arab army invasion which followed the innocent act of declaring a state. How barbaric of those Arabs to do such a thing?

This all too common narrative presents Palestinian refugees as the result of Arab actions and as something that only began happening after May 15th, 1948. Nothing could be further from the truth.

In fact, of the 750-800,000 Palestinian refugees created during the Nakba and of the nearly 500 Palestinian Arab localities that were expelled and depopulated, some 400,000 refugees were created and some 212 localities were depopulated BEFORE May 15th, 1948.

Most took place in a period of 7 weeks from late March 1948 to mid May 1948 with the greatest intensity being in April & early May through the enactment of Plan Dalet, the conquest plan of Zionist Militias which aimed to conquer/destroy countless Palestinian towns and villages.

Most of the major Palestinian towns and cities were attacked and largely depopulated of their Palestinian Arab residents during this time.

Deir Yassin’s gruesome massacre, Tabariah, Haifa, Safad, Akka, Yaffa. All of these were brutally attacked and the vast majority of their Arab populations driven out.

All of this took place BEFORE the declaration of the state and the entrance of Arab armies into Palestine. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Arab refugees were forced from their homes and streamed into neighboring countries.

Quite contrary to the narrative presented by the NYT and many others, if there is a relationship between the entrance of the Arab armies in May 15 and the Palestinian refugees...

it is not that the invasion created the refugees but rather that Zionist attacks on Palestinian towns and villages that created the refugees helped prompt the invasion.

By this time, much of Palestine had already fallen to Zionist militias which would become the Israeli military.

What would follow is the further cleansing and depopulation of Palestinian towns and villages into the summer. Hundreds more Palestinian towns and villages would be attacked and cleansed.