Fatah chief Mahmoud Abbas said Monday that the Arabs of the Galilee city of Tzfat left in 1948, not because they were driven out, but on their own volition. Many biographies of the Palestinian Authority chairman imply that his family became “refugees” because of the War of Independence in 1948.
Speaking with Al-Palestinia TV on Monday, Abbas admitted that his well-to-do family was not expelled or driven out, but rather left for fear that the Jews might take revenge for the slaughter of 20 Jews in the city during the Arab pogroms of 19 years earlier. It is notable that the Abbas family moved back to Damascus, as that is likely the place where it had originated less than 90 years earlier. In addition to those killed in Tzfat, nearly 70 Jews were slaughtered in their homes in Hevron, 17 in Jerusalem, and others were murdered in Motza, Kfar Uriah and Tel Aviv.