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The Expulsion of the Palestinians, 1947-1948
by Robin Miller
The "Palestinian refugee problem"--that is, the human tragedy
created by the Israeli expulsion of the Palestinians from their
homeland, Palestine--remains a seemingly insoluble aspect of the
Middle East puzzle.
Yet the expulsion of the Palestinians was an inescapable outcome
of the United Nations' 1947 decision to partition Palestine into
separate Jewish and Arab states the following year. (The Arab state
never came into existence.)
Before the partition, Jews comprised only one-third of the
population of Palestine, which held some 608,000 Jews and 1,237,000
Arabs. Even within the area designated for Israel under the U.N.
partition plan, the population consisted of some 500,000 Jews and
330,000 Arabs. How could a country with such a large Arab minority
become a Jewish homeland? [1]
The answer is that it could not. A massive population transfer
would be required. And this was understood by Jewish military
leaders during the war of 1947-1948. David Ben-Gurion, father of
Israel and leader of its military, confidently predicted on February
7, 1948, that "there surely will be a great change in the population
of the country" over the next several months. He was right. [2]
(The inevitable conflict between Jewish colonization of Palestine
and the rights of the indigenous Palestinians was foreseen from the
beginning. Theodor Herzl, the father of political Zionism,
articulated the Zionist colonial plan in his 1896 book _Der
Judenstaat_ (The Jewish State). Recognizing that a people would not
surrender its homeland voluntarily, he wrote: "An infiltration is
bound to end badly. It continues until the inevitable moment when
the native population feels itself threatened, and forces the
government to stop a further influx of Jews. Immigration is
consequently futile unless based on an assured supremacy.") [2]
At the beginning of the strife in late 1947, it is likely that
the Jewish political leadership in Palestine would have rejected any
formal plan to expel the Palestinians. (Although that would change
by the following June, as discussed below, when the new Israeli
government prohibited the return of all Palestinian refugees.) There
was, however, a shared belief by many of the Jewish (later Israeli)
military leaders during the war that the entire Palestinian
population was the enemy. Acting on that belief, the Jewish militias
(the official Haganah and the unofficial Stern Gang and Irgun)
engaged in a consistent course of conduct that was intended to--and
did--cause the Arab population to flee. (The Israeli myth that the
Palestinians left on instructions from Arab leaders has long since
been shown to be a fabrication.) [3]
There is ample evidence of forcible expulsions. The most
notorious was the Lydda/Ramle death march. On July 12 and 13, 1948,
on the direct order of Ben-Gurion, Israeli forces expelled the
50,000 residents of the towns of Lydda and neighboring Ramle. Yitzak
Rabin, later to become Israeli Prime Minister, wrote in his memoirs
that "there was no way of avoiding the use of force and warning
shots in order to make the inhabitants march the ten or fifteen
miles" required to reach Arab positions. Before they left, the
townspeople were "systematically stripped of all their belongings,"
according to the Economist newspaper in London. Many of the expelled
died in the 100-degree heat during the trek.[4]
Eventually the refugees from Lydda and Ramle made their way to
refugee camps near Ramallah. Count Folke Bernadotte, Swedish
nobleman and United Nations mediator, attempted to offer aid. He
later wrote that "I have made the acquaintance of a great many
refugee camps, but never have I seen a more ghastly sight than that
which met my eyes here at Ramallah." (Later that year, Bernadotte
was murdered by the Stern Gang. One of its leaders, Yitzhak Shamir,
became Israeli Prime Minister in 1983.) [5]
Forcible expulsions were commonly practiced by the Jewish/Israeli
military during 1948: Qisariya on February 15; Arab Zahrat al-Dumayri,
al-Rama and Khirbat al-Sarkas in April; al-Ghabisiya, Danna, Najd
and Zarnuqa the next month; Jaba, Ein Ghazal and Ijzim on July 24;
and al-Bi'na and Deir al-Assad on October 31, among many others.
