JaapBoBo

Hi,

A novel by Leon Uris fooled me into thinking that the Palestinian refugee problem was the result of voluntary flight. Later, when I discovered the truth about it, I was quite angry. After reading some academic books on the subject I started making contributions on it on wikipedia. After some time my expertise became so good that I tried to write a criticism of Benny Morris' "The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited". This was easy, but getting it published was not. However, after changing it into a new perspective on Plan Dalet (actually not a really new perspective, but a scholarly fornmulation and explanation of the Zionist self-deception that is clear to any neutral and knowledgeble observer), it was accepted by the scholarly journal "Holy Land Studies" under the title "Plan Dalet in the context of the contradictions of Zionism". The chief editor, Nur Masalha wrote:

I have given your article to a leading academic expert on 1948. This referee and I are of the opinion that your article is a good and interesting analysis of Plan Dalet. It is a good deconstruction which clarifies the context in which the plan should be analysed and explained.

The "leading expert on 1948" is probably Ilan Pappé, who is a member of the editorial board. This is a small summary of my article:

Plan Dalet and the question of Zionist intent ("did they deliberately engage in the ethnic cleansing of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Arabs in 1948?") should be seen in the context of the "contradictions of Zionism". The Zionist imperatives of turning an Arab country into a Jewish one and of, at the same time, acting moral posed a severe problem for Zionism. As a consequence Zionism is susceptible to self-deception and used Plan Dalet as a dubious legitimation:

Ben-Gurion and the military leadership did not send their troops to destroy or "occupy" Palestinian villages without an explanation and legitimation. The troops were ordered to "move to State Dalet for an operative implementation of Plan Dalet". Plan Dalet and its stated defensive rationale were referred to and therefore automatically provided a framework that legitimated these orders. ... the politicians need not worry about the moral side of this, because these actions were justified by a defensive military plan.

I also investigated the military logic of Plan Dalet and point out seven aspects of it that are inconsistent with the stated defensive purpose.

* J.C. Bosma, "Plan Dalet in the context of the contradictions of Zionism", Holy Land Studies 9 (2), 2010, p. 209-227

The article is also critical of Benny Morris. According to Morris "the essence of [Plan Dalet] was the clearing of hostile and potentially hostile forces out of the interior of the territory of the prospective Jewish State". However the Zionists started using this argument only after June 1948 (as an excuse to prevent the return of Palestinian refugees), while Plan Dalet was already implemented in April and May 1948. According to Plan Dalet Palestinian villages were targeted to prevent them from being used as bases of enemy forces. This type of distortion is typical for Morris.

One interesting thing about my article is that the context it proposes for understanding Zionist behavior in 1948 is also the context in which one can understand certain aspects of the behavior of pro-Israeli editors on Wikipedia. As typical Zionists they are preoccupied with the legitimacy of the Zionist project (in which they probably believe) and try to defend this with arguments that are sometimes dubious (although they probably believe in them). My experience on Wikipedia really inspired me when I wrote my article.

Here is my article on Google Scholar.

Hopefully my edits and my article will help to decrease the ignorance of many people about this subject.

Next to that, I'm a scientist in chemical engineering and I also sometimes contribute to subjects of this kind.

This user participates in
WikiProject Palestine.

My contributions

My first major contributions were to Causes of the 1948 Palestinian exodus. This article was really not WP:NPOV before I started adding pov's of Morris (on the direct causes of the exodus), Pappe and Masalha (on the planning and the transfer idea in Zionism). Later I became interested in the origins of Zionist attitudes. This resulted in some new articles:

• Zionist and Palestinian Arab attitudes before 1948
• The Founding Myths of Israel
• The "Negation of the Diaspora" in Zionism
• History of the Palestinian people
• Village files

Zionist apologetics in Benny Morris' 'Birth revisited'

In 1988 Morris published 'The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949', a book that was a milestone in the Israeli evaluation of the causes of the Palestinians exodus during the 'War of Liberation'. In 2004 Morris published a new, revised edition: 'The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited'. The first edition was already criticised, among others, by Finkelstein in his 'Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict' for its apologetic style and its inconsistencies between the evidence presented and the conclusions drawn by Morris. The revised edition is not different in this respect. Below I give some examples of the apologetic style, inconsistencies and even dishonesty I came across.

"transfer thinking was caused by Palestinian Arab violence"

In a single sentence on page 60 Morris shows some very wierd reasoning. The full sentence reads:

But transfer was inevitable and inbuilt into Zionism - because it sought to transform a land which was 'Arab' into a 'Jewish' state and a Jewish state could not have arisen without a major displacement of Arab population; and because this aim automatically produced resistance among the Arabs, which, in turn, persuaded the Yishuv's leaders that a hostile Arab majority or large minority could not remain in place if a Jewish state was to arise or safely endure.

