An Unsealed Room points to an interview with historian Benny Morris1 in Haaretz. Benny Morris is promoting a new version of his book about the Palestinian refugee problem, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited.
Allison is definitely correct about this interview making “tidal waves.” Benny Morris seems to be on a mission to offend everyone, whether they are on the left or the right. You should definitely read the whole interview (Don’t forget the second page).
I am not as pessimistic as Morris seems to be nowadays, but not by much. I do apportion blame almost equally to all sides though. Some of Morris’ angst as well as his justification of ethnic cleansing in the context of 1948 is based on nationalism. I do not think much of nationalism. It is as much of a negative power as it is positive. I am pragmatic enough to be generally ok with others’ feelings of patriotism and nationalism (when they are not xenophobic), but I look forward to a world where we have banished nationalism.
There is much to chew on (and to be horrified by) in the interview, but I have a question for my readers who are more knowledgeable than me on this topic.
Are you saying that Ben-Gurion was personally responsible for a deliberate and systematic policy of mass expulsion?
“From April 1948, Ben-Gurion is projecting a message of transfer. There is no explicit order of his in writing, there is no orderly comprehensive policy, but there is an atmosphere of [population] transfer. The transfer idea is in the air. The entire leadership understands that this is the idea. The officer corps understands what is required of them. Under Ben-Gurion, a consensus of transfer is created.”
Ben-Gurion was a “transferist”?
“Of course. Ben-Gurion was a transferist. He understood that there could be no Jewish state with a large and hostile Arab minority in its midst. There would be no such state. It would not be able to exist.”
I don’t hear you condemning him.
“Ben-Gurion was right. If he had not done what he did, a state would not have come into being. That has to be clear. It is impossible to evade it. Without the uprooting of the Palestinians, a Jewish state would not have arisen here.”
I want to focus on that last sentence. Now, Morris makes the point that the Arabs would have been a fifth column and in the context of war the transfer policy was good. I don’t agree with him, but I want to focus on the demographics at the time.
Looking at the demographics of the British mandate of Palestine in 1947, under the UN partition plan, Israel would have contained 500,000 Jews and 400,000 Arabs. Another 100,000 Jews lived in Jerusalem’s international zone. If we add the Jewish population of Jerusalem, we get about 60% Jewish percentage in the Israel of the UN plan. That Israel did not come into existence because of Arab rejection of the partition plan and then the 1948 war. At the end of the 1948 war, Israel got 78% of the mandate territory instead of the 55% it was to get under the UN plan. Some of this was heavily Arab: the triangle, Jaffa (Yafo) and western Galilee. I don’t have 1947 population figures for these areas, but I would speculate that if there had been no refugees or if the refugees had been allowed to return, Israel would have been almost evenly divided between Jews and Arabs. However, there are a few caveats:
- There is no evidence that Israel had any plans to invade or capture territory that it had not been given in the UN plan if the Arabs had not started the war.2
- We also have to consider the overall context of the situation and Israel looks somewhat reasonable overall, though with faults and crimes.
- This balance of population between Arabs and Jews would only have been for a couple of years. Then, the Jewish refugees from the Arabs countries started streaming in.
Now, my question is whether there is any historical evidence of the Israeli leaders thinking about the demographic issue along these lines or is this pure stupid hand-waving on my part?
I should point out that this post is just about some historical questions and speculations. It does not in any way represent my overall views on the conflict. Plus it is rare for a nation or nation-state to emerge into the world completely free of any blame/sin. That history is interesting to think or read about and the wrongs committed should definitely be condemned, but they do nothing to make the nation illegitimate. Israel today is a legitimate state and we should accept its existence. In fact, I have argued for recognition as well as normal relations by Pakistan.
Recognition of the history of the conflict is important in thinking about solutions, but it also hampers any solution if we dwell on it too much.
UPDATE (Jan 14): Here is a Benny Morris article in Guardian which is much more reasoned and describes the basic conclusions of his work. You should also read Norman Geras on nation’s foundational crimes and their current legitimacy.
1 Benny Morris is famous and controversial. He is considered a post-Zionist, but is probably the most mainstream one. I found his book “Righteous Victims” excellent.
2 When I talk about the first Arab-Israeli war, I include both the civil war with the Palestinians (that started around Nov 1947) and the later war when the Arab states attacked Israel in May 1948.
Now, my question is whether there is any historical evidence of the Israeli leaders thinking about the demographic issue along these lines or is this pure stupid hand-waving on my part?