Israeli historian Benny Morris has identified 34 Arab communities
whose inhabitants were ousted. We may never know the full extent of
the ejections, though, because, as Morris notes, the Israeli Defense
Forces Archive "has a standing policy guideline not to open material
explicitly describing expulsions and atrocities." [6]
More often, though, the instruments of expulsion were the
terrorizing and demoralization of the Arab population. Jewish
military forces used several tactics in pursuit of these goals.
One was psychological warfare. Radio broadcasts in Arabic warned
of traitors in the Arabs' midst, spread fears of disease, reported
confusion and terror among the Arabs, described the Palestinians as
having been deserted by their leaders, and accused Arab militias of
committing crimes against Arab civilians. [7]
Another effective psywar tactic involved the use of loudspeaker
trucks. At various times they urged the Palestinians to flee before
they were all killed, warned that the Jews were using poison gas and
atomic weapons, or played recorded "horror sounds"--shrieks, moans,
the wail of sirens and the clang of fire-alarm bells.[8]
A second tactic, economic warfare, was a favorite of Ben-Gurion,
who described "the strategic objective" of the Jewish forces to be
"to destroy the [Arab] urban communities." "Deprived of
transportation, food, and raw materials," he later noted with
satisfaction, "the urban communities underwent a process of
disintegration, chaos, and hunger."
[9]
A third technique to induce Arab flight was military attack on a
town's Arab population. These assaults often used Davidka
mortars--horribly inaccurate, but useful for creating terror--and
barrel bombs. The latter consisted of barrels, casks, and metal
drums filled with a mixture of explosives and fuel oil. Rolled into
the Arab section of a town, they created "an inferno of raging
flames and endless explosions." Another destructive maneuver
described by writer Arthur Koestler was the "ruthless dynamiting of
block after block" of the Arab community. [10]
Not uncommonly, the Jewish forces resorted to simple terrorism.
Sometimes this took the form of bombs planted in vehicles or
buildings: 30 killed in Jaffa on Jan. 4., 1948, with a truck bomb;
20 killed the next day when the Semiramis Hotel in Jerusalem was
bombed; 17 killed by a bomb at the Jaffa Gate in Jerusalem two days
later. [11]
More often, a Jewish military force entered an Arab village and
massacred civilians, either during a night raid or after the seizure
of the village. The massacres started early: Major General R. Dare
Wilson, who served with the British troops trying to keep peace in
Palestine before the end of the British Mandate, reported that on
Dec. 18, 1947, the Haganah murdered 10, mostly women and children,
in the Arab village of al-Khisas with grenades and machine gun fire.
Wilson also described how on Dec. 31 the Haganah slaughtered another
14, again mostly women and children, again using machine guns and
throwing grenades into occupied homes, this time in Balad Esh-Sheikh. [12]
Throughout 1948, the massacres continued: 60 at Sa'sa' on Feb.
15; 100 murdered in Acre after its May 18 seizure by the Haganah;
several hundred at Lydda on July 12, including 80 machine-gunned
inside the Dahmash Mosque; 100 at Dawayma on Oct. 29, with an
Israeli eye-witness reporting that "the children were killed by
smashing their skulls with clubs"; 13 young men mowed down by
machine guns in open fields outside Eilabun on Oct. 30; another 70
young men blindfolded and shot to death, one after another, at
Safsaf the same day; 12 killed at Majd al-Kurum, also on Oct. 30,
with a Belgian U.N. observer writing that "there is no doubt about
these murders"; an unknown number killed the next day at al-Bi'na
and Deir al-Assad, described by a U.N. official as "wanton slaying
without provocation"; 14 "liquidated," according to the Israeli
military's report, at Khirbet al-Wa'ra as-Sauda on Nov. 2. [13]
A particularly repugnant method of killing employed by the Jewish
militias was the blowing up of houses with their occupants still
inside, often at night. The militia would place explosive charges
around the stone houses, drench the wooden window and door frames
with gasoline, and then open fire, simultaneously dynamiting and
burning the sleeping inhabitants to death. [14]
The supreme act of terrorism by Jewish militias was the slaughter
of nearly the entire village of Deir Yassin on April 9, 1948.
