The Call to Abandon Haifa: An Echo of History

By Shelomo Alfassa

Israel Insider Magazine - Aug. 11, 2006
The Jewish Voice - Aug. 17, 2006

On August 9, 2006 the world media focused on the declaration made by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah calling on Arabs living in Haifa to abandon the city. The stated purpose of the terrorist leader’s order was so that Islamic blood would not be spilled from the stray missiles being fired out of Lebanon into the Israeli city. He said, “I have a special message to the Arabs of Haifa, to your martyrs and to your wounded. I call on you to leave this city.”

Yet, Nasrallah’s call to flee is not unique. In 1948, when the fledgling Jewish nation was still within hours of its birth, the combined Muslim armies of Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, and Transjordan, supported by other nations, attacked the newly established State of Israel. The United Nations estimated that as a result of the war, hundreds of thousands of Arabs fled during this period.

Objective historians tell that the advancing Muslim armies ordered the Arab refugees to flee. They did this over Arab radio stations, advising the Arab population that while they are gone, the Muslim armies would be able to fight the Jews, without risking the life of their fellow Muslims.

On May 3, 1948, Times Magazine reported that the “Mass evacuation, prompted partly by fear, partly by orders of Arab leaders, left the Arab quarter of Haifa a ghost city....By withdrawing Arab workers their leaders hoped to paralyze Haifa.” Five months later on October 2, 1948 The Economist reported, “Of the 62,000 Arabs who formerly lived in Haifa not more than 5,000 or 6,000 remained.” The November 20, 1948 edition of The New York Post reported, “There are hundreds of thousands of Arabs who, following the commencement of hostilities in Palestine, left their domiciles at the call of Arab leaders from outside. The case of Haifa is especially well authenticated.” While not all Arabs left for this reason—many did.

Many decades later, some of the Arabs that abandoned their homes and fled on order of an Islamic authority figure, now dwell in “refugee camps” inside Israel. Fifty years later these people remain victims of a strategic and deliberate policy of Arab leaders. These people languish as de facto weapons, existing as political fodder for Islamic leaders. As the wretched hordes of “Palestinian refugees” pine away in their less-then-modern existence, their cousins living in fat cat Islamic kingdoms such as Jordan, Saudi, Qatar and other affluent countries, persist in maintaining them as leverage instruments.

Fifty-eight years ago, Arabs fled Haifa and other cities under the pretense that would not only be able to return safely to their homes, but also reap the spoils of war—they could keep property which was once owned by Jews. If modern day Israeli Arabs today believe that they can follow the foolishness of Nasrallah and seek some sort of similar reward by departing Haifa for a while—they had better think again. The Jews are long distant from the ghettos of Poland. They are not the Czars' play toy, nor an Islamic nation's step-child anymore. The Jews are fighting for their very survival, and they have the might and the right to do so. Instead of making statements which border on idiocy, Nasrallah should be watching his back. As you are reading this, Israeli army is currently engaged in reminding Nasrallah that the Jewish people mean business.