Complicated issue but to answer it briefly (and I don’t lay claim to any special expertise in the intricate history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, aside from that of a generalist), yes, there definitely was a strong history here; including amongst other things the ‘transfer’ debate which was being argued amongst Zionist leadership circles way back in the 1930s – you see there is so little that is new to the whole conflict. How you see this history is variable, Nur Masalha has done a lot of work on the ‘history of transfer’ which while good at bringing to light inconsistencies and looking at hitherto neglected documents is highly favourable towards the Palestinian position; building on the earlier work of Walid Khalidi. It is difficult to find a balanced account of the conflict that takes the claims of both sides seriously; the only one I can think of is Mark Tessler’s work on the topic. But in short, the historical evidence is there and it is quite clear; the debate is not over its existence but what weight to ascribe to it. Naturally pro-Palestinian scholars are as eager as can be possible to read nefarious Zionist designs into this internal discussion over the demographics, so their evaluations should be treated with caution, even though their primary sources are robust.
That history is interesting to think or read about and the wrongs committed should definitely be condemned, but they do nothing to make the nation illegitimate.
The problem arises that Morris has changed his tack here, over the whole ‘Original Sin’ argument which is kind of pointless to go into here but which he initially said influences how Israel’s history and ‘deserving’ attitude by the Western powers should be received – this argument was put forward in first edition of the “Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem”, as the old Mapai historiography saw the first war with the Arabs in a much more moral fashion and the notion of the ‘immaculate conception’ of the state. I dislike this because, Morris seemed to have introduced an odd element of justification – as if Palestinian, Arab or Jewish nationalism needed to be deserving of Western aid, or recognition as the basis of their legitimacy and herein lies the immensely troubling argument that somehow there is a debt to be paid, but it was paid by the wrong people etc.etc. These arguments were dealt with quite effectively by the Zionist representatives at the time who argued, quite rightly, that the foundational claim for their nationalism rested not on the expiation for some crime against humanity but as a legitimate and genuine nationalist movement in its own right. Our current perspectives and the manipulation of chauvinist and racist sentiments by both sides has now obscured this basic truth, unfortunately, and poisoned much of the discourse.
This puts me in my mind of Plato’s argument about how the just polis should be built on the ‘noble lie’ as a necessity for creating the foundational demands required by a new political order. Most states have their own versions of this ‘noble lie’ the only problem being that no just order emanated from the act of foundation and the lie on further scrutiny is found to be not so noble after all. They don’t delegitimise the state, but they do suggest that changes in the polity are needed for its ideals to be lived up to.
Israel today is a legitimate state and we should accept its existence. In fact, I have argued for recognition as well as normal relations by Pakistan.
Yes, those of us in the unfashionable fringe of the Indian dissident Left had long argued that we should have recognised Israel after 1948, notwithstanding the official policy of supporting the Palestinian Nationalist movement, the two policies need not have been mutually exclusive. Needless to say in the 1950s and 1960s and the heyday of Nehruvian NAM-based thinking this was extremely unpopular and was regarded as a lunatic advocacy; this was also the time when Savarkar was running around the country proclaiming to all and sundry that the Nazis had not gone far enough in their policies towards ethnic minorities in Europe and every senior RSS member would mention in private conversation how much they were admirers of Hitler and the assertive aspects of German nationalism under his rule. It is ironic that today, that the reconfiguration of domestic politics has meant that the current saffronist nationalists are all agog over a potential Hindutva-Zionist alliance and now we are in the uncomfortable position of still trying to maintain an even-handed approach to the IP conflict. Something that I am gleefully reminded of by my more conservatively inclined colleagues in my home neighbourhood.
Recognition of the history of the conflict is important in thinking about solutions, but it also hampers any solution if we dwell on it too much.
Dialogue is important, unless one is prepared to use force, the best way to influence the course of future action is through constructive engagement; which is why I always thought the Indian policy of non-recognition was singularly inept, not to mention ineffective. Ah well, as Churchill said “jaw-jaw, is better than war-war”.
Zack:
Agree with you on patriotism so long as it’s not xenophobic. as for the i-p conflict, did i ever tell you my little summary? “The Palestinians would wipe out the Israelis, but can’t. The Israelis could wipe out the Palestinians, but won’t”. that’s basically it. this wall is a good idea. good fences make good neighbors. it’s really the best of a bad situation.
Conrad:
The Indian left’s (ostensibly non-aligned) support for the Soviets was a big part of why they supported the Arabs. there’s also the fact that india used to think “palis are brown, and we are brown. jews are white, and the english were white. ergo the palis are engaged in an anticolonialist struggle”. india used to also think that the arab world would give them cheaper oil if they sided with the palis.
of course, this was always an illusion. the arabs were always going to side with muslim pakistan. and the palestinians are part of the same worldwide islamist threat that tried to murder the indian parliament. even from a totally pragmatic point of view, it makes sense to ally with israel, who can at least provide technology and counterterror advice.
so, unfortunately for socialists like yourself, you’re on the wrong side of history (again). when it was communism vs. capitalism, you carried water for the congress party. socialism and the permit raj kept india pumping out ambassador cars well into the 80’s.
today it is islamism vs. civilization, and again, you’re trying to make the bjp = hitler. please. how many stalin supporting comments can we unearth from the congress party’s history? plenty. and it’s your pal indhira who was sterilizing people left and right, remember? short memories.
i think the hindu chauvinism of the bjp is regrettable. but they need to unify the nation somehow. if they can paper over caste differences, build a strong defense, and continue economic liberalization, it will be worth the ridiculous hindutva. fundamentally, hindutva is a reaction to militant islam. it is foolish, but it is not expansionist.
