Part I:

•  Jewish Immigration:Jewish National fund(kerenkiyemet)  an Umbrella organization of World Zionist Organization (WZO)- bought mass amount of lands and settled Jews.  Lots of wealthy Arab land owners sold land to the Jewish fund.
  

•  World War I- San Remo Conference: After WWI set up mandate system.  The western countries are like teachers and need this colonialization of the Arab states in order for them to get on their feet after Ottoman rule.  This upheld the Belfour declaration.  After WW1 the Ottoman Empire was split up to mostly the British and French through the Sykes-picot agreement.
  

• Balfour Declaration -November 2, 1917- Arthur James Balfour to Lord Rothschild (leader Jews) to Zionist Federation: British government support Zionism plan of Jewish Home.  Which nothing shall be done that might prejudice the rights of existing communities within them. 

• 1922 White Paper - Wrote the white paper of 1922.  This paper helped translate what was being meant by the Belfour declaration.  It gave the right of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. 

• 1939 White Paper-During WWII, Zionist restriction to 5% immigration to Palestine and only 75,000 Jewish immigrants under Arab regulation.   Also promise of British to establish an independent Arab state.

•  World War II and the holacuast played an important role in empahty towards the Jews from Western Countries.

• UNSCOP majority plan-  The UNSCOP Report, submitted on 31 August 1947, unanimously supported the termination of the British mandate in Palestine. The representatives of the other states (except Australia) favored a partition into two separate independent states (the majority plan) with Jerusalem as a corpus separatum under an international regime.  On 29 November 1947 the General Assembly adopted Resolution 181, based on the UNSCOP majority plan, by a 33 - 13 vote, with 10 abstentions. The Jewish Agency accepted the resolution, and the rejected it.  Majority for Partition in Non contiguous regions, economic union, Jerusalem international. .  Arabs rejected Zionist accepted majority proposal.  Minority favored binational state.  This was the plan that became the Partition plan and was favored by the International countries and what was implemented.  Arab Higher Commitee

•  UNSCOP minority plan- rejected by all and it was a thought of creating a binationional state.  The representatives of Iran, India, and Yugoslavia supported a federal solution (known as the minority plan) that envisaged Arab and Jewish regions within a federal union with Jerusalem as its capital.

Arab Israeli War 1948:  After UN Patition Plan Israel declares Nation and next day the war starts:
1947- britian turns mandate to UN.
May 15, 1948, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Iraq attack  ties this in to Nakba
3 phases Israel extened borders: 1949 armistance sighned, Israel with/78% of Mandate rather then 56%. 
Backround: The War of 1947-48 is referred to as the al-naaba(disaster) by the Palestinians.  The new Jewish state increased its territory by roughly one-third as a result of the fighting, and no distinction was made between the land that they had been granted by the UN partition Resolution of 1947 and the war.  the UN set up a team lead by Count folke Benadotte to modify the 1947 Partition Resolution.  They proposed ini modifyin ght 1947 partionon by redrawing the boundries between Jewihs and Arab Palestine.  Palestine is attached to Trans-Jordan( Name of Jordan at that time).  The arabs opposed to unite with trans-Jordan and rejected to recognize a Jewish state. 

• Irgun- defense in Israel was a militant Zionist group that operated in Palestine between 1931 and 1948. It was established as a militant offshoot of the earlier and larger Jewish paramilitary organization Hagana. The Irgun was the armed expression of the nascent ideology of Revisionist Zionism founded by Ze'ev Jabotinsky. He expressed this ideology as "every Jew had the right to enter Palestine; only active retaliation would deter the Arabs and the British; only Jewish armed force would ensure the Jewish state". Initially, a central part of their efforts included attacks against Palestinian Arabs, but it increasingly shifted to attacks against the British. Some of the better-known attacks by Irgun were the bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem on 22 July 1946 and the Deir Yassin massacre (accomplished together with the Stern Gang) on 9 April 1948. In the West, Irgun was described as a terrorist organization by The New York Times newspaper, and by the Anglo-American Committee of Enquiry. Irgun attacks prompted a formal declaration from the World Zionist Congress in 1946, which strongly condemned "the shedding of innocent blood as a means of political warfare".

