1948, ISRAEL, AND THE PALESTINIANS –– THE TRUE STORY
- From: jgarbuz <jgarbuz@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 6 Jul 2008 06:27:23 -0700 (PDT)
1948, ISRAEL, AND THE PALESTINIANS –– THE TRUE STORY
by Efraim Karsh
Sixty years after its establishment by an internationally recognized
act of self-determination, Israel remains the only state in the world
that is subjected to a constant outpouring of the most outlandish
conspiracy theories and blood libels; whose policies and actions are
obsessively condemned by the international community; and whose right
to exist is constantly debated and challenged not only by its Arab
enemies but by segments of advanced opinion in the West.
During the past decade or so, the actual elimination of the Jewish
state has become a cause célèbre among many of these educated
Westerners. The "one-state solution," as it is called, is a
euphemistic formula proposing the replacement of Israel by a state,
theoretically comprising the whole of historic Palestine, in which
Jews will be reduced to the status of a permanent minority. Only this,
it is said, can expiate the "original sin" of Israel's founding, an
act built (in the words of one critic) "on the ruins of Arab
Palestine" and achieved through the deliberate and aggressive
dispossession of its native population.
This claim of premeditated dispossession and the consequent creation
of the longstanding Palestinian "refugee problem" forms, indeed, the
central plank in the bill of particulars pressed by Israel' s alleged
victims and their Western supporters. It is a charge that has hardly
gone undisputed. As early as the mid-1950's, the eminent American
historian J.C. Hurewitz undertook a systematic refutation,[1] and his
findings were abundantly confirmed by later generations of scholars
and writers. Even Benny Morris, the most influential of Israel's
revisionist "new historians," and one who went out of his way to
establish the case for Israel's "original sin," grudgingly stipulated
that there was no "design" to displace the Palestinian Arabs.[2]
The recent declassification of millions of documents from the period
of the British Mandate (1920-1948) and Israel's early days, documents
untapped by earlier generations of writers and ignored or distorted by
the "new historians," paint a much more definitive picture of the
historical record. They reveal that the claim of dispossession is not
only completely unfounded but the inverse of the truth. What follows
is based on fresh research into these documents, which contain many
facts and data hitherto unreported.
FAR FROM BEING THE HAPLESS OBJECTS OF A PREDATORY ZIONIST ASSAULT, it
was Palestinian Arab leaders who from the early 1920's onward, and
very much against the wishes of their own constituents, launched a
relentless campaign to obliterate the Jewish national revival. This
campaign culminated in the violent attempt to abort the UN resolution
of November 29, 1947, which called for the establishment of two states
in Palestine. Had these leaders, and their counterparts in the
neighboring Arab states, accepted the UN resolution, there would have
been no war and no dislocation in the first place.
The simple fact is that the Zionist movement had always been amenable
to the existence in the future Jewish state of a substantial Arab
minority that would participate on an equal footing "throughout all
sectors of the country's public life."[3] The words are those of Ze'ev
Jabotinsky, the founding father of the branch of Zionism that was the
forebear of today's Likud party. In a famous 1923 article, Jabotinsky
voiced his readiness "to take an oath binding ourselves and our
descendants that we shall never do anything contrary to the principle
of equal rights, and that we shall never try to eject anyone."[4]
Eleven years later, Jabotinsky presided over the drafting of a
constitution for Jewish Palestine. According to its provisions, Arabs
and Jews were to share both the prerogatives and the duties of
statehood, including most notably military and civil service. Hebrew
and Arabic were to enjoy the same legal standing, and "in every
cabinet where the prime minister is a Jew, the vice-premiership shall
be offered to an Arab and vice-versa."[5]
If this was the position of the more "militant" faction of the Jewish
national movement, mainstream Zionism not only took for granted the
full equality of the Arab minority in the future Jewish state but went
out of its way to foster Arab-Jewish coexistence. In January 1919,
Chaim Weizmann, then the upcoming leader of the Zionist movement,
reached a peace-and-cooperation agreement with the Hashemite emir
Faisal ibn Hussein, the effective leader of the nascent pan-Arab
movement. From then until the proclamation of the state of Israel on
May 14, 1948, Zionist spokesmen held hundreds of meetings with Arab
leaders at all levels. These included Abdullah ibn Hussein, Faisal's
elder brother and founder of the emirate of Transjordan (later the
kingdom of Jordan), incumbent and former prime ministers in Syria,
Lebanon, Egypt, and Iraq, senior advisers of King Abdul Aziz ibn Saud
(founder of Saudi Arabia), and Palestinian Arab elites of all hues.
As late as September 15, 1947, two months before the passing of the UN
partition resolution, two senior Zionist envoys were still seeking to
convince Abdel Rahman Azzam, the Arab League's secretary-general, that
the Palestine conflict "was uselessly absorbing the best energies of
the Arab League," and that both Arabs and Jews would greatly benefit
"from active policies of cooperation and development."6 Behind this
proposition lay an age-old Zionist hope: that the material progress
resulting from Jewish settlement of Palestine would ease the path for
the local Arab populace to become permanently reconciled, if not
positively well disposed, to the project of Jewish national self-
determination. As David Ben-Gurion, soon to become Israel's first
prime minister, argued in December 1947:
If the Arab citizen will feel at home in our state, . . . if the
state will help him in a truthful and dedicated way to reach the
economic, social, and cultural level of the Jewish community, then
Arab distrust will accordingly subside and a bridge will be built to a
Semitic, Jewish-Arab alliance.[7]
ON THE FACE OF IT, BEN-GURION'S HOPE RESTED ON REASONABLE GROUNDS. An
inflow of Jewish immigrants and capital after World War I had revived
Palestine's hitherto static condition and raised the standard of
living of its Arab inhabitants well above that in the neighboring Arab
states. The expansion of Arab industry and agriculture, especially in
the field of citrus growing, was largely financed by the capital thus
obtained, and Jewish know-how did much to improve Arab cultivation. In
the two decades between the world wars, Arab-owned citrus plantations
grew sixfold, as did vegetable-growing lands, while the number of
olive groves quadrupled.[8]
No less remarkable were the advances in social welfare. Perhaps most
significantly, mortality rates in the Muslim population dropped
sharply and life expectancy rose from 37.5 years in 1926-27 to 50 in
1942-44 (compared with 33 in Egypt). The rate of natural increase
leapt upward by a third.[9]
That nothing remotely akin to this was taking place in the neighboring
British-ruled Arab countries, not to mention India, can be explained
only by the decisive Jewish contribution to Mandate Palestine's
socioeconomic well-being. The British authorities acknowledged as much
in a 1937 report by a commission of inquiry headed by Lord Peel:
The general beneficent effect of Jewish immigration on Arab
welfare is illustrated by the fact that the increase in the Arab
population is most marked in urban areas affected by Jewish
development. A comparison of the census returns in 1922 and 1931 shows
that, six years ago, the increase percent in Haifa was 86, in Jaffa
62, in Jerusalem 37, while in purely Arab towns such as Nablus and
Hebron it was only 7, and at Gaza there was a decrease of 2 percent.
[10]
Had the vast majority of Palestinian Arabs been left to their own
devices, they would most probably have been content to take advantage
of the opportunities afforded them. This is evidenced by the fact
that, throughout the Mandate era, periods of peaceful coexistence far
exceeded those of violent eruptions, and the latter were the work of
only a small fraction of Palestinian Arabs.[11] Unfortunately for both
Arabs and Jews, however, the hopes and wishes of ordinary people were
not taken into account, as they rarely are in authoritarian
communities hostile to the notions of civil society or liberal
democracy. In the modern world, moreover, it has not been the poor and
the oppressed who have led the great revolutions or carried out the
worst deeds of violence, but rather militant vanguards from among the
better educated and more moneyed classes of society.
