Thirty years after the 1947-49 War in historic Palestine, the Israeli government began declassifying the archives of the Jewish Agency and the Israeli security forces. This gave rise to a new understanding of the war. The Israeli historians who made use of these archives became known as "the New Historians." This review covers two books by two of them: The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited by Benny Morris and The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine by Ilan Pappe. (The review is available on this blog under both titles.)
In reviewing the work of the New Historians, one must first understand the original narrative of the 1947-49 War. The narrative was virtually unchallenged in Israel and in Western countries until the late 1980s. It remains widely accepted today, but due to the work of the New Historians, serious scholars no longer accept the narrative.
Morris and Pappe address three elements of the original narrative: (1) 1947 Israel was a modern David surrounded by Arab Goliaths, (2) the Arab countries launched the war on May 15 after rejecting the UN Partition Plan, and (3) Palestinians left their homes of their own free will at the behest of Arab leaders.
I. Benny Morris: The Palestinian Refugee Problem
The first edition of Morris's book was published in 1988. He began writing it as a history of Haganah, the Jewish militia which later became the Israeli Defense Force. Morris was given special access to Haganah's archives, but authorities later denied him access when they understood where his work was leading. At the same time, other Israeli archives from the war period were becoming declassified. This allowed Morris to continue his work.
Morris's conclusions are not completely inconsistent with the original narrative. He accepts that the Israeli leadership at first was not entirely certain of their ability to prevail in a war with the Arabs and that many factors resulted in the depopulation of Arab communities. Most significantly, he believes the Jewish Agency had no premeditate plans to "transfer" Arabs out of areas under Jewish control.
According to Morris, the Israeli leadership's initial concern about security was alleviated as they saw near universal success of their military operations. At first, they sought to secure communication lines between Jewish settlements, especially between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, and to provide an adequate defense of the small number of isolated Jewish settlements. This was accomplished relatively quickly. In all, only two Jewish settlements were lost during the war. It quickly became clear to the Jewish Agency that the Arab population in Palestine was no match for the Jewish forces.
One should distinguish, however, what was known by the leadership from what was believed by the general Jewish population. Many in the Jewish community had fled, or were descendants of those who had fled, from pogroms in Eastern Europe as well as Shoah survivors. Living in what was for most of them a foreign land among a suspicious indigenous population, including overtly hostile elements, could not have fostered a sense of security; however, the population's perception of the danger was not in line with the actual relative military capabilities of Arab and Jewish security forces.
Immediately following the UN's adoption of the Partition Plan, a low intensity conflict between Arabs and Jews began. Arab irregular forces engaged mostly in small skirmishes and sniper attacks on passing Jewish convoys. Some volunteers from neighboring Arab states, known as the Army of Rescue, also participated in these attacks. In quick response, Jewish militias (Haganah, Irgun, and the Stern Gang) attacked villages from which they believed the Arab attacks emerged. Their responses frequently were disproportionate and not always directed against the responsible parties. An escalating cycle of violence ensued. This prompted a significant number of Arabs to flee their homes in fear of and in response to Jewish assaults and/or anticipated Jewish political control.
Among the most significant observations made by the New Historians is the implementation of "Plan Dalet" or "Plan D," by Haganah. Plan D was composed of 13 specific military operations designed to occupy and exert control over Arab populated regions, both inside and outside the UN boundaries of the prospective Jewish state. The plan was finalized during the sectarian violence in early March 1948 and was implemented in the first week of April -- six weeks before the British Mandate would end on May 14.
For the first time since the passage of the UN Partition Plan, significant military assets were mobilized in coordinated attacks against an enemy. One might identify November 29, 1947 as the start of escalating sectarian violence and the first week of April as when Israel launched a coordinated war against the Palestinians. May 15, which is considered the start of the war by the original historical narrative, would mark, instead, the date when neighboring Arab countries joined in the defense of the beleaguered Palestinian population.
