On This Day — August 16, 1948
A Greek Catholic bishop recorded the real reason so many Arabs left their homes during the war.
Bishop George Hakim told a Lebanese newspaper:
“The refugees were confident their absence would not last long, and that they would return within a week or two. Their leaders had promised them that the Arab Armies would crush the ‘Zionist gangs’ very quickly and that there was no need for panic or fear of a long exile.”
They left because their leaders promised them a swift, total victory over the Jews.
They were told to clear the way so the Arab armies could finish the job.
The Arab armies failed.
This is what was originally called the Nakba. The failure to destroy the Jewish state at birth. Decades later, it was rebranded as a story about refugees.
They started a war of annihilation.
They lost.
And they have spent the decades since demanding the world treat that defeat as the original sin of the conflict.