So called 'Palestinians' who would have clung to Israel in then past

Submitted by riva morris (Israel), Jul 6, 2005 at 16:38

In 1974 or 1975 I was one of a group of women who were taken by our 'ulpan' [Hebrew class] teacher on a trip to Gaza City, where her husband was part of the administration. At that time Israel was rehousing locals, taking them out of the slums into modern suburbs. The UN later put a stop to this, saying we were 'transferring the population', no matter that people were queuing around the block to put their names down for the new housing. We were able to walk around without an armed guard, and spoke freely with the people in the street.They all begged us not to 'give them back' to Egypt, as had been done after the Sinai War, as their lives under our control was much better in every way than it had been under Egypt. They were also worried that if we returned the area to Egyptian control they would be convicted as collaborators, as had happened on that previous occasion. They called themselves Arabs, not Palestinians, and neither did the Galilee Arabs before we let Arafat tell them that they were all Palestinians. Will we never learn?

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