driven out by the conquering Israeli army; others fled when the battle reached their homes, as civilians do in every war.
The 1948 war was an ethnic struggle, much like the one in Bosnia. In wars of this kind, every side tries to set up an ethnic state by conquering as much territory as it can without incorporating the opposing population. In fairness to the historical facts, it should be mentioned that the Arab side behaved in the same way, and in the few territories it conquered (the old city of Jerusalem, the Etzion bloc) no Jews remained in their homes.
Immediately after the war, the new State of Israel declined to allow the refugees to come back to the territories it had conquered. The BenGurion government eradicated about 450 abandoned Arab villages and put up Jewish settlements on their sites. The new Jewish immigrantsmany from Arab countries-were put into the abandoned houses in the Arab towns. Thus the refugee problem was created.
Resolution 194
While the war was still going on, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted Resolution 194 of November 11, 1948. It stated that the refugees were entitled to choose between compensation and return to "their homes." Israel's refusal to abide by this resolution may have led it to miss the opportunity-if it existed-of achieving peace with the Arab world as early as 1949.
In the 1967 war, some events repeated themselves. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were driven out, by force or intimidation, from areas near the Jordan river (the huge Jericho refugee camps) and near the Green Line (the Tulkarem, Kalkiliya, and Latrun areas).
According to official UN statistics, the number of refugees is up to 3.7 million by now, a number that is reasonable in view of the very high rate of natural growth. They are mostly dispersed among the countries bordering Israel, including the West Bank and the Gaza strip.
Apocalypse now
On the Israeli side, the refugee problem aroused deep-rooted fears, stemming from the first days after the 1948 war. The number of Jews in the new state had not yet reached a million. The idea that 750,000 Palestinians would return to Israeli territory and submerge it like a deluge aroused panic.
This apocalyptic vision has become a fixation in the Israeli national psyche. Even today, when the demographic facts are quite different, it hovers over every discussion of this issue. In this respect, there is no