So it was with the Palestinians. In the words of the Peel report:
We have found that, though the Arabs have benefited by the
development of the country owing to Jewish immigration, this has had
no conciliatory effect. On the contrary . . . with almost mathematical
precision the betterment of the economic situation in Palestine [has]
meant the deterioration of the political situation.[12]
In Palestine, ordinary Arabs were persecuted and murdered by their
alleged betters for the crime of "selling Palestine" to the Jews.
Meanwhile, these same betters were enriching themselves with impunity.
The staunch pan-Arabist Awni Abdel Hadi, who vowed to fight "until
Palestine is either placed under a free Arab government or becomes a
graveyard for all the Jews in the country,"[13] facilitated the
transfer of 7,500 acres to the Zionist movement, and some of his
relatives, all respected political and religious figures, went a step
further by selling actual plots of land. So did numerous members of
the Husseini family, the foremost Palestinian Arab clan during the
Mandate period, including Muhammad Tahir, father of Hajj Amin
Husseini, the notorious mufti of Jerusalem.[14]
It was the mufti's concern with solidifying his political position
that largely underlay the 1929 carnage in which 133 Jews were
massacred and hundreds more were wounded –– just as it was the
struggle for political preeminence that triggered the most protracted
outbreak of Palestinian Arab violence in 1936-39. This was widely
portrayed as a nationalist revolt against both the ruling British and
the Jewish refugees then streaming into Palestine to escape Nazi
persecution. In fact, it was a massive exercise in violence that saw
far more Arabs than Jews or Englishmen murdered by Arab gangs, that
repressed and abused the general Arab population, and that impelled
thousands of Arabs to flee the country in a foretaste of the 1947-48
exodus.[15]
Some Palestinian Arabs, in fact, preferred to fight back against their
inciters, often in collaboration with the British authorities and the
Hagana, the largest Jewish underground defense organization. Still
others sought shelter in Jewish neighborhoods. For despite the
paralytic atmosphere of terror and a ruthlessly enforced economic
boycott, Arab-Jewish coexistence continued on many practical levels
even during such periods of turmoil, and was largely restored after
their subsidence. [16]
AGAINST THIS BACKDROP, IT IS HARDLY TO BE WONDERED at that most
Palestinians wanted nothing to do with the violent attempt ten years
later by the mufti-led Arab Higher Committee (AHC), the effective
"government" of the Palestinian Arabs, to subvert the 1947 UN
partition resolution. With the memories of 1936-39 still fresh in
their minds, many opted to stay out of the fight. In no time, numerous
Arab villages (and some urban areas) were negotiating peace agreements
with their Jewish neighbors; other localities throughout the country
acted similarly without the benefit of a formal agreement.[17]
Nor did ordinary Palestinians shrink from quietly defying their
supreme leadership. In his numerous tours around the region, Abdel
Qader Husseini, district commander of Jerusalem and the mufti's close
relative, found the populace indifferent, if not hostile, to his
repeated call to arms. In Hebron, he failed to recruit a single
volunteer for the salaried force he sought to form in that city; his
efforts in the cities of Nablus, Tulkarm, and Qalqiliya were hardly
more successful. Arab villagers, for their part, proved even less
receptive to his demands. In one locale, Beit Safafa, Abdel Qader
suffered the ultimate indignity, being driven out by angry residents
protesting their village's transformation into a hub of anti-Jewish
attacks. Even the few who answered his call did so, by and large, in
order to obtain free weapons for their personal protection and then
return home.[18]
There was an economic aspect to this peaceableness. The outbreak of
hostilities orchestrated by the AHC led to a sharp drop in trade and
an accompanying spike in the cost of basic commodities. Many villages,
dependent for their livelihood on the Jewish or mixed-population
cities, saw no point in supporting the AHC's explicit goal of starving
the Jews into submission.[19] Such was the general lack of appetite
for war that in early February 1948, more than two months after the
AHC initiated its campaign of violence, Ben-Gurion maintained that
"the villages, in most part, have remained on the sidelines."[20]
Ben-Gurion's analysis was echoed by the Iraqi general Ismail Safwat,
commander-in-chief of the Arab Liberation Army (ALA), the volunteer
Arab force that did much of the fighting in Palestine in the months
preceding Israel's proclamation of independence. Safwat lamented that
only 800 of the 5,000 volunteers trained by the ALA had come from
Palestine itself, and that most of these had deserted either before
completing their training or immediately afterward. Fawzi Qawuqji, the
local commander of ALA forces, was no less scathing, having found the
Palestinians "unreliable, excitable, and difficult to control, and in
organized warfare virtually unemployable."[21]
This view summed up most contemporary perceptions during the fateful
six months of fighting after the passing of the partition resolution.
Even as these months saw the all but complete disintegration of
Palestinian Arab society, nowhere was this described as a systematic
dispossession of Arabs by Jews. To the contrary: with the partition
resolution widely viewed by Arab leaders as "Zionist in inspiration,
Zionist in principle, Zionist in substance, and Zionist in most
details" (in the words of the Palestinian academic Walid Khalidi),[22]
and with those leaders being brutally candid about their determination
to subvert it by force of arms, there was no doubt whatsoever as to
which side had instigated the bloodletting.
Nor did the Arabs attempt to hide their culpability. As the Jews set
out to lay the groundwork for their nascent state while simultaneously
striving to convince their Arab compatriots that they would be (as Ben-
Gurion put it) "equal citizens, equal in everything without any
exception," Palestinian Arab leaders pledged that "should partition be
implemented, it will be achieved only over the bodies of the Arabs of
Palestine, their sons, and their women." Qawuqji vowed "to drive all
Jews into the sea." Abdel Qader Husseini stated that "the Palestine
problem will only be solved by the sword; all Jews must leave
Palestine."[23]
THEY AND THEIR FELLOW ARAB ABETTERS DID THEIR UTMOST to make these
threats come true, with every means at their disposal. In addition to
regular forces like the ALA, guerrilla and terror groups wreaked
havoc, as much among noncombatants as among Jewish fighting units.
Shooting, sniping, ambushes, bombings, which in today' s world would
be condemned as war crimes, were daily events in the lives of
civilians. "[I]nnocent and harmless people, going about their daily
business," wrote the U.S. consul-general in Jerusalem, Robert Macatee,
in December 1947,
are picked off while riding in buses, walking along the streets,
and stray shots even find them while asleep in their beds. A Jewish
woman, mother of five children, was shot in Jerusalem while hanging
out clothes on the roof. The ambulance rushing her to the hospital was
machine-gunned, and finally the mourners following her to the funeral
were attacked and one of them stabbed to death.[24]
As the fighting escalated, Arab civilians suffered as well, and the
occasional atrocity sparked cycles of large-scale violence. Thus, the
December 1947 murder of six Arab workers near the Haifa oil refinery
by the small Jewish underground group IZL was followed by the
immediate slaughter of 39 Jews by their Arab co-workers,[25] just as
the killing of some 100 Arabs during the battle for the village of
Deir Yasin in April 1948[26] was "avenged" within days by the killing
of 77 Jewish nurses and doctors en route to the Hadassah hospital on
Mount Scopus.[27]
Yet while the Jewish leadership and media described these gruesome
events for what they were, at times withholding details so as to avoid
panic and keep the door open for Arab-Jewish reconciliation, their
Arab counterparts not only inflated the toll to gigantic proportions
but invented numerous nonexistent atrocities. The fall of Haifa (April
21-22), for example, gave rise to totally false claims of a large-
scale slaughter, which circulated throughout the Middle East and
reached Western capitals. Similarly false rumors were spread after the
fall of Tiberias (April 18), during the battle for Safed (in early
May), and in Jaffa, where in late April the mayor fabricated a
massacre of "hundreds of Arab men and women." Accounts of Deir Yasin
in the Arab media were especially lurid, featuring supposed hammer-and-
sickle tattoos on the arms of IZL fighters and accusations of havoc
and rape.[28]
This scare-mongering was undoubtedly aimed at garnering the widest
possible sympathy for the Palestinian plight and casting the Jews as
brutal predators. But it backfired disastrously by spreading panic
within the disoriented Palestinian society. That, in turn, helps
explain why, by April 1948, after four months of seeming progress,
this phase of the Arab war effort collapsed. (Still in the offing was
the second, wider, and more prolonged phase involving the forces of
the five Arab nations that invaded Palestine in mid-May.) For not only
had most Palestinians declined to join the active hostilities, but
vast numbers had taken to the road, leaving their homes either for
places elsewhere in the country or fleeing to neighboring Arab lands.
