Did Arab leaders instruct Palestinian Arabs to leave their homes in 1948 and promise they could return after Jewish forces were defeated?
Executive summary
The evidence shows that some Arab authorities and local leaders did urge or order segments of the Palestinian population—notably women, children and the elderly—to leave certain areas in 1948, and many civilians were told their absence would be temporary and that they could return after Arab armies prevailed [1] [2] [3]. At the same time, there is no single, uncontested record of a broad, centralized radio campaign by Arab states ordering a universal evacuation of all Palestinian Arabs, and historians disagree about how widespread or decisive such instructions were compared with expulsions by Jewish/Israeli forces and flight caused by combat, fear, and collapse of local authority [4] [5] [6].
1. The specific, documented orders: evacuating women, children and the elderly
Primary wartime orders that are repeatedly documented concern selective evacuations—orders or requests from Arab committees and figures to remove non‑combatants from danger zones—such as the Arab Higher Committee’s March 8 instructions to send away women, children and the elderly in parts of Jerusalem, and Azzam Pasha and King ’Abdailah public appeals later in April 1948 urging Arabs not to flee while earlier directives nevertheless sought to relocate vulnerable civilians [1] [2] [7].
2. Contemporary reporting and testimonies about “temporary” departure promises
Contemporaneous press, survivor testimony, and later compilations record promises or confident expectations that absence would be brief and that refugees would return once Arab armies defeated Jewish forces; commentators and refugees reported being told to “leave and go to Jordan… it’s just for a few weeks and you’ll return,” a refrain preserved in later interviews and media compilations [8] [9] [10].
3. What historians find: encouragement versus systematic evacuation
Modern historians and archival research produce a mixed picture: some scholars, including Benny Morris, found instances where Arab leaderships encouraged departures in specific locales or ordered non‑combatant removal [2] [3], while other researchers and critics stress that large‑scale flight was driven mainly by military defeats, violence, psychological impact of events like Deir Yassin, and expulsions by Jewish/Israeli forces, not by a single Arab master plan or uniform evacuation order [6] [5] [11].
4. The radio‑order claim and its contestation
A persistent element of the debate is the claim that Arab radio broadcasts ordered mass evacuation; some sources and later compilations reproduce such claims and oral recollections [5] [8], but monitoring of 1948 broadcasts and archival researchers like Erskine Childers have reported no evidence of a comprehensive radio evacuation order from Arab stations, and critics argue there was no single pan‑Arab broadcast telling Palestinians to leave [4].
5. Regional and political variation — local commanders, propaganda and agendas
Situations varied by place: in some towns local Arab commanders or political figures urged departure, in others Arab authorities formally discouraged flight or even threatened punishment for abandoning posts, and both wartime propaganda and postwar narratives have hardened into rival national stories—Israeli accounts often emphasize Arab orders and voluntary flight, while Palestinian accounts emphasize expulsions and forced dispossession—so motives, audiences and later uses of testimony must be weighed [12] [13] [5].
Conclusion: a qualified answer
There is clear documentary and testimonial evidence that Arab leaders and local commanders instructed or advised certain civilians to leave specific localities in 1948 and that many were told or believed their absence would be temporary and return would follow victory [1] [2] [8]. However, the claim that Arab leaders issued a single, comprehensive order—broadcast across radio and commanding all Palestinian Arabs to evacuate with a universal promise of return—is not supported as an uncontested, general fact in the historical record; scholars differ over scale and significance, and other major causes—expulsions by Jewish/Israeli forces, battlefield panic, massacres and collapse of Palestinian leadership—also played decisive roles in producing the refugee crisis [4] [6] [5].