• Arab League – It was created in Cairo on March 22, 1945 with six members: Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Syria.  Palestinian Guerrilla army joined by 7,000 volunteers from Arab lands to join Palestinians in preparation of the 1948 war and a part of the Arab Liberation Army.  In the context of Camp David 1, the Arab league stated that the PLO is the sole legit group that represents the Palestinians which was a major turning point in the Arab/Israeli conflict.  Egypt was expelled from Arab league in 1979(readmitted 1989) and the Islamic conference in 1979 and readmitted 1984 due to the Egyptian Israel Peace treaty. 

• Plan Delat- or Plan D: is a blueprint for preventing the emergence of a Palestinian state and expelling the population.  Plan D became official when Israel declared independence.  Haganah in Palestine pushed and said it was mostly defensive.

• Deir Yasin- The number one cited village that gets broght up and is blamed as the cause of the exodus.  It was a village that was destroyed by Israeli forces during the 48 war.  254 civilians.  Many bodies killed and thrown into well.  One of the main events that occurred and were spread by the Palestinians.  This is event is used as one of the causes of why some many Palestinians left their villages during the Nakba due to them being afraid of this attack.   

Part II: 

• The Mass Exodus of the Palestinina refugees: The refugee situation waws so traumatic for the Palestinians because they left on a short notice.  They thought they would come back and took very little with them.  It was also very tough to move because they realized that they could not go back.  Israeli forces often destroyed villages to prepare land for settlement.  The situation for internal refugees was not any better.  The Palestinians now live in campsand centers which are poorly equipped to care for such a large number of people.  They were also unable to aquire a legal title.  It was tough to claim absentee property and many were cut off from families.  The 1948 war was a political adn psychological watershed.  All hope for an Arab state were destroyed which made the whole sitution worse from a palestinian perspective. 

• UN Partition Resolution of 1947:

The Arab community thought that the Partition Resolution was unfair.  The Arabs thought that the UN probably exceeded its leal competance in adopting a resolution.  They also believe that it is illegal for Israel to exercise sovereignty overthose refugees of Palestine which UN allocated to the proposed Arab state. Also the makeup of the UN was unfair because at that time it had few African and Asian members.  It was dominated by the U.S. and European Powers.  Finally, the Arabs beleieves that there was a Western motivation for establishing Israel because the Arabs thought this creation helped to solve the west countries conscience for teh treatment of Jews during World War II by payn its own debt to the Jews.  Arabs point out international law for thier cause and state: a "conquerer" does not in any way accquire soveirgn rights in teh occupoed territory but exercises a temporary right of administration on a trustice basis.

The Israel resoponse to this is that it was acting with the consent of teh U.N. Assembly.  1949-armistice agreeement Arab achnoleged the rights in areas of each party to the conflict.  Lines cannot be modified where you have a permenant peace agreement.  Also since the Partition and plan where prevoked by Arab rejection and armed agression from entering into legal opperation, (thus) could not carry any legal efforts binding upon Israel.  Israel would have followed if it had not been prevented from taking into effect!

Causes of the Palestinian Exodus:
Hundreds of thousands Palestinians left thier homes during and immediately after teh 1947-48 war.  The reasons why the left and what should be done are different from both the Arab and Israeli side.

the Arabs believe that they were threatened by thier life and were affraid that they would get massacred.  An event that is highly mentioned is the Deir Yassin village.  This village massacred 254 defenseless civilians and many bodies were thrown into wells.  The arabs believe that the Israeli motivation was to initate a fear among the Palestinian population.  The arabs believe that this is not an isolated incident.  It serves as a larger pattern of events that the Hagana (Israeli army) was doing.  The Arabs believed that Deir Yassin was an act of revenge of an earlier massacre of Jews in Haifa.  At Nasr al-Din, Irregular Jewish Soldiers entered the village and destroyed 45 houses and killed 7 (citation).  The Arabs also believe that the Hagana officials ordered the attack of Deir Yassin.  the arabs believe that psychological warfare was involved.  There believed that Isreal actions were deliberate zionist efforts to drive Arabs out.  Arabs cited Plan D as a strategy of total war.  Some objectives included Luanching pre-planned counter-attacks on ememy-bases in teh heart of his territory whereever it is, including outside Palestine, occupying important high-ground positions within the Jewish state and within thier territores.  Also occupying and controllign the enemy's bases in rural adn urban areas.  The Arabs respond to the examples of Israels few instinces of claiming the Arabs to stay are not indicative of Zionist policy elsewhere.  They generalize Haifa without citing the cases elsewhere. 

