Even the Peel Commission in the late 1930's acknowledged that a viable Jewish state would not be possible without a transfer of hundreds of thousands of Arabs.
It now appears obvious even to many Palestinians that rejection of the November 1947 U.N. partition plan was a mistake. However, in the context of the time with much of the Zionist movement claiming that their acceptance was only a first step and with open talk of transferring major portions of the Palestinian population and with 66% of the population being offered 45% of the land it may not have seemed like a very generous or even a very wise offer at the time.
On the broader question of the transfer of Palestinians out of Palestine, let me quote former Israeli Foreign Minister and Israeli historian Shlomo Ben-Ami (who I might add is an ardent Zionist) from Scars of War Wounds of Peace, the Israeli-Arab Tragedy, page 25-26
Amazon link:
http://www.amazon.com/Scars-War-Wounds-Peace-Israeli-Arab/dp/0195181581/sr=1-1/qid=1166681762/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-8701952-4352901?ie=UTF8&s=books"The idea of transfer of Arabs had a long pedigree in Zionist thought. Moral scruples hardly intervened in what was normally seen as a realistic and logical solution, a matter of expediency. Israel Zangvill, the founding father of the concept, advocated transfer as early as 1916. For as he said, ' if we wish to give a country to a people without a country, it is utter foolishness to allow it to be the country of two people...."
"The idea of transfer was not the intimate dream of only the activists and militants of the Zionist movement. A mass exodus of Arabs from Palestine was no great tragedy, according to Menachem Usishkink, a leader of the General Zionist. To him the message of the Arab Revolt was that coexistence was out of the question and it was now either the Arabs or the Jews, but not both. Even Aharon Zislong, a member of the extreme Left of the Zionist Labour movements, who during the 1948 war would go on record as being scandalized by the atrocities committed against the Arab population, saw no 'moral flaw' in transfer of the Arabs...But again, Ben Gurion's voice had always a special meaning and relevance. At a Zionist meeting in June 1938 he was as explicit as he could be. 'I support compulsory transfer. I don't see in it anything immoral.' But he also knew that transfer would be possible only in the midst of war, not in 'normal times.' What might be impossible in such times, he said 'is possible in revolutionary times.' The problem was, then, not moral, perhaps not even political,it was a function of timing, this meant war"
and from page 43:
" Benny Morris found no evidence to show 'that either the leaders of the Arab states or the Mufti ordered or directly encouraged the mass exodus'. Indeed Morris found evidence to the effect that the local Arab leadership and militia commanders discouraged flight, and the Arab radio stations issued calls to the Palestinians to stay put, and even to return to their homes if they had already left. True, there were more than a few cases where local Arab commanders ordered the evacuation of villages. But these seemed to gave been tactical decisions taken under very specific military conditions..."
From page 44:
"The first major wave of Arab exodus in April-May 1948, essentially in the wake of the Dir Yassin massacre that was perpetrated by Lehi and Irgun with the Haganah's connivance and the unfolding of Plan D, might perhaps have taken the leadership of the Yishuv by surprise. But they undoubtedly saw an opportunity to be exploited, a phenomenon to rejoice at -- Manachem Begin wrote in his memoirs, The Revolt, that 'out of evil, however, good came-and be encouraged. 'Doesn't he have anything more important to do?' was Ben-Gurion's reaction when told, during his visit to Haifa on 1 May 1948 that a local Jewish leader was trying to convince Arabs not to leave. 'Drive them out!' was Ben-Gurion's instruction to Yigal Allon, as recorded by Yitzak Rabin in a censored passage of his memoirs published in a censored passage of his memoirs published in 1979, with regard to the Arabs of Lydda after the city had been taken over on 11 July 1948....Plan D, however, was a major cause for the exodus, for it was strategically driven by the notion of creating Jewish contiguity even beyond the partition lines and, therefore by the desire to have a Jewish state with the smallest number of Arabs.
The debate about whether or not the mass exodus of Palestinians was the result of a Zionist design or the inevitable concomitant of war could not ignore the ideological constructs that motivated the Zionist enterprise. The philosophy of transfer was not a marginal, esoteric article....These ideological constructs provided a legitimate environment for commanders in the field to encourage the eviction of the local population even when no precise order to that effect was issued by the political leaders. As early as February 1948, that is before the mass exodus had started but after he witnessed how Arabs had fled West Jerusalem, Ben-Gurion could not hide his excitement."
from page 42:
"The reality on the ground was at times far simpler and more cruel than what Ben-Gurion was ready to acknowledge. It was that of an Arab community in a state of terror facing a ruthless Israeli army whose path to victory was paved not only by its exploits against the regular Arab armies, but also by the intimidation, at at times atrocities and massacres it perpetrated against the civilian Arab community. A panic-stricken Arab community was uprooted under the impact of massacres that would be carved into the Arabs' monument of grief and hatred."
-------------------------
for more information: What Really Happened Fifty Years Ago?
by: Ilan Pappe of Haifa University - link:
http://www.ameu.org/page.asp?iid=35&aid=427&pg=1_____________
Map showing the massive destruction of Palestinian towns after al-Nakba in 1948 - LINK:
http://www.palestineremembered.com/Acre/Maps/Story572.html
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