As Israelis Celebrate Independence and Palestinians Mark the “Nakba,” a Debate with Benny Morris [View All]

Saree Makdisi and Norman Finkelstein

Benny Morris, welcome to Democracy Now! Explain, from your perspective, from your research, what happened in 1948.

BENNY MORRIS: Well, based on a large amount of documentation, which I’ve gone through over the years, several decades, in fact, the international community in the wake of the Holocaust voted to establish two states in Palestine, to divide the land into a Jewish state and an Arab state. The Jewish side, the Zionist movement, the Jewish Agency Executive accepted the international decision and went about establishing their state.

The Palestinian Arabs, backed by the Arab world, rejected the decision and went to war against the Jewish community in Palestine and subsequently against the state which was established half a year later. As a result of this war, some 700,000 Palestinians were displaced from their homes, not really turned into refugees, most of them, because they were moved or moved from one place in Palestine to another. About one-third moved out of Palestine and were genuine refugees.

AMY GOODMAN: And on what do you base all of this?

BENNY MORRIS: Oh, on masses and masses of Israeli, American, United Nations, British documentation. The Arab documentation isn’t available. The Arab states, all of them being dictatorships, do not open their archives. But all Western archives, especially the Israeli archives, give a very good picture of what actually happened.

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/5/16/as_israelis_celebrate_independence_and_palestinians