The June 1967 War and the Palestinian Refugee Problem
Abstract: 

 

This article, excerpted from a chapter of a new book on the 1967 war, focuses on the debates within Israel, especially within the government, regarding the fate of the Palestinian refugees (particularly in Gaza) who came under Israeli control in the wake of the war. The article explores Israeli government and military involvement, including that of the prime minister’s office, in soliciting and crafting a number of plans to bring about the out-migration of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.

 

TOM SEGEV, an Israeli historian, is the author of a number of influential books, including 1949: The First Israelis (Free Press, 1986), The Seventh Million: Israelis and the Holocaust (Hill and Wang, 1993), and One Palestine, Complete: Jews and Arabs under the British Mandate (Metropolitan, 2000). He also writes for Ha’Aretz newspaper. This article is adapted from chapter 21, “The Blunder,” of his most recent book, 1967: Israel, the War, and the Year that Transformed the Middle East, forthcoming from Metropolitan Books, an imprint of Henry Holt, on 29 May 2007.