The overwhelming majority of those who fled, Karsh explains, were instructed to do so “by their own leaders and/or by Arab military forces whether out of military considerations or in order to prevent them from becoming citizens of a prospective Jewish state.”

One of those leaders was Amin al-Husseini, the mufti of Jerusalem, who had spent World War II close to Hitler in Berlin. Scholar Barry Rubin writes that al-Husseini “hated Jews, wanted to destroy them and could not envision compromise.”

“The key point,” Rubin says, “is that in rejecting partition, in demanding everything and starting a war it could not win, the Arab side ensured endless conflict, the Palestinian refugee issue, and no Palestine. It wasn't murder - it was suicide.”

Those Palestinians who did not flee are today Israeli citizens – more than 20 percent of the population. Despite the departure of families such as Zaharan’s, Jaffa remains an Arab city with minarets and mosques framing its skyline.

Also unmentioned in the Post piece: Nearly a million Jews whose families had lived for centuries in such places as Egypt, Syria and Iraq were expelled. Today, half of all Israeli Jews trace their roots to Arab countries.

Israel’s war of independence has never really ended. Thirty years ago, there seemed a chance: Egyptian President Anwar Sadat went to Camp David and made peace with Israel. Not long after, he was gunned down by members of an Islamist group headed by Ayman al-Zawahiri. Now Osama bin Laden’s top deputy and presumed to be living in the tribal areas of Pakistan, al-Zawahiri is a living reminder of the consequences that await any moderate who would dare end this long and bloody conflict.