Transcript Week 3a - Communication

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 Historians
Challenging 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 Shafir
Zionism 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 400,000
Gaza
200,000
Lebanon
120,000
Syria
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-Ami
pp. 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)