Whatever
happened in 1947-1948?
http://www.kibush.co.il/show_file.asp?num=25666
TEN YEARS OF
RESEARCH INTO THE 1947-49 WAR
The expulsion of
the Palestinians re-examined
By Dominique
Vidal
December 1997
http://mondediplo.com/1997/12/palestine
Between the partition
plan for Palestine adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 29
November 1947 and the 1949 ceasefire that ended the Arab-Israeli war, begun by
the invasion of 15 May 1948, several hundred thousand Palestinians abandoned
their homes in territory that ended up occupied by Israel (1).
Palestinian and
Arab historians have always maintained that this was an expulsion. The vast
majority of the refugees (estimated at between 700,000 and 900,000) were, they
say, forced to leave, first, as a result of clashes between Israelis and
Palestinians, and then by the Arab-Israeli war, in which a political-military
strategy of expulsion had been marked by several massacres. This position was
stated as far back as 1961, by Walid Khalidi, in his essay `Plan Dalet: Master
Plan for the Conquest of Palestine` (2) and has recently been restated by Elias
Sanbar in `Palestine 1948. L'Expulsion` (3).
Mainstream
Israeli historians, on the other hand, have always claimed that the refugees
(numbering, in their estimation, 500,000 at most) mostly left voluntarily,
responding to calls from their leaders assuring them of a prompt return after
victory. They deny that the Jewish Agency (and subsequently the Israeli
government) had planned the exodus. Furthermore, they maintain that the few
(and regrettable) massacres that occurred - particularly the Deir Yassin
massacre of 9 April 1948 - were the work of extremist soldiers associated with
Menachem Begin's Irgun and Yitzhak Shamir's Lehi.
However, by the
1950s this version was already beginning to be contested by leading Israeli
figures associated with the Communist Party and with elements of the Zionist
left (notably Mapam). Later, in the mid-1980s, they were joined in their
critique by a number of historians who described themselves as revisionist
historians: Simha Flapan, Tom Segev, Avi Schlaim, Ilan Pappe and Benny Morris.
It was Morris's book, `The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem`, that
first prompted public concern (4) . Leaving aside differences of subject,
methodology and viewpoint, what unites these historians is that they are bent
on unpicking Israel's national myths (5). They have focused particularly on the
myths of the first Arab-Israeli war, contributing (albeit partially, as we
shall see), to establishing the truth about the Palestinian exodus. And in the
process they have incurred the wrath of Israel's orthodox historians (6).
This research
activity was originally stimulated by two separate sets of events. First, the
opening of Israeli archives, both state and private, covering the period in
question. Here it is worth noting that the historians appear to have ignored
almost entirely both the archives of the Arab countries (not that these are
notable for their accessibility) and oral history potential among Palestinians
themselves, where considerable work has been done by other historians. As the
Palestinian historian, Nur Masalha, rightly says: `History and historiography
ought not necessarily be written, exclusively or mainly, by the victors (7)`.
Second, this
delving into Israel's archives would perhaps not have borne such fruit if the
following ten years had not been marked by the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in
1982 and by the outbreak of the intifada in 1987. Both these events accentuated
the split between the nationalist camp and the peace movement in Israel itself.
As it turned out, the `new historians` were uncovering the origins of the
Palestinian problem at precisely the moment that the whole question of
Palestine was returning to centre stage.
In a recent
article in the `Revue d'etudes palestiniennes` (8), Ilan Pappe, one of the
pioneers of this `new historiography`, has stressed the importance of the
dialogue that was unfolding in that period between Israelis and Palestinians.
It developed, he says, `basically among academics. Surprising as it may seem,
it was thanks to this dialogue that most Israeli researchers who were working
on their country's history and who had no links to the radical political
organisations, became aware of the version of history held by their Palestinian
counterparts. They became aware of the fundamental contradiction between
Zionist national ambitions and their enactment at the expense of the local
population in Palestine.`
To this we might
add that the manipulation of history for political ends is not an exclusively
Israeli domain: most often it goes hand in hand with nationalism.
