Via Mondoweiss:
"Incredible piece of reporting on the Nakba at 'Haaretz' from Shay Hazkani, and meaningful at many levels. It shows what the scholar Victor Kattan has documented,
that several US presidents were for the right of return. Kennedy wanted
several hundred thousand to be allowed to return, and Israel said
20-30,000. And then US policy on the right changed under Clinton, in
1994, as Rashid Khalidi has stated. Hazkani:
Ben-Gurion appeared to have known the facts well. Even though much
material about the Palestinian refugees in Israeli archives is still
classified, what has been uncovered provides enough information to
establish that in many cases senior commanders of the Israel Defense
Forces ordered Palestinians to be expelled and their homes blown up.
The Israeli military not only updated Ben-Gurion about these events but
also apparently received his prior authorization, in written or oral
form, notably in Lod and Ramle, and in several villages in the north.
Documents available for perusal on the Israeli side do not provide an
unequivocal answer to the question of whether an orderly plan to expel
Palestinians existed. In fact, fierce debate on the issue continues to
this day. For example, in an interview with Haaretz the historian Benny
Morris argued that Ben-Gurion delineated a plan to transfer the
Palestinians forcibly out of Israel, though there is no documentation
that proves this incontrovertibly.
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