Perhaps the simplest summary of the pre-1950 situation in the fledgling Israel came from Moshe Dayan, writing about it in the early 1970s.
"(it was)...practically impossible to describe the tense atmosphere of the two-year-old Israeli nation. By the end of the War of Independence on March 1, 1949, the 650,000 Jewish inhabitants were in the midst of a wide-scale immigration absorption campaign. On the other side of the border, hundreds of Arab refugees...(waited) for the day they could go back into what were now Jewish cities. In the meantime, they lived in tents in the big refuge camps from which they had a clear view of the homes they had fled. Their hatred of the Jews now became a personal one."
Source: Miller, Anita & Jordan, and Zetouni, Sigalit. Sharon: Israel's Warrior-Politician. Academy Chicago Publishers & Olive Publishing, Chicago, 2002.
No comments:
Post a Comment