The Yugoslav "transfer" shocked television viewers, so much so that Knesset members of the "National Unity" list decided to contribute 1,000 shekels each for the refugees. There is a particular significance to this election gimmick, since two members of this party are official believers in the concept of "transfer." The leader of the list, Benny Begin, did not insist that these two members denounce this concept.

But one spokesman for the extreme Right admitted that the idea of the transfer is dead. With the exception of a few communists and proponents of the extreme Right, the Israeli public has risen against the perpetrators of these atrocities, without any "counter-balances." It would be very difficult to imagine that any Israeli government would ever attempt a similar campaign in full view of international television.

But what about the past? Didn't we ourselves commit 51 years ago acts not much different from these? Isn't Milosevic imitating Ben-Gurion? A few persons of conscience have already voiced this claim. Let us examine it with honesty.

In some respects there is a great deal of similarity between the two campaigns. In the 1948 war, 700,000 Arab Palestinians -- more than half of the Arab Palestinian population at the time -- were uprooted from their homes, lands, towns and villages. Now the Serbs have expelled half the Kosovar population from their homes.

At the end of our war, the refugees were not allowed to return. 51 years later, they and their offspring -- by now close to three million people -- remain in exile, most in refugee camps, in deplorable conditions. (Because of their extremely high birthrate, the Palestinians double their numbers every 18 years.) The same fate awaits the Kosovars, should NATO fail to impose by force their right of repatriation. The UN had already decided in 1948 that the Palestinians had the right to choose between repatriation and monetary compensation.

Israel has always claimed that the responsibility falls on the Arab states to rehabilitate the refugees in their states. Using the same logic, Milosevic maintains that Albania and the NATO states should absorb the Kosovars.

Some of the Palestinian refugees had been forced out in horrendous conditions. The expulsion from Lod and Ramleh was documented by the victims, and Yitzhak Rabin, then the local commander, acknowledged as much. The 1967 expulsion of residents from the three villages in the Latrun region was documented by an eyewitness, a reserve soldier, the writer Amos Kenan. Shocking tales, reminiscent of the current events. The population remaining in Jaffa after the end of the fighting there was loaded onto trucks and forced to cross the front line. This scenario was repeated in numerous areas. Only back then there was no such thing as TV.

Most of the property of those 700,000 Palestinians was looted. In the exclusive sections of Jerusalem, Jaffa, Haifa and other cities, Israelis looted rugs, furniture, refrigerators and all merchandise in stores, valued at hundreds of millions of dollars, in addition to the houses and lands worth billions, confiscated by the state. And now it is happening in Kosovo.

Ben-Gurion and Milosevic sprung from the same tree -- that of the narrow nationalism of Eastern Europe, with its multiple nationalities that hate each other with deadly passion. Much has been said of the similarity between the Jewish and Serbian nationalists -- the clinging to the memories of wrongs done hundreds of years ago, the Kosovo/Jerusalem equation and other myths that prefer the past to the future.

So much for the similarity. But there are differences as well.

The main difference is that we had to establish a state, whereas the Serbs had an existing and secure state already. The Palestinians were expelled after war had broken out, while in Kosovo the war broke out after -- and because of -- the expulsion. It wasn't our side that started the war but the other side, whereas in Kosovo Milosevic had been planning this genocide for a long time, while playing diplomatic games in order to cover up the preparations and enable the campaign.

In the first months of 1948, the expulsions were a military necessity, and both sides engaged in it. We were honestly convinced that we were fighting with our backs to the sea, that this was a fight for our very existence and for the very lives of our families. The words "There's no choice" were not an empty slogan; we were all living it. The memories of the holocaust were still very fresh. In retrospect, it became clear that the balance of power was different. The Jewish population, while small, was very well organized and superbly led, facing a large but disorganized and poorly-led Palestinian population lacking almost entirely in weaponry. When the Arab states entered the war, their corrupt leaders fought one another more than us. We were not "a few against the many." But the objective truth, if there is such a thing, as it appears today, is not relevant. What matters is how we felt then and what we knew then - and at that time we felt that it was a fight for our survival.

The question of intent also matters. No one can know what was in the mind of Ben-Gurion at the start of the war. It is clear that he did not intend to accept the borders of the UN partition resolution of November 29, 1947, and that he intended to grab every opportunity to expand those borders (which is why the Declaration of Independence does not mention borders). It may be that he had decided in advance to "cleanse" the conquered territory of its non-Jewish population as much as possible. But I think that there is no proof of that. In the first months of the war, the expulsion was a simple military necessity. But from August 1948, after the wheel of fortune had turned in our favor and we were winning, Ben-Gurion pursued a calculated policy of expulsion.

This commentary is not intended to justify anything. It comes to explain, remind and warn: Without a reasonable and humane resolution of the refugee problem, there will not be peace. Not in the Balkans and not in the Middle East. I believe that such a resolution is possible.