Big Lies: Demolishing The Myths of the Propaganda War Against Israel

This terrific 56-page booklet explains the myths that have tarnished Israel's name and falsified the historical record over the last several decades. It is based on more than 60 references cited in a bibliography.
Contents:The Importance of this Text by David Horoqitz…..
"The Origins of the Refugee Problem"; "The Eight Stages of the Creation of the Problem"; "The Question of 'Occupation' and the Settlements; Bibliography

Summary: Excellent
Rating: 5



The book is divided into three sections, discussing the origins of the refugee problems, the stages through which the problem was created, and the questions surrounding the "occupation" and the "settlements."

As has so often been explained, in 1947, the United Nations mandated the creation of two states in the 20 percent that remained of Palestine following its first illegal division by Britain. The Jewish people accepted the partition, but eight Arab nations initiated a war against them to obliterate Israel. As a result of the aggressive war, Israel acquired more land, and hundreds of thousands of Arabs fled. After the war, Israel offered the right to return so long as Arabs swore their allegiance to Israel and renounced violence. Only 150,000 Arabs took advantage.

Meanwhile, from 1948 through 1954, more than 800,000 Jewish people were forced to flee their homes in Arab and Muslim states in the Middle East. Most settled in Israel.

Arabs began leaving Israel of their own free will even before the partition plan was announced in November 1947. Even before that, 70,000 Arabs fled. Another 100,000 or so left after hostilities began in November 1947. Then the Arab leadership began announcing their intention to annihilate the Jewish people, and still more people fled. In March 1948, an Iraqi brigade had entered the village of Deir Yassin, in an attempt to cut off the road from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

On April 9, 1948, Jewish troops entered the village, intending to capture it and drive out the Iraqi belligerents. The Iraqis disguised themselves as women, however, and fired from among the women. Naturally, as a result of the reckless endangerment of civilians, Arab women were killed along with many armed and disguised Arabs. A recent study by Beir-Zayyit university on Ramallah showed there was no massacre–only a military conflict in which civilians were killed in the crossfire. But Arab leaders, who had told Arabs to flee, also used the incident to shame Arab nations into more forceful fighting. Their plan backfired when Arabs panicked and fled by the thousands.

Despite Israel's offer in February 1949 to return Arab lands occupied as a result of their war on Israel, the Arabs refused to sign a peace treaty on which the offer was conditioned.

Finally, the booklet covers settlement. As noted, Zionist pioneers from the 1840s onward immigrated to Israel from all over the Arab world and Europe to join the local Jewish community to rebuild the Jewish homeland. They bought land from the Turkish crown (which had conquered and ruled the land for 400 years) and Arab landowners. There was no theft, and no one was driven from their land. A 1990 demographic study of Palestine by Columbia University showed the Arab population grew tremendously as a result of Jewish economic development. An Arab population that was static at 340,000, from 1514 to about 1840, suddenly began increasing in 1855 and by 1947 had almost quadrupled.

The booklet also covers the unsuccessful proposed Peel Partition plan, the UN partition, pre-1967 terrorism, (which resulted in more than 9,000 attacks from 1949 to 1956 from the Gaza strip alone), the the belated emergence of Palestinian nationalism in 1967.

As the article explains, "Israel is the only known country in all of history to come into existence via legal and beneficial land development (as opposed to the almost universal method of conquest)." Israel has the right, by virtue of Arab aggression in 1948 and 1967, to maintain sovereignty over its newly won territories and to develop them in any way "that is not prejudicial to the well-being" of civilians.

This excellent booklet sets the record straight.