Arab evacuees did not leave voluntarily

PROFESSOR Michael Wald (Irish Examiner letters, September 6) claims that in 1947, “700,000 Arabs left the areas they lived in” of their own free will because of “the promise by the Arab invaders that they would soon regain their own homes as well as taking those of the Israelis when they were driven back into the sea”.

This is a remarkable fantasy. Those Arabs who fled their homes did so because they were terrorised by the massacres perpetrated by the advancing Jewish forces.

The “promise by the Arab invaders” actually accords with international law. Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights enshrines the right of all people to leave and return to their own homes at will.

Prof Wald’s reference to ‘the Israelis’ when there were as yet no people so designated is just a piece of manipulation at best.

The professor informs us that “what most Israelis are concerned with is surviving and defending what they have built up — all of it under increasing threat of annihilation from the multitudes of the Arab streets”.

That this is the major concern of most Israelis is undoubtedly true. However, the concern of Israel’s corrupt and brutal military and political elite is, and always has been, ethnic cleansing and territorial expansion.

As for the ‘threat of annihilation’, it simply does not exist. Israel is militarily more powerful than all its neighbours put together, and is the only state in the region to possess both nuclear weapons and the fanaticism to use them whatever the cost (described by US author Seymour Hersh as ‘the Sampson option’).

That Iran’s president has “openly called for” the annihilation of Israel is another myth that, despite repeated exposure, continues to be spewed out by Israel’s unconditional defenders.

President Ahmedinejad has undoubtedly called for an end to Zionism — a call that is echoed the world over by, among others, Jews who reject the idea that they are somehow represented by the Israeli apartheid state.

This is not synonymous with Israel’s annihilation.

Finally, Prof Wald’s assertion that “Hezbollah, no one denies, is an Iranian proxy” is doubly false.

Firstly, everybody who knows anything about either Lebanon or Iran denies it. Secondly, while Hezbollah is undoubtedly armed by Iran — as Israel is armed by the US — its primary function is the defence of Lebanon against Israeli aggression.

Raymond Deane

Ireland Palestine

Solidarity Campaign

64 Dame Street

Dublin 2