INDEED, MANY HAD VACATED EVEN BEFORE THE OUTBREAK OF HOSTILITIES, and
still larger numbers decamped before the war reached their own
doorstep. "Arabs are leaving the country with their families in
considerable numbers, and there is an exodus from the mixed towns to
the rural Arab centers," reported Alan Cunningham, the British high
commissioner, in December 1947, adding a month later that the "panic
of [the] middle class persists and there is a steady exodus of those
who can afford to leave the country."[29]
Echoing these reports, Hagana intelligence sources recounted in mid-
December an "evacuation frenzy that has taken hold of entire Arab
villages." Before the month was over, many Palestinian Arab cities
were bemoaning the severe problems created by the huge influx of
villagers and pleading with the AHC to help find a solution to the
predicament. Even the Syrian and Lebanese governments were alarmed by
this early exodus, demanding that the AHC encourage Palestinian Arabs
to stay put and fight.[30]
But no such encouragement was forthcoming, either from the AHC or from
anywhere else. In fact, there was a total lack of national cohesion,
let alone any sense of shared destiny. Cities and towns acted as if
they were self-contained units, attending to their own needs and
eschewing the smallest sacrifice on behalf of other localities. Many
"national committees" (i.e., local leaderships) forbade the export of
food and drink from well-stocked cities to needy outlying towns and
villages. Haifa's Arab merchants refused to alleviate a severe
shortage of flour in Jenin, while Gaza refused to export eggs and
poultry to Jerusalem; in Hebron, armed guards checked all departing
cars. At the same time there was extensive smuggling, especially in
the mixed-population cities, with Arab foodstuffs going to Jewish
neighborhoods and vice-versa.[31]
The lack of communal solidarity was similarly evidenced by the abysmal
treatment meted out to the hundreds of thousands of refugees scattered
throughout the country. Not only was there no collective effort to
relieve their plight, or even a wider empathy beyond one's immediate
neighborhood, but many refugees were ill-treated by their temporary
hosts and subjected to ridicule and abuse for their supposed
cowardice. In the words of one Jewish intelligence report: "The
refugees are hated wherever they have arrived."[32]
Even the ultimate war victims –– the survivors of Deir Yasin –– did
not escape their share of indignities. Finding refuge in the
neighboring village of Silwan, many were soon at loggerheads with the
locals, to the point where on April 14, a mere five days after the
tragedy, a Silwan delegation approached the AHC's Jerusalem office
demanding that the survivors be transferred elsewhere. No help for
their relocation was forthcoming.[33]
Some localities flatly refused to accept refugees at all, for fear of
overstraining existing resources. In Acre (Akko), the authorities
prevented Arabs fleeing Haifa from disembarking; in Ramallah, the
predominantly Christian population organized its own militia –– not so
much to fight the Jews as to fend off the new Muslim arrivals. Many
exploited the plight of the refugees unabashedly, especially by
fleecing them for such basic necessities as transportation and
accommodation.[34]
Yet still the Palestinians fled their homes, and at an ever growing
pace. By early April some 100,000 had gone, though the Jews were still
on the defensive and in no position to evict them. (On March 23, fully
four months after the outbreak of hostilities, ALA commander-in-chief
Safwat noted with some astonishment that the Jews "have so far not
attacked a single Arab village unless provoked by it.") By the time of
Israel's declaration of independence on May 14, the numbers of Arab
refugees had more than trebled. Even then, none of the 170,000-180,000
Arabs fleeing urban centers, and only a handful of the 130,000-160,000
villagers who left their homes, had been forced out by the Jews.
The exceptions occurred in the heat of battle and were uniformly
dictated by ad-hoc military considerations –– reducing civilian
casualties, denying sites to Arab fighters when there were no
available Jewish forces to repel them –– rather than political design.
[35] They were, moreover, matched by efforts to prevent flight and/or
to encourage the return of those who fled. To cite only one example,
in early April a Jewish delegation comprising top Arab-affairs
advisers, local notables, and municipal heads with close contacts with
neighboring Arab localities traversed Arab villages in the coastal
plain, then emptying at a staggering pace, in an attempt to convince
their inhabitants to stay put.[36]
WHAT MAKES THESE JEWISH EFFORTS ALL THE MORE IMPRESSIVE is that they
took place at a time when huge numbers of Palestinian Arabs were being
actively driven from their homes 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 the prospective Jewish state.
In the largest and best-known example, tens of thousands of Arabs were
ordered or bullied into leaving the city of Haifa on the AHC's
instructions, despite strenuous Jewish efforts to persuade them to
stay.[37] Only days earlier, Tiberias' 6,000-strong Arab community had
been similarly forced out by its own leaders, against local Jewish
wishes.[38] In Jaffa, Palestine's largest Arab city, the municipality
organized the transfer of thousands of residents by land and sea;[39]
in Jerusalem, the AHC ordered the transfer of women and children, and
local gang leaders pushed out residents of several neighborhoods.[40]
Tens of thousands of rural villagers were likewise forced out by order
of the AHC, local Arab militias, or the ALA. Within weeks of the
latter's arrival in Palestine in January 1948, rumors were circulating
of secret instructions to Arabs in predominantly Jewish areas to
vacate their villages so as to allow their use for military purposes
and to reduce the risk of becoming hostage to the Jews.
By February, this phenomenon had expanded to most parts of the
country. It gained considerable momentum in April and May as ALA and
AHC forces throughout Palestine were being comprehensively routed. On
April 18, the Hagana's intelligence branch in Jerusalem reported a
fresh general order to remove the women and children from all villages
bordering Jewish localities. Twelve days later, its Haifa counterpart
reported an ALA command to evacuate all Arab villages between Tel Aviv
and Haifa in anticipation of a new general offensive. In early May, as
fighting intensified in the eastern Galilee, local Arabs were ordered
to transfer all women and children from the Rosh Pina area, while in
the Jerusalem sub-district, Transjordan's Arab Legion likewise ordered
the emptying of scores of villages.[41]
As for the Palestinian Arab leaders themselves, who had placed their
reluctant constituents on a collision course with Zionism in the
1920's and 1930's and had now dragged them helpless into a mortal
conflict, they hastened to get themselves out of Palestine and to stay
out at the most critical moment. Taking a cue from these higher-ups,
local leaders similarly rushed en masse through the door. High
Commissioner Cunningham summarized what was happening with
quintessential British understatement:
You should know that the collapsing Arab morale in Palestine is in
some measure due to the increasing tendency of those who should be
leading them to leave the country. . . . For instance, in Jaffa the
mayor went on four-day leave 12 days ago and has not returned, and
half the national committee has left. In Haifa the Arab members of the
municipality left some time ago; the two leaders of the Arab
Liberation Army left actually during the recent battle. Now the chief
Arab magistrate has left. In all parts of the country the effendi
class has been evacuating in large numbers over a considerable period
and the tempo is increasing.[42]
Arif al-Arif, a prominent Arab politician during the Mandate era and
the doyen of Palestinian historians, described the prevailing
atmosphere at the time: "Wherever one went throughout the country one
heard the same refrain: ‘Where are the leaders who should show us the
way? Where is the AHC? Why are its members in Egypt at a time when
Palestine, their own country, needs them?'"[43]
MUHAMMAD NIMR AL-KHATIB, A PALESTINIAN ARAB LEADER DURING THE 1948
WAR, would sum up the situation in these words: "The Palestinians had
neighboring Arab states which opened their borders and doors to the
refugees, while the Jews had no alternative but to triumph or to
die."[44]
This is true enough of the Jews, but it elides the reason for the
refugees' flight and radically distorts the quality of their reception
elsewhere. If they met with no sympathy from their brethren at home,
the reaction throughout the Arab world was, if anything, harsher
still. There were repeated calls for the forcible return of the
refugees, or at the very least of young men of military age, many of
whom had arrived under the (false) pretense of volunteering for the
ALA. As the end of the Mandate loomed nearer, the Lebanese government
refused entry visas to Palestinian males between eighteen and fifty
and ordered all "healthy and fit men" who had already entered the
country to register officially or be considered illegal aliens and
face the full weight of the law.
