There was not 1.2 million arabs in Israel pre 1948, as Israel did not exist. Also that is the figure for the whole of Palestine and they were told to leave by the arab commanders.
People who have been living in an area for generations, don't just get up and leave because someone "asked" them to.
It's pretty ******* stupid to think people would believe non-sense like that.
Not when they are promised they will get the pick of the Jewish loot when the Jews had all been murdered. But read these for proof.
Myth and Fact: Did Arab Leaders Encourage Palestinians to Flee in 1948?
Palestinian refugee: Jordanian army told us to leave in 1948 War - Video
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuGqpFxogRg]Refugee - Arab states told Arabs to leave Israel in 1948 war - YouTube[/ame]
The Beirut Daily Telegraph (September 6, 1948) quoted Emil Ghory, secretary of the Palestine Arab Higher Committee:
The fact that there are those refugees is the direct consequence of the action of the Arab states in opposing partition and the Jewish state. The Arab states agreed upon this policy unanimously...
The London Economist (October 2, 1948) reported an eyewitness account of the flight of Haifa's Arabs:
There is little doubt that the most potent of the factors [in the flight] were the announcements made over the air by the Arab Higher Executive urging all Arabs in Haifa to quit... And it was clearly intimated that those Arabs who remained in Haifa and accepted Jewish protection would be regarded as renegades.
Habib Issa, secretary-general of the Arab League, wrote in the New York Lebanese daily "al-Hoda" (June 8, 1951):
[Azzam Pasha, Arab League secretary,] assured the Arab peoples that the occupation of Palestine and of Tel Aviv would be as simple as a military promenade... Brotherly advice was given to the Arabs of Palestine to leave their land, homes and property, and to stay temporarily in neighboring fraternal states.
Former Prime Minister of Syria, Khaled al-Azem, wrote in his memoirs, published in 1973 in Beirut:
We brought destruction upon a million Arab refugees by calling on them and pleading with them to leave their land.
The Mahmud Abbas ("Abu Mazen") wrote in the PLO journal "Palestine a-Thaura" (March 1976):
The Arab armies, who invaded the country in '48, forced the Palestinians to emigrate and leave their homeland and forced a political and ideological siege on them.