"Israeli propaganda has largely relinquished the claim that the Palestinian exodus of 1948 was 'self-inspired'. Official circles implicitly concede that the Arab population fled as a result of Israeli action - whether directly, as in the case of Lydda and Ramleh, or indirectly, due to the panic that and similar actions (the Deir Yassin massacre) inspired in Arab population centers throughout Palestine. However, even though the historical record has been grudgingly set straight, the Israeli establishment still refused to accept moral or political responsibility for the refugee problem, it or its predecessors actively created."  Peretz Kidron, quoted in "Blaming the Victims"

"The BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) monitored all Middle Eastern broadcasts throughout 1948. The records, and companion ones by a United States monitoring unit, can be seen at the British Museum. There was not a single order or appeal, or suggestion about evacuation from Palestine, from any Arab radio station, inside or outside Palestine, in 1948. There is a repeated monitored record of Arab appeals, even flat orders, to the civilians of Palestine to stay put."  Erskine Childers, British researcher, quoted in Sami Hadawi, "Bitter Harvest"

"That Ben Gurion's ultimate aim was to evacuate as much of the Arab population as possible from the Jewish state can hardly be doubted, if only from the variety of means he employed to achieve his purpose... most decisively, the destruction of whole villages and the eviction of their inhabitants... even if they had not participated in the war and had stayed in Israel hoping to live in peace and equality, as promised in the Declaration of Independence."  Israeli author, Simha Flapan  "The Birth of Israel"

The deliberate destruction of Arab villages to prevent return of Palestinians

"During May 1948, ideas about how to consolidate and give permanence to the Palestinian exile began to crystallize, and the destruction of villages was immediately perceived as a primary means of achieving this aim... Even earlier, on 10 April, Haganah units took Abu Shusha... The village was destroyed that night... Khulda was leveled by Jewish bulldozers on 20 April... Abu Zureiq was completely demolished... Al Mansi and An Naghnaghiya, to the southeast, were also leveled... By mid-1949, the majority of the 350 depopulated Arab villages were either completely or partly in ruins and uninhabitable...

...Ben Gurion clearly wanted as few Arabs as possible to remain in the Jewish state. He hoped to see them flee. He said as much to his colleagues and aides in meetings in August, September and October 1948. But no general expulsion policy was ever enunciated and Ben Gurion always refrained from issuing clear or written expulsion orders; he preferred that his Generals 'understand' what he wanted done. He wished to avoid going down in history as the 'great expeller' and he did not want the Israeli government to be implicated in a morally questionable policy... But while there was no 'expulsion policy', the July and October 1948 offensives were characterized by far more expulsions and, indeed, brutality towards Arab civilians than the first half of the war."  Benny Morris  "The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949"

"The first UN General Assembly resolution, Number 194, affirming the right of Palestinians to return to their homes and property, was passed on December 11, 1948. It has been repassed no less than twenty-eight times since that first date. Whereas the moral and political right of a person to return to his place of uninterrupted residence is acknowledged everywhere, Israel has negated the possibility of return, and systematically and juridically made it impossible, on any grounds whatever, for the Arab Palestinian to return, be compensated for his property, or live in Israel as a citizen equal before the law with a Jewish Israeli."  Edward Said  "The Question of Palestine"

"The fact that the Arabs fled in terror, because of real fear of a repetition of the 1948 Zionist massacres, is no reason for denying them their homes, fields and livelihoods. Civilians caught in an area of military activity generally panic. But they have always been able to return to their homes when the danger subsides. Military conquest does not abolish private rights to property; nor does it entitle the victor to confiscate the homes, property and personal belongings of the noncombatant civilian population. The seizure of Arab property by the Israelis was an outrage."  Sami Hadawi  "Bitter Harvest"

What was the fate of the Palestinians who had now become refugees?

"The winter of 1949, the first winter of exile for more than seven hundred fifty thousand Palestinians, was cold and hard. Families huddled in caves, abandoned huts, or makeshift tents. Many of the starving were only miles away from their own vegetable gardens and orchards in occupied Palestine, the new state of Israel. At the end of 1949 the United Nations finally acted, it set up the United Nations Relief and Works Administration (UNRWA) to take over sixty refugee camps from voluntary agencies. It managed to keep people alive, but only barely."  "Our Roots Are Still Alive" by The Peoples Press Palestine Book Project.