Morris's Revisited (2nd) edition was published in 2004. It was prompted by the release of additional archival material and Morris's desire to respond to criticism that he had not adequately examined the pre-war discussion among the Jewish leadership of transferring the Arab population out of Palestine. Morris devotes a new chapter on the discussion of transfer. He concludes that while there was pre-war interest among the leadership in transferring the population, the connection between that interest and what actually happened is "more tenuous than Arab propagandists would allow. " According to Morris, the flight of refugees was mainly the consequence of local decisions made by specific military commanders in their efforts to secure the territory they were occupying for the Jewish state. Additionally, some Arab directives to flee and decisions by the Arab upper class to wait out the war abroad played a role in the departure of Palestinians. In any case, Israel's leaders recognized that their military operations were sparking the unexpected flight of Arabs which would serve the interests of a secure Israeli state. As in the first edition, Morris continues to argue that the depopulation of Arab communities was a complex event that involved many factors.
Morris does accept that Israel's military operations were the primary motivating force. He estimates that 600,000-760,000 Palestinian Arabs "departed their homes" between November 1947 and October 1950. He documents 392 Arab cities, towns, and villages that were "abandoned" by their populations and 186 Israeli settlements that were constructed in their place. Jewish and Israeli forces variously assisted, encouraged, directed, and forcibly expelled Palestinians from their homes in the course of different military operations. Morris's detailed accounting of this massive demographic shift is perhaps what made his first edition so ground breaking.
Morris acknowledges that numerous atrocities were committed by Haganah and especially by the dissident Jewish militias, Irgun and the Stern Gang. These atrocities -- massacres of tens of villagers at a time and sometimes more -- had a significant impact on the decisions of Arabs to flee their homes. In the context of the war, the Jewish leadership simply allowed the flight of Arabs to unfold as a fortuitous consequence of war. No official "transfer" policy was needed. Morris does, however, identify some instances in which the leadership gave explicit expulsion orders. He also recognizes that the leadership routinely approved expulsions after the fact and directed the destruction of buildings.
According to Morris, the Israeli leadership was surprised to see the mass exodus of Arabs, but they were insistent that very few refugees be allowed to return to their villages, and they made great efforts to ensure "infiltrators" would not return to their homes. Even reluctant members of the leadership -- members of the more dovish party, Mapam -- eventually came around to accept the "transfer" of the population and the prohibition of its return.
With regard to the three elements of the original narrative under discussion, Morris (1) rejects the claim that Israel was a modern David surrounded by Goliaths, (2) makes no real claim about what should be considered the start of the war, and (3) ambiguously assesses the motives for the flight of the Palestinians. His work is noteworthy in that it broke the taboo that prevented an honest examination of Israel's origins. Morris remains a Zionist, however, and rests his moral conclusions on the legitimacy of the foundation of Israel and the consequent need to secure the state through force, even if this involved producing hundreds of thousands of refugees and inflicting tens of thousands of casualties.
II. Ilan Pappe: The Ethnic Cleansing
The primary sources used by Morris are almost exclusively drawn from the Israeli archives. His secondary sources are overwhelmingly in Hebrew. This has lead to criticisms that he overlooks some important perspectives on and information about what was taking place. Morris argues that these other perspectives are based largely on interviews and oral histories conducted too long after the events to be reliable. In contrast, Ilan Pappe's work, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine makes use of these additional sources, along with many of the same archival sources used by Morris. Pappe even makes use of both editions of Morris's work.
Pappe's conclusions about Israeli actions and intentions are much more critical. In his first chapter, he discusses the history and definition of the term "ethnic cleansing." The reminder of the book is essentially an effort to show that while the expulsion of the Palestinians is a textbook case of ethnic cleansing, it has been ignored in discussions of past ethnic cleansings. He often quotes the use of the term "cleanse" and its derivatives in Jewish documents and diaries that describe the expulsion of Palestinians.
Pappe writes of the compilation of the "Village Files" by Jewish Arabists in the 1930s. The files were a comprehensive registry of all the Arab villages in Palestine with details about their geography, economy, populations, leadership, and their relations with their Jewish neighbors. The Files' main proponent in the Jewish Agency thought the creation of the registry would "greatly help the redemption of the land." As Jewish forces moved against Arab villages, the Village Files were invaluable, giving them detailed intelligence about their targets and even allowing them to identify specific individuals for assassination.
