Born of War, or Design? Debating the Palestinian Exodus of 1948

What is the Relationship between Transfer Thinking and Transfer?

“There is no room for both peoples in this country. After the Arabs are transferred, the country will be wide open for us…not a single village or a single tribe must be left…there is no other solution”

Yosef Weitz (1940)

The New HistoriansChallenging the Seven Myths of Israeli Historiography on 1948

• Zionists accepted Partition / hoped for peace• Palestinians rejected Partition / planned for war• Arab states united to expel Jews from Palestine• War erupted because of the Arab invasion• A defenseless Israel faced an Arab Goliath• Israel sought peace, Arabs rejected it• Palestinians fled voluntarily planning to return as conquerors

Born of War, Or Design?

Is there a relationship between expressions of support for transfer prior to 1947-48, and actual transfer in 1947-48 and after?

Herzl, the Jewish Question, and The Jewish State

“I consider the Jewish question neither social nor religious. It is a national question….Let sovereignty be granted to us over a portion of the globe large enough to satisfy the rightful requirements of a nation… Palestine is our historic home. The very name of Palestine would attract our people with a force of marvelous potency.…The Jews who wish for a state will have it.”

Theodor Herzl The Jewish State (1896)

A Land Without a People?“We abroad are used to believe the Eretz Yisrael is now almost totally desolate, a desert that is not sowed ..... But in truth that is not the case. Throughout the country it is difficult to find fields that are not sowed. Only sand dunes and stony mountains .... are not cultivated.”

Ahad Ha’am Truth From Eretz

Israel (1891)

Zionist Dilemma

How do you construct a Jewish state in a territory overwhelmingly Arab / Palestinian?

Colonization / Settlement Solution to the Zionist Dilemma?

My argument [about the origins of the Israeli /Palestinian conflict] highlights the continuous centrality of colonization in Zionism… Colonization was the prelude of the state-to-be and the character of that state in the making was to be found most crucially in the land and labor markets.

Gershon Shafir

Zionism and Colonialism (1996) pp. 227-228

Colonization without the Frontier The Dilemma

With no frontier of “free” land, how is it possible to settle and colonize the landscape? Ruling out force and violence, the only way is to buy it.

Gershon ShafirZionism and Colonialism (1996) p. 230.

Integration or Exclusion?

Zionists had 2 options in buying land:

1) Integrate Palestinians by allowing them to work the land (Plantation model)

2) Exclude Palestinians (Pure settlement colony).

Arthur Ruppin / Jewish National Fund

“Land is the most necessary thing for establishing roots in Palestine. Since there are hardly any more arable unsettled lands in Palestine, we are bound in each case [of land purchase] to remove the peasants who cultivate the land, both owners and tenants."

1913

“Hebrew Land, Hebrew Labor” The Zionist Conquest of Labor 1904-1930

By 1904 Zionists ponder a new way of organizing the landscape for redemption. The vision was not only to buy land, but to place Jewish labor on the land purchased.

No longer would there be exploitation of Palestinians on plantations because Palestinians would be excluded from working on them.

Zionist Land Purchases (1878-1914)

Total Land Purchased = 418,000 Dunums

From Large Absentee Landlords = 25%From Large Resident Landlords = 25%From Institutions = 37.5%From Palestinian Peasant Owners = 12.5%

Source: Rashid Khalidi, Palestinian Identity, p. 112.

Herzl and Transfer

“We must expropriate gently…We shall try and spirit the penniless population across the border…Both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly”

Theodor Herzl Diaries (1895)

JABOTINSKY / THE IRON WALL“Zionist colonization…can proceed and develop only under the protection of a power that is independent of the native population – behind an iron wall which the native population can not breach.”

Ze’ev Jabotinsky The Iron Wall

(1923)

Bi-National State?

“Palestine should be neither Jewish nor Arab. It should be a bi-national state in which Jews and Arabs share full equality….the inhabitants of this country, both Arabs and Jews have not only the right but the duty to participate…in the government of their common homeland.”

Judah Magnes Testimony

(1946)Speech (1930)

BEN-GURION / TRANSFER?“The compulsory transfer of the Arabs from the proposed Jewish state could give us something which we never had….Any doubt on our part about the necessity of this transfer…may lose us an historic opportunity ….I support compulsory transfer. I don’t see in it anything immoral.”

David Ben-Gurion Diaries (1937) Speech (1938)

Menachem Ussishkin / Transfer?• “We must continually raise

the demand that our land be returned to our possession.... If there are other inhabitants there, they must be transferred to some other place…

• We cannot start the Jewish state with...half the population being Arab…Such a state cannot survive even half an hour... It [transfer] is most moral... I am ready to come and defend ... it before the Almighty. Menachem Ussishkin

1930 / 1938

Transfer – Yosef Weitz“There is no room for both peoples in this country. After the Arabs are transferred, the country will be wide open for us…not a single village or a single tribe must be left…there is no other solution” Yosef Weitz (1940)

Plan Dalet(April, 1948)

“The objective of this plan is to gain control of the areas of the Hebrew state and defend its borders. It also aims at gaining control of the areas of Jewish settlements and concentrations which are located outside the borders (of the Hebrew state) against regular, semi-regular, and small forces operating from bases outside or inside the state.”

Opening to Plan Dalet (1948)

Where Did Refugees Go?

Place # (est)-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jordan/W. Bank 400,000Gaza 200,000Lebanon 120,000Syria 75,000

In 1948 the Palestinians became a disinherited people…. The reality was that of an Arab community in a state of terror facing a ruthless Israeli army whose path to victory was paved not only by its exploits,… but also by the intimidation and at times atrocities it perpetrated against the civilian Arab community. A panic stricken Arab community was uprooted under the impact of massacres that would be carved into the Arabs’ monument of grief and hatred,…the less [sic] Arabs remained, the better; this principle is the political motor for the expulsions and atrocities.

Shlomo Ben-Amipp. 42-43

“There are circumstances that justify ethnic cleansing. A Jewish state would not have come into being without the uprooting of 700,000 Palestinians. Therefore it was necessary to uproot them…. It was necessary to cleanse the border areas and main roads…to cleanse the villages…I know it doesn’t sound nice, but that’s the term we used at the time.”

Benny Morris Ha’aretz Interview

(2004)