Hamas could have chosen peace. Instead, it made Gaza suffer.

[Douglas Carpenter]

43. that is simply NOT true!

to quote former Israeli Foreign Minister, Shlomo Ben-Ami from his book, Scars of War Wounds of Peace: The Arab Israeli Tragedy

from page 42:

"The reality on the ground was at times far simpler and more cruel than what Ben-Gurion was ready to acknowledge. It was that of an Arab community in a state of terror facing a ruthless Israeli army whose path to victory was paved not only by its exploits against the regular Arab armies, but also by the intimidation, at at times atrocities and massacres it perpetrated against the civilian Arab community. A panic-stricken Arab community was uprooted under the impact of massacres that would be carved into the Arabs' monument of grief and hatred."


and from page 43:

" Benny Morris found no evidence to show 'that either the leaders of the Arab states or the Mufti ordered or directly encouraged the mass exodus'. Indeed Morris found evidence to the effect that the local Arab leadership and militia commanders discouraged flight, and the Arab radio stations issued calls to the Palestinians to stay put, and even to return to their homes if they had already left. True, there were more than a few cases where local Arab commanders ordered the evacuation of villages. But these seemed to gave been tactical decisions taken under very specific military conditions..."

From page 44:

"The first major wave of Arab exodus in April-May 1948, essentially in the wake of the Dir Yassin massacre that was perpetrated by Lehi and Irgun with the Haganah's connivance and the unfolding of Plan D, might perhaps have taken the leadership of the Yishuv by surprise. But they undoubtedly saw an opportunity to be exploited, a phenomenon to rejoice at -- Manachem Begin wrote in his memoirs, The Revolt, that 'out of evil, however, good came-and be encouraged. 'Doesn't he have anything more important to do?' was Ben-Gurion's reaction when told, during his visit to Haifa on 1 May 1948 that a local Jewish leader was trying to convince Arabs not to leave. 'Drive them out!' was Ben-Gurion's instruction to Yigal Allon, as recorded by Yitzak Rabin in a censored passage of his memoirs published in a censored passage of his memoirs published in 1979, with regard to the Arabs of Lydda after the city had been taken over on 11 July 1948....Plan D, however, was a major cause for the exodus, for it was strategically driven by the notion of creating Jewish contiguity even beyond the partition lines and, therefore by the desire to have a Jewish state with the smallest number of Arabs.

from page 44:

"The debate about whether or not the mass exodus of Palestinians was the result of a Zionist design or the inevitable concomitant of war could not ignore the ideological constructs that motivated the Zionist enterprise. The philosophy of transfer was not a marginal, esoteric article....These ideological constructs provided a legitimate environment for commanders in the field to encourage the eviction of the local population even when no precise order to that effect was issued by the political leaders. As early as February 1948, that is before the mass exodus had started but after he witnessed how Arabs had fled West Jerusalem, Ben-Gurion could not hide his excitement."

"Ben-Gurion's reaction when told, during his visit to Haifa on 1 May 1948 that a local Jewish leader was trying to convince Arabs not to leave. 'Drive them out!' was Ben-Gurion's instruction to Yigal Allon, as recorded by Yitzak Rabin in a censored passage of his memoirs published in a censored passage of his memoirs published in 1979, with regard to the Arabs of Lydda after the city had been taken over on 11 July 1948....Plan D, however, was a major cause for the exodus, for it was strategically driven by the notion of creating Jewish contiguity even beyond the partition lines and, therefore by the desire to have a Jewish state with the smallest number of Arabs.