Legal Definition

True, the official definition of the refugees in Eretz Israel in the UN resolution refers solely to the original inhabitants of the country in 1948, and to their offspring. But it must be borne in mind that this definition was made in the wake of the War of Liberation before mass-aliya from the Arab countries commenced, and was dictated by political considerations. The legal definition in the UN resolution does not, however, alter the basic fact that the War of Liberation created hundreds of thousands of refugees, both Jews and Arabs, who were forced to abandon their homes. These refugees settled in their homelands among their bretheren, co-religionists and co-nationalists. The moment one accepts the principle that a refugee even when he lives among his own people, it must apply also to Jewish refugees.

The only difference between the Jewish and Arab refugees is that we have looked after our bretheren, whereas the Arab states for the most part have let them remain for a whole generation, in tent camps and in conditions of stress. In the 1950's the refugees on both sides were housed in tent camps and left to the mercies of the summer heat and the winter cold. We regarded such camps as transit camps (the term "ma'a barot is derived from the Hebrew word for transit) whereas they looked upon their camps as a base from which one could conduct propaganda warfare against Israel