Pappe directly implicates the head of the Jewish Agency and first Prime Minister of Israel David Ben-Gurion as the primary directing force in planning and approving the expulsions. A small group of advisors called the "Consultant Committee" or simply the "Consultancy" was formed in February 1947, months prior to the passage of the Partition Plan. It became Ben-Gurion's most important advisory group. He and members of the Consultancy recognized the need to ensure a majority Jewish population of 70-80% inside the Jewish state. Consequently, they would need to transfer Arabs out of Jewish controlled areas, including to neighboring states. The tactics they adopted for expelling the population began with forceful "retaliation" against Arab violence, mainly against snipers shooting at Jewish convoys, but as early as in December 1947, this evolved into a more pro-active "engagement" or "violent reconnaissance" which did not require a pretext. The aim was to intimidate the population and encourage flight.
Between the assembly and use of the Village Files and the proceedings and diaries of the Consultancy, Pappe's case for the premeditated expulsion of Palestinians is strong. Certainly, Morris and Pappe agree that the Israeli leadership made a conscious decision to prevent displaced people from returning to their homes. This confirms either the leadership's intentions to expel the population or its legitimation of expulsion after the fact. In any case, Morris and Pappe together provide sufficient evidence that the flight of Palestinians from Israeli controlled areas was not mainly a function of Arab directives to leave.
By May 15, 1947, or soon after, most of the largest cities with Arab populations were occupied by Jewish forces and virtually emptied of their Arab inhabitants. Haifa, Tiberias, Safad, and Baysan lay in regions designated for a Jewish state. Jaffa and Acre lay in regions designated for the Arabs. West Jerusalem was to be governed by an international administration. Pappe refers to the expulsion of inhabitants from these cities as "urbicide" to distinguish it from (on his accounting) the more than 500 Arab villages that Jewish and Israeli forces ultimately destroyed or converted into Jewish settlements.
This demographic change began shortly after the UN adopted the Partition Plan. The only significant disagreement between Morris and Pappe is whether the Jewish Agency consciously planned the expulsion or merely raised no meaningful objection to it and retroactively approved it. From the point of view of the refugees, the distinction is unimportant.
Plans for the expulsion of the Arab population could be made confidently because of the known military and political weakness of the Arab population. According to Pappe, Jewish Arabists were reporting to the Consultancy that there was virtually no interest in war among ordinary Palestinians. Many Arab villages reached peace agreements with neighboring Jewish settlements to stay out of the impending conflict. Furthermore, the British Mandatory Force effectively disarmed the Arab population in a crushing counter-insurgency campaign between 1936 and 1939. The Arab leadership was exiled to the Seychelles for years after. In any case, political authority among Palestinians historically did not extend far beyond the village leadership, making the coordination of defensive measures nearly impossible. In general, the Arab population of Palestine was uninterested in war and extremely vulnerable.
Pappe argues that the armies of neighboring Arab states were not nearly as threating as the original narrative would have it. The combined number of Arab forces were roughly similar to the number of the Jewish forces, but were less well-equipped and lacked an effective single command structure. There was competition, suspicion, even animosity, between the Arab states, particularly between Egypt and Jordan and between Syria and Jordan.
The Jordanian army was the most well-equipped and well-organized; however, Jordan's King Abdullah and David Ben-Gurion came to an agreement before May15th in which Jordan would control the West Bank (at least that part the Israelis would not conquer). Abdullah publicly announced that his forces would not invade the region set aside for the Jewish state, but would only occupy the Arab region. This alleviated Israel's greatest concern. The disposition of Jerusalem, however, was not agreed upon by Abdullah and Ben-Gurion. It was here that the most significant fighting took place between the Jordanians and the Israelis.
Egypt was potentially a significant force. Yet according to Pappe, it mobilized only 10,000 soldiers, 5,000 of which were untrained members of the Muslim Brotherhood that were released from prison to fight in Palestine. Initially, Egypt made progress by occupying territory populated almost exclusively by Arabs or that was virtually uninhabited. For a time, they were able to isolate a small number of Jewish settlements in the Negev, but their advance into Palestine was halted after just one week. Israeli forces then steadily drove them back to Egypt, leaving them to occupy only the Gaza Strip.
Syrian forces amounted to only a few thousand fighters. They managed to capture a kibbutz just across the border, but did little more after that. Syria's participation in the war was mostly token. Lebanese forces operated by and large defensively in Western Galilee, a region that had been allocated for the Arab state. By the end of the war, Israel had completely expelled Lebanese forces from historic Palestine. Iraq provided a small number of fighters who were relatively effective in defending a number of villages in the northern region of the West Bank.
