Causes of the 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight

The causes of this mass displacement have been a matter of dispute, though today most scholars consider that the majority of Palestinians were directly expelled or else fled due to fear. Causes of the exodus include direct expulsions by Israeli forces, destruction of Arab villages, psychological warfare including terrorism , dozens of massacres which caused many to flee out of fear, such as the widely publicized Deir Yassin massacre , crop burning, typhoid epidemics in some areas caused by Israeli well-poisoning , and the collapse of Palestinian leadership including the demoralizing impact of wealthier classes fleeing. Many historians consider that the events of 1948 were an instance of ethnic cleansing . There are <ref group=fn> tags on this page, but the references will not show without a template (see the help page ). The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited . Were they expelled?: The history, historiography and relevance of the Palestinian refugee problem. London: Ithaca Press — "Where expulsion failed, transfer was encouraged, by every possible means (even by setting fire to the fields of Palestinian villages considered wealthy or by cutting water supply to city neighborhoods). Weitz convinced the Israeli government in May 1948 to confiscate any looted Arab harvest for the needs of the newly born state. This policy of burning fields or confiscating them continued throughout the summer of 1948." Morris 2004 "While before May, burning Arab crops was mainly a Haganah means of retaliation for Arab attacks, during May–June the destruction of the fields hardened into a set policy designed to demoralise the villagers, hurt them economically and, perhaps, precipitate their exodus." Benny Morris , Benjamin Z. In fact, typhoid and typhus are different diseases, but the Jews/Israelis, Acre townspeople, and, often, foreigners (British and Red Cross personnel) referred to the Acre outbreak as 'typhus'. In its site-by-site breakdown of the Arab flight, the report mentioned 'harassment [by the Haganah] and the typhus [typhoid] epidemic' as the causes of the partial exodus of the population from Acre on 6 May." J.P.D.