Chapter 6: Blocking a return

"In the course of 1948 and the first half of 1949, a number of processes definitively changed the physical and demographic face of Palestine. Taken collectively, they steadily rendered the possibility of a mass refugee return more and more remote until, by mid-1949, it became virtually inconceivable. These processes were the gradual destruction of the abandoned Arab villages, the cultivation or destruction of Arab fields and the share-out of the Arab lands to Jewish settlements, the establishment of new settlements, on abandoned lands and sites and the settlement of Jewish immigrants in empty Arab housing in the countryside and in urban neighbourhoods. Taken together, they assured that the refugees would have nowhere, and nothing, to return to.

These processes occurred under the protective carapace of the Haganah\IDF’s periodically reiterated policy of preventing the return of refugees across the lines, including by fire, and of the repeated bouts of warfare between the Israeli and Arab armies, which effectively curtailed the movement of civilians near the often fluid front lines. At the same time, these processes were natural and integral, major elements in the overall consolidation of the State of Israel. They were not, at least initially, geared or primarily geared to blocking the return of the refugees. They began in order to meet certain basic needs of the new State. Some of the processes, such as the destruction of the villages and the establishment of new settlements along the borders, were dictated in large part by immediate military needs. Others were due to basic economic requirements – the kibbutzim’s need for more land, the Yishuv’s growing need for more agricultural produce, the new immigrants’ need for housing. But, taken together, these processes substantially contributed, and were understood by the Yishuv’s leaders to contribute, to definitively preventing a refugee return."

The Destruction of Arab Villages

"About 400 villages and towns were depopulated in the course of the war and its immediate aftermath"

"Some of the desolation was caused during abandonment and, later, by the ravages of time and the elements. Some of the destruction was the result of warfare – villages were mortared, shelled and occasionally bombed from the air, and houses were often destroyed to clear fields of fire immediately after conquest. In general, however, the Jewish forces, which were short of artillery and bombers, especially before July 1948, caused little destruction during the actual fighting. Most of the destruction was due to vandalism and looting, and to deliberate demolition, with explosives, bulldozers and occasionally hand tools, by Haganah and IDF units or neighbouring Jewish settlements in the days, weeks and months after their conquest. We shall trace the evolution of this process in the following pages.

The destruction of the villages can be said to have begun with, and stemmed naturally from, pre-war British Mandate antiterrorist policy and Haganah retaliatory policy. In punishing Arab terrorists and irregulars during the 1936–1939 rebellion and in the countdown to 30 November 1947, both the British and the Haganah destroyed houses, in towns and villages. Destroying the house of a guerrilla fighter or terrorist or their accomplices was regarded as just punishment and as a deterrent. The British 1 meted out the punishment in open and orderly fashion; the Haganah, usually in clandestine nighttime raids. On 20 May 1947, for example, a Palmah unit blew up a coffee house in Fajja after the murder of two Jews in Petah Tikva; in August, a Haganah unit blew up a house, suspected of being a terrorist headquarters, in the Abu Laban orchard, outside Tel Aviv. 2

During the countdown to the 1948 War, the destruction of Arab houses was formalised as a legitimate retaliatory measure in a succession of HGS plans setting out the guidelines for operations if and when the Yishuv was attacked by the Palestinians. The Haganah’s ‘Plan B’, finalised in September 1945, provided only vaguely for ‘the sabotage or destruction of [Arab] installations’ in retaliatory attacks. (The plan assumed that as during the Revolt, the British Army would assist in the defense of the Yishuv.) 3 Its successor, ‘Plan C’, of May 1946 (which assumed British neutrality in the imminent Arab-Jewish hostilities), provided in detailed fashion for retaliatory strikes against economic and infrastructure targets ‘(water [works], flour mills, etc.)’ and, more generally,

against villages, [urban] neighbourhoods and farms, serving as bases for Arab armed forces . . . by arson or explosion. If the aim was general punishment – the torching of everything possible and the demolition [with explosives] of the houses of inciters or [their] accomplices [was to be carried out].

The plan provided, ‘in certain cases,’ for the demolition of ‘club-houses, coffee-shops, assembly [halls] . . . after removing the people from them’. The Haganah was further instructed to sabotage ‘the property’ of Palestinian political and military leaders, ‘inciters’ and militants. 4"

"The theoretical underpinning of the destruction of individual houses in retaliatory strikes was reformulated in an HGS directive of 18 January 1948. Targeted for destruction were ‘houses serving as concentration points, supply depots and training sites’ for irregulars as well as residential houses, economic targets, and public buildings.10

As the fighting gained in intensity, so did the efficiency and destructiveness of Haganah raids. Through January, February and March, the raiders destroyed houses and parts of villages that harboured or were suspected of harbouring hostile militiamen and irregulars. In one exceptional reprisal – against ‘Arab Suqrir (see above) – the orders were to destroy the whole village, and this was done. 11 But while the main aim of the raids was cautionary and punitive, they often, almost inevitably, led to the evacuation of families."

"The Haganah strategy of aggressive defence, consisting mainly of fighting off attackers on the perimeters of settlements peppered with occasional retaliatory strikes, gave way in April to an offensive strategy, in line with ‘Plan D’, of conquest and permanent occupation of Arab sites. In the section in its preamble regarding ‘consolidating defence systems and obstacles’, the plan provided for the ‘destruction of villages (burning, blowing up and mining the ruins)’ that the Haganah was incapable of permanently controlling and that might be used as bases for Arab forces. 20"

"As the HGS directive of 18 January had provided the doctrinal foundation for the destruction of individual houses in reprisal raids, so Plan D supplied the doctrinal underpinning for the post-March leveling of whole villages and clusters of villages. The passage from the January directive to the March plan paralleled the growing scale of the war as well as its increased brutality. The directive had sought to pin- point ‘guilty’, individual targets (such as houses of terrorists); Plan D, on the other hand, consigned to collective destruction whole hostile and potentially hostile villages. However, the degree to which Plan D’s provision for destroying villages was implemented in different sectors over April–June 1948 depended largely on the local military situation (i.e., Arab resistance and topography), the mindset of individual Israeli commanders, and the availability to Haganah units of dynamite, bulldozers and manpower.

During the Haganah offensives of April and May, swathes of Arab villages were partly or completely destroyed – in the Jerusalem Corridor, around Mishmar Ha‘emek, and in Eastern and Western Galilee. The destruction of most of the sites was governed by the cogent military consideration that, should they be left intact, irregulars or, come the expected invasion, Arab regular troops, would reoccupy and use them as bases for future attacks. An almost instant example of this problem was provided at Qastal in early April (see chapter 4). The Haganah lacked the manpower to garrison each abandoned village and supervise and curtail the activities of communities that remained along and behind the front lines."

"During the first months of hostilities, the Haganah, while battling the Arab irregulars for control of, or freedom of passage along, the roads, determined its strategy, operations and, to a degree, tactics in line with the political framework and constraints of the partition resolution – that is, a Jewish State within partition borders and with a substantial Arab minority. But the lack of a quick and favourable resolution to the battle of the roads in February–March 1948, and the increasingly certain and ominous prospect of an invasion by the Arab states’ armies radically altered the military situation. Bases – i.e., villages – which were filled with irregulars, or had harboured irregulars, or which might do so in the immediate future, could no longer be tolerated in strategic areas (such as the Jerusalem Corridor, through which ran the road from Tel Aviv, the lifeline to the city’s besieged Jews).

