Quotation from David Ben Gurion “As fighting spread, the exodus was joined by bedouin and fellahin” — 1954

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New Jerusalem was occupied, and the guerrillas were expelled from Haifa, Jaffa, Tiberias, Safad while still the Mandatory was present. It needed sagacity and self-control not to fall foul of the British army. The Hagana did its job; until a day or two before the Arab invasion not a settlement was lost, no road cut, although movement was seriously dislocated, despite express assurances of the British to keep the roads safe so long as they remained. Arabs started fleeing from the cities almost as soon as disturbances began in the early days of December 1947. As fighting spread, the exodus was joined by bedouins and fellahin, but not the remotest Jewish homestead was abandoned and nothing a tottering Administration (meaning the British Mandatory) could unkindly do stopped us from reaching our goal on May 14, 1948 in a State made larger and Jewish by the Haganah.

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