Pappe concludes -- and the outcome of the conflict confirms -- that Israel was not only well-equipped to defend itself from its Arab neighbors, its forces were simultaneously able to expel and prevent the return of the great majority of the Palestinian population from areas they captured.
With regard to the three elements of the original narrative, Pappe concludes that all of them are entirely false. (1) Israel was not a modern David surrounded by Goliaths, (2) the war was launched by Israeli forces and was well-underway before the Arab armies joined the fight, and (3) not only were Arab directives not responsible for the flight of the Palestinians, but the Israeli leadership had a long, well-established plan to expel as many Arabs from the prospective Jewish state as they possibly could. Israel executed that plan diligently.
Pappe's penultimate chapter is titled, "The Memoricide of the Nakba." "Nakba" is the Arabic word for catastrophe, which is how the Palestinians refer to the 1947-49 War. He argues that the memory of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine has been consciously erased. In years just after the 1967 War, Israel's Ministry of Information was especially active in creating the narrative that helped erase the memory of the Nakba. In a speech in 1969 to students at the Technical University in Haifa, Defense Minister Moshe Dayan said, "Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You don't know the names of these villages,...because these geography books no longer exist....There is not one single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population." Pappe describes how the Naming Committee of the Jewish National Fund renamed places under Jewish control which explains why they are missing from the geography books.
And they are not just missing from the written record. They are gone entirely, often covered over by new settlements or national forests planted by the Jewish National Fund. The Fund has also been responsible for the creation of parks and resorts in place of destroyed Arab villages. Many new Jewish developments have "green lungs," i.e., wooded areas that once were neighboring Arab villages. The erasure of the evidence of a previous Arab population continues today.
One final point regarding the original narrative deserves attention. The narrative also asserts that the Jewish Agency accepted the Partition Plan while the Arab leadership rejected it. The latter is certainly true. The Arab population had been struggling for self-determination as early as the mid-19th century. They allied with the British in the First World War on the promise that Britain would support their independence after victory. Much of the British controlled territory was granted independence (Iraq in 1932 and Jordan in 1946), but Palestine remained under British control.
Through the 1920s and 1930s, Britain facilitated the colonization of Palestine by mostly European Jewish colonists. By 1947, the Jewish population of Palestine reached roughly one third of the whole and they owned roughly only 7% of the land. Nonetheless, the Partition Plan designated 55% of land and most of the best land to the Jewish state. The Arabs had no formal role in ratifying the plan. In essence, the Partition Plan was the culmination of a decades-long colonial enterprise. In this context, it's quite natural that the Arabs would not accept it.
The Jewish Agency's "acceptance" of the plan, however, was significantly qualified in that they did not accept the plan's borders. Announcing the acceptance of the plan was a strategic decision that would provide the State of Israel international recognition. At the same time, the Agency declared its intention to set its own borders. Its early invasion of regions designated for the Arab state demonstrated that the Jewish Agency also rejected the plan's agreed upon borders. Furthermore, a significant segment of the Jewish leadership of the time desired all of historic Palestine for the Jewish state, rejecting a two state solution entirely. The 1967 War was in part motivated by this desire. That war completed Israel's occupation of all of historic Palestine and produced hundreds of thousands of additional Palestinian refugees. Nearly a quarter of a million people were force out of the West Bank, unable to return.
Two years after the 1967 War, the Times of London reported Defense Minister Moshe Dayan as writing, "Our fathers had reached the frontiers which were recognized in the Partition Plan. Our generation reached the frontiers of 1949. Now the six-day generation has managed to reach Suez, Jordan and the Golan Heights. That is not the end. After the present cease-fire lines, there will be new ones. They will extend beyond Jordan -- perhaps to Lebanon and perhaps to central Syria as well." Whether there remains interest among the Israeli leadership of expanding Israel further is an open question. There has always been talk of expanding north to the Litani River in Lebanon and the Jewish settlement of the West Bank appears to be leading to eventual annexation.
What distinguishes Morris's and Pappe's views is their attitudes toward the goals of Zionism. For Morris, they are fundamentally sound. What is at issue is how those goals are to be accomplished and perhaps the final borders of Israel. For Pappe, Zionism is a colonial-settler enterprise that has committed horrendous atrocities and denied Palestinians the fundament rights due any people. But the facts of the stories they tell are largely the same. It is these facts that the New Historians finally brought to light, regardless of how those facts are judged.
