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Home , Anita Shapira, Benny Morris, Yosef Weitz

A Critique of Author(s): Nur Masalha Reviewed work(s): Source: Journal of Studies, Vol. 21, No. 1 (Autumn, 1991), pp. 90-97 Published by: University of California Press on behalf of the Institute for Palestine Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2537367 . Accessed: 22/09/2012 03:39

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http://www.jstor.org A CRITIQUE OF BENNY MORRIS

NUR MASALHA

Since thepublication in 1988 of TheBirth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, BennyMorris has cometo be seenas theultimate authority on thePalestin- ian exodusof 1948. Andindeed, his workhas contributedto demolishing someof thelong-held (at leastin Israeland in theWest) misconceptions surroundingIsrael's birth. His newlypublished collection of essays,: and the ,revisits the groundcovered in Birth, bringingto light new material he discoveredor which became available only aftercompletion of the first book. Morris'swork belongs to whathe calls the "New Historiography."He does notlike the term "revisionist" historiography, in part because it "con- juresup" imagesof theRevisionist Movement in ,and thuscauses "confusion."He furthereschews the term because "Israel's old historians, byand large, were not really historians, and didnot produce real . In realitythey were chroniclers, and oftenapologetic." (1948, p. 6) Morrisex- aminesthis "old"-orthodox and official-historiography in the opening es- sayof his new volume, referring to the historians who produced it over three decadessince 1948 as "less candid,""deceitful," and "misleading."(p. 2) As examples,he citesthe accountsprovided by Lieutenant-Colonel(ret.) ElhananOrren, a formerofficer at theIsrael Defense Force (IDF) History Branch,in hisBaderckh el Ha'ir (On theRoad to theCity), a detailedaccount

Nur Masalha, who holds an M.A. fromthe HebrewUniversity in and a Ph.D. in politicalscience from the Universityof London,is the author of the forthcomingbook Expulsionof the Palestinians: The Conceptof "Trans- fer"in Zionist Political Thought, 1882-1948 (Institutefor Palestine Studies, Au- tumn1991).

