[MannoFr]

Problem is they kicked all the JEWS out a year before independence.....

http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/201...affa-1948.html


The fighting in Jaffa did not start in May, 1948, as Sha'ath implies. In fact, the first people to become refugees in the War of Independence were not Arabs - but Jews from Jaffa, forced out of their homes in August 1947 as Arabs from Jaffa started a shooting and stabbing spree.

Another 5000 Jaffa Jews lost their homes when Arabs froom Jaffa attacked them in the immediate aftermath of the UN Partition resolution.

The real reason that Arabs left Jaffa was because of a combination of factors.

As soon as the fighting erupted in December, many of Jaffa's richer Arabs fled to Lebanon and Syria. These were the same people who left during the 1936-9 riots, and they assumed that they would be able to return after things calmed down. Yet their departure left Jaffa without much of their practical leadership. This fact was not lost on the middle class of Jaffa, who felt abandoned.

As Efraim Karsh notes, the mayor of Jaffa started a rumor of a fictional massacre of hundreds of Arab men and women in his city, in order to create worldwide sympathy for Arabs. The result backfired and the Arabs panicked, leaving en masse.

Political leaders in Jaffa abandoned the city as soon as they could. The mayor himself said he would go on a 4-day leave - and he never returned.

Another huge factor was the Mufti himself. Jaffa was slated to be part of Arab Palestine. As Karsh writes in his book I am reading, Palestine Betrayed, as soon as it was apparent that the Jews were going to capture the city, he threatened the remaining residents under pain of death that if they didn't leave, they would be considered collaborators for agreeing to live under Jewish rule.