When Lawrence of Arabia Met David Ben-Gurion: a History of Israeli “Arabist” Expertise in the Negev (1943-1966 )
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BEN- GURION UNIVERSITY OF THE NEGEV FACULTY OF HUMINITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES DEPARTMENT OF MIDDLE EASTERN STUDIES WHEN LAWRENCE OF ARABIA MET DAVID BEN-GURION: A HISTORY OF ISRAELI “ARABIST” EXPERTISE IN THE NEGEV (1943-1966 ) THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS JOHN BITZAN UNDER THE SUPERVISION OF: Prof. Benny Morris and Prof. Gil Eyal SEPTEMBER 2006 -I- ABSTRACT This thesis is a study of the expertise associated with a small group of people known as the Negev “ mukhta>r s” (an Arabic term used to denote village headmen). When the first Jewish settlements were established in the Negev region in 1943, before the establishment of the state of Israel, the mukhta>r s were those who mediated between the vulnerable newly-founded settlements and the Arab Bedouin population that lived in the region. They took upon themselves the task of winning the good will of the Bedouin, purchasing lands and resolving disputes over land use and occasional thefts. As in Jewish settlements established in other parts of Mandate Palestine, the mukhta>r s in the Negev were usually Arabic speakers, who had acquired fluency in that language through prior contact with Arabs at work or in mixed Jewish-Arab neighbourhoods or because they were themselves Jews of Middle Eastern background. Over time, the mukhta>r s came to be those who not only interpreted the Bedouin for members of their own settlements, but also advised the leadership of the yishuv and later the state of Israel. From 1943 to the 1960s, the mukhta>r s served a variety of key roles in the Negev: from being peacekeepers in the early 1940s, they became intelligence officers in the yishuv ’s pre-state intelligence service, the Shai, once conflict broke out between Arabs and Jews in Mandate Palestine in 1947. After the war, the mukhta>r s became influential officers in the military administration set up to rule the Bedouin in the Negev. This study is not a history of the mukhta>r s themselves. Rather, it is a history of the knowledge and expertise that they produced. As people who had frequent interactions with the Bedouin, the mukhta>r s laid claim to special insights about them. One aim of this study is to describe the way in which the mukhta>r s represented the Bedouin and to analyze the context that shaped their depictions. As will be shown, the pre-state era was a formative period for the mukhta>r s in this regard. Another aim of this study is to explain how the mukhta>r s repeatedly managed to assert themselves as authorities on Bedouin affairs, how their expertise came to be respected in the nascent state of Israel and how it directed government policy. Although the 1948 war and the chaotic post-war context in the Negev challenged the mukhta>r s and seemed to put their relevance in doubt, they always succeeded in adapting their expertise to new roles. Through a chronological approach that looks at the pre-war period, the 1948 war, and the period of the military government, which was in force in the Bedouin areas -II- of the Negev until 1966, this work will show how the mukhta>r s continuously adapted their expertise and used it guide Israel’s Bedouin policy. -III- TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract .............................................................................................................................. II Table of Contents ................................................................................................................1 Acknowledgments...............................................................................................................2 List of tables, Maps and illustrations ..................................................................................3 Glossary...............................................................................................................................4 Introduction .........................................................................................................................5 Chapter 1: The Pre-State Period – The Mukhta>r s Position Themselves As Experts........12 Chapter 2: 1947- 1948 – The Mukhta>r s’ Expertise Comes Under Attack........................ 