What lessons
have the revisionist historians drawn from their diligent working-through of
the archives? As regards the broad picture of the balance of power between Jews
and Arabs in both 1947 and 1948, their results contradict the generally-held
picture of a weak and poorly armed Jewish community in Palestine threatened
with extermination by a highly armed and united Arab world - David versus
Goliath. Quite the contrary. The revisionists concur in pointing to the many
advantages enjoyed by the nascent Jewish state over its enemies: the
decomposition of Palestinian society; the divisions in the Arab world and the
inferiority of their armed forces (in terms of numbers, training and weaponry,
and hence impact); the strategic advantage enjoyed by Israel as a result of its
agreement with King Abdullah of Transjordan (in exchange for the West Bank, he
undertook not to attack the territory allocated to Israel by the UN); British
support for this compromise, together with the! joint support of the United
States and the Soviet Union; the sympathy of world public opinion and so forth.
This all helps
to explain the devastating effectiveness of the Jewish offensives of spring
1948. It also sheds new light on the context in which the mass departure of
Palestinians took place. The exodus was divided into two broadly equal waves:
one before and one after the decisive turning-point of the declaration of the
State of Israel on 14 May 1948 and the intervention of the armies of the
neighbouring Arab states on the following day. One can agree that the flight of
thousands of well-to-do Palestinians during the first few weeks following the
adoption of the UN partition plan - particularly from Haifa and Jaffa - was
essentially voluntary. The question is what was the truth of the departures
that happened subsequently?
In the opening
pages of `The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem`, Benny Morris offers
the outlines of an overall answer: using a map that shows the 369 Arab towns
and villages in Israel (within its 1949 borders), he lists, area by area, the
reasons for the departure of the local population (9). In 45 cases he admits
that he does not know. The inhabitants of the other 228 localities left under
attack by Jewish troops, and in 41 cases they were expelled by military force.
In 90 other localities, the Palestinians were in a state of panic following the
fall of a neighbouring town or village, or for fear of an enemy attack, or
because of rumours circulated by the Jewish army - particularly after the 9
April 1948 massacre of 250 inhabitants of Deir Yassin, where the news of the
killings swept the country like wildfire.
By contrast, he
found only six cases of departures at the instigation of local Arab
authorities. `There is no evidence to show that the Arab states and the AHC
wanted a mass exodus or issued blanket orders or appeals to the Palestinians to
flee their homes (though in certain areas the inhabitants of specific villages
were ordered by Arab commanders or the AHC to leave, mainly for strategic
reasons).` (`The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem`, p. 129). On the
contrary, anyone who fled was actually threatened with `severe punishment`. As
for the broadcasts by Arab radio stations allegedly calling on people to flee,
a detailed listening to recordings of their programmes of that period shows
that the claims were invented for pure propaganda.
Military
operations marked by atrocities
In `1948 and
After` Benny Morris examines the first phase of the exodus and produces a
detailed analysis of a source that he considers basically reliable: a report
prepared by the intelligence services of the Israeli army, dated 30 June 1948
and entitled `The emigration of Palestinian Arabs in the period
1/12/1947-1/6/1948`. This document sets at 391,000 the number of Palestinians
who had already left the territory that was by then in the hands of Israel, and
evaluates the various factors that had prompted their decisions to leave. `At
least 55% of the total of the exodus was caused by our (Haganah/IDF)
operations.` To this figure, the report's compilers add the operations of the
Irgun and Lehi, which `directly (caused) some 15%… of the emigration`. A
further 2% was attributed to explicit expulsion orders issued by Israeli
troops, and 1% to their psychological warfare. This leads to a figure of 73%
for departures caused directly by the Israelis. In addition, the repo! rt
attributes 22% of the departures to `fears` and `a crisis of confidence`
affecting the Palestinian population. As for Arab calls for flight, these were
reckoned to be significant in only 5% of cases…
In short, as
Morris puts it, this report `undermines the traditional official Israeli
'explanation' of a mass flight ordered or 'invited' by the Arab leadership`.