According to Jacques de Reynier, a Swiss physician working for the
Red Cross who arrived before the bloodletting had ended, 254 people
were "deliberately massacred in cold blood." "All I could think of,"
he later said, "was the SS troops I had seen in Athens." According
to Meir Pa'il, who served as a communications officer for the
Haganah in Deir Yassin and was present during the assault, 25 male
survivors were taken to Jerusalem and paraded through the streets in
a perverse victory celebration, then shot in cold blood. [15]
Menachem Begin, the leader of the Irgun, one of the militias
involved in the horror at Deir Yassin, called the atrocity a
"splendid act of conquest." In 1977, Begin was elected Prime
Minister of Israel. [16]
The massacre at Deir Yassin played a crucial role in undermining
the morale of the Palestinian population. As de Reynier, the Swiss
physician, wrote, "a general terror was built up among the Arabs, a
terror astutely fostered by the Jews." [17]
Once the Israeli military had forced the Palestinians to flee,
various Israeli institutions attempted to insure that there would be
no return. The new Israeli government decided on June 16, 1948--just
a month after Israel had declared independence, and before half of
the refugees had even become such--that it would not permit the
Palestinians to return to their homeland. The military, meanwhile,
worked to render return a physical impossibility. Its forces leveled
418 Palestinian towns and villages, erasing the majority of
Palestinian society from the face of the earth. [18]
Completing the process of dispossession, Israel took control of
land owned by the Arabs whom it would not allow to return. Before
1948, Jews owned only 1.5 million of the 26 million dunams of land
in Palestine. (A dunam, the local measure of land area, is a
quarter-acre.) After the eviction of the Palestinians, Israel
controlled 20 million dunams, an increase from 6% to 77% of the
total. They simply stole an entire country. [19]
Moshe Dayan, Israeli war hero, described this reality succinctly
in a 1969 speech: "Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab
villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and
I do not blame you because geography books no longer exist; not only
do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not there either. ...
There is not one single place built in this country that did not
have a former Arab population." [20]
While a wrong of these incalculable dimensions can never be truly
rectified, simple considerations of justice require that the
Palestinian refugees from what is now Israel, and their descendants,
be permitted to return home.
Major works on the Palestinian exodus:
Arab Villages Discussed, with Variant Names
Acre
al-Bi'na
al-Ghabisiya
al-Khisas (Khisas, Khissas)
al-Rama
Arab Zahrat al-Dumayri
Balad Esh-Sheikh (Baldat al-Shaikh)
Danna
Deir al-Assad (Deir al-Asad)
Deir Yassin (Dir Yassin, Dayr Yassin)
Dawayma (al-Dawayma, Duwayma, Ed-Dawayimeh)
Ein az Zeitun
Ein Ghazal
Eilabun
Ijzim
Jaba (Jaba')
Khirbat al-Sarkas (Khirbet al Sarkas)
Khirbet al-Wa'ra as-Sauda
Lydda
Majd al-Kurum
Najd
Qisariya
Ramle
Safsaf
Sa'sa' (Sa'sa)
Zarnuqa
Related Link (s):
http://www.PalestineRemembered.com
Notes:
[1] See pp. 675-677 of "Binationalism not Partition," in Walid
Khalidi (ed.), From Haven to Conquest, Beirut: The Institute
for Palestine Studies, 1971, pp. 645-702. "Binationalism not
Partition" is a report submitted by a United Nations
subcommittee on Nov. 11, 1947, as part of the U.N.'s
decision-making process on Palestine. The report estimated the
population of the territory to be assigned to Israel as having
498,000 Jews, 407,000 Arabs other than Bedouin, and 105,000 of
the nomadic Bedouin. According to Flapan, p. 83, n. 2, final
changes to the boundaries called for in the partition plan
reduced the Arab population of the Jewish state by some
180,000. This leaves a total of 332,000.