The original operational order for Nahshon, issued on 4 or 5 April, had included no instructions to destroy villages in the Jerusalem Corridor. 22 But sometime during the second week of April, as a component of the in-principle decision to expel the hostile inhabitants in vital areas, Ben-Gurion and the HGS, prompted by the Battle of Mishmar Ha‘emek, agreed to, or initiated and ordered, the destruction of the conquered villages to assure that they would not again constitute a threat to the Yishuv. The second stage, follow-up order by Operation Nahshon HQ, dated 10 April, spoke of the conquest and destruction or ‘liquidation’ [hisul] of specific villages (while still refraining from a blanket order to demolish all conquered villages). 23 But on 14 April, Nahshon HQ issued guidelines to its units

to continue harrassing and cleansing operations as a first stage [i.e., preliminary] to the destruction and conquest of enemy forces and their bases . . . [We should deliver] strong blows against and blow up main enemy bases. 24"

"The destruction of the villages went to the heart of the political dilemma faced by Yishuv left-wingers, who believed in the possibility of, or at least hoped for, Jewish–Arab coexistence. Was the destruction dictated by military imperatives or was it, at least in part, politically motivated, with all the implications that this entailed, they asked. Already in early May, Mapam’s Aharon Cohen wrote that ‘a policy of eviction’ was being implemented. The Yishuv had insufficient troops to garrison every conquered village, so a policy had been adopted of ‘blowing up villages so that [Arabs] would not return’.42 On 10 May, Cohen completed a six-page memorandum entitled ‘Our Arab Policy in the Midst of the War’, which he circulated among Mapam Political Committee members in advance of the committees debate on the party’s Arab policy. He attacked what he saw as an emergent policy of transfer. He added:

The complete destruction of captured villages is not always carried out only because of ‘lack of sufficient forces to maintain a garrison’ or only so ‘that the gangs [i.e., irregulars] will not be able to return there’ so long as the war continues. 43

However, the assessment of Marxist Mapamniks, that the destruction of the villages was a main component of a politically motivated policy of transfer being implemented by the Haganah–Mapai leaders was probably a few weeks premature. Until June, it was perceived strategic–military necessity that underlay the Haganah’s destruction of the villages. There may have been local, isolated cases of destruction – in the Beit Shean Valley, in the northern Negev approaches and in the Sharon – where other reasons obtruded or were dominant: The desire to settle a score with aggressive neighbours or a wish to appropriate lands or a politically based desire to see as few Arabs as possible in the emergent Jewish State. Such considerations certainly guided some of the activities of Yosef Weitz’s circle over March–May 1948. 44 But primarily, until early June, the destruction of the villages was carried out by the Haganah with clear military motives – to deny bases and refuge to hostile irregulars and militiamen, to prevent a return of irregulars to strategic sites and to avoid the emergence of a Fifth Column in areas already cleared of Arabs."

"The mass exodus of April and early May 1948 and the imminence of the invasion focused Jewish minds wonderfully...The destruction of the villages became a major political enterprise. Henceforward, while on the local level the military continued to destroy villages for military reasons, major figures in the Yishuv sought the destruction of the villages with a primarily political rather than military objective in mind."

Weitz's Transfer Committee

"The thrust of this enterprise was to prevent a return; its principal guidelines were to mature in the Transfer Committee’s deliberations in late May and June 1948.

...The next day, 5 June, Weitz, armed with the committee’s proposal, ‘Retroactive Transfer, a Scheme for the Solution of the Arab Question in the State of Israel’, saw Ben-Gurion. One of the main recommendations was the destruction of the abandoned villages. 47 According to Weitz, Ben-Gurion agreed to the proposed policy, including the destruction of villages, the settlement of abandoned sites and the prevention of Arab cultivation of fields, though he had reservations about Weitz’s ‘temporary committee’ Nevertheless, Weitz informed the Prime Minister that he had ‘already given orders to begin here and there destroying villages and [Ben-Gurion] approved this. I left it at that’, Weitz recorded.48

The following day, 6 June, Weitz sent Ben-Gurion a list of the abandoned villages, and a covering note stating that at their meeting, Ben- Gurion had agreed to the start of the destruction operations: ‘In line with this, I have given an order to begin [these operations] in different parts of the Galilee, in the Beit Shean Valley, in the Hills of Ephraim and in Samaria [that is, the Hefer Valley].’ 49

There was no reply from Ben-Gurion, but, at this stage, Weitz was not deterred by the lack of formal authorisation"

"On 10 June, Weitz sent two officials, Asher Bobritzky and Moshe Berger, to tour the Coastal Plain to determine which empty villages should be destroyed and which renovated and settled with Jews. Berger’s activities were approved by and coordinated with the IDF. The same day, Zuckerman informed Weitz that he had made arrangements for the destruction of the village of al Mughar, which was to begin the next day. 51

On 13 June, Weitz travelled to the Jezreel and Beit Shean valleys, where he met with local leaders and IDF officers. He recorded that he found agreement to his programme of ‘destruction, renovation and settlement’. It can be assumed that he advised or ordered those he talked with to go ahead. 52 "

"Through June, Weitz pressed the national leadership to officially adopt his proposals and sanction the Transfer Committee. Ben-Gurion prevaricated. He was happy that the work was going ahead but could not, for a variety of reasons, bring himself to openly support the policy or Weitz’s activities. Weitz grew frustrated and wary. By the end of June, the wind had gone out of his self-appointed committee. ‘There are no tools and no materials’ with which to continue the work of demolition, he recorded. 56

But the problem went deeper. How could he and his committee take upon themselves such politically momentous actions without clear-cut endorsement from the political leadership? Weitz had nothing in writing. He got cold feet. Angry and frustrated, he at last gave orders to cease work. 57

Unknown to Weitz, word of his committee’s activities had quickly trickled out, generating anger and dissent on the Left; the army’s sepa- rate but complementary demolition activities in the villages were also noted. Opposition to the destruction quickly crystallised in Mapam and in the cabinet. The item ‘destruction of Arab villages’ – for discussion or response – appears on the Cabinet agenda on 16, 20, 23, 27 and 30 June. 58

Agriculture Minister Cisling spoke at length on 16 June. He differentiated between ‘destruction during battle’ – citing the case of Qastal – and destruction afterwards – citing the destruction of Beisan. Destruction during battle

is one thing. But [if a site is destroyed] a month later, in cold blood, out of political calculation . . . that is another thing altogether . . . This course [of destroying villages] will not reduce the number of Arabs who will return to the Land of Israel. It will [only] increase the number of [our] enemies."

"the destruction of the villages growingly encountered ‘economic’ opposition, spearheaded by Gwirtz: It made no sense in terms of the country’s economic problems and needs. Already on 26 May he wrote to HGS: ‘Groups of sappers are blowing up Arab houses, sometimes during conquest, and sometimes merely in exercises.’ Occasionally, military necessity may be the explanation. ‘But in many cases they destroy houses indiscriminately solely out of feelings of revenge, thus denying us the use of these buildings, which we need and will need.’ Gwirtz proposed that the army issue an order against blowing up buildings ‘not out of military necessity’ and consult his department about the demolitions in the course of exercises. In any case, things of value, such as machinery, should be first removed from buildings slated for destruction. 64

HGS responded by instructing all the brigades as follows:

1. The blowing up of Arab houses, if it is urgent and necessary for operational reasons, must be carried out immediately without taking into account other needs . . . 2. If the destruction is not urgent, [the troops] must try to remove from the houses destined for destruction the machinery (if there is any) or anything else . . . that can be of use to us. 3. It is prohibited to blow up Arab houses out of feelings of revenge. This harms us in several ways and mainly leads to a waste of explosives and [needless] destruction of property.

HGS instructed the troops to consult Gwirtz’s department when possible about destroying buildings during exercises. 65 A fortnight later, IDF-GS- HGS’s succesor issued a further order to curtail the ‘tendency to destroy Arab property, especially machinery and vehicles . . .’. Interestingly, the order failed to explicitly prohibit the destruction of houses. 66 The vandalisation and destruction of the villages continued."

