Ruling Palestine

The JNF contributed to the work and funding of several of these initiatives, including the destruction of Arab villages. The
Transfer Committee continued to operate throughout the summer and autumn; for example, guiding the expulsion of tens of
thousands of Arabs from their lands following Israel’s capture of areas in the northern Galilee and in the south of the country
in October and November 1948. The Committee advised that, as a general policy, Arabs should never exceed 20 percent of
the population of Israel. 37
A diary entry by Yosef Weitz, for 20 December 1940, is highly revealing:
Amongst ourselves it must be clear that there is no room for both peoples in this country. No ‘development’ will bring
us closer to our aim to be an independent people in this small country. After the Arabs are transferred, the country
will be wide open for us; with the Arabs staying the country will remain narrow and restricted. When the war is over,
and the English have emerged victorious and when the judging nations sit on the throne of law, our people should
bring their petitions and claims before them: and the only solution is the land of Israel, or at least the Western Land of
Israel [i.e. Palestine], without Arabs. There is no room for compromise on this point. The Zionist work so far, in terms
of preparation and paving the way for the creation of the Hebrew state in the land of Israel, has been good and was
able to satisfy itself with land purchasing but this will not bring about the state; that must come simultaneously in the
manner of redemption (here is the meaning of the Messoainic idea). The only way is to transfer the Arabs from here
to neighbouring countries, all of them, except perhaps Bethlehem, Nazareth and Old Jerusalem. Not a single village
or a single tribe must be left. And the transfer must be done through their absorption in Iraq and Syria and even in
Transjordan. For that goal, money will be found — even a lot of money. And only then will the country be able to absorb
millions of Jews and a solution will be found to the Jewish question. There is no other solution. 38
4.2 Destruction and depopulation of Arab villages and towns (1947-1949)
The military actions of 1947 and subsequent years with the aim of removing the indigenous Palestinian inhabitants could be
viewed as logical steps in the fulfilment of the original aim of Zionism — the establishment of Palestine as the ‘Jewish State’.
Zionist leaders had made no secret of their preferences in this regard. In 1947, for example, David Ben-Gurion (a prominent
Zionist leader, the previous chairman of the Jewish Agency Executive and destined to become Israel’s first Prime Minister)
gave a foretaste of the Zionist stance in the forthcoming war:
We [should] adopt the system of aggressive defence; with [i.e. to] every Arab attack we must respond with a decisive
blow: the destruction of the [Arab] place or the expulsion of the residents along with the seizure of the place. 39
Despite the existence of the Transfer Committees and clear pronouncements by Zionist leaders, most historical documents
maintain that the military plans drawn up after 1947 to capture key areas for the ‘Jewish State’ (specifically Plan D or Dalet —
see Subsection 3.5.1) did not amount to a ‘blueprint for expulsion’. Plan Dalet did, however, assign value to ‘military targets’,
among which were the securing of key routes adjoining Jewish areas, the take-over of mixed towns, and the capture of Arab
villages located within strategic areas. The inhabitants of the latter were required to ‘surrender’ or face the consequences.
In the military operations carried out under Plan Dalet, widespread destruction and eviction were clearly authorised as
means of expanding Jewish territory into Arab areas. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled their homes and villages,
spurred along by news of massacres committed against Arab villagers (such as in Deir Yassin in April 1948) and by fear of the
approaching Jewish forces. The Arab armies, overwhelmed, could do little to protect Palestinians or prevent their expulsion.
Authoritative analysis of factors underlying the expulsion and exodus of Palestinians would not be complete without
reference to the painstaking research of three authors: Benny Morris, Walid Khalidi (who collaborated with other researchers)
and Salman Abu Sitta. Based on their respective calculations, Table 4, below, summarises the available information on the
depopulated and destroyed areas of Palestine.
37 Cited in Masalha (n. 34 above), p. 199; see also: id. (n. 34 above), pp. 116; and Morris (n. 36 above). Masalha, Morris and others consulted
declassified Central Zionist Archive material for their research. Analysis of newly uncovered and revealing archive materials can be found in Benny
Morris, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003), which was published following
the drafting of the present study. See also other sources cited in our Bibliography.
38 Quoted in Masalha (n. 34 above), pp. 131-132.
39 Quoted in Simha Flapan, The Birth of Israel (New York: Pantheon Books, 1987), p. 90. Various sources document support for ‘transfer’ among most
major Zionist figures of the time. On another occasion, Ben-Gurion stated bluntly: “We must prepare ourselves to carry out the transfer” [emphasis
in original]. Quoted from ‘Ben-Gurion’s Memoirs’, in Masalha (n. 34 above), p. 65.
32
SECTION 4 — LAND ACQUISITION, LAND LAWS AND COLONISATION POLICIES WITHIN THE STATE OF ISRAEL (1948-1967)