Displaced at the Birth of Israel

Re “In ‘48, Israel Did What It Had to Do,” by Benny Morris, Commentary, Jan. 26: I am the son of survivors of the ethnic cleansing committed by Israel in the Galilee village of Suhmata on Oct. 29, 1948 -- a village that existed before 612, and until October 1948. On that dreadful day, at least 1,000 people (the entire population) were driven out of their homes and their homes destroyed.

I am offended by the publication of Morris’ commentary because I believe his ideas are very similar to the extremist Serb, Nazi or Klan aspirations to have ethnically pure “nations.” The time for killing and ethnic cleansing has to stop, and we cannot allow this kind of discourse to continue. The only way forward is for Israel to acknowledge the past and make amends to its victims. Otherwise, the victims will never get closure and will always long for the day when justice will be served.

Rani El-Hajjar

Atlanta, Ga.

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It was nice to read about the Palestinian refugee problem without the smoke screen of victimhood. It was even better to see someone face the simple reality that Jews and Arabs could not live together without terrible frictions, and that it would have been impossible in 1948 for the Jews to have a Jewish state under these conditions. It was refreshing to see the word “transfer” used in a positive way.

History has proved that people want to live among their kin and save themselves a lot of trouble by doing so. Since the Arab countries expelled close to a million Jews, there was a cause for transferring the Palestinian refugees to the Arab countries that evacuated their Jews. We could have had a transfer back then, instead of a phony, cruel and expensive refugee problem.

Batya Dagan

Los Angeles

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Morris attempts to subliminally justify the Israeli ethnic cleansing of Palestinians because “Israel’s decision was not unprecedented, nor was it necessarily immoral” because similar atrocities “had happened” before in history.

What would Morris’ response be to a Nazi sympathizer who would want to justify the Holocaust because similar atrocities had happened to the Native Americans and to the Africans? Israel must acknowledge its responsibility in creating the Palestinian refugee problem. Ethnic cleansing is wrong, whether done in the name of Israelis, Germans, Serbs or Americans.

Jamal Kanj

El Cajon

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Bravo to The Times for having the courage to print George Bisharat’s “Two-State Solution Again Sells Palestinians Short” (Opinion, Jan. 25). Bisharat is right. If Jews can invoke the right to return to their “homeland” using a book authored by Jewish writers, then certainly any Palestinians holding deeds and the keys to former homes have a right to return to their homeland.

On the other hand, Morris offers nothing but feeble rationalizations for Israel’s crimes against humanity. Does Morris also condone what Israeli terrorists like Menachem Begin’s Irgun organization did in 1946 with the bombing of the King David Hotel?

John Zavesky

Riverside

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Bisharat writes that in 1948, about 700,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homeland. He “forgot” to tell us that in 1947 the U.N. decided to establish two independent states in Palestine, one Arab and one Jewish. The Jews accepted the plan. The Arabs did not. They began a massive campaign of terror that culminated in the invasion of the newly proclaimed state of Israel by the regular armies of five Arab states on May 15, 1948.

As a result of that war, the Palestinian refugee problem was born. If the Arabs had accepted the U.N. plan, there would not be a single Palestinian refugee. The responsibility for the terrible suffering of the refugees lies squarely on the shoulders of their 1947-48 leadership. Had the Arab states won the war in 1948, Israel would have been destroyed.

The only solution to the problem is a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians that will allow the establishment of a Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip and most of the West Bank. The refugees will be entitled to receive appropriate compensation and settle in the Palestinian state or any other country. They will not return to Israel.

Jacob Amir

Jerusalem