[2] Palumbo, p. 38, gives the Ben-Gurion quote.
Theodor Herzl, The Jewish State, 1934 revised edition, p. 29,
quoted in Esco Foundation for Palestine, Palestine: A Study of
Jewish, Arab, and British Policies, New Haven, Conn.: Yale
University Press, 1947, volume one, p. 34.
[3] For an extended analysis also finding an Israeli intent to expel the
Palestinians, see Finkelstein, pp. 51-87. Finkelstein's work is
authoritative.
For a thorough refustation of the myth that the Arabs left
under orders "from above," see Childers (1961); Childers
(1971), pp. 196-202; Flapan, pp. 84-87.
[4]
Flapan, p. 81; Palumbo, pp. 126-138. Both attribute Ben-Gurion's
responsibility on the basis of a section of Yitzak Rabin's
memoirs published in the New York Times on October 22, 1979.
Flapan attributes the Rabin quote to the same source. Palumbo
quotes the August 21, 1948 issue of the Economist.
[5] Folke Bernadotte, To Jerusalem, London: Hodder and Stoughton,
1951, p. 200. On Bernadotte's murder, see Amitzur Ilan,
Bernadotte in Palestine, 1948: A Study in Contemporary
Humanitarian Knight-Errantry, St. Martin's Press, 1989; Kati
Martin, A Death in Jerusalem, NY: Pantheon Books, 1994; and Ted
Schwarz, Walking with the Damned: The Shocking Murder of the
Man Who Freed 30,000 Prisoners from the Nazis, Paragon House
Publishers, 1991.
[6] al-Bi'na: Palumbo, pp. 168-169.
al-Ghabisiya: Morris (1987), pp. xiv-xviii.
al-Rama: Palumbo, p. 110.
Arab Zahrat al-Dumayri: Morris (1987), pp.
xiv-xviii, giving the name as Ad Dumeira.
Danna: Morris (1987), pp. xiv-xviii.
Deir al-Assad (Deir al-Asad): Palumbo, pp. 168-169.
Ghazal: Palumbo, p. 141.
Ijzim: Palumbo, p. 141, giving the name as Izzam.
Jaba: Palumbo, p. 141.
Khirbat al-Sarkas (Khirbet al Sarkas): Morris
(1987), pp. xiv-xviii, giving the name as Khirbet as Sarkas.
Najd: Morris (1987), pp. xiv-xviii.
Nazareth: Flapan pp. 101-102.
Qisariya: Morris (1987), pp. xiv-xviii.
Zarnuqa: Morris (1987), pp. xiv-xviii, giving the
name as Zarnuqua.
"Standing policy": Morris (2001), p. 49-50. Morris
concludes, it should be acknowledged, that the Palestinian exodus
was "born of war, not of design."
[7] Childers (1971), pp. 186-187; Palumbo, pp. 61-62, 97-98.
[8] Childers (1971), p. 188; Palumbo, pp. 64, 97.
[9] Flapan, pp.
90-93.
[10] "Inferno": Leo Heiman, "All's Fair ...," Marine Corps Gazette,
June, 1964, cited in Childers (1971), p. 187..
"Ruthless Dynamiting": Arthur Koestler, Promise and
Fulfillment: Palestine 1917-1949, London: Macmillan, 1949, p.
233.
[11] Jaffa truck bomb: Palumbo, pp. 83-84; Who Are the Terrorists?
Aspects of Zionist and Israeli Terror, Beirut: The Institute
for Palestine Studies, 1972, p. 17 (citing Middle East Journal,
April 1948, p. 216).
Semiramis Hotel: Palumbo, p. 98; Who Are the
Terrorists?, p. 19 (citing The Times (London), Jan. 6, 1948).
Jaffa Gate: Who Are the Terrorists?, p. 17 (citing
The Times (London), Jan. 8, 1948).