The Syrian government took an even more stringent approach, banning
from its territory all Palestinian males between sixteen and fifty. In
Egypt, a large number of demonstrators marched to the Arab League's
Cairo headquarters and lodged a petition demanding that "every able-
bodied Palestinian capable of carrying arms should be forbidden to
stay abroad." Such was the extent of Arab resentment toward the
Palestinian refugees that the rector of Cairo's al-Azhar institution
of religious learning, probably the foremost Islamic authority, felt
obliged to issue a ruling that made the sheltering of Palestinian Arab
refugees a religious duty.[45]
Contempt for the Palestinians only intensified with time. "Fright has
struck the Palestinian Arabs and they fled their country," commented
Radio Baghdad on the eve of the pan-Arab invasion of the new-born
state of Israel in mid-May. "These are hard words indeed, yet they are
true." Lebanon's minister of the interior (and future president)
Camille Chamoun was more delicate, intoning that "The people of
Palestine, in their previous resistance to imperialists and Zionists,
proved they were worthy of independence," but "at this decisive stage
of the fighting they have not remained so dignified."[46]
No wonder, then, that so few among the Palestinian refugees themselves
blamed their collapse and dispersal on the Jews. During a fact-finding
mission to Gaza in June 1949, Sir John Troutbeck, head of the British
Middle East office in Cairo and no friend to Israel or the Jews, was
surprised to discover that while the refugees
express no bitterness against the Jews (or for that matter against
the Americans or ourselves) they speak with the utmost bitterness of
the Egyptians and other Arab states. "We know who our enemies are,"
they will say, and they are referring to their Arab brothers who, they
declare, persuaded them unnecessarily to leave their homes. . . . I
even heard it said that many of the refugees would give a welcome to
the Israelis if they were to come in and take the district over.[47]
SIXTY YEARS AFTER THEIR DISPERSION, THE REFUGEES OF 1948 AND THEIR
DESCENDANTS remain in the squalid camps where they have been kept by
their fellow Arabs for decades, nourished on hate and false hope.
Meanwhile, their erstwhile leaders have squandered successive
opportunities for statehood.
It is indeed the tragedy of the Palestinians that the two leaders who
determined their national development during the 20th century –– Hajj
Amin Husseini and Yasir Arafat, the latter of whom dominated
Palestinian politics since the mid-1960's to his death in November
2004 –– were megalomaniacal extremists blinded by anti-Jewish hatred
and profoundly obsessed with violence. Had the mufti chosen to lead
his people to peace and reconciliation with their Jewish neighbors, as
he had promised the British officials who appointed him to his high
rank in the early 1920's, the Palestinians would have had their
independent state over a substantial part of Mandate Palestine by
1948, and would have been spared the traumatic experience of
dispersion and exile. Had Arafat set the PLO from the start on the
path to peace and reconciliation, instead of turning it into one of
the most murderous terrorist organizations in modern times, a
Palestinian state could have been established in the late 1960's or
the early 1970's; in 1979 as a corollary to the Egyptian-Israeli peace
treaty; by May 1999 as part of the Oslo process; or at the very latest
with the Camp David summit of July 2000.
Instead, Arafat transformed the territories placed under his control
in the 1990's into an effective terror state from where he launched an
all-out war (the "al-Aqsa intifada") shortly after being offered an
independent Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip and 92 percent of the
West Bank, with East Jerusalem as its capital. In the process, he
subjected the Palestinian population in the West Bank and the Gaza
Strip to a repressive and corrupt regime in the worst tradition of
Arab dictatorships and plunged their standard of living to
unprecedented depths.
What makes this state of affairs all the more galling is that, far
from being unfortunate aberrations, Hajj Amin and Arafat were
quintessential representatives of the cynical and self-seeking leaders
produced by the Arab political system. Just as the Palestinian
leadership during the Mandate had no qualms about inciting its
constituents against Zionism and the Jews, while lining its own
pockets from the fruits of Jewish entrepreneurship, so PLO officials
used the billions of dollars donated by the Arab oil states and,
during the Oslo era, by the international community to finance their
luxurious style of life while ordinary Palestinians scrambled for a
livelihood.
And so it goes. Six decades after the mufti and his henchmen condemned
their people to statelessness by rejecting the UN partition
resolution, their reckless decisions are being reenacted by the latest
generation of Palestinian leaders. This applies not only to Hamas,
which in January 2006 replaced the PLO at the helm of the Palestinian
Authority (PA), but also to the supposedly moderate Palestinian
leadership –– from President Mahmoud Abbas to Ahmad Qureia (negotiator
of the 1993 Oslo Accords) to Saeb Erekat to prime minister Salam Fayad
–– which refuses to recognize Israel's very existence as a Jewish
state and insists on the full implementation of the "right of return."
And so it goes as well with Western anti-Zionists who in the name of
justice (no less) call today not for a new and fundamentally different
Arab leadership but for the dismantlement of the Jewish state. Only
when these dispositions change can Palestinian Arabs realistically
look forward to putting their self-inflicted "catastrophe" behind
them.
Footnotes
1 J.C. Hurewitz, The Struggle for Palestine (New York: Norton, 1950).
2 Benny Morris, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem 1947-1949
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), p. 286; Morris, The
Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 588.
3 Vladimir Jabotinsky, The Jewish War Front (London: George Allen &
Unwin, 1940), p. 216.
4 Originally published in Russian under the title "O Zheleznoi Stene,"
in Rassvyet, Nov. 4, 1923, the "Iron Wall" was reprinted several
times, including in The Jewish Herald (South Africa), Nov. 26, 1937
(internet ed. http://www.mideastweb.org/ironwall.htm).
5 Jabotinsky, The Jewish War Front, pp. 216-20.
6 A.S. Eban, "Note of Conversation with Abdel Rahman Azzam Pasha,
London, Sept. 15, 1947," in Neil Caplan, Futile Diplomacy (London:
Frank Cass, 1986), Vol. 2, pp. 274-76.
7 David Ben-Gurion, Bama'araha (Tel Aviv: Mapai Publishing House,
1949), Vol. 4, Part 2, p. 265.
8 Palestine Royal Commission, Report. Presented to the Secretary of
State for the Colonies in Parliament by Command of his Majesty, July
1937 (London: HMSO; rep. 1946; hereafter Peel Commission Report), pp.
94, 157-58; Z. Abramowitz and Y. Guelfat, Hameshek Ha'arvi Be'eretz
Israel Uve'artzot Hamizrah Hatichon (Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuhad,
1944), pp. 48-50.