29 Chapter 3: 1948-1966 -The Mukhta>r s’ “Comeback”........................................................56 Conclusion.........................................................................................................................76 Appendix A .......................................................................................................................79 Appendix B .......................................................................................................................80 Appendix C .......................................................................................................................81 Appendix D .......................................................................................................................82 Bibliography......................................................................................................................83 86......................................................................................................................... תוכן עניינים -1- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank my advisors Professors Benny Morris and Gil Eyal for their generous help in bring this thesis to its completion. I would also like to express my appreciation to the staff at Ben-Gurion University’s Toviyahu Archives of the Negev and to Dr. Emanuel Marx and Dr. Cédric Parizot for being available for questions and to Dr. Relli Shechter for general guidance. This thesis is dedicated to my wife, Noga, who played a crucial role in motivating me to complete it. -2- LIST OF TABLES , MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS Appendix A – List of Jewish settlements established in the Negev up until March 1947 Appendix B – Map of Jewish settlements, lands under private Jewish ownership and lands owned by the Jewish National Fund in the Negev up until March 1947 Appendix C – Map of Jewish settlements, Arab towns and villages and the water pipeline that supplied the Jewish settlements in the Negev (November 1947) Appendix D – Photographs: Sasson Bar-Zvi and ‘Ude Abu Mu‘ammar -3- GLOSSARY FO – Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs IDFA – Israel Defence Forces Archive ISA – Israel State Archives, Jerusalem, Israel JNF – Jewish National Fund MA – Israel Ministry of Minority Affairs MI – Israel Interior Ministry PALMAH – Plugot Mah}atz (“Strike Companies”) – the Haganah’s regular fighting force POLICE – Israel Police SHAI – Sherut ha-Yedi‘ot (the Haganah’s Intelligence Service) -4- INTRODUCTION Speaking in September 1944, at a conference of the Zionist Labour Movement’s “Young Guard” in Haifa, David Ben-Gurion directed an impassioned appeal to all Jewish youth to enlist in the task of “conquering” the desert wastelands. Ben-Gurion lamented the fact that hardly any attempts had been made to settle the desert, which he noted accounts for much of the geographical area of the Land of Israel. The future prime minister of Israel then called for the formation of “tribes of Jewish Bedouin” who would know the “essence of the desert”, its hiding places and the “secrets of turning it into a source of blessing.” The “Jewish Bedouin” pioneers, as Ben-Gurion envisioned them, “will know how to survive, work, live in tents and make a living like Arab Bedouin.” They were to be pioneers in settling the desert, not only by imitating the Bedouin and by becoming Bedouin but, also, by enhancing the skills associated with “primitive desert peoples” with their cultural, scientific and technical abilities. As Ben-Gurion saw it, the re-making of the Jews into people with this combination of different talents would enable them to make the desert bloom. 1 The desert that Ben-Gurion was referring to was the Negev, where the first Jewish settlements had been established in 1943. They included Kibbutz Gvulot, Kibbutz Revivim and Beit Eshel, all located in areas inhabited mainly by semi-nomadic Bedouin. 2 In the 1930s, private individuals and the Jewish National Fund (JNF) had purchased the lands on which these early settlements were established from local sheikhs. 3 Until then, the most southerly points of Jewish settlement in Mandate Palestine had been in the southern coastal plain, north and northwest of Beersheba. To the Jewish settlers, the Negev represented a frontier. 4 The people who settled at these three sites conceived of themselves as the vanguard of Jewish settlement in a still unsettled land. They were 1 David Ben-Gurion, Heb., Ba-ma'arakha [The Battle] (Tel Aviv: 'Am 'Oved, 1957), 209. 2 Beit Eshel was very close to Beersheba, which, before 1948, was inhabited mostly by Arabs originally from Hebron and from the Gaza areas. Gvulot is located in an area in the western Negev that was then inhabited by Bedouin and some villagers, while the Revivim area, in the southern Negev, was predominantly inhabited by nomadic Bedouin, who also engaged in some agriculture. 3 Lili 'Amit, "Revivim - Te'udat Zehut", Unknown Date, Halutza, Kibbutz Revivim Archive, 1; Ze'ev Zivan, "Jewish-Bedouin Frontier Relationships and Their Impact on Shaping Kibbutz Settlement Patterns in the Negev, 1940s-1950s" (M.A., Ben-Gurion University, 1990), 54. 4 The words frontier (“sfar”), or “eretz lo noda‘at” (Hebrew: “unknown lands”) are frequently used when describing the Negev at this time. Cf. 'Amit, 1; Zivan, VI. -5- disconnected from the rest of the yishuv and, in the case of Gvulot and Revivim, remote from