"This cumulative pressure against the destruction of the villages and what some saw as a policy of expulsion resulted in the IDF-GS’s blanket order, at Ben-Gurion’s instruction, of 6 July, stating:

Outside of the actual time of combat, it is forbidden to destroy, burn and demolish Arab towns and villages [and] to expel Arab inhabitants . . . without special permission or an explicit instruction from the minister of defence in each case.70

By then, Weitz had suspended his destructive operations. He and his colleagues had accounted directly for only a handful of villages, and perhaps for a dozen more through ‘advice’ and ‘instructions’. But his continuous lobbying, arguments and actions had constituted a major factor in the crystallisation among the Yishuv’s leaders of the policy against a return, with a focus on the necessity of immediately destroying the empty villages (or alternatively filling them with Jewish settlers). Weitz, arguing clearly and acting with speed and determination, had shown the way.

Paradoxically, his activities had contributed to Ben-Gurion’s difficulties in implementing the Transfer Committee’s programme. The destruction of villages during or after conquest by the IDF could always be explained away on grounds of military necessity. Civilian critics, however august their positions, had difficulty in assailing the army’s motives and actions. Who was Cisling to say whether a local commander’s decision to destroy a certain village lacked military merit? But the simultaneous and similar activities of a shadowy, apparently unauthorised civilian group – clearly motivated by political considerations – placed a question mark beside the motives of the military when doing the same things."

Pressure against destruction

"IDF operational orders for the capture of towns and villages from July onwards only occasionally explicitly ordered the destruction of the sites (in contrast with the routinely ‘destructive’ operational orders from mid- April until mid-June). More often than not – as in the general directives for operations Dekel and Dani in July and operations Yoav and Hiram in October 71 – the subject was simply not addressed, and it was left to the discretion of field commanders to do as they wished, some obeying the 6 July directive and others disobeying it and destroying or expelling inhabitants apparently without Ben-Gurion’s prior agreement (though, let it be quickly stressed, no Israeli officer was ever punished for violating the 6 July prohibitions)."

"The continued pressure of the dissident ministers bore institutional fruit at the Cabinet meeting of 21 July. It was resolved that jurisdiction over the abandoned villages henceforward would reside with the Ministerial Committee for Abandoned Property, which had been set up earlier that month. But the committee was to prove, at least initially, something of a hollow reed. As Kaplan told his committee colleagues: ‘In practice, [the Finance Ministry and the Custodian for Abandoned Property] have no control over the situation, and the army does as it sees fit.’ Kaplan charged that his representative ‘was not even allowed [by the IDF] to enter occupied territory [so] how can he be responsible for property . . .?’ 74 Indeed, that summer, Ben-Gurion himself ‘ordered the General Staff to prepare a list of 109 villages recommended for destruction’. In the end, he approved the destruction of 76 of the sites.75

After the start of the Second Truce, on 19 July, IDF units continued to destroy villages in various parts of the country. But it had become increasingly difficult. A ministerial committee was now, at least formally, responsible for the villages. Moreover, when the guns were silent, as they were until mid-October, the argument of ‘military necessity’ sounded a bit hollow. Lastly, the growing influx of Jewish immigrants had begun to focus attention on housing needs and possibilities. The contradiction between destroying villages and preserving property for Jewish use quickly pushed itself to the fore. Even military units began to take note. In mid-August, for example, Golani Brigade HQ instructed its sub-units to stop burning ‘granaries with hay . . . in the [abandoned] Arab villages’ as these were needed by ‘the [Jewish] settlements’. 76 Special interest groups, such as archeologists, also began to complain, calling for curbs on IDF destructiveness. 77 Thus, on 7 October, Haifa District HQ ordered the 123rd Battalion to stop all demolition activities in ‘Qisarya [Caesarea], Atlit, Kafr Lam and Tiberias’; all contained Roman or Crusader ruins. 78

The IDF now occasionally felt compelled to apply to the ministerial committee for permission to destroy villages."

"On 13 September, Ben-Gurion asked the committee for permission to destroy a cluster of villages in the central area (though he said he was doing so on behalf of OC Central Front, General Ayalon). Ayalon, he said, had written to him that

because of a lack of manpower to occupy the area [in depth] . . . there was a need to partially destroy the following villages: 1. al Safiriya, 2. al Haditha 3. ‘Innaba, 4. Daniyal, 5. Jimzu, 6. Kafr ‘Ana, 7. al Yahudiya, 8. Barfiliya, 9. al Barriya, 10. al Qubab, 11. Beit Nabala, 12. Deir Sharif [should be Deir Tarif], 13. al Tira, 14. Qula.

Ben-Gurion feared opposition so instead of submitting the request to the full committee when it convened, he wrote to each member individually, asking that they respond in writing: ‘I will wait for your answer for three days . . . Lack of response will be regarded as consent.’ Cisling, used to the prime minister’s tricks, wrote back insisting that the committee be convened. 79 Ben-Gurion backed down and the demolitions were suspended. The committee decided that it would tour the sites and decide per each village – though it gave the IDF the go-ahead in relation to Deir Tarif, Qubab, Qula, and Beit Nabala ‘if [Ayalon] deems it urgent and necessary’.80

During 1948, Ben-Gurion consistently distanced himself in public from the destruction of villages as, more generally, from any linkage to the expulsion of Arabs. He was probably driven more by concern for his image in history and the image of the new State than by fears for coalition unity. Indeed, Ben-Gurion occasionally seems to have deliberately tried to put future historians off the scent. Thus on 27 October – a day filled with important happenings and meetings – he found time to insert in his diary the following: ‘Tonight our army entered Beit Jibrin [west of Hebron] . . . Yigal [Allon, OC Southern Front] asked [permission] to blow up some of the houses. I responded negatively.’ 81 Usually, however, he chose the path of omission. For example, his lengthy entry on the 18 August meeting on the question of a refugee return, in which several participants expatiated on the need to destroy the villages, simply omits any mention of the subject.82"

"Through the second half of 1948, the IDF, under Ben-Gurion’s tutelage, continued to destroy Arab villages, usually during or just after battle, occasionally, weeks and months after. The ministerial committee was not usually approached for permission. 85 The destruction stemmed from immediate military needs, as in Operation Dani, and from long-term political considerations."

"In the south, several kibbutzim took up the cause of the friendly village of Huj, protesting against the vandalisation of its houses. 95 Yitzhak Avira, an old-time HIS officer and member of Kibbutz Ashdot Ya‘akov, in the Jordan Valley, in late July protested against the destruction of the villages and policy toward the Arabs in general. He wrote Ezra Danin that

recently a view has come to prevail among us that the Arabs are nothing. ‘Every Arab is a murderer,’ ‘all of them should be slaughtered,’ ‘all the villages that are conquered should be burned’ . . . I . . . see a danger in the prevalence of an attitude that everything of theirs should be murdered, destroyed and made to vanish.

Danin answered:

War is complicated and lacking in sentimentality. If the commanders believe that by destruction, murder and human suffering they will reach their goal more quickly – I would not stand in their way. If we do not hurry up and do [things] – our enemies will do these things to us. 96

Some Mapam members in government service also tried to stem the tide of destruction. Moshe Erem, a member of the party’s Political Committee and a senior official in the Minority Affairs Ministry, tried to halt the destruction of some of the villages – ‘Innaba, al Barriya and Barfiliya – listed in September for demolition by General Ayalon. Erem understood the army’s desire to level the sites ‘to prevent infiltration’, but he regarded as ‘simplistic’ the assumption that ‘demolished villages would not attract refugees and would, therefore, reduce the influx of [Arab] refugees . . . It is the land rather than the buildings which attracts [them]’, he wrote. 97

But dissident kibbutzim and bureaucrats were the exception. The great majority of settlements and officials supported the destruction."