At first sight this seems logical, but closer inspection reveals the real 'logic':

1) Zionism wanted a 'Jewish' state, which was impossible without a major displacement of Arab population; Morris says here that Zionism wanted 'transfer' in order to create a 'Jewish' state

2) the Arabs became hostile because they resisted 'transfer'

3) the Yishuv wanted to transfer the Arabs because they were hostile

Does Morris mean that the Zionists became victims of their own idea of 'transfer': it provoked resistance, so they had to execute it? Or does he mean that security reasons were the main aim of the Palestinian exodus?

What Morris actually does is through 'ill' logic, disguished in a long sentence, invoke 'security' reasons for 'transfer', while the real reason, as he stated, is the wish of the Zionists of a 'Jewish' state. Morris repeats this argument in an interview with Haaretz in which he admits that the 1948 Palestinian exodus is an ethnic cleansing:

There are circumstances in history that justify ethnic cleansing. I know that this term is completely negative in the discourse of the 21st century, but when the choice is between ethnic cleansing and genocide—the annihilation of your people—I prefer ethnic cleansing.

"The Palestinian Arabs escalated the conflict"

On page 65 Morris says: 'Strategically speaking the period December 1947 - March 1948 was marked by Arab initiatives and attacks and Jewish defensiveness increasingly punctuated by Jewish reprisals.' Yet on the next page he says: 'IZL and LHI ... reverted to their 1937-1939 strategy of placing bombs in crowded markets and bus-stops. The Arabs retaliated by placing bombs of their own ...', i.e in the facts the Arabs retaliated, while in Morris's synthesis the Arabs took the initiative.

Morris' own evidence indicates that his synthesis isn't even an accurate description of Haganah (instead of Jewish) behavior, since he writes on the same page that 'the Haganah also inadvertently employed terror, as in the attack on the Semiramis Hotel in January 1948, but normally cleaved to a policy of hitting the guilty and, when not, at least limiting the violence in scope and geographically to areas already marked by Arab-initiated violence'. Morris also cites High Commissioner Cunningham who thought that the initial violence might have subsided had the Jews not reverted to use of firearms. Morris also reports the massacres of Balad al-Shayk and al-Khisas, perpetrated by the Haganah.

With the evidence provided by Morris a more accurate conclusion would have been: 'The period December 1947 - March 1948 was marked by violent initiatives and reprisals from both sides'

Other historians describe the rise of violence in this period different. Simha Flapan wrote: 'On 4 January 1948, the Irgun used a car bomb to blow up the government center in Jaffa, killing twenty-six Arab civilians. Three days later, they planted explosives at Jaffa Gate in Jerusalem, and another twenty-five Arab civilians were killed. A pattern became clear, for in each case the Arabs retaliated, then the Haganah – always condemning the actions of the Irgun and LEHI - joined in with an inflaming "counterretaliation".' According to Pappé the Haganah had perpetrated the massacres of al-Khisas in December, of Balad al-Shaykh in January and Sa'sa' in February, and by the end of March ‘thirty villages were already gone’.

This evidence suggest more Jewish than Arab responsibility for the rise in violence.

The importance of mortaring civilians

On page 183 Morris says that 'On 10 April the Haganah bombarded the Arab population [of Tiberias][i.e. residential area] with mortars' and he further doesn't mention shelling in the story of Tiberias. Yet on page 200 he writes about Haganah mortar attacks on Haifa: 'There is no evidence that the commanders involved hoped or expected that it would lead to mass evacuation (though events in Tiberias four days before must have been prominent in their minds)'.

Oh? So apparently Morris does think that mortaring was important in the exodus from Tiberias, but he didn't say so in that section.

Hidden massacre

Morris hides a massacre in a footnote. On page 222 he writes 'But a day or two later, two Palmah soldiers, on Third Battalion OC Moshe Kelman's orders, murdered several dozen prisoners, [...], in the gully between 'Ein al Zeitun and Safad'. In the main text he reserves one sentence for a 'murder', but in footnote 427 he uses half a page and calls it a 'massacre'.

"The Palestinian Arabs started the war"

Morris says repeatedly that the Arabs started the war, yet he gives no evidence to support this statement, nor does he cite a source. For instance on page 60 he says: 'the Yishuv and its military forces did not enter the 1948 War, which was initiated by the Arab side, with a policy or plan for expulsion'.

