Democratic Palestine : 40 (ص 21)
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- Democratic Palestine : 40 (ص 21)
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1968). The Haganah, which in 1948
transformed and became the backbone.
of the Israeli Defense Forces(IDF),
was recently implicated by its former
chief intelligence officer, Yitzhak Levi,
who revealed the Haganah’s full back-
ing of Irgun’s massacre in Deir Yasin,
as well as providing them with rifles
and ammunition(Nur El Deen
Masalha, Journal of Palestine Studies,
no. 69). Benny Morris also implicates
the Haganah in the destruction of
Palestinian villages and attacks against
their residents(The Birth of the Palesti-
nian Refugee Problem 1947-1949, pp.
53-54). The difference, it seems, bet-
ween the mainstream(Labor) Zionists
and the so-called extremists is, in
Israel Shahak’s words, the better
knowledge on the part of the
mainstream, or the pragmatists, of how
politics operate.
The significance of the Haganah’s
involvement in terrorism underscores
Democratic Palestine, July-August 1990
the perjury of the apologists who have
all along vindicated the Haganah from
such acts, which were carried out by
the «extremists,» like Menachem
Begin and Yitzhak Shamir.
The planning stage
The Zionist dream of building a
«Jewish state» in Palestine remained
on the drawing board for decades due
to the lack of the most important
ingredient - Jewish immigrants. The
Zionist movement, despite all its
efforts and the financial backing of
Jewish capitalists and the imperialist
countries, could only persuade a very
small number of Jews to go to the
«promised land.» It wasn’t until the
1930s, after Hitler’s rise to power, that
Jews began to flock in large numbers
to Palestine. During half a century of
Zionist efforts to bring Jews to Pales-
tine(1882-1932), only about 150,000
were brought, in comparison with
164,000 in the four years following the
Nazi ascent to power.
It was on this background of the
sudden and unexpected large increase
of Jewish immigrants to Palestine, that
the Mapai party, which was then the
largest and most influential party, con-
vened its congress in 1937. Having a
new-found feeling of confidence and
source of power, «it was then that
‘transfer’ became a policy, planned and
supported by most of the highest-rank-
ing leaders and opposed on moral
grounds by none»(Israel Shahak, Jour-
nal of Palestine Studies, no. 71). The
few ambivalent voices expressed reser-
vation on _ practical grounds only.
Golda Meir, for example, said: «I
would agree that if the Arabs leave the
country, my conscience would be abso-
utely clear. But is there such a possi-
bility?»(ibid.)
The ensuing years after Mapai’s
congress witnessed a flurry of activity
in an attempt to implement transfer. A
transfer committee was formed which
included Yosef Weitz, Karl Katznelson
and Moshe Sharett, who eventually
became Israel’s prime minister. Yosef
Weitz was delegated the responsibility
of searching for an appropriate place
to where the Palestinians would be
transferred. Although the prevailing
sentiment among most Zionists at the
time was to expel the Palestinians to
Iraq, Weitz, nevertheless, travelled to
Syria, Lebanon and Argentina in
search of such a place.
The Zionist movement was able to
utilize its influence in Europe and the
United States in order to gain support
for the transfer plan. The British
Labor Party declared its support for
this plan at its 1944 convention. Then
US President Herbert Hoover went
further by suggesting the establishment
of an international fund to finance the
expulsion of Palestinians to Iraq(A.
Mohareb, The Relations Between Milit-
ant Zionist Organizations, 1937-1948,
Arabic). Hoover tried to appropriate
$50 million of the money allocated for
the Marshall Plan but failed(ibid.).
Transfer after the establishment
of Israel
The policy continued after the
establishment of the state of Israel and
the expulsion of 80 percent of the
population of the territories occupied
in 1948. In the period between 1949-
53, 23 Palestinian villages were
destroyed in the Galilee and Triangle
regions of northern Palestine.
Dr. Abraham Sharon’ warned
about the danger of «peaceful coexis- >
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