9 A Survey of Palestine. Prepared in December 1945 and January 1946
for the Information of the Anglo-American Committee of Enquiry
(reprinted 1991 in full with permission from Her Majesty's Stationary
Office by the Institute for Palestine Studies, Washington D.C.), Vol.
2, pp. 708-15.
10 Peel Commission Report, p. 93 (vii).
11 For early manifestations of Arab-Jewish coexistence see, for
example, Colonial Office, Palestine. Report on Palestine
Administration, 1923 (London: HMSO, 1924), p. 26; Colonial Office,
Palestine. Report on Palestine Administration, 1924 (London: HMSO,
1925), pp. 28, 32, 50; Colonial Office, Palestine. Report on Palestine
Administration, 1926 (London: HMSO, 1927), p. 33; Colonial Office,
Palestine: Report of the High Commissioner on the Administration of
Palestine 1920-1925 (London: HMSO, 1925), pp. 40-41; Chaim Weizmann,
"Progress and Problems," Confidential Report to Colonial Office, Feb.
15, 1922, The Letters and Papers of Chaim Weizmann. Vol. I, Series B,
August 1898-July 1931 (New Brunswick & Jerusalem: Transaction Books &
Israel Universities Press, 1983), p. 366; Frederick H. Kisch,
Palestine Diary (London: Victor Gollancz, 1938), pp. 48-49, 54, 73.
12 Peel Commission Report, pp. 63, 271.
13 "Conversation with Awni Abdel Hadi," June 3, 1920, Hagana Archive
(hereinafter HA), 80/145/11.
14 Kenneth W. Stein, The Land Question in Palestine, 1917-1939 (Chapel
Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1984), pp. 182, 228-39.
15 While in 1936, according to official British statistics, 195 Arabs
were killed by their Arab brothers, compared with 37 Britishmen and 80
Jews, two years later these figures rose to 503 Arab fatalities,
compared with 255 and 77 Jewish and British deaths respectively.
Fatalities in 1939 remained on a similar level: 414 Palestinian Arabs
murdered by Arab gangs, as opposed to 94 Jews and 37 Brits. Some
Palestinian Arab sources put the number of murdered Arabs at a
staggering 3,000-4,500.
In a letter to Abdel Qader Husseini on November 18, 1938, Hassan
Saleme, styling himself "Leader of Jaffa, Ramallah, and Lydda Area,"
informed his fellow gang leader that "complaints are being received
from the villagers of the Jerusalem District as a result of pillaging,
looting, killing, and torturing committed by some of the vile people
who are wearing the clothing of the holy warriors [i.e., members of
"the Holy Jihad," as Abdel Qader's force was called]. . . . I admit
that there are among the murdered people some who have been sentenced
to death, but what are the faults of the innocent whose money is
stolen, whose cattle are looted, whose women are violated, whose
jewels are pillaged, and who suffer in many other ways of which you
have undoubtedly heard? Our rebellion has become a rebellion against
the villages and not one against the Government or the Jews."
See: A Survey of Palestine, Vol. 1, pp. 38, 46, 49; General Staff
H.Q., Jerusalem, "History of the Disturbances in Palestine 1936-1939,"
Dec. 1939, Public Record Office (hereinafter PRO), WO 191/88; Kenneth
Waring, "Arab Against Arab: Evidence of Rebel Documents," Times, Jan.
18, 1939. For an annotated Hebrew translation of a comprehensive
collection of original documents of the Arab gangs see Ezra Danin
(ed.), Te'udot Udmuyot Meginzei Haknufiot Ha'arviot Bemoraot 1936-1939
(Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1981; first published in 1944).
16 Thus, for example, Arab purchases of Jewish wheat dropped
dramatically in 1937 but rose sharply the following year owing to
particularly poor crops, with some 70 percent of the Jewish wheat sold
to the Arab sector. Conversely, prior to the 1936-39 violence, about a
third of the Palestinian Arab agricultural output was sold to the
Jewish sector. Even land sales to Jews continued apace, with the lion'
s share of the 1,300-plus transactions in 1936-39 involving ordinary
people. Likewise, when in December 1938 the Jewish workers of the port
of Haifa refused service to a German ship after a German naval officer
insulted a Jewish porter, their Arab colleagues swiftly followed suit.
See Abramowitz and Guelfat Hameshek Ha'arvi, pp. 99-105; Stein, The
Land Question, p. 182; "Minutes of the Meeting of the Jewish Agency' s
Executive," Jan. 1, 1939, David Ben-Gurion Archive, Sde Boker
(hereinafter BGA).
17 See, for example, Hashmona'i to Ben Yehuda, "Relations with
Neighboring Villages, Dec. 24, 1947, Israel Defense Forces Archives
(hereinafter IDFA) 1948/500/28; Hashmona'i to Shadmi, "The Suba
Village," Dec. 22, 1947, IDFA, 1948/500/32; 01104 to Tene, "Relations
between Qatanna and Ma'ale Hahamisha," Dec. 23, 1947, ibid.; Yavne,
"Beit Hanina," Jan. 2, 1947 & "The Qiryat Anavim-Abu Gosh Area" Jan.
7, 1948, HA 105/72, pp. 27-28; 01123 to Tene, "An Arab Peace
Overture," Jan. 14, 1948, ibid., p. 46; Segal to Ben Yehuda, "Peace
with Maliha, Jan. 10, 1948, IDFA 1949/2644/402; Zafrira Din,
"Interview with Josh Palmon on June 28, 1989," HA 80/721/3; Noam,
"Aqir's Peace Overture," Dec. 12, 1947, HA 105/72, p. 6; Tzefa, "Peace
Offer by Ghuweir Abu Shusha," Dec. 16, 1948, ibid.; Tiroshi, "Requests
by Neighborhood Arabs for Peace with the Jews," Dec. 18, 1947, ibid.,
p. 8; "01112 to Tene, "Kafr Qara and Kfar Glikson," Jan. 25, 1948,
ibid., p. 68; 01101 to Tene, "Meeting between the Ard Saris Mukhtar
and Dr. Bihem, Head of the Kfar Atta Municipality," Jan. 22, 1948,
ibid., p. 71; "Tene News –– Daily Summary," Dec. 16, 1947, HA 105/61,
p. 59; "For Our Members, Daily News Bulletin No. 19," Dec. 31, 1947,
ibid., p. 127; "Fortnightly Intelligence Newsletter No. 58," issued by
HQ British Troops in Palestine (for the period 2359 hrs 18 Dec.
47-2359 hrs 1 Jan. 48), PRO, WO 275/64, p. 2.
18 See, for example, Naim, "In the Villages," Dec. 25, 1947, HA
105/22, p. 123; 00004 to Tene, "Qalandiya Opposes Gang
Concentrations," Dec. 30, 1947, IDFA 1948/500/28; Yavne, "Occurrences
in Romema," Jan. 2, 1948, HA 105/72, p. 27; Yavne, "Silwan-Ramat
Rahel," Jan. 1, 1948, ibid., p. 30; Yavne, "Dissatisfaction with Abdel
Qader Husseini," ibid., p. 32; Qiryat Anavim people to Yavne, "Qatanna
Residents Expelled an Arab Gang from the Village," Jan. 5, 1948,
ibid., p. 32; 02104 to Tene, "Workers from Maliha and Qaluniya who
Refuse to Attack Jews," Jan. 7, 1948, ibid., p. 33; 00004 to Tene,
"Meeting of Bani Hassan in Maliha to Discuss Attitude to Armed Gangs,"
Jan. 14, 1948, ibid., p. 46; 02204 to Tene, "Maliha," Jan. 14, 1948,
ibid., p. 47; 02204 to Tene, "Qattana," Jan. 17, 1948, ibid., p. 50;
02104 to Tene, "Anti-Gang Resistance," Jan. 28, 1948, ibid., p. 72;
02104 to Tene, "Refusal to Provide Volunteers," Feb. 1, 1948, ibid.,
p. 76; 02104 to Tene, "Villages' Fear of Retaliation," Feb. 1, 1948,
ibid., p. 80; Yavne, "Battir and other Villages," Feb. 4, 1948, ibid.,
p. 84; 02204 to Tene, "Opposition to Abdel Qader's Operation by
Qastel," Feb. 6, 1948, ibid., p. 91; Yavne to Tene, "Shu'afat," Feb.