"The hand of Weitz and his Transfer Committee can be traced in the work of demolition some miles to the north. The following complaint reached Mapam’s leaders:

The destruction of the Arab villages has been going on for some months now. We are on the Syrian border and there is a danger that the Arabs will use [the villages] for military operations if they get a chance. But I spoke to a number of members from [Kibbutz] Ma‘ayan Baruch and nearby kibbutzim and I got the impression that there exists the possibility that there is a desire to destroy the villages and [the Arabs’] houses so that it will be impossible for the Arabs to return to them. A week ago a representative of the JNF [possibly Yosef Nahmani] came to visit. He saw that in the village of al Sanbariya . . . several houses were still standing, albeit without roofs. He told the secretariat of the kibbutz to destroy the houses immediately and he said openly that this will enable us to take the village’s lands, because the Arabs won’t be able to return there. I am sorry to say the kibbutz agreed immediately without thinking about what they were doing. 102

Through the summer and autumn of 1948, Weitz and his associates were active in dispensing this type of advice and instruction, indirectly carrying out the task they had abandoned at the end of June."

Renovation rather than destruction

"Over September–October, however, a gradual but important shift occurred in the views of executives charged with the fate of the villages. They began to think more in terms of renovation and Jewish settlement than destruction. Two major factors contributed. The first, clearly, was the growing awareness that the threat of a refugee return had diminished. The First and Second truces saw the IDF in control of firm front lines and in most areas able to bar significant infiltration. Politically, the Yishuv had for the moment staved off international pressures to allow a return. Secondly, the legal immigration of Jews into Israel, renewed with the lifting of the British naval blockade in May, began to assume mass proportions. By autumn 1948, it was clear that the country faced a major housing problem; it was necessary to salvage rather than destroy houses."

"From October–November, important officials – including supporters of transfer – began to battle openly against further demolitions. In late November, Weitz records, two of his officials, one of them Nahmani, complained that ‘the army continues to destroy villages in the Galilee, which we are interested in [settling]’. 104 Weitz himself, the following month, during a visit to Western Galilee, voiced apparent regret at some of the destruction. The village of Zib had been ‘completely levelled and I now wonder if it was good that it was destroyed and would it not have been a greater revenge had we now settled Jews in the village houses’. Weitz reflected that the empty houses were

good for the settlement of [our Jewish] brothers, who have wandered for generation upon generation, refugees . . . steeped in suffering and sorrow, as they, at last, find a roof over their heads . . . This was [the reason for] our war.105

In early November, Finance Minister Kaplan complained about the rumoured destruction of villages in the wake of the IDF conquest of upper central Galilee in Operation Hiram. ‘Every possibility of accommodating [immigrants] must be exploited and a general order must be issued to the army not to destroy houses without a reason.’ Some 20,000 immigrants, in need of housing, were living in tent camps, Kaplan complained. 106"

"During the rest of 1948, and through 1949 and the early 1950s, the destruction of abandoned sites, usually already partially demolished, continued. By then, the threat of a return had disappeared and the destruction was part of the process of clearing areas and renovating houses for Jewish cultivation or habitation rather than directed against would-be returnees.

The exact chronology and quantification of the amount of destruction of each village in the course of 1948 and during the following years is impossible to trace. Nor is it possible accurately to quantify and distinguish between the amounts of destruction for strictly military reasons, from political motives or for economic reasons, especially as much of the destruction resulted from a combination of reasons and the protagonists involved were variously motivated. 117"

Takeover and allocation of abandoned lands, 1948 - 1949

"A question related to, but distinct from, the problem of destroying or renovating the villages was the fate of the abandoned lands. Ben-Gurion provided an early clue to his attitude in an address to the Mapai Council on 7 February. He spoke of the need for a substantial Jewish presence in the Jerusalem Corridor. Someone interjected: ‘We have no [Jewish- owned] land there.’ Ben-Gurion: ‘The war will give us the land. The concepts of “ours” and “not ours” are only concepts for peacetime, and during war they lose their meaning.’ 118

In a similar vein, he asked Weitz whether the JNF was ready to buy ‘from him’ land at P£25 a dunam. Weitz replied: ‘If the land is Arab [-owned] and we will receive the deed of property and possession then we will buy. Then he [i.e., Ben-Gurion] laughed and said: Deed of property – no, possession – yes.’ The next day, Weitz and Granovsky lunched with Ben-Gurion, who restated his

plan . . . Our army will conquer the Negev, will take the land into its hands and will sell it to the JNF at P£ 20–25 per dunam. And there is a source . . . of millions [of pounds]. Granovsky responded jokingly that we are not living in the Middle Ages and the army does not steal land. After the war the beduins [of the Negev] will return to their place – if they leave at all – and will get [back] their land. 119

A week later, Ben-Gurion suggested to Weitz that he divest himself of ‘conventional notions . . . In the Negev we will not buy land. We will conquer it. You are forgetting that we are at war.’ "

"The Jewish takeover of Arab lands began with the ad hoc, more or less spontaneous reaping of crops in abandoned fields by settlers in the spring of 1948. The summer crop ripened first in the Negev, and it was here that Jewish harvesting of Arab fields began. On 21 March, in the first documented incident of its kind, kibbutzniks from Kfar Darom, near Gaza, reportedly began reaping wheat adjacent to their own fields. Arab militiamen retaliated by firing on the settlement and British troops intervened, ordering the Arabs to cease firing and the Jews ‘to stop reaping the grass’. 121

Weitz, as chairman of the Negev Committee the de facto administrator of the Negev, linked Jewish harvesting of Arab fields to Jewish claims for war damages. He wrote to Nahum Sarig, OC Negev Brigade, which guarded the Negev settlements and the roads and water pipeline between them, that

until a [national level] decision was taken regarding the Arab wheat crop in the area – the committee believes that our settlements in the Negev, whose fields were destroyed by their Arab neighbours, will receive compensation by [way of] reaping the fields of the saboteurs to the [same] extent that their own fields were damaged. 122

Sarig thought otherwise. On 8 May he informed the kibbutzim in his jurisdiction that ‘all the crops reaped by the settlements will remain the property of the [Brigade] HQ and the settlements have no right to use them’.

As the summer crop ripened and as the exodus gained momentum, Jewish harvesting of Arab fields spread to other parts of the coun- try. During late April and early May, as requests from settlements and regional councils to harvest abandoned fields poured into the Arab Property Committee, Gwirtz began to organise the cultivation. In coordination with the settlements block committees, he allocated the fields to the settlements. Gwirtz’s committee regarded the abandoned crop as State property and sold the right to reap it to farmers and settlements. The embryonic State needed the money as well as the extra grain. The reaping was ‘crucial to the war effort’, wrote Gwirtz. 123"

"Not everywhere were things so well organised. Many settlements, without institutional authorisation or permission, took the initiative and harvested abandoned fields – and avoided payment to the government. In June and July, Gwirtz sent out a spate of angry notes to settlements, demanding that they conclude agreements with his department. ‘I heard with bewilderment and sorrow,’ he wrote to Kibbutz Ma‘ayan Zvi, ‘that [your] members . . . are stealing vegetables in the eastern fields of Tantura. Don’t your members have a more honourable way to spend their time . . .?’ 125 Gwirtz regarded such unauthorised harvesting as part of the widespread looting of Arab property. And, inevitably, disputes broke out between settlements over the right to cultivate specific abandoned fields.126

By the beginning of July, the reaping of the summer crop in the abandoned fields was nearing completion. Several objectives were achieved, according to Gwirtz: ‘(A) We added 6–7,000 tons of grain to the Yishuv’s economy. (B) We denied them to those fighting against us. (C) We earned more than I£ 100,000 for the Treasury.’ 127