Journalof Palestine Studies XXI, no. 1 (Autumn1991), pp. 90-97. DEBATE ON THE 1948 EXODUS: MASALHA 91 of OperationDani, publishedby the IDF Pressin 1976, and ToldotMilhemet Hakomemiyut(History of the War of Independence),produced by theGeneral Staff/HistoryBranch, as well as Ben-Gurion'sown ""Mideinat Yis- raelHamehudeshet and BehilahemYisrael. (pp. 2-5) The "new" histories,on the otherhand, include the works of ,Ilan Pappe, Simha Flapan, Uri Milstein,Michael Cohen, AnitaShapira, Uri Bar-Joseph,and others.(p. 8) Clearlythose historiesthoroughly demolished a varietyof assumptions whichformed the core of the "old" history.And althoughthose who argue the case of "revisionism"are a fringegroup in Israel,they are an important one. Two remarksare in orderin this regard;first, having myself examined manyof the "old" and officialHebrew chronicles, it is quiteclear that Morris does notalways live up to his claimof using this material in a criticalmanner and as a resultthis casts doubtson his conclusions. For instance,in Birth, Morrisquotes uncritically the "majorpolitical conclusion" Ben-Gurion drew fromthe Arab departurefrom and makes littleeffort to reconcilethe "deceitfulness"of such a chroniclewith uncritical reliance on it. And,gener- ally speaking,having based himselfpredominantly, and frequentlyuncriti- cally, on official Israeli archival and non-archivalmaterial, Morris's descriptionand analysisof such a controversialsubject as the Palestinian exodushave seriousshortcomings. Second, Morris's description of the works by the "new" Israeli historians-whileignoring the recentworks by non- Zionistscholars on 1948-gives rise to the impressionthat these discourses are basicallythe outcomeof a debate among Zionistswhich unfortunately has littleto do withthe Palestiniansthemselves. Morriscentral thesis, as firstexpounded in Birth,is summedup in the followingpassage fromhis new collection: Whatoccurred in 1948 lies somewherein betweenthe Jewish "robber state"[i.e., a statewhich had "systematicallyand forcibly expelled the Arab population"]and the "Araborder" explanations. While from the mid- 1930'smost of the 's leaders, including Ben-Gurion, wanted to es- tablisha Jewishstate without an Arabminority, or withas smallan Arab minorityas possible,and supporteda "transfersolution" to thisminority problem,the Yishuv did notenter the 1948 War witha masterplan for expellingthe , nor did its political or military leaders ever adopt such a masterplan. Whathappened was largelyhaphazard and a resultof the War. Therewere /IDF expulsions of Arab communities, some of themat theinitiative or withthe post facto approval of the cabinet or the defenseminister, and mostwith General Staff sanctions. . . Butthere was no granddesign, no blanketpolicy of expulsion. (p. 17) In otherwords, only in "smallerpart" were Haganah/IDFexpulsions car- riedout and thesewere impromptu, ad hoc measuresdictated by themilitary circumstances,a conclusionthat deflects serious responsibility for the 1948 exodus fromthe Zionistleadership. But can his claim that therewas no transferdesign and expulsionpolicy in 1948 be sustained?Does thefact that therewas no "masterplan" forexpelling the Palestiniansabsolve the Zionist 92 JOURNALOF PALESTINE STUDIES leadershipof responsibility,given, inter alia, its campaignof psychological warfare(documented by Morris)designed to precipitateArab evacuation? How can Morrisbe so categoricalthat there was no Israeliexpulsion policy when his own work restson carefullyreleased partialdocumentation and when muchof the Israelifiles and documentsrelating to the subjectare still classifiedand remainclosed to researchers?Is it inconceivablethat such a "transfer"policy was based on an understandingbetween Ben-Gurion and his lieutenantsrather than on a blueprint?Morris himself writes in an article in ,(entitled "The New Historyand the Old Propagandists,"9 May 1989) in which he discusses the transfernotion and Ben-Gurion'srole in 1948: "One of the hallmarksof Ben Gurion'sgreatness was thatthe man knewwhat to say and what not to say in certaincircumstances; what is al- lowed to be recordedon paper and whatis preferableto conveyorally or in hint." Ben-Gurion'sadmiring biographer Michael Bar-Zoharstates: "In in- ternaldiscussions, in instructionsto his men [in 1948] the Old Man [Ben- Gurion]demonstrated a clear position: It would be betterthat as few a numberas possible of Arabs should remainin the territoryof the [Jewish] state."(Bar-Zohar, Ben-Gurion [in Hebrew],vol. 2, p. 703) Morrisclaims (1948, p. 16) thatit "was the Arab contention.. thatthe Yishuvhad alwaysintended forcible 'transfer'." Is thismerely an "Arab con- tention,"or perhaps,a figmentof Arab imagination? Yet theevidence Morris adducespoints to a completelydifferent picture. In his 9 May 1989 articlein HaAretz, Morristraces "the growthof the transferidea in Ben-Gurion's thinking"from the second half of the 1930s. "There is no doubt," Morris writes, thatfrom the moment [the Peel proposal was submittedi.. .the problem of theArab minority, supposed to residein that[prospective Jewish] state, beganto preoccupythe Yishuv's leadership obsessively. They were justi- fiedin seeingthe future minority as a greatdanger to theprospective Jew- ish state-a fifthpolitical, or even military,column. The transfer idea.. .wasviewed by the majority of the Yishuv leaders in thosedays as thebest solution to theproblem. In Birth(p. 25) Morris shows that Ben-Gurionadvocated "compulsory" transferin 1937. In his HaAretzarticle he writesof "thegrowth of thetrans- feridea in Ben-Gurion'sthinking" and thatin November1947, a fewdays beforethe UN GeneralAssembly's partition resolution, a consensusemerged at the meetingof the JewishAgency Executive in favorof givingas many Arabsin theJewish state as possiblecitizenship of theprospective Arab state ratherthan of the Jewishstate where theywould be living. Accordingto Morris,Ben-Gurion explained the rationalein the followingterms: Ifa warbreaks out between the Jewish state and thePalestine Arab state, theArab minority in theJewish state would be a "FifthColumn"; hence, it waspreferable that they be citizensof the Palestine Arab state so that,if the Warbreaks out and, if hostile, they "would be expelled"to the Arab state. Andif they were citizens of the Jewish state "it would (only) be possibleto imprisonthem." DEBATE ON THE 1948 EXODUS: MASALHA 93

