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Land
has been taken by Israel steadily over the past 55 years, but it was
1948 in which the largest expropriation of land occurred. The Israeli
state was created from the occupation of almost 80 percent of British
Mandate– defined Palestine. Over 800,000 Palestinians became refugees,
and those 150,000 able to remain within the new Jewish state went from a
majority to a minority in a matter of months. With
the help of irregular militias, the Irgun and the Lehi, the Haganah
forces succeeded in establishing the Jewish state of Israel in May 1948.
This included significantly more land than that allotted to the Jewish
state in the UN partition plan. The coastal plain from Jaffa to Haifa
was virtually “cleared” of Palestinians. The road from Tel Aviv via
Latrun to Jerusalem was captured and Jewish control established over the
western part of the capital. Control of the northern hill region of the
Galilee, and the southern Negev largely peopled by Bedouin Arabs, was
secured. Neither the limited Palestinian fighters, Arab diplomats, nor
the haphazard Arab troops could prevent the onslaught.
On
14 May, 1948, US President Truman officially recognized the Jewish state
of Israel. At least 350 Arab villages were destroyed, and the cities of
Tiberias, Safed, Beersheba, Beisan, and West Jerusalem were completely
cleared of Arabs. The majority of Arabs from Haifa, Al-Lydd, Jaffa and
Ar-Ramla were pushed out. The only Palestinian towns to remain intact
were Nazareth and Shafa’amr in the Galilee, but, of course, the land
was in full control of the new Israeli government. Plan
Dalet
In
April, the Haganah launched their mission for control of the land, Plan
Dalet. The text of the plan sets the tone for the heightening of the
campaign of assault. “Mounting operations” were to be launched
“against enemy population centers located inside or near our defensive
system in order to prevent them from being used as bases by an active
armed force.” For those “population centers which are difficult to
control continuously,” the document instructed the destruction of the
village, by “setting fire to, blowing up, and planting mines in the
debris.” In the event of any resistance, Plan Dalet demands the
“destruction” of the village armed force, and the expulsion of the
population beyond the borders of the state.
The
plan states that for those villages which do not resist, Zionist troops
would take control and “detain all politically suspect individuals.”
Villagers deemed suitably compliant would be appointed to work under a
Jewish superior to manage the political and administrative affairs of
the village following the occupation. As history has shown, surrender
was not enough to guarantee the safety of villagers and their homes.
(Taken from text of Plan Dalet, translated from Sefer Toldot
Hahaganah [History of the Haganah], vol. 3, ed. by Yehuda
Slutsky [Tel Aviv: Zionist Library, 1972], Appendix 48, pp. 1955-60,
cited at electronicintifada.net/bytopic/
historicaldocuments/31.shtml.) By
the end of 1948, any Palestinians remaining within lands newly conquered
by Israel knew that they were now under a very new form of occupation,
and for the short term at least, nothing would change that. At the end
of October, the Haganah conquered an upper Galilee pocket of land held
by Arab leader Qawuqji’s forces. On October 29, more than 60 Arab
villagers were massacred in the capture of Safsaf. Thousands more
refugees fled from the area. Little
Triangle and the Armistice Agreement
On
the final signing of the armistice agreement in 1949, an area to the
west of what is now the Green Line, known as the Little Triangle, was
transferred from Jordanian hands to the new Jewish state. An area 99
percent peopled by Palestinians found itself on the Israeli side of the
border. Families were split from cousins meters away in Qalqilya, Jenin,
and the surrounding villages. Some villages were even cut in half,
dividing families and cutting farmers from their land. The Zionist
forces had been held back from this region during the fighting itself,
but under the Rhodes Agreement, Israel insisted that these areas come
under Israeli, not Jordanian, control (Gilmour, 1982, p.105). Israel,
largely successively, tried to expel any internal refugees residing in
this area in order to accept the minimum number of new Arabs within the
state (Masalha, 2003, p.147).
The
Triangle villages had been established in the previous century by people
coming down from the central Nablus mountains in order to farm the
plains nearer to the coast, and thus relations were close-knit with
people to the east. At first, after Rhodes, the villagers thought that
at least they would be reunited with the land that they had lost in the
establishment of the Jewish state. But this was not to be, for Israel
confiscated the majority of this land under the Absentee Property Law (see section
1948–1967). This region today remains an area of
particular conflict over land and population, owing to its immediate
proximity to the 1967 line. The villagers are under threat of land
confiscation from the Wall to the east and the Trans-Israel Highway to
the west. To
cover all the events leading to the violent conquest and expulsion of
inhabitants of 78 percent of Mandate Palestine is too broad a task for
the scope of this Web site. Readers are urged to consult sources in the
bibliography and beyond to learn more. Please also see our Refugee
section to learn of the human tragedy resulting from this massive
violent confiscation of land. |