During May, the organised reaping of the abandoned fields dovetailed with the emergent Haganah strategy of preventing Arabs from reaping and of destroying Arab fields that, for military or logistical reasons, could not be harvested by Jewish farmers. While before May, burning Arab crops was mainly a Haganah means of retaliation for Arab attacks, during May–June the destruction of the fields hardened into a set policy designed to demoralise the villagers, hurt them economically and, perhaps, precipitate their exodus. Certainly, it served to sever the fellah physically and psychologically from his land. The prevention of Arab harvesting, especially near the front lines, was seen by the Yishuv’s leaders as one element in the battle against a refugee return. The IDF\GS repeatedly ordered the brigades to prevent Arab harvesting with light arms fire. The burning of Arab fields inaccessible to Jewish cultivation and the prevention of Arab harvesting continued around the country through 1948. 128"

"The concept of ‘compensation’ for war damage offered a morally ‘soft’ entry point to acquiring abandoned lands. Kibbutz Mishmar Hasharon, in the Coastal Plain, wrote twice to the Arab Property Committee listing the war damage it had suffered at Arab hands (3,400 dunams of wheat and barley burned), requesting compensation. The kibbutz pointedly referred in this connection to 400 dunams of Arab land between Kfar Yona and Ge’ulim and another 80 dunams near Shuweiqa, implying a desire for more than temporary possession. 129

The line between requesting the right of (temporary) cultivation and requesting permanent possession of a tract of land was almost imperceptibly crossed during May. A request from one settlement rapidly triggered requests from neighbouring settlements, prompted perhaps by a natural instinct to follow suit or fear of being left out by the land-dispensing institutions. Thus, for example, Kibbutz Sdeh Nehemia (Huliyot), in the Hula Valley, objecting to a land-allocation proposal they had seen, wrote to Harzfeld asking, somewhat shamefacedly, for 1,700 dunams of the lands of al ‘Abisiyya. 130

While some settlements in spring 1948 were already inching towards the idea of permanent acquisition, the thrust of individual requests and institutional activity over April–June was ad hoc and hand to mouth – to reap the largely abandoned summer crop so that it would not go to waste. This done, the settlements and agricultural institutions began to look to the future. The question of what was to happen to the abandoned lands was inexorably linked to the wider, political question – of a refugee return. A decision against a return would facilitate permanent possession.

The cultivation of the abandoned tracts over the summer built up and reinforced resistance to a refugee return. The farmers grew attached to ‘their’ new lands. The settlements delighted in the newly won expanses for economic reasons; and they relished the sense of security engendered by the permanent departure of their often belligerent neighbours. The settlers emerged as a powerful interest group in the struggle against a return."

"But, as Gwirtz pointed out, there was as yet no legal basis for such transfers. 133 On 30 June, the Provisional Government had issued Emergency Regulations (Cultivation of Abandoned Lands) empowering itself to declare any depopulated conquered Arab area ‘abandoned’. The government could then impose any ‘existing law’ on the area or ‘regu- late regulations as [it] sees fit’, including ‘confiscation of property’. 134 But the ordinance, according to legal experts, while covering ‘confiscation’ of property, failed to relate to leasing. During the following months, the Ministerial Committee for Abandoned Property and the justice and agriculture ministries hammered out the appropriate legal measure, opting in the end for an administrative order rather than legislation. The ‘Emergency Regulations Relating to Absentees Property’ were pub-ished by the government on 12 December, giving the Agriculture Ministry control or possession (khazaka) of the lands. 135 The insufficiency of the regulations, and the possible illegality of some of the operations being carried out in their name, drew strong criticism, culminating in the detailed analysis of 18 March 1949 by the Prime Minister’s Adviser on Land Affairs, Zalman Lifshitz.136 Legal deliberations on these matters dragged on until the passage in 1950 of the Absentees Property Law."

"Through August–September, the authorities were flooded with leasing requests. Given the novelty of the enterprise and of the new State’s bureaucratic machinery, the settlements often did not know which was the right body to turn to; on occasion, neither did the institutions involved. 142

The ad hoc, often spontaneous harvesting of the abandoned crops of spring and early summer of 1948 had within weeks led to feelings – on both the national and local levels – of acquisitiveness. Land long coveted before the war had become land temporarily cultivated. Temporary cultivation led to a desire for permanent possession. The agricultural cycle itself reinforced the drift of political and demographic change. The harvesting of the summer crop left the fields ready for sowing the winter crop, but this meant large-scale investment of funds and workdays – which made sense only if harvesting the winter crop was assured. Such assurance – to the extent that there can be any certainties in wartime – could be vouchsafed only by long-term leasing. (Almost all agricultural land in the pre-1948 Yishuv was leased out by the JNF to the settlements for 49 or 99 years.) The one-year leases of autumn 1948 were a way-station on the road to such long-term leases and to the ‘equalisation’ of the status of the abandoned lands with pre-1948 JNF lands."

"By the start of 1949, the first wave of leasing was over. By mid- March, some 680,000 dunams had been leased to settlements and farmers in the Galilee, Jezreel Valley, Samaria, Judea and the northern Negev approaches, of which about 280,000 had been sown with winter crops. 149

However, the leasing mechanism was cumbersome and legally and politically problematic; the confiscation and allocation of Arab-owned lands, some of them in territory earmarked by the UN for Palestinian Arab sovereignty, was probably inconsistent with international law. The December 1948 Absentees Property Regulations cleared away the obstacles to a more efficient arrangement, one which had been on Ben- Gurion’s mind since February. Why should the State not sell the land to the JNF, which would lease it out to the settlements? The State would thus earn a large sum of money and be divested of the complex and politically irksome management of the abandoned lands.

It is possible that Ben-Gurion was also affected by the 11 December 1948 passage in the UN General Assembly of Resolution 194, which effectively endorsed the refugees’ ‘right of return’, if they so wished, and, at the same time, established the Palestine Conciliation Commission (PCC), empowered to mediate and facilitate peace between Israel and the Arabs, a settlement that might include a refugee return. The resolution thus threatened, at least in theory, to impose or usher in a refugee return, which may have helped persuade Ben-Gurion to speed up the settlement of the abandoned villages and lands. 150 On 18 December, Ben-Gurion informed Weitz that the government had decided to sell the JNF a million dunams at cheap prices; it would use the money to establish new settlements. 151 Three days later, Ben-Gurion broached the idea more formally over lunch with Weitz, Granovsky, Kaplan and Eshkol: The JNF would buy from the state one million dunams, paying I£10 per dunam on account. If Israel ended up paying the Arab owners more than this in compensation, the JNF would pay the state another I£20 per dunam. The JNF representatives questioned the legality of the deal. Ben-Gurion responded that they had to stop thinking in ‘pre-State’ terms. The diners reached agreement in principle. 152 On 27 January 1949, Ben-Gurion and Kaplan summarised the terms 153 and, the following day a letter from Ben-Gurion and Kaplan informed Weitz of the implementation of the sale. The JNF proceeded to lease out the land, mostly for new settlements. 154"

Establishment of new settlements., 1948 - 1949

"There were 279 Jewish settlements in Palestine on 29 November 1947. Mapai’s settlement experts – ‘the Committee for Settlement and Irrigation Matters’ – met during December and January 1948 to hammer out a plan for agricultural settlement and development in the emergent Jewish State. On 17 February 1948 the committee presented the party’s Central Committee with a plan for 1949–1951 based on the purchase, from Arabs, of 320,000 dunams of land and the establishment of 162 new settlements geared to securing the new State’s northern borders and developing the arid south. It was assumed that Arabs would sell the JNF land and that the modernisation of agriculture among the Israeli Arabs would enable more Arabs to subsist on less land; everybody would benefit. 158"

"About 135 new settlements were established between the start of the hostilities in November 1947 and the end of August 1949; 112 of them had gone up by June – 51 in the north (between Ijzim and the Lebanese border), 27 in the south and 34 in the coastal plain and Jerusalem Corridor. 159 Most were established on Arab-owned land and dozens were established on territory earmarked by the UN partition resolution for the Palestine Arab State."

