Yousef Munayyer sur Twitter : “This Dexter Filkins review for nytimesbooks gets some VERY BASIC historical facts wrong which should be corrected”
▻https://twitter.com/YousefMunayyer/status/569569169072455681
The historical narrative around the Nakba presented in this particular paragraph is very inaccurate
War did not begin in 1948, it began in 1947 & homes/villages of Palestinians were depopulated early as Nov of that year. Nor was the “departure of the British” what prompted depopulation. British left in mid-May 1948. Before the british left & before the Arab armies crossed into Palestine, HALF of the total refugees were ALREADY created. By Mid-May 48, largest Palestinian coastal cities, Yaffa and Haifa, were already depopulated along with some 200 villages.
Most significant upsurge in Israeli conquest ops came in late march, early april, after US backed away from partition plan. It was Yishuv fear over losing international support for a Jewish state that led them to advance conquest operations.
At every stage of war, the Yishuv were greater in number, capabilities, training & command than the COMBINED arab armies.
It was not fear of extinction that motivated the depopulation of Palestine, it was fear of compromise.
For years before the war, Yishuv military intelligence collected nuanced data on all arab villages, paving way for #Nakba