Neither, as he points out, `does [the report] uphold the traditional Arab
explanation of the exodus - that the Jews, with premeditation and in a
centralised fashion, had systematically waged a campaign aimed at the wholesale
expulsion of the native Palestinian population.` However, he says that `the
circumstances of the second half of the exodus` - which he estimates as having
involved between 300,000 and 400,000 people - `are a different story.`
One example of
this second phase was the expulsion of Arabs living in Lydda (present-day Lod)
and Ramleh. On 12 July 1948, within the framework of Operation Dani, a skirmish
with Jordanian armoured forces served as a pretext for a violent backlash, with
250 killed, some of whom were unarmed prisoners. This was followed by a forced
evacuation characterised by summary executions and looting and involving
upwards of 70,000 Palestinian civilians - almost 10% of the total exodus of
1947- 49. Similar scenarios were enacted, as Morris shows, in central Galilee,
Upper Galilee and the northern Negev, as well as in the post-war expulsion of
the Palestinians of Al Majdal (Ashkelon). Most of these operations (with the
exception of the latter) were marked by atrocities - a fact which led Aharon
Zisling, the minister of agriculture, to tell the Israeli cabinet on 17
November 1948: `I couldn?t sleep all night. I felt that things that were going
on were hurting my soul, the soul of my! family and all of us here (…) Now Jews
too have behaved like Nazis and my entire being has been shaken (10).`
The Israeli
government of the time pursued a policy of non- compromise, in order to prevent
the return of the refugees `at any price` (as Ben Gurion himself put it),
despite the fact that the UN General Assembly had been calling for this since
11 December 1948. Their villages were either destroyed or occupied by Jewish
immigrants, and their lands were shared out between the surrounding kibbutzim.
The law on `abandoned properties` - which was designed to make possible the
seizure of any land belonging to persons who were `absent` - `legalised` this
project of general confiscation as of December 1948. Almost 400 Arab villages
were thus either wiped off the map or Judaised, as were most of the Arab
quarters in mixed towns. According to a report drawn up in 1952, Israel had
thus succeeded in expropriating 73,000 rooms in abandoned houses, 7,800 shops,
workshops and warehouses, 5 million Palestinian pounds in bank accounts, and -
most important of all - 300,000 hectares of ! land (11).
In `1948 and
After` (chapter 4), Benny Morris deals at greater length with the role played
by Yosef Weitz, who was at the time director of the Jewish National Fund's
Lands Department. This man of noted Zionist convictions confided to his diary
on 20 December 1940: `It must be clear that there is no room in the country for
both people (…) the only solution is a Land of Israel, at least a western Land
of Israel without Arabs. There is no room here for compromise. (…) There is no
way but to transfer the Arabs from here to the neighbouring countries(…) Not
one village must be left, not one (bedouin) tribe.`
Seven years
later, Weitz found himself in a position to put this radical programme into
effect. Already, in January 1948, he was orchestrating the expulsion of
Palestinians from various parts of the country. In April he proposed - and
obtained - the creation of `a body which would direct the Yishuv's war with the
aim of evicting as many Arabs as possible`. This body was unofficial at first,
but was formalised at the end of August 1948 into the `Transfer Committee`
which supervised the destruction of abandoned Arab villages and/or their
repopulation with recent Jewish immigrants, in order to make any return of the
refugees impossible. Its role was extended, in July, to take in the creation of
Jewish settlements in the border areas.
Israel's battle
to bar the return of Palestinian exiles was also pursued on the diplomatic
front. Here, as Henry Laurens noted in a review of the revisionist historians
(12), `the opening- up, and the use, of the archives made it possible to revise
a number of previously-held positions. Contrary to the widely held view, the
Arab leaders were prepared for compromise.` As soon as the war ended, the Arab
leadership was trying, within the context of the Lausanne Conference, to arrive
at a general settlement based on Arab acceptance of the UN partition plan (Ilan
Pappe gives a detailed account of their efforts (13)), in exchange for Israeli acceptance
of a right of return for the refugees. Despite international pressure - with
the United States to the fore - this enterprise was to founder on the
intransigence of the Israeli authorities, particularly once the Jewish state
had been admitted to the United Nations.
Despite this
extraordinary accumulation of evidence, Benny Morris concludes in his first
book that `the Palestinian refugee problem was born of war, not by design,
Jewish or Arab.` (`The Birth…`, p. 286) His second book offers a more considered
approach, in which he recognises that the Palestinian exodus was `a cumulative
process, there were interlocking causes, and there was a main precipitator, a
coup de grace, in the form of Haganah, Irgun and IDF assault in each locality`.