Does not this show thatthe Yishuv'sleaders entered the 1948 war at least witha transferdesire or mindset? Morrisargues thata new approach emergedin 1948 among the ruling Partyleaders, presided over by Ben-Gurion,in supportof a transfer "solution"to the "Arab demographicproblem." Ben-Gurion....understood that war changed everything; a different set of "rules"had cometo apply.Land could and wouldbe conqueredand re- tained;there would be demographicchanges. This approach emerged ex- plicitlyin BenGurion's address at themeeting of the Mapai Council on 7 February:Westem Jerusalem's Arab districts had been evacuatedand a similarpermanent demographic change would be expectedin muchof the countryas thewar spread. (1948, pp. 39-40) Otherprominent Mapai leaders such as Eliahu Lulu (Hacarmeli),a Jersu- alem branch leader, and Shlomo Lavi, an influentialKibbutz movement leader,echoed thesame approach. In an internaldebate at theMapai Centre on 24 July1948, held againstthe background of theexpulsion of Lyddaand Ramle,Shlomo Lavi statedthat "the... .transferof Arabs out of thecountry in myeyes is one of themost just, moral and correctthings that can be done. I have thoughtthis... .for many years." (1948, p. 43) Lavi's viewswere backed by anotherprominent Mapai leader,Avraham Katznelson: Thereis nothing "moremoral, from the viewpoint of universalhuman ethics, than the empty- ing of the JewishState of the Arabs and theirtransfer elsewhere. . .This requiresthe use of force."(1948, p. 44) Contraryto what Morrisclaims, therewas nothingnew about thisapproach of "forcibletransfer," nor did it emergeout of the blue merelyas a resultof the outbreakof hostilitiesin 1948. The Yishuv's leaders "obsessively"pursued transferschemes fromthe mid-1930sonwards. TransferCommittees were set up by theJewish Agency between1937 and 1942 and a numberof Zionisttransfer schemes were for- mulatedin secret. (A thoroughdiscussion of theseschemes will be foundin myforthcoming book on the transferconcept.) Shortlyafter the publication ofthe Peel Commissionreport, which endorsed the transfer idea, Ben-Gurion wrotein his diary(12 July1937): "The compulsorytransfer of the Arabs fromthe valleys of theproposed Jewish state could giveus somethingwhich we neverhad. . .a Galilee freeof Arab population."(Ben-Gurion, Zichronot vol. 4, 12 July1937, pp. 297-99) Alreadyin 1937, he believed thatthe Zionists could rid themselvesof "old habits" and put pressureon the Mandatoryauthorities to carryout forcedremoval. "We have to stickto this conclusion,"Ben-Gurion wrote, in thesame way we grabbedthe Balfour Declaration, more than that, in the sameway we grabbedZionism itself. We haveto insistupon this conclu- sion[and push it] with our full determination, power and conviction....We mustuproot from our hearts the assumption that the thing is notpossible. It can be done. Ben-Gurionwent on to note: "We mustprepare ourselves to carryout" the transfer.(ibid., p. 299) Ben-Gurionwas also convincedthat few, if any,of 94 JOURNALOF PALESTINE STUDIES the Palestinianswould be willingto transferthemselves "voluntarily," in whichcase the "compulsory"provisions would eventuallyhave to be putinto effect.In an importantletter to his 16-year-oldson Amos,dated 5 October 1937, Ben-Gurionwrote: "We mustexpel Arabsand taketheir places... .and ifwe have to use force-not to dispossessthe Arabs of theNegev and Trans- jordan,but to guaranteeour own rightto settlethose places-when we have forceat our disposal." (ShabtaiTeveth, Ben-Gunon and thePalestinian Arabs. Oxford,1985, p. 189) It is explicitin theletter of 5 Octoberthat the transfer had become clearlyassociated with expulsion in Ben-Gurion'sthinking. In reflectingon such expulsion and the eventualenlargement and breaking throughof thePeel partitionborders, Ben-Gurion used thelanguage of force, increasinglycounting on Zionistarmed strength. He also predicteda decisive war in whichthe PalestinianArabs aided by neighboringArab stateswould be defeatedby theHaganah. (ibid.) Fromthe mid-1930s onwards he repeat- edly statedhis advocacyof transfer. The debatesof the World Conventionof Ihud Po'alei Tzion-the highest politicalforum of thedominant Zionist world labor movement-and theZu- rich20th Congress in August1937 revealeda Zionistconsensus in supportof transfer.Eliahu Lulu, forinstance, had thisto say at the debateof the Ihud Po'alei Tzion convention: This transfer,even if it wereto be carriedout throughcompulsion-all moralenterprises are carried out through compulsion-will be justifiedin all senses.And if we negateall rightto transfer,we wouldneed to negate everythingwe havedone until now: thetransfer from Emek Hefer [Wadi al-Hawarith]to BeitShean, from the Sharon[coastal plain] to Ephraem Mountains,etc .... thetransfer... is a just,logical, moral, and humane programmein all senses.1 Duringthe same debate,Shlomo Lavi expresseda similarview: "The de- mandthat the Arabs should move and evacuatethe place forus, because they have sufficientplace to move to... in itselfis veryjust and verymoral.... 2 There were,of course,Zionist leaders who supported"voluntary" transfer, but to suggestas Morrisdoes thatthe notionof "forcibletransfer" is merely an "Arab contention"or thatit was onlyin 1948 thatMapai leaderssuch as Ben-Gurionadopted the radical new approach of using forceto transform Palestine'sdemographic reality is a misrepresentationof the facts,of which Morrismust be aware. Is Morris'sconclusion that a Zionisttransfer/expulsion policy was never formulatedborne out by the evidencehe adduces in Birthand in 1948? In Birth,Morris describes how the Yishuvmilitary establishment, presided over by Ben-Gurion,formulated in earlyMarch 1948 and began implementingin earlyApril in anticipationof Arab militaryoperations. According to Morris,the essence of Plan Dalet "was the clearingof hostileand poten- tiallyhostile forces out ofthe interior of the prospective territory of theJewish State.. .As the Arab irregularswere based and quarteredin thevillages and as the militiasof manyvillages were participatingin the anti-Yishuvhostili- DEBATE ON THE 1948 EXODUS: MASALHA 95 ties,the Haganah regardedmost of thevillages as activelyor potentiallyhos- tile." (Birth,p. 