Why were there so many refugees in 1948?

What’s the true story of the hundreds of thousands of displaced people in the Middle East? One of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict’s biggest hot potatoes is the idea that ethnic cleansing transpired against Palestinian Arabs in 1948. This week, we are zooming out to give you a wider perspective of the events that caused the removal of both Arabs and Jews from their homes in pre-and-post state Israel.

Enduring understandings are available in the PDF version of the educational resources.

Big Ideas

1. Palestinian displacement in 1948 had multiple causes.
2. Understanding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict today requires learning both the Israeli and Palestinian narratives of 1948.
3. Nearly 850,000 Jews were also forced from their homes in Muslim countries after 1948, and Israel absorbed most of them.

Essential Questions

1. What explanations exist for Palestinian displacement after 1948?
   
2. Why does understanding this conflict require learning both the Israeli and Palestinian narratives?
   
3. Why do Jewish refugees from Arab lands get left out of this conversation?

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