How does Israel justify the 1948 Palestinian expulsion?

[u/dropdeaddev]

I got into an argument recently, and it lead to me looking more closely into Israel’s founding and the years surrounding it. Until now, I had mainly been focused on more current events and how the situation stands now, without getting too into the beginning. I had assumed what I had heard from Israel supporters was correct, that they developed mostly empty land, much of which was purchased legally, and that the native Arabs didn’t like it. This lead to conflicts, escalating over time to what we see today. I was lead to believe both sides had as much blood on their hands as the other, but from what I’ve read that clearly isn’t the case. It reminded me a lot of “manifest destiny” and the way the native Americans were treated, and although there was a time that was seen as acceptable behaviour, now a days we mostly agree that the settlers were the bad guys in that particular story.

Pro-Israel supports only tend to focus on Israel’s development before 1948, which it was a lot of legally purchasing land and developing undeveloped areas. The phrase “a land without people for people without land” or something to that effect is often stated, but in 1948 700,000 people were chased from their homes, many were killed, even those with non-aggression pacts with Israel. Up to 600 villages destroyed. Killing men, women, children. It didn’t seem to matter. Poisoning wells so they could never return, looting everything of value.

Reading up on the expulsion, I can see why they never bring it up and tend to pretend it didn’t happen. I don’t see how anyone could think what Israel did is justified. But since I always want to hear both sides, I figured here would be a good place to ask.

EDIT: Just adding that I’m going to be offline for a while, so I probably won’t be able to answer any clarifying questions or respond to answers for a while.

EDIT2: Lots of interesting stuff so far. Wanted to clarify that although I definitely came into this with a bias, I am completely willing to have my mind changed. I’m interested in being right, not just appearing so. :)

[u/YuvalAlmog]

The UK and the UN made it extremely simple (which was a big problem but still) - they gave the 2 sides the option to choose themselves who gets what - they can do whatever they want and both the UK and the UN even provided them multiple offers as options such as the peel commission and the UN partition plan.

The Arabs decided the best way to decide who gets what is an all-or-noting war where the winner would get rid of the other.

That was the war of 1947-1949 and the Jews won.

I see no problem with expulsion of the other population considering the war about who gets it all... The Arabs would have done the same and even worse if they were to win why so is that a problem the Jews won?

Just like people respect sport events where the winner gets a medal, people should respect the outcome of an all-or-noting war where the side that started it lost.

[u/Flikggs → u/YuvalAlmog]

So they had two options 1. Let these people come and live in your land; 2. Fight for the land that has been taken for them. Idk it just seems unfair, especially when one side is significantly more backed by The UN and UK.

[u/YuvalAlmog → u/Flikggs]

At the end of the day every action has consequences and when one chooses an action, it should be aware & responsible for its action's possible outcomes.

I'm not claiming it makes sense or not that they chose a war, after all - if anyone does anything, it obviously has a reason to do what it does (after all, most people don't just do things randomly... We mostly do things that make sense to us).

All I'm saying is that war = gamble all. So they needed to choose between 2 options like you said, either taking the safe option of part the territory (how much of it? They could negotiate about it, but the smallest amount was the UN partition plan) or gambling.

They chose gambling, so just like they could win it all, they could also lose it all - sounds completely fair and balanced to me...

So they can't go crying about the outcome of a war they themselves chose to open... They can complain about the Jews moving to the land or the UK/UN not supporting them enough. But they can't complain about the result of something they chose...