(`1948…`, p. 32). This shift of position does not, however, prevent him from
continuing to resist any notion of a Jewish expulsion plan, and to exonerate
David Ben Gurion, president of the Jewish Agency and subsequently prime
minister and defence minister of the newly-created Israeli state.
As Norman G.
Finkelstein has highlighted, in a textual study that is as brilliant as it is
polemical (14), this twin denial by Benny Morris seems at first sight to
contradict what Morris says himself. After all, he himself tells us that `the
essence of the [Dalet] plan was the clearing of hostile and potentially hostile
forces out of the interior of the prospective territory of the Jewish State,
establishing territorial continuity between the major concentrations of Jewish
population and securing the Jewish State's future borders before, and in
anticipation of, the Arab invasion.` (`The Birth…`, p. 62) And he also
recognises that Plan D, while it did not give carte blanche for an expulsion of
civilians, was nevertheless `a strategic-ideological anchor and basis for
expulsions by front, district, brigade and battalion commanders` for whom it
provided `post facto a formal persuasive covering note to explain their
actions` (p. 63). Benny Morris contrives to make two see! mingly contradictory
statements within two pages of each other, namely that `Plan D was not a
political blueprint for the expulsion of Palestine's Arabs` and that `from the
beginning of April, there are clear traces of an expulsion policy on both
national and local levels`. (`The Birth…`, pp. 62 and 64)
The same is true
as regards the responsibility or otherwise of David Ben Gurion. Morris makes
clear that the prime minister was the originator of the Dalet Plan. In July
1948 we find Ben Gurion again, giving the order for the operations in Lydda and
Ramleh: `Expel them!` he told Yigal Allon and Yitzhak Rabin - a section
censored out of Rabin's memoirs, but published thirty years later in the `New
York Times` (15). This order, Morris tells us, had not been debated within the
Israeli government. In fact, some days previously the Mapam, partner of the
ruling Mapai, had obtained from the prime minister an instruction explicitly
forbidding the military to carry out expulsion measures… Ben Gurion later
attacked the hypocrisy of this Marxist Zionist party for condemning
`activities` in which its own militants, Palmah troops and kibbutzniks alike,
had also taken part.
In Nazareth,
General Chaim Laskov decided to take the official instruction literally. One
story has Ben Gurion arriving there, discovering the local population still in
situ, and declaring angrily `What are they doing here?` (16) Also in July, but
this time in Haifa, we have Ben Gurion as the man behind the scenes in the
operation for the `de-localisation` of the 3,500 Arabs still remaining in the
town, followed by the partial destruction of the former Arab quarter.
In short, as
Morris himself points out, power at that period of Israel's history resided
with Ben Gurion and with him alone. All issues, whether military or civilian,
were decided with him, often without the slightest consultation with the
government, let alone with the parties that comprised it. In such a situation,
the absence from the archives of any formal parliamentary or governmental
decision to expel the Palestinians proves nothing. As Morris himself admits,
`Ben Gurion always refrained from issuing clear or written expulsion orders; he
preferred that his generals ?understand? what he wanted done. He wished to
avoid going down in history as the ?great expeller?` (`The Birth…`, pp. 292-3).
The fact that
the founder of the State of Israel took advantage of the impressive extent of
his powers and worked towards the maximum enlargement of the territory
allocated to the Jewish state by the United Nations, and towards reducing its
Arab population to a minimum, is a matter of historical fact. Morris devoted an
important article (17) to Ben Gurion's long-term support for the transfer
project. As he writes in his preface to `1948 and After…`, `Already from 1937
we find Ben Gurion (and most of the other Zionist leaders) supporting a
'transfer' solution to the 'Arab problem' (…) Come 1948, and the confusions and
deplacement of war, and we see Ben Gurion quickly grasp the opportunity for
'Judaising' the emergent Jewish State` (`1948 and After…, p. 33).