24, 1948, ibid., p. 114; Hiram to Tene, "Shafa'amr," Feb. 26, 1948,
ibid., p. 116; "Tene News," Dec. 31, 1947 & Jan. 2-4, 1948, HA 105/61,
pp. 121-22, 158-59; "Annex to News Concentration No. 100," Feb. 20 &
24, 1948, IDFA 1949/2605/2; "Maliha," Jan. 1, 1948, IDFA 1949/2504/4;
log of events in Suba, Mar. 2-Apr. 13, 1948, IDFA 1949/5545/114, p.
141.
19 "For Our Members. Daily Information Circular No. 12," Dec. 21,
1947, HA 105/61, p. 70; "Tene New," Dec. 31, 1947, ibid., p. 125;
Avram, "Jammasin: News Items," Jan. 9, 1948, HA 105/23, p. 114;
Tiroshi, "Dispatch of Arab Merchandise," Dec. 15, 1947, HA 105/72, p.
7; Naim to Tene, "Position of the Gaza Felaheen," Feb. 15, 1948,
ibid., p. 103; Naim to Tene, "Evacuation of the Wahidat Territory,"
Feb. 22, 1948, ibid., p. 111; 00004 to Tene, "Moods in Sur Bahir,"
Dec. 22, 1947, IDFA 1948/500/60; Avram, "The Miska Arabs," Jan. 8,
1948, HA 105/54a, p. 19; Hiram to Tene, "Meeting between the Yehiam
Mukhtar and Tarshiha's Mayor," Feb. 22, 1948, ibid., p. 31; Tiroshi to
Tene, "Appeal for a Ceasefire and Good Neighborly Relations," Apr. 7,
1948, ibid., p. 53; Tiroshi to Tene, "Peace Overtures by Baqa
Gharbiya," Apr. 20, 1948, ibid., p. 79; Grar to Tene, "Yasur," Apr.
21, 1948, ibid., p. 84.
20 David Ben-Gurion, Behilahem Israel (Tel Aviv: Mapai Publishing
House, 1951; third ed.), pp. 28, 43, 54; Ben-Gurion, Bama'araha, Vol.
4, Part 2, p. 284.
21 Meahorei Hapargod (Hebrew edition of an official report by an Iraqi
parliamentary committee on the 1948 war, published in September 1949;
Tel Aviv: Ma'arachot, 1954), pp. 9, 98-99; "Fortnightly Intelligence
Newsletter No. 64," issued by HQ British Troops in Palestine (for the
period 2359 hrs 10 Mar.-2359 hrs 23 Mar. 48), PRO, WO 275/64, p. 4.
Arif al-Arif, al-Nakba: Nakbat Bait al-Maqdis wa-l-Firdaws al-Mafqud
(Beirut: al-Maktaba al-Asriya, 1956), Vol. 1, pp. 138-39.
22 Walid Khalidi, From Haven to Conquest: Readings in Zionism and the
Palestine Problem Until 1948 (Washington, D.C.: Institute for
Palestine Studies, 1987), p. lxix.
23 Ben-Gurion, Bama'araha, Vol. 4, Part 2, p. 260; Hebrew translation
of Hajj Amin Husseini's interview with Le Journal d'Egypt on Nov. 10,
1947, HA, 105/105a, p. 47; Radio Beirut, Nov. 12, 1947, in Foreign
Broadcasts Information Service (FBIS), European Section: Near & Middle
East and North African Transmitters, 13 Nov. 1947, II2, 5;
"Fortnightly Intelligence Newsletter No. 64," issued by HQ British
Troops in Palestine (for the period 2359 hrs 10 Mar.-2359 hrs 23 Jan.
48), PRO, WO 275/64, p. 4; Arab Press Service (Cairo), FBIS, European
Section: Near & Middle East and North African Transmitters, Dec. 16,
1947, II1; "Weekly Summary for the Alexandroni Brigade, Mar. 2, 1948,"
HA 105/143, p. 105; "In the Arab Public," Mar. 30, 1948, HA 105/100,
p. 14.
24 Macatee to Secretary of State, Dec. 31, 1947, National Archives,
Washington, D.C. (hereinafter NA), RG 84/800, pp. 1-2.
25 According to a report by the Palestine Post's Haifa correspondent,
the Arab workers in the refinery set upon their Jewish colleagues
already before the IZL's bombing (from Sakran to Tene, Dec. 31, 1947,
IDFA 1949/481/62). This claim was amplified by an IZL radio broadcast
on January 4, 1948, which pointed out that prior to the bombing
Armenian workers at the plant had warned their Jewish friends of an
imminent attack, and some Jewish workers took notice and left before
the massacre. The broadcast also noted the pre-positioning of cold
arms throughout the plant and the fact that the massacres ensued in
the farthest corner of the refinery, some two miles from the bombing,
where the explosion could not be heard. See, David Niv, Ma'arahot Ha'
irgun Hatzva'i Hale'umi (Tel Aviv: Hadar, 1980), Vol. 6, pp. 19-20.
For contemporary reports on the massacre, see: "Report of the Communal
Commission of Inquiry on the Haifa Refinery's Disaster (Dec. 30,
1947), Jan. 25, 1948, HA 80/460/11; "The Refinery Massacre," HA
80/460/11; "Information Bulletin," No. 30, Dec. 30, 1947, HA 105/61,
p. 117; "To Our Members –– Daily information Bulletin," Dec. 31, 1947,
HA 105/61, p. 126.
26 The IZL categorically denied any massacres, claiming that the
casualties had been caused in the course of heavy fighting. The
eminent Palestinian historian Arif al-Arif concedes the occurrence of
heavy fighting. He claims that the villagers killed more than 100
Jewish fighters (the actual figure was four dead and 32 wounded), but
alleges that only seven of the 110 Arab fatalities were killed in
action and that the rest were peaceful civilians murdered in their
homes (al-Nakba, p. 173). By contrast, a Hagana intelligence report
issued three days after the event underscores the operational
incompetence and disarray of the attacking forces, as well as their
lack of discipline (manifested inter alia in acts of plunder), but
makes no mention of a massacre. al-Nakba, p. 173; Yavne to Tene, "The
Etzel and Lehi Operation in Deir Yasin," Apr. 12, 1948, IDFA
1948/500/35; Irgun Command, "Statement on the Deir Yasin Affair" &
"Statement" & "Condemn the Hypocrisy," April 1948, Irgun Archive
(hereinafter IA), K4-4/10. For mid-1950's affidavits of battle
participants denying any massacre see: IA, K4-1/10, 9/10. An extensive
collection of press and scholarly writings can be found in IDFA
2004/26/70. See also: "Deir Yasin Occupied by the Irgun and Lehi" &
"The Jewish Agency Condemns the Irgun and Lehi Operation in Deir
Yasin" & "The Chief Rabbinate Strongly Condemns the Deir Yasin
Incident," Ha'aretz, Apr. 11, 12, 1948; "Battle Participant Evidence:
60 Hours in Deir Yasin," Mivrak, Apr. 19, 1948, IA K4; High
Commissioner for Palestine to Secretary of State for the Colonies,
"Deir Yasin," Apr. 13, 1948, Cunningham Papers, Middle East Center,
St. Antony's College, Oxford University; High Commissioner for
Palestine to Secretary of State for the Colonies, "Weekly Intelligence
Appreciation," Apr. 17, 1948, Cunningham Papers; "An Arab from Deir
Yasin Reveals on the Deir Yasin Anniversary: The Jews Didn't Plan a
Massacre but Conducted a Battle," Herut, Jun. 3, 1953; "Prime Minister
Menachem Begin in Interview with Lord Bethel: Deir Yasin –– a tragedy
in the Irgun's history, but casualties were caused in the course of
fighting; there was no massacre," Yediot Aharonot, Jun. 22, 1979.
