How did Israel remove the Palestinians from the land?

Answer 1

(Note: Although the terms Israel/Israeli and Palestine/Palestinian are not the proper terms, given the time period, they will be used anachronistically to keep terminology consistent.)

The question as posed suggests active removal, which is a little strong in my view compared to where the historical facts seem to stand. Active removal requires intent and plans from the top down. The plans typically cited by those who believe that the Israeli militias (like the Haganah or Palmach) had an intent to remove the Palestinians are Plan Dalet, which consolidated and directed Israeli operations. However, even the words of Plan Dalet are vague as to whether Israeli positions and towns are to be held at all costs means that all Palestinian villages should be cleansed or destroyed.

The actual events during the Jewish-Arab Engagement of 1947-1949 seem to show a general Israeli willingness to prevent the full integration of the Palestinian Arab population into a Jewish State. It's the idea of "we won't force them out, but it wouldn't be so bad if they did". This feeling of casual disregard was a result of the mistrust built up between Israelis and Palestinians. There were numerous instances of Palestinian Arab Civilians giving Palestinian Militants information on Israeli Militia movements, which resulted in successful ambushes against Israeli personnel. Sometimes Israeli Militiamen were attacked in their sleep. It should be incredibly illustrative that in order to gain the Israelis' trust, the Palestinian Arab Sheikh of Abu Ghosh had to give his five daughters over to Israeli custody for the Israelis to believe that he would pose no threat to them. Abu Ghosh is considered by many Israelis to show how Palestinians could easily have become Israelis. So, naturally, due to this mistrust, Israeli soldiers would on a few occasions, commit atrocities against Palestinian towns (like Deir Yassin) to make Palestinians more fearful of betraying Israelis and to make them more willing to abandon their homes.

This played right into the reciprocal Palestinian Arab interest to play up Israeli violence and militancy. They would add casualties to actual events and allege similar acts where none had occurred. This had the dual goals of making Israel appear worse than it was for international consumption and to make Palestinian civilians flee. The reason the Arabs wanted the Palestinian civilians to flee was that they could attack the Israelis more strongly without fear of collateral damage. Additionally, they would look like liberators when they cleansed the Israelis from the land and brought the Palestinians back to their homes.

Therefore, the two sides with wildly disparate motivations led to a general fearmongering among Palestinian Arabs, which led to their mass departure. In 1947-1949, approximately 720,000 Palestinian Arabs fled from Israel. From 1948-1955, approximately 850,000 Jews fled from Arab countries due to acts of retaliation in those countries for Israeli actions.