Prior to this,
he tells us that `the tendency of military commanders to 'nudge' Palestinians'
flight increased as the war went on. Jewish atrocities - far more widespread
than the old histories have let on (there were massacres of Arabs at Ad
Dawayima, Eilaboun, Jish, Safsaf, Majd al Kurum, Hule (in Lebanon), Saliha and
Sasa, besides Deir Yassin and Lydda and other places) - also contributed
significantly to the exodus` (`1948…`, p. 22).
The `original
sin`
Ilan Pappe, a
professor at the University of Haifa, devotes two chapters of his book `The
Making of the Arab- Israeli Conflict, 1947-1951` to these issues. Eschewing the
caution of Morris's position, he concludes that `Plan D can be regarded in many
respects as a master plan for expulsion. The plan was not conceived out of the
blue - expulsion was considered as one of many means for retaliation against
Arab attacks on Jewish convoys and settlements; nevertheless, it was also
regarded as one of the best means of ensuring the domination of the Jews in the
areas captured by the Israeli army` (`The Making…`, p. 98).
Furthermore, the
actual text of Plan D leaves very little doubt as to the intentions of Ben
Gurion and his friends. It spoke of `operations against enemy population
centres located inside or near our defensive system in order to prevent them
from being used as bases by an active armed force. These operations can be
carried out in the following manner: either by destroying villages (by setting
fire to them, by blowing them up, and by planting mines in their debris), and
especially of those population centres which are difficult to control
continuously; or by mounting combing and control operations according to the
following guidelines: encirclement of the village, conducting a search inside
it. In case of resistance, the armed force must be wiped out and the population
expelled outside the borders of the state` (`The Making…`, p. 92).
For their
achievements, and despite their limitations, we should applaud the courage of
Israel's new historians. This is not just any old page of history on which they
have worked to shed light. What they have opened to public view is the
`original sin` of the state of Israel. Is it acceptable for the survivors of
Hitler's genocide to have the right to live in a state of their own, and for
this right to exclude the right of the sons and daughters of Palestine to live
similarly at peace in their own country? Fifty years after the event, the time
is long overdue to bring an end to this logic that has generated so much war,
and to find a way for the two peoples to coexist. At the same time, we should
not draw a veil over the historical origins of the tragedy.
————————————-
Translated by Ed
Emery
(1) This article
was the basis of a contribution to a colloquium on `The History of Contemporary
Palestine` held at the Institut du Monde Arabe on 13 June 1997. It is being
developed into a book to be published by Editions de l'Atelier in spring 1998.
(2) In Middle
East Forum, November 1961, reprinted with a new commentary in the Journal of
Palestine Studies, Beirut, vol. XVIII, no. 69, 1988.
(3) Elias
Sanbar, in `Palestine 1948. L'Expulsion`, `Revue d'etudes palestiniennes,
Paris, 1984.
(4) Their most
important publications are: Simha Flapan, `The Birth of Israel, Myth and
Realities`, Pantheon Books, New York, 1987; Tom Segev, `1949. The First
Israelis`, Free Press MacMillan, New York and London, 1986; Avi Schlaim,
`Collusion across the Jordan: King Abdullah, the Zionist Movement and the Partition
of Palestine`, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1988; Ilan Pappe, `Britain and the
Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1948-1951`, MacMillan, New York, 1988 and `The Making of
the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1947- 1951`, I.B. Tauris, London, 1992; and Benny
Morris, `The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949`, Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge, 1987, and `1948 and After. Israel and the
Palestinians`, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1990.
(5) The probing
is obviously not limited to the first Arab- Israeli war. It also involves the
attitude of the Zionist leadership to genocide (see in particular Tom Segev's
`The Seventh Million`, published in France by Liana Levi, Paris, 1992), and the
nature of Jewish settlement during the period of the British mandate.
Similarly, Benny Morris has pursued his exploration of the archives in order to
shed light on Israeli expansionism during the 1950s ('Israel's Border Wars:
Arab Infiltration, Israeli Retaliation and the Countdown to the Suez War`,
Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1993) It also extends into other disciplines apart
from historiography, particularly to sociology, and especially concerning the
situation of Oriental Jews in Israeli society, from the early days to the
present.