"In the successive partition plans, the presence of clusters of settlements determined what would constitute the areas of future Jewish statehood. Settlements ultimately meant sovereignty. Each new settlement or cluster staked out a claim to a new area. Linked to this was their military–strategic value and staying power; over the decades the settlements stymied marauders and irregulars.

Nothing demonstrated the settlements’ political import and military significance more than the partition resolution and the subsequent months of hostilities. The partition plan largely followed the pattern of settlement/population distribution around Palestine. Areas with no, or practically no, Jewish settlements (except for the Negev) were automatically assigned to Arab sovereignty. In the first months of the fighting, the areas of Jewish strength and control overlapped the areas of concentrated settlement."

"But as the hostilities turned into full-scale war, attitudes in the Yishuv to the partition resolution and settlement changed. The partition plan was a peacetime solution to the Palestine problem; the war undermined its ‘sanctity’"

"Ben-Gurion had outlined two major characteristics of the settlement drive of the following months: Settlement of the abandoned villages and settlement in areas thinly populated by Jews (Western Galilee, Upper Galilee, the Jerusalem Corridor). 164 Indeed, Ben-Gurion argued that real victory was contingent on the settlement drive:

We will not be able to win the war if we do not, during the war, populate Upper and Lower, Eastern and Western Galilee, the Negev and the Jerusalem area, even if only in an artificial way, in a military way."

"But Shaham was already formulating a far more ambitious plan, covering 82 sites, with the aim of ‘consolidating our borders’. His plan was 'based on the partition proposal with appropriate changes to determine borders more comfortable for the defence of the Jewish State, alongside the changes that have occurred as a result of our military activity and the flight of the Arab population . . .’ He ruled that ‘there was a necessity and unrepeatable opportunity in the near future to determine facts on the ground which any political solution in the future will not be able to ignore. Making these faits accomplis will have a major influence in facilitating our military actions and consolidating our conquests.’ The war, he stressed, had opened up a new method of acquiring land – not, as previously, by purchase but ‘through military conquest’. The aim of the planned settlement enterprise, he wrote, was to ‘create borders’ according to the partition resolution but also to ‘correct them in line with strategic needs’ and ‘the inclusion [in the State] of settlement blocks left outside the State area’; and ‘the opening of a permanent, safe road and . . . corridor to Jerusalem’. Most of the settlements were to be established on Jewish-owned land but settlements were also to be established on German-owned, State and Arab-owned lands. 182 In planning these settlement ventures, officials were already thinking in terms of the expected mass influx of immigrants. As Haim Gvati, of the Agricultural Centre, put it:

The establishment of the state and the opening of the gates to large immigration in the not distant future obliges us to plan for agricultural settlement with momentum and with a scope which we never anticipated until now. 183

But the Yishuv lacked the wherewithal and energy to embark on these giant settlement projects as independence and the pan-Arab invasion loomed. 184 Moreover, as with expulsions and the destruction of villages, criticism of the planned settlement drive quickly surfaced. Mapam’s Ya‘akov Hazan warned against settling on lands owned by fellahin (though he agreed to settlement on effendi-owned land). Other Mapam leaders were more critical. ‘Should we [really] use this moment of opportunity when the Arabs have fled in order to create settlement facts?’ asked party stalwart Ya‘akov Amit. 185"

"The advent in mid-June of the First Truce galvanised the settlement lobbyists and executives: At last, some of the Yishuv’s resources could be diverted from war-making. Moreover, the ceasefire raised the prospect of Arab infiltration back to the villages; the establishment of settlements would help neutralize the danger. (As described in chapter 5, this was the line used by Weitz with Ben-Gurion, and by the Safad Jewish community notables, Ephraim Vizhensky and other local leaders with anyone who would listen.) Ben-Gurion was in favour. But he stressed that, unlike in the past, this settlement enterprise – which must be carried out quickly and massively – should not be accompanied by publicity: ‘The damage [that could be caused by publicity] outweighs the possible gains . . . This time we must maintain silence.’ 186"

"Most were established on Jewish- owned land but, from the start, also contained abandoned Arab land.

...Five new settlements went up in July, all on Jewish-owned lands and within the partition borders. 191 But pressure was building for settlement on Arab-owned lands within and beyond the partition lines. The IDF victories in mid-July contributed by adding territory outside the partition borders that, to be retained, it was felt, would quickly have to be settled. 192"

"On 28 July, Weitz, Harzfeld and Horin presented Ben-Gurion with a revised plan (new conquests necessitated upgrading old plans), calling for the establishment of 21 settlements mostly on Arab-owned lands in the Corridor, the Lydda–Ramle area and Western Galilee. 196 Weitz explained the plan to the JNF directorate on 16 August. Granovsky, performing a volte face, highlighted the plan’s ‘strategic-political’ importance. He stressed that the Yishuv would only expropriate some Arab land, so-called ‘surplus’ land. The rest, ‘with their houses and trees,’ would be left untouched and set aside for the fellahin and tenant farmers ‘for when they return’. Then the Yishuv would pay the returnees for the expropriated land and help the Arabs modernize and shift from ‘extensive’ to ‘intensive’ agriculture so that less land would produce more crops.197

Mapam’s leaders had adopted the ‘surplus lands’ formula – first worked out and enunciated by Weitz in January 198 – in July. In mid-July, Cisling had spoken of the need for ‘development’ schemes that would enable the Arabs to return. Haim Kafri, a local Mapam figure from the Hefer Valley, a fortnight later explained that through ‘agrarian reform’ and ‘intensification’ of cultivation, it was possible both to set aside tracts from the abandoned lands for the Arabs to return to and to embark, at the same time, on a ‘giant’ Jewish settlement drive. 199

The ‘21-settlement’ plan forced Mapam to face the ideological problem of settlement on Arab-owned land and on land earmarked for Arab sovereignty. The party supported continued Jewish–Arab co-existence and the return of the refugees. But the kibbutzim, of both the party’s Hashomer Hatza‘ir and Ahdut Ha‘avodah wings, favoured the establishment of new settlements and the expansion of existing ones as well as expanding Jewish agriculture. On both local and national levels, the establishment of new settlements, both inside and outside the partition borders, was seen as serving security and strategic interests. The ‘surplus lands’ formula pointed the way to both having one’s cake and eating it: Strategic and agricultural-territorial interests could be safeguarded while at the same time lands could be set aside for a possible refugee return. In any case, the Arabs were to be compensated for the lands expropriated. Hence, it was to be ‘development for the benefit of both peoples’, as Hazan described it; or, ‘we must fight for development and against eviction [of Arabs]’, said party co-leader Ya‘ari. Mapam had found a formula that seemed to marry strategic and economic expediency with principle. 200"

"During the first weeks of August, Eshel and Ben-Gurion engineered a major change in the ‘21-settlement’ plan, pressing the need for a block of new settlements in the south. 201

...Some of the proposed sites, such as ‘Eilabun, were not yet in Israeli hands. Almost all were aptly described as ‘strategic sites’ as they were located along the front lines established in late summer 1948 opposite the Jordanian, Egyptian and Lebanese armies. All but five lay outside the partition borders...According to Kaplan, the settlements were primarily designed to secure the road to Jerusalem and to enhance Israel’s grip on Western Galilee. Shitrit thought the plan involved no ‘wrong-doing’ as the original landowners were to be compensated. Cisling supported the plan for ‘security’ reasons and reiterated the ‘surplus lands’ formula.202"

"The political shift from the new settlement ventures of June–July to those planned in August is clear: The midsummer settlements had been established mainly on Jewish-owned land and within the partition plan borders; those established in August...were mostly on non-Jewish-owned land but inside the partition state borders; and those planned in August for the following weeks and months were almost all outside the partition borders and almost completely based on expropriation of Arab- and German-owned land.204 Most of the 32 settlements fortified Israel’s new borders and staked out claims to the newly conquered areas of Western Galilee, the Jerusalem Corridor and the Lydda–Ramle district."

