Separation—Only Separation

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bArab flight was neither caused by nor desired by the Jews. An binexplicable people.

bIn 1978 Israel was rocked by a bitter debate over a film bcalled Hirbet Hiza, which depicted the expulsion of Arabs from btheir village in 1948. The debate raged over whether such a bthing could actually have happened. One side said it did happen; bthe other vigorously denied it or said that if it had occurred, “it bwas unrepresentative, not typical.” The underlying assumption bof both camps was that such an expulsion was “immoral.” It is bthat kind of perverted “immorality” that has bought Israel to bthe brink of catastrophe. If there is any room for the wringing of bhands, it is over the fact that the Jews did not understand the bneed for Hirbet Hiza. They, by their misplaced mercy, have bbrought potential cruelty and tragedy down on Israel and its bJews.

bThe G-d of Israel continued to compel His foolish children bto accept miracles. In Safad no fewer than 14,000 Arabs faced b1,500 Jews, mostly elderly religious Jews. One night the Arabs bwere there and the next morning they were gone.

bAll kinds of reasons for the flight of the Arabs are given by bthe very secular Jews, who in their own brand of irrationality bwished them to remain: the Arab leaders ordered it; the British binstigated it; the Irgun “massacre” at Dir Yassin panicked bthem; they left to make it easier for the Arab armies to sweep bthrough. There were a hundred different “explanations,” but bnot one explains the real, irrational panic that swept areas in bwhich Arabs controlled the countryside and in which there was bno fighting. It is hard for the secularist to recognize a miracle, bsince in running from it his back is usually to it.

bBy May 15, 1948—the end of the British Mandate and the bproclamation of the Jewish state—some 200,000 Arabs had left. bJaffa added 70,000 who joined the panicky flight, and the city of bTel Aviv was thus saved from the perpetual nightmare of having bmore than 80,000 bitter enemies on its doorstep. In the next few bmonths another 300,000 joined the rest.

bA miracle had indeed taken place; the majority of the Arabs bhad fled. A golden opportunity was at hand to clear the country bof its enemies and save it from the tragedy of today. After all, bwhat more natural thing than to rid the land of people who bmassacred Jews throughout the twenties and thirties and who b