The Israeli take on Deir Yassin is that they have a couple.  They state that they were met with rebels and asked them to leave the area prior to coming in with the army through a megaphone system.  This village was one of several that avoided cooperation due to Israeli intelligence.  Israeli's defense of Plan D stated that it is not a political blue print for the expulstion of Palestinians.  It is a military consideration and military ends.  Also since securing the interior of the Jewish state was the # 1 priority and this meant depoppulation and destruction of villages that were hostile.  When Israeli government heard the news of the atrocities, think they were false or initiated.  They state that most actions that included violence was from local commanders acting on thier own initiation.  This was more common among the Arabs.  Most that were telling the stories about these massacres where  among Arabs and the stories have been exaggerated.  The arabs also did acts of hostility and were wihtout fault in teh eyes of the Israelis.  The example the Israeli's bring is the ambush of a convoy full of Dr, Nurses, teachers were killed by Arabs.  They believe the Arab Propaganda spread the Arab atrocity stories.  They believe the radio stations aim was to create hatred towards Jews.  They are even examples of Jews trying to persuade Palestinians to stay.  The decleration of Independance of Isreal calls for Arabs to stay.  In the city of Haifa, Jewish workers council tell Arabs not to flee. 

Part III:

• Where did the Refugees Go? (click on the link to see a table of the distribution of refugees after the War and where they are they today!)

After 1948, Gaza was given to Egypt and Egypt established Gaza as a nominal Palestinian Arab government led by Arab Higher commitee.  The West Bank was controlled by trans-Jordan and was considered an extention by transJordan.  

• UNRWA- United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) is a relief and human development agency, providing education, health care, social services and emergency aid to over four million Palestinian refugees living in Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, as well as in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and was created after the Arab/Israeli War. 

Initial solutions to the refugee Problem From the Israeli Side:
Solutions proposed by the Israelis:
1) Compostated of lost of property.
2) Lived in Arab lands replaced jewish Population
3) In compatibabel with Jewish state creation.  It did not fit with Jewish as being the majority state if Pals return the jewish population will be the minority. 

The three main reasons Israelis provided to explain the jewish immigration to Israel were:
1) Refugees result from war resolved with the countries to which displaced population had fled
2) Refugee status was maintained by the government taht they fled to.  Denied citizenship to keep palestine idea alive
3) Religous, linguistic, and cultural affinities between palestininas adn other Arabs were such taht palestininas can be absorbed easily by neighbooring states.

• UN Resolution 181 - was a plan approved by the General Assembly on November 29, 1947 to terminate the British Mandate of Palestine by August 1, 1948, and facilitate the creation of two states, one Jewish and one Arab. The plan was approved by a vote of 33 to 13, with 10 abstentions.   The resolution was accepted by the Jews in Palestine, yet rejected by the Arabs in Palestine and the Arab states.

• The UN General Assembly resolution 194 (III)United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194 was passed on December 11, 1948, near the end of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. The resolution expresses appreciation for the efforts of UN Envoy Folke Bernadotte after his assassination by members of the Stern Gang. It deals with the situation in the region of Palestine at the time, establishing and defining the role of the United Nations Conciliation Commission as an organization to facilitate peace in the region. It also asked the Israelis to only accept the Palestinians willing to live in peace wiht their Jewish members.  The Israelis did not follow this becasue the did not believe that the Palestinians would live in a Jewish society peacefully because they might be influenced by external pressures.   This resolution still gets brought up today during peace negotiations when trying to settle the refugee issue.  The Palestinians refugees total is now over 4.5 million today and the issue is still unresolved.

Resource(from my discussion): Mark Tessler. "The Palestinian Disaster and Basic Issues after 1948," in A History of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. Bloomington, IN: Indiana Universoty Press, 1994, pp. 273-335.