27 Dov Joseph, The Faithful City: the Siege of Jerusalem, 1948 (New
York: Simon and Schuster, 1960), pp. 74-75; Harry Levin, Jerusalem
Embattled. A Diary of the City under Siege, March 25, 1948 to July 18,
1948 (London: Victor Gollancz, 1950), p. 70; Jerusalem Headquarters,
"Haddassah University, Feb. 17-Jun. 22, 1948," IDFA 1948/500/44;
"Conclusions of the Commission of Inquiry about the Sheik Jarah
Disaster of Apr. 13, 1948," Apr. 18, 1948 HA 57/95; "Report by Shalom
Hurwitz on the Mount Scopus Convoy Disaster in Sheik Jarah on Apr. 13,
1948," Jun. 6, 1948, BGA.
28 Cunningham to Creech-Jones, Apr. 25 & 28, 1948, Cunningham Papers,
III/4/52 & III/4/117; Tzuri to Tene, "News Items about the Tiberias
Exodus," Apr. 21, 1948, HA 105/257, p. 347; "Tene News –– Daily
Summary," Apr. 18, 1948, HA 105/62, p. 93; Kenneth W. Bilby, New Star
in the Near East (New York: Doubleday, 1950), p. 30; Filastin, Apr.
13, 14, 16, 1948; al-Difa, Apr. 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 1948; Radio
Jerusalem in Arabic to the Middle East, Apr. 13, 1948 & Radio
Damascus, Apr. 14, 1948, in FBIS, Apr. 15, 1948, p. II4; Radio al-
Sharq al-Adna (Jerusalem), Apr. 15, 1948, ibid., Apr. 16, 1948, p.
II5; BBC Television Channel 2, "The Fifty Years War: Israel and the
Arabs," Program 1, broadcast on Mar. 15, 1998.
29 From Palestine (General Sir A. Cunningham) to the Secretary of
State for the Colonies, "Weekly intelligence Appreciation," Dec. 22,
1947, Cunningham Papers; from Palestine (General Sir A. Cunningham) to
the Secretary of State for the Colonies, "Weekly intelligence
Appreciation," Jan. 24, 1948, PRO, CO 537/3869.
30 "Tene News –– Daily summary," Dec. 16, 1947, HA 105/61, p. 59; "For
Our Members, Daily News Bulletin No. 19," Dec. 31, 1947, ibid., p.
127; al-Ayam (Damascus), Dec. 21, 1947, as brought in "News on Arab
Military Preparations," Jan. 1, 1948, Central Zionist Archives (CZA),
S25/3999.
31 Hashmona'i, "News Items: Economy," Feb. 2, 1948, IDFA 1948/500/60;
"In the Arab Camp: News Summary," Feb. 29 & Mar. 28, 1948, IDFA
2004/535/479, pp. 3-4; "Yishuv Circular No. 16," Jan. 31, 1948,
K4-31/1/12, IA; Committee for Economic Defense, "News from the Arab
Economy, Bulletin No. 6," Apr. 17-19, 1948, HA 105/143, p. 240.
32 Hayogev, Jan. 5, 1948, HA 105/215a, p. 48; "Among the Arabs," Feb.
22, 1948, IDFA 1948/500/60; 02204 to Tene, "The Lifta People's
Position," Feb. 9, 1948, HA 105/32a, p. 61; Tiroshi to Tene,
"Situation of the Refugees," Apr. 12, 1948, HA 105/257; Tiroshi,
"Summary of News for the Alexandroni Brigade," Apr. 16, 1948, HA
105/143, p. 231; Director of Operations/Intelligence Directorate,
"News Summary on the Eastern and Northern Fronts," Jun. 3, 1948, IDFA
1975/922/1044; "Arab News Items," Apr. 25, 1948, IDFA 1948/500/55;
"Annexes to News Bulletin No. 205," Apr. 29, 1948, IDFA 1949/2605/2.
33 "Annexes to News Bulletin No. 185," Apr. 20, 1948, IDFA
1949/2605/2; "Deir Yasin," Apr. 17, 1948, IDFA 1949/2605/6, p. 7.
34 Hiram to Tene, "Acre Inhabitants and Defenders Refuse to Receive
More Refugees," Apr. 27, 1948, HA 105/257.
35 Thus, for example, after an attack on Ramat Hakovesh (on April 19)
by the neighboring village of Miska, the kibbutz mukhtar told the
villagers to leave or bear the consequences of their aggression, which
they did. Likewise, in the midst of a Jewish operation in the eastern
Galilee, the secretary of kibbutz Genossar, together with the mukhtar
of the Arab village of Majdal, convinced the Majdal inhabitants to
vacate the village and surrender their weapons. In Khirbat Beit Lid
and Khirbat Azzun, the villagers were advised to leave since the
Jewish forces would not be able to ensure their safety. See: Tiroshi,
"Summary of News for the Alexandroni Brigade, Apr. 27, 1948," HA
105/143, p. 235; Tiroshi to Tene, "Vacation of Miska," Apr. 27, 1948,
HA 105/257, p. 79; Tzuri to Tene, "Arab Majdal," Apr. 23, 1948, ibid.,
p. 4; Tiroshi to Tene, "Departure of Arabs from the Neighborhood,"
Apr. 16, 1948, ibid., p. 89; Tiroshi to Tene, "Vacation of Khirbat
Azzun," Apr. 20, 1948, ibid., p. 3.
36 Ezra Danin, Zioni Bekhol Tnai (Jerusalem: Kidum, 1987), Vol. 1, pp.
216-17; Zafrira Din, "Interview with Josh Palmon on June 28, 1989," HA
80/721/3.
37 I have documented the Haifa episode at some length in "Nakbat
Haifa: the Collapse and Dispersion of a Major Palestinian Community,"
Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 37, No. 4 (October 2001), pp. 25-70.
38 A fortnight after the exodus, British High Commissioner Cunningham
reported to London that the Tiberias Jews "would welcome [the] Arabs
back" (High Commissioner for Palestine to Secretary of State, May 5,
1948, Cunningham Papers). See also: Tzuri to Golani, "News Summary:
Tiberias," Apr. 21, 1948, HA 105/143, p. 275; Hagana Operational
Directorate, "Logbook of the War of Independence, p. 260; MacMillan,
"Palestine: Narrative of Events," Apr. 17/18, 18, 1948, p. 37.
39 See, for example, Qiryati-Dafna to all fronts, "Occurrences in
Jaffa, [Apr.] 11, 1948-[Apr.] 20, 0740," May 2, 1948, IDFA
1949/8275/162; Palestine (Cunningham) to the Secretary of State for
the Colonies, May 1, 1948, FO 371/68547/E5665/4/71.
40 Tene to Dan & Hillel, Nov. 30, 1947, HA 105/61, p. 5; 00004 to
Tene, "Report Summary, Dec. 7, 1947," HA 105/61, p. 9; Yavne to Tene,
"For Our Members in the Bases," Dec. 9, 1947, ibid., p. 18; "For Our
Members in the Bases," Bulletin Nos. 15 & 16, Dec. 10 & 11, 1947,
ibid., pp. 24, 37; Yavne, "Evacuation of Women and Children from
Lifta," Dec. 28, 1947, HA 105/215, p. 23; 00004 to Tene, "Arabs
Erecting Military Posts in Lifta," Dec. 14, 1947, IDFA 1949/5253/104;
"The Old City," Dec. 26, 1947, ibid.; "Families Leaving Lifta," Jan.
