A Reign of Terror &
Systematic Expulsion
"In our country there is
room only for the Jews. We shall say to the Arabs: Get out! If they
don't agree, if they resist, we shall drive them out by force."
Professor Ben-Zion Dinur
Israel's First Minister of Education, 1954
from History of
the Haganah
The systematic
annihilation of over 85 percent of all existing Palestinian villages
in the wake of the 1948 war is a reality that until recently Israeli
historians have ignored. It was a process that accompanied terror,
mass murder and systematic expulsion. The infamous massacre of
Dayr Yasin
has been presented by a majority of Israeli historians as an
isolated incident carried out by right-wing extremists. History
dictates that we examine the atrocity of Dayr Yasin within the
framework of a series of well-organized and systematic attacks
designed to instill terror and induce mass exodus.
Since 1983, the
Center has focused upon the use of oral history
techniques--supported by other methods--to conduct research and
collect documentation on
Palestinian villages destroyed in the wake of
the 1948 War. Through continuous
staff training, development and the refinement of oral history
techniques, together with outstanding publications on the subject,
the Center has acquired an unrivaled reputation for the study of
destroyed villages and the use of oral history.
The Center has
collected, recorded and transcribed the testimonies of hundreds of
refugees who lived in present day Israel before 1948. It has
researched, gathered documentation, and published monographs twenty
destroyed villages inside the Green Line, discovering in the process
previously unknown events that have caused international outrage
upon publication (such as the discovery of the massacre of fifty
inhabitants of
Abu Shusha village
in May 1948). Work on the history of five more destroyed villages is
in progress, with publications dates planned in 1997.
The Center has also
played a major role in the fieldwork and research for the ground
breaking Institute of Palestine Studies publication All That
Remains--The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel
in 1948, edited by Dr. Walid Khalidi (Washington DC, 1982). The book
is a comprehensive survey (including maps and photography) of 418
destroyed villages. It is from this book that we have extracted a
brief synopsis of eleven of the villages we have studied.
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