(6) See
particularly Shabtai Teveth, `The Palestinian Refugee Problem and its Origins`,
Middle Eastern Studies, vol. 26, no. 2, 1990, and Ephraim Karsh, `Fabricating
Israeli History: The `New HistoriansSMQU, Frank Cass, London, 1997.
(7) Nur Masalha,
`'1948 and After' revisited`, Journal of Palestine Studies, no. 96, vol. XXIV,
no. 4, summer 1995.
(8) Ilan Pappe,
`La critique post-sioniste en Israel`, La Revue d'etudes palestiniennes, no.
12, summer 1997.
(9) `The Birth…`
op. cit., pp. 14-18. A careful comparison of the text of the book with the
tables showing village by village the principal reasons for the exodus reveals
a clear - and surprising - underestimation in the tables of the extent of
actual expulsions.
(10) Tom Segev,
op. cit., p. 26.
(11) Quoted by
Simha Flapan, op. cit., p. 107.
(12) Henry Laurens,
`Travaux recents sur l'histoire du premier conflit israelo-arabe`,
Maghreb-Machrek, Paris, no. 132, April-June 1991.
(13) `The
Making…`, op. cit., chapters 8-10. See also Jean-Yves Ollier, `1949: la
conference de Lausanne ou les limites du refus arabe`, Revue d'etudes
palestiniennes, no. 35, spring 1990.
(14) Norman G.
Finkelstein, `Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict`, Verso,
London and New York, 1995, chapter 3.
(15) New York
Times, 23 October 1979.
(16) This story
was told by Ben Gurion's biographer, Michel Bar-Zohar, and was reproduced in
the Israeli daily Hadashot, Tel Aviv, 19 October 1986.
(17) Benny
Morris, `Remarques sur l'historiographie sioniste de l'idee d'un transfert de
populations en Palestine dans les annees 1937-1944`, in `Les nouveaux enjeux de
l'historiographie israelienne`, ed. Florence Heymann, Information paper, Centre
de recherche francais de Jerusalem, no. 12, December 1995. On the
contradictions of Mapam's position, see the first chapter of `1948 and After`.
800,000 Refugees created over a period
of twenty months
1947
29 November: The
General Assembly of the United Nations adopts, with the required two thirds
majority, a plan to partition Palestine into a Jewish state, an Arab state, and
an international zone involving Jerusalem and the Holy Places.
1948
January:
Volunteer units organised as the Arab Liberation Army of Assistance (ALA)
entered Palestine.
End of March:
First deliveries of Czechoslovak arms to the Jewish forces. The Dalet Plan is
put into operation.
9 April: Deir
Yassin massacre.
18 April: The
Haganah take Tiberias; four days later they take Haifa.
10 May: Safed is
taken, followed by Jaffa two days later.
14 May: End of
the British Mandate. Declaration of the State of Israel. De facto recognition
of the new state by the United States. The armies of five Arab countries enter
Palestine.
17 May: De jure
recognition of Israel by the Soviet Union. The Haganah take St Jean d'Acre. The
following day Egyptian troops take Beersheba.
28 May: The Jewish
quarter of Jerusalem capitulates.
11 June-8 July:
First truce.
9-17 July:
Israel takes Lydda, Ramleh and Nazareth.
18 July-15
October: Second truce.
17 September:
Assassination of the Swedish UN mediator Count Folke Bernadotte by an extremist
Zionist commando unit.
15 October: The
Israeli army breaks the truce, and begins an offensive in the Negev.
11 December: The
General Assembly of the United Nations calls for the refugees to have the right
of return.
22 December:
Renewed fighting between Egypt and Israel. Israel completes its conquest of the
Negev. Israel withdraws from northern Sinai on 7 January 1949, but only after a
threat of direct British intervention.
1949
24 February:
Armistice between Israel and Egypt.
10 March:
Israeli troops take Um Rashrash (Eilat).
23 March:
Armistice between Israel and Lebanon.
3 April:
Armistice between Israel and Transjordan.
11 May: Israel
is admitted to the United Nations.
12 May: Israel
and the Arab states sign the protocols of the Lausanne Conference.
20 July:
Armistice between Israel and Syria.
8 December:
Establishment of the United Nations organisation for Palestinian refugees
(UNRWA).
VB