62) Morrisgoes on to explainthat Plan Dalet "constituteda strategic-ideologicalanchor and basis forexpulsions by front,district, bri- gade and battalioncommanders... .and it gave commanders,postfacto, a for- mal,persuasive covering note to explaintheir actions." (Birth, p. 63) In 1948 (p. 21), Morrisstates: In conformitywith TochnitDalet (Plan D), the Haganah'smaster plan... .The Haganahcleared various areas completely of Arab villages- theJersualem comdor, the area around Mishmar Haemek, and thecoastal plain. Butin mostcases, expulsion orders were unnecessary; the inhabit- antshad already fled, out of fear or as a resultof Jewish attack. In several areas,Israeli commanders successfully used psychological warfare ploys to obtainArab evacuation (as in theHula Valley,in UpperGalilee, in May). He furthernotes: "ifthe denial of theright to return.. .was a formof 'expul- sion', thena greatmany villagers-who had waitednear theirvillages for the battleto die down beforetrying to returnhome-can be considered'expel- lees'." (Birth,p. 343, note 7) Even ifwe do acceptthat Plan Dalet was not a politicalblueprint or a "masterplan" fora blanketexpulsion of the Arab population,and even if the plan "was governedby militaryconsiderations," how can Morrissquare his own explanationswith his conclusionthat there existedno Haganah/IDF "plan" or policydecision to expel Arabs fromthe prospectiveJewish state? Furthermore,in the contextof "decision-making"and "transfer"policy, Morrisshows in his essay "YosefWeitz and theTransfer Committees, 1948- 49," how Weitz,the executivein chargeof land acqui- sitionand its distributionamong Jewish settlements and an ardentadvocate of mass Arab transfersince the 1930s-he was on the JewishAgency's TransferCommittees between 1937 and 1942-"was well placed [in 1948] to shape and influencedecision-making regarding the Arab populationon the nationallevel and to overseethe implementation of policy on thelocal level." (1948, p. 91) Fromearly 1948, Weitz began to exploitthe conditions of war to expel Arab villagersand tenant-farmers,some of whom cultivatedlands ownedby Jewish institutions. He personallysupervised many local evictions duringthe early months of war, frequentlywith the assistance of local Haganah commanders.(1948, pp. 92-98) Moreover,Morris explains: Everyone,at everylevel of military and politicaldecision-making, under- stoodthat a Jewishstate without a largeArab minority would be stronger andmore viable both militarily and politically. The tendency of local mili- tarycommanders to "nudge"Palestinians into flight increased as thewar wenton. Jewishatrocities. . .(massacres of Arabsat Ad Dawayima,Ei- laboun,, Safsaf, Majd al Kurum,Hule (in Lebanon), and Sasa, besidesDayr Yasin and Lyddaand otherplaces-also contributedsignifi- cantlyto theexodus. (1948, p. 22) I cannotsee how theabove explanationregarding "decision-making" can be reconciledwith Morris's denial of a transferpolicy. And does it matterin the end whethersuch a policywas actuallyformulated, or whetherit was just de 96 JOURNALOF PALESTINE STUDIES factoand clearlyunderstood at everylevel of militaryand politicaldecision- making? On the basis of the revelations,documentation, and factual findings broughtto lightby Morris(and other"new" historians),the traditional Pales- tiniancontention that there was a Zionistconsensus on thequestion of find- ing a "solution"to the "Arab demographicproblem"-the Arabs,even in 1948, still constitutedtwo-thirds of the populationof Palestine-through "transfer"of Arabsto areas outsidethe prospectiveJewish state and barring theirreturn to theirvillages and towns,is corroborated.Zionist parties of all shades of opinion-with the exceptionof muted,internal criticism from a few membersof the and Mapai parties-were in basic agreement about the need and desirabilityof utilizingthe 1948 War to establishan enlargedJewish state with as small an Arab populationas possible. Yosef Sprinzak,the relativelyliberal secretary general of the Histadrut,a criticof theforcible transfer policy, had thisto say at the 24 July1948 meetingat the Mapai Centre,some ten days afterthe Lydda-Ramleexpulsion: Thereis a feelingthatfaits accomplis are being created. . .the question is not whetherthe Arabs will return or notreturn. The questionis whetherthe Arabsare [being or havebeen] expelled or not.. Thisis importantto our moralfuture. . .I wantto know who is creatingthe facts? And the facts are beingcreated on orders.. [Thereappears to be] a lineof action. . .ofexpro- priationand ofemptying the land of Arabs by force. (1948, pp. 42-43) It is difficult,using Morris'sown evidence,not to see on the part of the leaders of mainstreamlabor Zionism a de facto,forcible transfer policy in 1948. Morris'sanalysis of the eventsof 1948 is also flawedby his treatmentof the Arab exodus largelyin an historicaland politicalvacuum, without any intrinsicconnection with Zionism. Althoughhe does referto the Zionist consensusemerging from the mid-1930sin supportof transferringthe Arab population,he sees no connectionbetween this and the expulsionsof 1948. This bringsus to the explanatoryframework underlying Morris's work: the Zionist leadership's ideological-political disposition for transfer- ring/expellingArabs resulted from the "security"threat (the "fifthcolumn") the Arab populationposed to the Jewishstate. The factspresented earlier, on the otherhand, show thatthe "voluntary/compulsory"transfer of the in- digenousArabs was prefiguredin theZionist ideology a long timebefore the 1948 war broke out and advocated"obsessively" by the Zionistleadership fromthe mid-1930s onwards. Consequently,the resistance of the indigenous Arabpopulation to Zionismbefore and in 1948 emanatedfrom precisely the Zionistgoal ofestablishing a Jewishstate that would, at best,marginalize the Palestiniansas a small,dependent minority in theirown homeland,and, at worst,eradicate and "transfer"them. The "security"threat posed by the "transferred"inhabitants of the Palestiniantowns and villagesresulted from theZionist movement's ideological premise and politicalagenda, namely the establishmentof an exclusiviststate. DEBATE ON THE 1948 EXODUS: MASALHA 97