Linking new settlements to barring a return

"During the following months, attitudes against a return hardened. The ‘surplus lands’ concept provided a smokescreen behind which those who opposed a return – Ben-Gurion, Sharett, Weitz and many in Mapam – were able, without disturbing the national consensus, to implement a settlement policy whose effect (and, in part, purpose) was to bar any possibility of a return. This was understood in Mapam, where Ya‘ari acknowledged that if the implementation was in the hands of the anti-return majority, then the ‘surplus lands’ concept was all so much hot air. ‘They want to sweep under the carpet the problem of the return . . . by [espousing] theories of planning and development’, he said. 208 Mapam’s posture, or postures, remained clear: Theoretically, the party was troubled and divided; in practice, it was as forward as any in participating in the settlement drive, on Arab-owned lands and within and outside the partition borders. As Kibbutz Artzi member Shlomo Rosen put it: ‘We have no choice; we must contribute our share towards the defensive settlement along the borders, despite our doubts about the intentions of those at the helm . . .’ 209"

"Then at the Committee of Directorates of the National Institutions on 3 and 10 December, Kaplan and, apparently, Cisling opposed the plan’s provision for settlement on the village sites (some of which were still inhabited), and Kaplan reiterated the need to set aside a ‘territorial reserve’ for returning Arabs. Weitz, annoyed, commented: ‘Many of the ministers were worrying more about [re-]settling the Arabs than settling the Jews.’ Weitz feared that, if there was a delay in implementation, ‘many Arab will manage to infiltrate back to their villages’. Nonetheless, the plan was halved and on 7 December the JNF directorate endorsed the establishment of 41 settlements – and with the stipulation that lands be set aside for returnees. The plan, ‘with qualifications’, was then approved by the Committee of Directorates 218 and, on 17 December, by the Ministerial Committee for Abandoned Property, which ruled that land should be left for returning Arabs and that settlement on actual village sites should be avoided, unless security considerations dictated otherwise. A strip 8–10 kilometres deep along all the borders was to be exempted from these stipulations.219"

"What occurred during September–December 1948 was a complex dialectic between the demands of existing settlements for more land and the State’s need to establish new settlements along its borders and fill the empty interior areas for reasons of immigrant absorption, security and border-determination; the available resources of a society at war; the thrust and parry of party political considerations; criticism and potential criticism of Israeli policies by the outside world; and a variety of contradictory ideological imperatives. But the bottom line, as it were, comes through starkly in a conversation between Yosef Weitz and Ben- Gurion – the ultimate fount of authority and policy – on 18 December. Weitz asked whether, in planning settlements, ‘surplus land’ should still be set aside for a return. Ben-Gurion replied: ‘Not along the borders, and in each village we will take everything, as per our settlement needs. We will not let the Arabs back.’ 220 In the end, the months of moralising breast-beating about ‘surplus lands’ amounted to no more than a hill of beans."

"But, ideological debates aside, few of the settlements were established on actual village sites; the original infrastructure – houses, roads and pavements, waterworks – was deemed inadequate. It proved easier to simply level the villages and build completely new settlements on the site or nearby"

Absorption and settlement of new immigrants, 1948 - early 1949

"Almost all the settlements established during 1948 were founded by pioneering youth groups (gar‘inim) drawn from the socialist youth movements of Palestine or their affiliates in the Diaspora

...Most of the settlements established in 1949 were something else al- together. To be sure, several dozen new kibbutzim were founded. But the old Yishuv’s human resources for further pioneering settlement had been almost exhausted by the settlement enterprise of 1948, war losses and the needs of the State bureaucracies for high-calibre personnel. The bulk of the settlers of 1949 were ‘olim, who poured into the country from May 1948. (One hundred and forty-three thousand ‘olim arrived between 14 May 1948 and 9 February 1949; 229 some 700,000 arrived between May 1948 and December 1951.) There was mutuality and reciprocity in the process: The state needed to fill the empty villages; and the im- migrants needed a roof over their heads and work – with agriculture, for which not all were qualified, requiring the least investment and offering the most immediate prospects of a return. Ben-Gurion, as we have seen, was also keen on dispersing the (Jewish) population; his experience in London during the Blitz had persuaded him of the vulnerability of heavily populated urban hubs. And, of course, agriculture had to be expanded to feed the rapidly growing population. The bulk of the sites in the 41-settlement plan, like the overwhelming majority of all the sites settled in I949, were filled with new immigrants – from Europe, survivors of Hitler’s death camps, and from the Middle East and North Africa"

"In February 1948, the immigration absorption authorities anticipated that the first wave of immigrants, ending in September–October 1949, would consist of some 150,000. They believed that this would necessitate ‘the construction of more than 60,000 rooms’; they were thinking, at this time, of ‘construction’ rather than conquest and confiscation of Arab housing. 230 But the projections fell short of reality: By autumn 1949, more than 200,000 had arrived. "

Absorption and settlement of new immigrants:Jaffa

"Laniado summoned Jaffa’s Arab Emergency Committee to inform them of the settlement plans. He argued that there were ‘many empty flats in Jaffa . . . [and] we need to settle families in them . . . From the humane perspective we cannot leave [Jewish] people homeless and leave an unlimited number of flats [in Jaffa] empty.’ Laniado asked the notables for their cooperation. The notables asked whether the settlement enterprise would result in ‘the transfer of [Arab] families from place to place’. Laniado responded:

To be sure there would be special areas for Jews and [special] areas for Arabs and there would have to be transfers but we would make sure that the transfers would be carried out in line with their advice taking account of the number of persons, the type of family, etc. 256

The following day the notables returned and ‘energetically voiced their opposition to any sort of [Jewish] settlement [in Jaffa]’. Laniado said that the order was irrevocable but assured them that the Arabs moved would receive accommodation at least as good as what they were losing and in any case, as a result of the transfer, would end up living with their own people. 257

The Israeli officials spent the following fortnight planning the concentration of the remaining Arabs in part of the ‘Ajami neighbourhood and the settlement of immigrants in the rest of the town. The concentration of the Arab families was carried out during the second and third weeks of August. 258

The operation caused waves. Erem, head of the Minority Affairs Ministry’s Department for Promotion and Ordering of Relations between the Jews and the Minorities, complained to Shitrit that a barbed wire fence was going to be set up between the Arab area and the surrounding, soon- to-be Jewish, neighbourhoods, creating a ‘ghetto, raising among us many awful associations’; and access from the Arab area to the sea was to be barred ‘for security reasons’. Erem argued that Israel was ‘planting poisonous seeds, unnecessarily and without cause or purpose’. 259

Shitrit went to Jaffa to discuss the town’s affairs with Laniado and the Arab notables. The latter ‘complained bitterly’ about the concentration and house-transfer plans. The minister responded that it was a security matter but that the transferees would be properly accommodated. ‘I succeeded in persuading them’, he informed Ben-Gurion. He added that some houses must be held in reserve for (extraordinary) refugees who would be allowed back and that a few ‘old people, notables and those favoured’ would be allowed to remain in homes outside the concentration area. Shitrit explained that these people had said they would rather die than be moved to live in

company that, though Arab, was undesirable to them, as the vast majority of those who had remained in Jaffa were from among the poor, among whom were Egyptians whose hygienic conditions [i.e., habits] were very poor . . . 260