[12] R. Dare Wilson, Cordon and Search: With 6th
Airborne Division in Palestine, 1945-1948, Aldershot: Gale & Polden,
1949, p. 158. Reprinted Nashville: Battery Press, 1984. An Israeli
source states that the true death toll at Balad Esh-Sheikh was 60.
See Hadawi, p. 88, quoting an article by Israeli historian Arieh
Yitzhaqi published in the April 14, 1972 issue of the Israeli
newspaper Yediot Aharonot.
[13] Acre: Palumbo, p. 119, relying on reports filed
by Lieutenant Petite, a U.N. observer from France, stored at UNA
(United Nations Archives) 13/3.3.1, box 13.
al-Bi'na: Palumbo, p. 168, citing UNA (United
Nations Archives) 13/3.3.1, box 11.
Deir al-Assad (Deir al-Asad): Palumbo, p. 168, same
as al-Bi'na.
Dawayma (al-Dawayma, Duwayma, Ed-Dawayimeh): Flapan,
p. 94; Gilmour, pp. 68-69; Hadawi, p. 89. The quote is from Eyal
Kafkafi, "A Ghetto Attitude in the Jewish State," Davar, September
6, 1979, reprinted in Gilmour.
Eilabun: Morris (1987), p. 229; Palumbo, p. 164.
Khirbet al-Wa'ra as-Sauda: Morris (2001), p. 57.
Lydda: Morris (1987), pp. 203-207; Palumbo, p. 137.
Majd al-Kurum: Nazzal, pp. 90-93; Palumbo, p. 171.
Safsaf: Nazzal, p. 95.
Sa'sa: Hadawi, p. 88, quotes an article by Israeli
historian Arieh Yitzhaqi, published in the April 14, 1972 issue of
the newspaper Yediot Aharonot, reporting that "In this operation,
which was for many years to be regarded as a model raid because of
the high standard of its execution, 20 houses were blown up over
their inhabitants, and some 60 Arabs were killed, most of them women
and children." See also Jon Kimche and David Kimche, Both Sides of
the Hill: Britain and the Palestine War, London: Secker & Warburg,
1960, p. 84.
[14] Childers (1971), p. 182.
[15] On Deir Yassin (Dir Yassin, Dayr Yassin),
generally, see Palumbo, pp. 47-57.
Jacques de Reynier published his memoirs: A
Jerusalem un Drapeau Flottait Sur la Ligne de Feu, Neuchatel:
Editions de la Baconniere, 1950; reprinted under the title 1948 a
Jerusalem, 1969. The section on Deir Yassin, translated into
English, is reprinted in pp. 761-770 of Walid Khalidi (ed.), From
Haven to Conquest, Beirut: The Institute for Palestine Studies,
1971. All quotations from de Reynier are from this excerpt.
Statement by Meir Pa'il is from Palumbo, who
interviewed him. Pa'il's story was also reported in two Israeli
newspaper articles: Yediot Aharonot, April 4 and 29, 1972.
[16] "Splendid act": Palumbo, p. 55, quoting from
1/10-4K in the Jabotinsky Archives in Tel Aviv.
[17] See n. 15.
[18] Israeli government's decision: Morris (1987),
p. 141.
418 villages destroyed: Khalidi. See also Israel
Shahak, "Arab Villages Destroyed in Israel: A Report," in Uri Davis
and Norton Mezvinsky (eds.), Documents from Israel: Readings for a
Critique of Zionism, London: Ithaca Press, 1975, pp. 43-54.
[19] See p. 33, n. 12 of Rashid Khalidi, "The
Palestinians and 1948: The Underlying Causes of Failure," in Eugene
Rogan and Avi Shlaim (eds.), The War for Palestine: Rewriting the
History of 1948, Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
See also John Ruedy, "Dynamics of Land Alienation," in Ibrahim Abu-Lughod
(ed.), The Transformation of Palestine, Evanston, IL: Northwestern
University Press, 1971, pp. 119-138.
[20] Ha'aretz (Israeli newspaper), April 4, 1969.
Quoted in Khalidi.
by the same author:
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