So, when did the Arabs start the war, and which Arabs did that. Did Jordan's Arab Legion start the war on 15 May 1948? No, Morris says they never invaded Israel but only the Palestinian part of Palestine. This didn't stop the Israeli's though from attacking Lydda and Ramle in that area. Did Egypt or Syria start the war on 15 May when they invaded and attacked Jewish settlements? They invaded because a war was already well under way, a war in which Zionist forces had caused a quarter of a million Palestinian refugees. In April and the beginning of May the Zionists had already started large scale war by attacking and conquering a city, Jaffa, and villages around Jerusalem, in the area assigned to the Arabs. Did the Arabs start the war before the Zionist offensives in April? As was discussed in example 2 in his conclusion Morris blames the Arabs for initiating vilolence in this period, yet the evidence he provides doesn't support this conclusion. Other sources do show that initially, in December 1947, the Arabs were probably more agressive. This does however not justify calling this 'starting a war' because the violence was limited and not organised. Also the Zionists' reaction was more severe. Maybe there is more truth in Morris' quote of Ben-Gurion in 'Righteous victims' (p. 682):

"When we say that the Arabs are the aggressors and we defend ourselves ---- that is only half the truth. As regards our security and life we defend ourselves. . . . But the fighting is only one aspect of the conflict, which is in its essence a political one. And politically we are the aggressors and they defend themselves."

Morris knows very well, when he says the Arabs started the war he is giving his personal and controversial opinion and presenting it as a fact.

Zionist apologetics by other authors

Gorny denies Ben-Gurion's land hunger

On page 259 of his 1987 book "Zionism and the Arabs, 1882-1948" Yosef Gorny cites Ben-Gurion when the latter proposed accepting the Peel proposals in 1937, which included a Jewish state in about twenty percent of Palestine, Ben-Gurion told the twentieth Zionist Congress:

The Jewish state now being offered to us is not the Zionist objective. Within this area it is not possible to solve the Jewish question. But it can serve as a decisive stage along the path to greater Zionist implementation. It will consolidate in Palestine, within the shortest possible time, the real Jewish force, which will lead us to our historic goal.

Neglecting the word will in the last sentence, Gorny gives emphasis to the word can. On the next page he explains this using terms like "perhaps" and "when necessary":

[...] the army, which would defend [the state's] borders, would also perhaps extend them, when necessary, for settlement purposes "whether out of accord and mutual understanding with the Arab neighbours or otherwise."

In the last part Gorny cites Ben-Gurion again. Finkelstein gives a more complete citation from a letter of Ben-Gurion to his son:

I have no doubt that our army will be among the world's outstanding - and so I am certain that we won't be constrained from settling in the rest of the country, whether out of accord and mutual understanding with the Arab neighbours or otherwise.

Gorny plays down Ben-Gurion's land hunger despite his knowledge to the contrary. The word will in the first citation already indicates it, but e.g. on page 216 he writes that Ben-Gurion stated his "explicit intention" to "concentrate the masses of our people in this country and its environs."

Reading Flapan's "Zionism and the Palestinians" I encountered another quote of Ben-Gurion from around the same time. In a discussion in the Jewish Agency he said that he wanted a Jewish-Arab agreement "on the assumption that after we become a strong force, as a result of the creation of the state, we shall abolish partition and expand to the whole of Palestine." However, in his 1987 book Gorny ignores the 1979 book by his fellow-Zionist Flapan completely, although they cover the same subject.

Anita Shapira

About the Zionist attitude toward the Palestinian Arabs before WWI Anita Shapira writes:

It is true that the Zionist organization did not discuss this issue ["settlement in a country where another people was already living"] during that period and did not formulate a political line on it. Yet at that particular juncture in the movement such deliberations [...] had about the same importance as the learned disputations customarily held in the courtyards of Hassidic rebbes regarding what would happen after the coming of the messiah."

Yet the issue was important of course, if not because of the practical problems with Arabs that Zionists could expect to encounter, then because of the moral implications. To be fair, Shapira does indicate a reason why the issue was not relevant:

What were Zionists in the diaspora supposed to do, given the state of weakness and inertia that characterised the Zionist movement after the shining days of Herzl, the hostile Ottoman rule in Palestine, and the embryonic stage of Jewish colonisation there?

Of course, now I understand, in those days the Zionists were still too weak to solve the issue by an ethnic cleansing, as they did after they had build up their military power.

Anita Shapira 2

In 'Land and Power' she writes:

"Until the arrival of the Jews, a change in land ownership did not involve a concomittant change in the person cultivating the land. The fellahin continued to work their land even after they lost its possession, whether due to chicanery and strong arm tactics or because of debts owed to shrewd Arab monaylenders."

If any historian would call Jewish moneylenders 'shrewd', he or she would immediately be branded 'antisemitic'. However it seems to be okay to call Arab moneylenders 'shrewd'. This woman really disgusts me!

Zionism's cynicism

Zionist agenda according to Teveth

In 'Ben-Gurion and the Palestinian Arabs' Teveth concludes on the change of the Zionist agenda after the 1948 Palestinian exodus:

"And so the Arab question was dropped from the Zionist agenda, to be replaced by the question of Israel's security."

Indeed, what the world calls the 'Palestinian refugee problem' is called by Zionists the 'Israeli security problem'. They simply call the problem after their main argument to keep the Palestinians out! Interestingly, this argument suddenly popped up halfway the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, when the Zionists needed an argument to prevent a return of Palestinian refugees.