By 12 August, about 50 Arab families had been moved to the concentration area or moved about within it, and about 800 Jewish – mostly immigrant – families had been settled in the town, overwhelmingly in Manshiya and the German Colony. 261 Another 150 Arab families were moved into the concentration area during the following days. Many of the families were happy with the transfer as they ended up with better housing, wrote Laniado.262

But 11 families that remained outside the concentration area, in the Jewish or soon-to-be Jewish areas, remained a problem. IDF Tel Aviv District demanded that they too be moved. Shitrit (successfully) resisted this, saying that he had given them his word. 263"

Absorption and settlement of new immigrants:Conflict between army and immigrants

"The start of massive Jewish settlement was delayed by the need to concentrate the Arabs and by poor infrastructure; many of the houses needed renovation. It was additionally plagued by a three-way struggle over the allocation of the housing – between the Immigration Ministry, representing the needs of the new immigrants; the defence establishment, which sought housing for soldiers’ families and military units, and other government agencies; and private individuals, some of them soldiers and soldiers’ relatives, who sought to take over flats and houses for personal use or gain. The struggle, which was reproduced in Jerusalem and Haifa, resulted in a great deal of confusion; in Jaffa, for months, the situation bordered on anarchy.

The immigrants’ needs were pressing; but the army believed that its needs took precedence and should be met first. 264 It reserved ‘400’ housing units and then another ‘900’ for soldiers and their families and for the use of military units.265 But during the first week of August, impatient ‘olim, uncomfortably quartered in schools and other public buildings, spontaneously began to ‘invade’ and seize apartments in Jaffa. Soldiers who had been promised housing became worried, but Dov Shafrir, the Custodian for Absentees’ Property, insisted that they wait until the flats could be allocated in an orderly fashion, after renovation. By contrast, the Absorption Ministry encouraged ‘olim to take over flats, including in areas reserved for soldiers’ families, and on 1 September ministry officials organised a veritable ‘invasion’ by hundreds of ‘olim of houses earmarked for troops and their families. 266 Immigrant families received Immigration Ministry permits to take over specific apartments. ‘Akiva Persitz, the Defence Ministry official in charge of requisitioning Arab property, saw ‘people dragging objects in carts from place to place’. 267 He immediately set in motion, not quite inadvertently, a ‘counter-invasion’ by soldiers’ families in the Jibalya neighbourhood. On 8–10, September Naval and 34th Battalion units moved into the ‘Ajami ‘ghetto’ area and seized apartments; the Second Truce (19 July–15 October) had freed many soldiers from front line duties. Officers feared clashes between the various units. 268 The 8th Brigade also sent in troops – ‘with full webbing accompanied by armoured cars and signals [equipment], as is customary in embarking on any military operation’ – to guard houses against ‘invasion’ by immigrants and to safeguard houses for its own soldiers’ families. One officer intervened and persuaded the troops to take off their helmets and dispense with the armoured cars.

Troops appear to have intermittently fired into the air to frighten off invasive immigrants and rival units and into nearby cemeteries, damaging ‘crosses and tombstones’. 269 Meanwhile, soldiers’ families promised housing began to move into apartments, some without proper authorisation. Disputes erupted between these families and soldiers assigned to guard buildings against ‘invaders’, of whatever ilk. An officer trying to sort things out was beaten by a fellow officer whose family had moved into a flat.270 Shafrir demanded that Yoseftal order the ‘olim to move out271 and complained to the Cabinet that the Immigration Ministry had launched the settlement drive ‘without our knowledge and behind our back’. 272

The upshot was that IDF CGS Dori ordered an internal investigation of the military’s part in the affair while government and JA officials tried to hammer out an equitable shareout of the real estate. IDF Adjutant General Hoter-Ishai presented his findings on 15 and 17 September, in two reports. 273 But even before these were in, Ben-Gurion condemned the troops’ ‘running wild [hishtolelut] and abuse of weapons and power’ and called for ‘severe’ and ‘maximal punishment (by which I mean a reduction in rank to private and imprisonment)’ of the culprits. 274 Mean- while, on 12 September the officials agreed to turn back the clock to the pre-‘invasion’ share-out arrangements.275 The army was ordered to clear Jaffa, quarter by quarter, of all the ‘invaders’ and ‘counter-invaders’ and then to redistribute and resettle the soldiers, immigrants and officials in line with the agreed quotas.276 Dori, for his part, ordered the trial and punishment of a number of officers, including the deputy OC of the 8th Brigade’s 89th Battalion.277

But while some sort of order was restored, ‘invasions’ by troops, soldiers’ families and immigrants continued for months; neither Ben- Gurion’s anger, nor investigations, nor interdepartmental agreements seemed to help.

...Jaffa was thus anarchically settled by ‘invasions and counter- invasions’ by immigrants, soldiers and others, summarised a disgusted Shafrir in March 1949. Occasionally, ‘invaders’ roughly evicted Arabs and at least some houses went to veteran Israelis with the right connections. 286 In April–August 1950, Jaffa ceased to exist as a separate municipal entity and Tel Aviv officially changed its name to ‘Tel Aviv-Jaffa’.287"

Absorption and settlement of new immigrants

"Frontier demarcation considerations played a role in Israeli decision- making concerning settlement in Jerusalem’s neighbourhoods. In mid- March 1949, the military governor of Jewish Jerusalem, Colonel Moshe Dayan, demanded that ‘civilians’ be settled immediately in the southern neighbourhoods of Talpiyot, Ramat Rachel (a war-ravaged kibbutz, on the southern edge of the city) and Abu Tor because if a United Nations-chaired mixed armistice commission team visited the neighbourhoods ‘and finds [them] empty of civilians, there will be United Nations pressure [on us] to evacuate the area’. 325"

"During the summer of 1949, several hundred ‘olim from Eastern Europe were settled in Deir Yassin, despite a protest to Ben-Gurion by several leading intellectuals, including Martin Buber and ‘Akiva Ernst Simon. They wrote that while aware of the suffering of the ‘olim and of their need for housing, they did not think that Deir Yassin was

the appropriate place . . . The Deir Yassin episode is a black stain on the honour of the Jewish people . . . It is better for the time being to leave the land of Deir Yassin uncultivated and the houses of Deir Yassin unoccupied, rather than to carry out an action whose symbolic importance vastly outweighs its practical benefit. The settlement of Deir Yassin, if carried out a mere year after the crime, and within the regular settlement framework, will constitute something like . . . approbation of the slaughter.

The intellectuals asked that the village be left empty and desolate, as ‘a terrible and tragic symbol . . . and a warning sign to our people that no practical or military necessity will ever justify such terrible murders from which the nation does not want to benefit’. Ben-Gurion failed to reply, despite reminders, and ‘Givat Shaul Bet’, as it came to be called, was duly established on the site, with several Cabinet ministers, the two chief rabbis and Jerusalem’s mayor attending the dedication ceremony. 327"

"In April 1949, Yoseftal reported that of ‘190,000’ ‘olim who had arrived since the establishment of the State, 110,000 had been settled in abandoned Arab houses. Most had been settled in the former Arab neighbourhoods of Jaffa and the mixed towns; 16,000 had been settled in towns (Ramle, Lydda, Acre); and 18,800 in the abandoned villages. 337 By May, the number of ‘olim settled in abandoned villages had risen to 25,000. 338"

Chapter 7: The Third Wave: the ten days (9-18 July) and the Second Truce (18 - July - 15 October)