Israeli daily Haaretz has revealed that a letter by David Ben-Gurion, shows that he gave explicit orders to prevent Palestinians returning to their homes.
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David Ben-Gurion, Israel's first prime minister, ordered that Palestinians not be allowed to return to their homes in Haifa following their expulsion from the city during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, an Israeli newspaper revealed Wednesday.
Quoting a letter addressed to Abba Khoushy, who had served as secretary-general of the Haifa Workers' Council at the time, Israeli daily Haaretz reported that Ben-Gurion had given orders to bar expelled Palestinians from returning to their ancestral homes in Haifa as long as fighting continued.
The newspaper published a photo of the letter, which carried Ben-Gurion's personal signature.
According to Haaretz, the letter will be put up for sale next week at Jerusalem's Kedem auction house.
"I hear that Mr. Marriot [Cyril Marriot, the British consul in Haifa at the time] is working to return the Arabs to Haifa," the letter reads.
"I don't know how it is his business, but until the war is over, we don't want a return of the enemy [i.e., Palestinians]. And all institutions should act accordingly," Ben-Gurion adds in the letter.
The letter contradicts the Israeli narrative of events that Palestinians voluntarily left their homes during the 1948 war and that Israel did not prevent them from returning to their homes.
Ben-Gurion sent the letter only weeks after Israel captured most of the land of historical Palestine and declared the establishment of the new self-proclaimed Jewish state.
WB
