Democratic Palestine : 38 (ص 21)
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- Democratic Palestine : 38 (ص 21)
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saw nothing immoral about «transfer,» but stated: «We have
to state the principle of compulsory transfer without insisting
on its immediate implementation»(Journal of Palestine
Studies,64,Summer 1987). In August 1948, he created a
transfer committee which submitted a proposal that Arabs
should not constitute more than 15 per cent of Israel’s total
population. The Zionist quest for a Jewish state makes
attempts to «transfer» Palestinians inevitable, all the while
places are prepared for new immigrants.
The testimony of Joseph Schechtman, an expert on
population transfer, leaves no doubt about the age-old
Zionist policy of displacement: «It 1s difficult to overesti-
mate the tremendous role this lot of abandoned Arab prop-
erty has played in the settlkement of hundreds of thousands
of Jewish immigrants who have reached Israel since the
proclamation of the State in May 1948... The existence of
these Arab houses - vacant and ready for occupation - has,
to a large extent, solved the greatest immediate problem
which faced the Israeli authorities in the absorption of
immigrants...»(Journal of Palestine Studies, 64, Summer
1987).
Transfer and demographic change
The Zionist policy of demographic transformation did
not stop with the 1948 Palestinian exodus, but continued
with the Israeli aggression and occupation of the West Bank
and Gaza Strip, the rest of historical Palestine, in 1967. This
caused the exodus of 425,000 more Palestinians, and
brought another 750,000 Palestinians under Israeli military
rule. The increased number of Palestinians living under
occupation, coupled with the high Palestinian birth rate as
compared to that of Israeli Jews, has aggravated the danger
of the Palestinian presence in the Zionists’ eyes. The
demographic issue is a nightmare for Israeli strategists, and
has been termed a «time bomb.» An editor of Maariv,
October 29th, 1967, described the Palestinian birth rate as
a «danger against which society must defend itself by all
means... We must act.» Such statements also illustrate the
extreme racism that is inherent in Zionism.
Golda Meir was famous for saying, in the mid-seven-
ties, that she could hardly sleep at night for worrying about
how many Arab babies might have been born that night. All
Israeli leaders have hoped a large number of Palestinians
would eventually leave the occupied territories, and they dif-
fer only in the degree to which they openly advocate that
the state should facilitate this process. For many years, the
only Zionists who advocated withdrawal from the 1967
occupied territories did so on demographic grounds. For
example, after the 1967 war, Yitzhak Ben Aharon, secret-
ary-general of the Histadrut, advocated restoring the
occupied territories to the Arabs, even without a peace tre-
aty, because they are «a bomb under the Jewish character
of the state»(quoted by Halevi,p.190).
The «transfer» option gained new ground in the eighties
with the further shift to the right on the Israeli political
scene. A number of ultra-right parties openly advocate
transfer, such as Tehiya whose Knesset representative,
Geuleh Cohen, declared the party’s establishment of a fund
to «assist Arab in emigrating,» as one of many efforts aimed
at attaining «Greater Israel.» The best representative of this
Democratic Palestine, March-Apmnil 1990
fascist, terrorist trend is the KACH movement, the logical
extension of Zionist ideology. Its leader, Rabbi Meir
Kahane, often says what the mainstream Israeli leadership is
thinking, but reluctant to say aloud. In Kahane’s view, the
Palestinians have to leave, but if they insist on staying in
their homes, despite all the oppression, they will be forcibly
expelled by state and settler-organized terrorism. As the
German fascists did with the Jews, he insists on the expul-
sion of all Palestinians as a «final solution» for the demog-
raphic problem and the Palestinian question. In his words:
«The (Palestinians) who refuse to live as resident strangers
(and they must be limited to a specific number that does not
endanger the state) must be given a choice of leaving wil-
lingly with full compensation for their property or being
compelled to leave without compensation»(Al Fajr, English
edition, September 23rd, 1983).
Meir Cohen, when he was deputy speaker of the Knes-
set, blamed the Israeli army for leaving Palestinians on their
land. On March 17th, 1983, he told the Knesset Foreign
Affairs and Defense Committee: «We had the means in
1967 to make sure that two or three hundred thousand
would move to the other side as was done in Lydda, Ramle
and Galilee in 1948, but we made a calamitous mistake.
Things would have been simpler today: no Palestine prob-
lem, no stones, no demonstrations. We could have brought
in 100,000 settlers and there would have been no trou-
ble»(Al Fajr, March 25th, 1983). Zvi Shiloah, of the Tehiya
Party, who entered the Knesset in 1984, has this to say
about «transfer»: «I advocate transfer. The difference bet-
ween Meir Kahane and myself is that I am speaking of a
transfer with Arab and international agreement... Under
normal conditions expulsion is not feasible, so Kahane’s call
to expel the Arabs isn’t practical. A transfer isn’t such a ter-
rible thing. After all, how far is Nazareth from Damas-
cus?... If, for example, the Jordan River bridges were to be
closed, I am sure the process of emptying the West Bank
would be immeasurably speeded up. The Arabs of Israel?
There we have a knotty problem. Perhaps things could be
left to develop naturally until matters reach a point of con-
frontation where it would no longer be worth their while to
stay on»(The Arab League, op. cit., p.205).
From Shiloah’s point of view, it is the need to maintain
the Jewish character of the state which necessitates transfer,
and this is a goal on which the entire Zionist leadership con-
curs. It is no accident that the year of the intifada, 1987, was
also the year of the birth of a new party in Israel, Moledet,
whose main raison d’etre is openly advocating transfer.
Moledet gained two Knesset seats in 1988.
As a result of 42 years of organized expulsion and
creeping annexation, Israel has today succeeded in fulfilling
the most important element of «Greater Israel.» The new
influx of immigrants is now being used not only to force
more Palestinians out of their land, but also to strengthen
Israel for further aggression and expansion. The new immig-
ration supports the drive of Likud and the ultra-right to
enact a mass expulsion of Palestinians into Jordan and miti-
gates for a new war. «We may have to invade Jordan,» said
Geuleh Cohen. «We will come to Amman not as strangers...
After all, as everyone knows, we really own Jordan»(The
Arab League, op. cit., p.204).
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