Yoseph Haddad on how Arab leaders contributed to the 1948 Nakba

My grandfather got an order to evacuate and get out of his village.  Not by the Jews, by the Arab leaders from Syria and Lebanon.  My grandfather rejected this request, or demand, back then.  And he stayed and he said, "I'm staying in my land."  And when the IDF came, no one took his land.  I'm speaking specifically about my grandfather.  I'm not saying there weren't events like this.  Just giving you my grandfather's story.  And he said, "I stayed in my village," which is Ishish.  It's a village in the north of Israel.  So he stayed there and that's exactly how I become who I am today, which is an Arab Israeli.  And you know what?  I'm very glad about that.

[...]

The majority of the Arabs who left the land of Israel were getting the orders to leave the land by Arab leaders, whether it's from Jordan, Syria, Lebanon or Egypt.  They're the ones who actually went on and just evacuated based on those orders.  Again, saying that, we still have to understand that in a war, there are terrible things that happen to both sides and we should acknowledge that.  By acknowledging that, we can actually move forward.  That's my message.

~ Yoseph Haddad, "Stolen Palestinian Land? An Arab Israeli Responds," Indigenous Coalition for Israel, 1:00 mark, April 26, 2023