1, 1948, ibid.; Hashmona'i, "Demographic Changes in Jerusalem," Jan.
25, 1948, IDFA 1948/500/60; "In the Arab Camp," Jan. 25, 1948, ibid.;
"Anger in Beit Safafa over the use of the Village by Armed Gangs for
Attacks on Mekor Haim," Jan. 28, 1948, ibid.; "Beit Safafa" & "The
Evacuation of Beit Safafa," Feb. 15 & 18, 1948, ibid.; Yavne to Tene,
"Deir Abu Tur," Feb. 21, 1948, HA 105/215, p. 81; Hashmona' i,
"Annexes to News Concentration No. 114," Mar. 16, 1948, IDFA
1949/2605/2; 01204 (Hatzil) to Tene, Jan. 21, 1948, HA 105/72, p. 52;
Yavne to Tene, "Complain by the Beit Safafa Mukhtar to the NC," Feb.
16, 1948, ibid., p. 105; "In the Arab Camp: News Summary," Mar. 14,
1948, p. 2, IDFA 2004/535/479; "In the Arab Camp: News Summary," Mar.
29, 1948, p. 2, ibid.; Yavne to Tene, Feb. 15, 1948, HA 105/215, p.
41.
41 "Tene News," Jan. 19, 1948, HA 105/61a, p. 85; 02117 to Tene, "In
Wadi Hunein," Jan. 5, 1948, HA 105/148, p. 195; Tiroshi to Tene,
"Dannaba," Feb. 17, 1948, ibid., p. 219; 01132 to Tene, "Vacation of
Mir," Feb. 8, 1948 & "The Evacuation of Jamala," Feb. 8, 1948, HA
105/215, p. 44; Tiroshi to Tene, "Arab Hawarith," Feb. 18, 1948,
ibid., p. 14; Avram to Tene, "Reinforcement from Syria," Feb. 11,
1948, HA 105/215a, p. 83; "Arab News Items," Apr. 17, 1948, IDFA
1948/500/55; 02112 to Tene, "Arab al-Fuqara," Feb. 9, 1948, IDFA
1949/6400/66; 02122 to Tene, "From Salim Abdel Rahman," Dec. 12, 1947,
ibid.; 01122 to Tene, "Assorted News Items," Dec. 2, 1947, ibid.;
"Annexes to News Bulletin No. 114," Mar. 16, 1948, IDFA 1949/2605/2;
"Annexes to News Bulletin No. 122," Mar. 23, 1948, ibid.; "Annexes to
News Bulletin No. 126," Mar. 30, 1948, ibid.; "Urgent Arab News
Items," Mar. 29, 1948, IDFA 1948/550/55; Tzefa to Tene, "Vacation of
Khisas," Mar. 26, 1948, HA 105/257, p. 106; Tzefa to Tene, "Ulmaniya
and Waddi Luz," Mar. 5, 1948, ibid., p. 33; Tiroshi to Tene,
"Bureika," Mar. 6, 1948, ibid., p. 33; Yavne to Tene, "Isawiya," Mar.
30, 1948, ibid.; Tzefa to Tene, "Vacation of Women and Children from
Arab Villages in the Upper Galilee," Feb. 25, 1948, HA 105/215, p. 20;
Tiroshi to Tene, "Sarkas," Feb. 19, 1948, ibid.; p. 14; Tiroshi to
Tene, "Arab al-Nufeiat," Mar. 30, 1948 & "Sarkas," Apr. 20 &
"Evacuation of Sarkas," Apr. 22, IDFA 1949/6400/66; Alexandroni
"Sarkas," Mar. 11, 1948, ibid.; Yosef Weitz, Yomanai Ve' igroti
Labanim (Tel Aviv: Masada, 1965), Vol. 3, pp. 257, 277; Yavne to Tene,
"Deprature of Inhabitants and Entry of Foreigners," Apr. 18, 1948, HA
105/257; Hiram to Tene, "Arab Propaganda Regarding Evacuations," Apr.
30, 1948, ibid.; Tene, "Migration of the Palestinian Arabs in the
Period 1.12.47-1.6.48. Annex 1: Vacated Arab Villages," June 30, 1948,
IDFA, 1957/100001/781, p. 4; Naim to Tene, "Evacuation of Arabs," Apr.
8, 1948, HA 105/143, pp. 171, 185; Yavne, "Arab News Items," Apr. 27,
30, 1948, ibid., pp. 309, 319; Tzuri to Tene, "Assorted News," May 6,
1948, ibid., p. 343; Naim to Tene, "Vacation of Sarafand Kharab," Apr.
8, 1948, HA 105/257, p. 290; Tzefa to Tene, "Vacation of Arab
Villages," Apr. 6, 1948, ibid., pp. 24, 53; Tiroshi to Tene, "Fajja
Vacated of its Residents," Apr. 14, 1948, ibid., p. 8; Tiroshi to
Tene, "Partial Vacation of Qannir," Apr. 29, 1948 & "The Qannir
Residents Moved to Arara," Apr. 29 & "Qanir," May 3, 1948, IDFA
1949/7249/129; Yosef Weitz diary, May 4, 1948, CZA, A246/13, pp.
2373-74; Hiram to Tene, "Vacation of the Arab Zubeidat Tribe," Apr.
16, 1948, HA 105/54a, p. 67; report by an Arab source on the Arab
Legion's order to vacate villages, May 12, 1948, IDFA 1949/5545/114,
p. 11.
42 Cunningham to Secretary of State for the Colonies, Apr. 26, 1948,
Cunningham Papers; "Fortnightly Intelligence Newsletter No. 67,"
issued by HQ British Troops in Palestine (for the period 2359 hrs 19
Apr.-2359 hrs 3 May 48), PRO, WO 275/64, p. 1. See also: General Sir
A. Cunningham to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, "Weekly
Intelligence Appreciation," May 1, 1948, PRO, CO 537/3869.
43 Arif, al-Nakba, p. 179.
44 Muhammad Nimr Khatib, Min Athar al-Nakba (Damascus: al-Matba'a al-
Amumiya, 1951), p. 287.
45 Beirut Radio, May 4, 1948, FBIS, European Section: Near & Middle
East and North African Transmitters, May 5, 1948, II2; "Summary of
News for the Alexandroni Brigade," Apr. 9, 1948, HA 105/143, p. 174;
Philip Ernst (American Consul in Port Said) to Department of State,
"Arrival of Palestine Arab Refugees," Apr. 29, 1948 (dispatched May
11), RG 84, 800 –– Refugees; Beirut Radio, Apr. 25, 1948, SWB, No. 48,
Apr. 29, 1948, p. 60; Campbell (Cairo) to High Commissioner for
Palestine, May 1, 1948, Cunningham Papers.
46 Beirut Radio, May 7, 1948, in BBC Summary of World Broadcasts:
Western Europe, Middle East, Far East, and Americas (SWB), No. 50, May
13, 1948, Part III, p. 57.
47 Sir J. Troutbeck, "Summary of general impressions gathered during
week-end visit to the Gaza district," June 16, 1949, PRO, FO 371/75342/
E7816, p. 123.
Efraim Karsh is head of Mediterranean Studies at King's College,
University of London, and the author most recently of Islamic
Imperialism: A History (Yale). Mr. Karsh gratefully acknowledges the
generosity of Roger and Susan Hertog in supporting the research on
which the present article is based.
This appeared in the May 2008 issue of Commentary Magazine
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/ 1948--israel--and-
the-palestinians-br--the-true-story-11355
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