Fromthe perspectiveof Morris's"new" historiography,there was no in- herentlink betweenthe "transfer"of the Arabs and the acquisitionof their lands on the one hand and Zionism'slong-advocated imperative of accom- modatingmillions of Jewishimmigrants in the Jewishstate on the other. The nearestthing he sayswhich provides a hintregarding such a connection is the following: The warafforded the Yishuv a historicopportunity to enlarge the Jewish state'sborders and, as thingsturned out, to createa statewithout a very largeArab minority. The war would solve the Yishuv's problem of lack of land,which was necessary to properly absorb and settle the expected influx ofJewish immigrants. (1948, pp. 39-40) Would Zionismhave succeededin fulfillingits imperativeof absorbingthe huge influxof Jewishimmigrants while allowingthe indigenouspopulation to remainin situ? If not, could the Zionistobjective of "transferring"the Arabs fromPalestine have been carriedout "voluntarily"and peacefully, withoutArab resistanceor the destructionof theirsociety in 1948? Morris's findingsconstitute a landmarkand are a remarkablecontribution to our knowledgebecause theyshow thatthe evacuationof hundredsof thousands of Palestinianswas a resultof directattacks, fear of attacks,intimidation, psychologicalwarfare (e.g., the whisperingcampaign), and sometimesout- rightexpulsions ordered by the Haganah/IDF leadership. Yet a wider ex- planatoryand theoreticalframework within which the exodus can be properlyunderstood must be soughtelsewhere.

NOTES

1. 'Al Darchei Mediniyotenu:Mo'atzah 'Olamit Shel 2. Ibid.,p. 100. IhudPo'alei Tzion (c.s.), Din VehisbonMale 21 July-7 August(1937) [A FullReport about the World Conven- tionof Ihud Po'alei Tzion]. ,1938, p. 122.