Wow! Unbelievably intense, detailed, and accurate arguments. It makes for awesome reading, gentlemen. Thank you.
That said, the original Jewish state was dominated by European idealists, mostly of the pinko variety; indeed, the Soviet Union courted Israel for its sphere for some time. Yes, there was doubtless an element that realized that a “Jewish state” should be populated by Jews, but I think the “Meir Kahane” types were the minority.
I tend to think the founders of ISrael, ben-Gurion included if not ben-Gurion especially,
knew that the Jewish state would have to live with a substantial Arab minority. They also knew that there were lots of Jews still to come— refugees and displaced persons from WWII at that time, and eventually, Jews from the former Ottoman Empire and possibly the West.
That said, I think the Jewish State was done a tremendous favor in its early days (albeit a costly one that cost the lives of 1% of the original Jewish population) when the new state was immediately attacked by Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia (IIRC), who themselves invited the Arab population “to get out of the way” so that the mighty Arab armies could drive the Jews into the sea. I don’t know the numbers, but IIRC, it was a far larger number of Arab residents of what became the Jewish State who removed themselves in 47-48 by this method than were later expelled by the Jewish State directly.
To me, this has always made a difference; I have always had sympathy for Arabs who had their land confiscated in the name of Zionism. I have, and have had, no sympathy whatsoever for those who abandoned the Jewish state for the dream of Arab domination.
Godlesscapitalist,
To break down and dismantle your diatribe:
The Indian left’s (ostensibly non-aligned) support for the Soviets was a big part of why they supported the Arabs.
First of all I don’t know what you meant by the “Indian Left” here; the Socialist Party under Lohia was militantly anti-Communist and supported the USA; divisions with the Communists was one of the main reasons why the Left remained divided in northern India. Congress which you seem to think is part of the Indian Left was highly ambiguous in its real attitude towards the Superpowers, as its immediate request for aid from the USA in the 1962 border war with China shows.
Indian non-Alignment never made sense to me; we should have generally speaking backed the USA, not because of any ideological reason but because being democracies it would be easier to deal with them than non-democratic regimes and we would have benefited much more economically. However, for the US, Pakistan would always be a better option for its security needs in Central Asia, I doubt an alliance with India would have served them as well. As for the Soviet relationship it had its advantages as in the 1971 war but what is frequently overlooked by many is that it was really an exploitative as the relationship between the US and many of its allies were – the Soviets got much more out of it than India did, the rupee-rouble exchange scheme is a good example. Either way since I didn’t support the Soviet Union or Non-Alignment, I don’t see why you immediately jump to the conclusions that I should have to answer for their failures.
there’s also the fact that India used to think “palis are brown, and we are brown. jews are white, and the english were white. ergo the palis are engaged in an anticolonialist struggle”.
Er, well apart from the fact that this is not an empirical reality, I would have thought that at least some Hindus would have, like yourself identified much more with the ‘white’ part of this spectrum than the ‘brown’. This interoperation of the Palestinian movement being an anti-colonial struggle, in anycase, was hardly confined to India, correct or false, it was shared by many in the decolonising world in Africa and Asia. I don’t buy into this kind of racial thinking, but what I will say is that Indian Nationalism, the saffronist perversion excluded, is a secular and multi-national ideology that has little in common with Zionism. Our foundational values, though violated in practise are quite different and stand for a really different idealised kind of polity and society; very different from what a Zionist or Islamic state would look like and this is grasped instinctively at a visceral level. I don’t think this makes our nationalism similar to the Palestinian variety anymore than we resemble the various African nationalisms that came to power after independence from colonial rule; but it does represent a different way of seeing the world. The BJP you are so enamoured of, is not below exploiting this kind of linkage as Vajpayee’s recent trip to Syrian and the President’s state visit to Sudan shows. The MEA was falling over itself to reassure Arab envoys in the wake of Sharon’s visit that they would not affect the traditionally close relationship with the Arab world and before the latest misadventure in Iraq, the Foreign Minister had no qualms in going to meet and pose for photos with Saddam Hussein to indicate a strong relationship – a real case of poor timing if ever there was one. But competence is not something I have come to expect a lot of from the BJP.
india used to also think that the arab world would give them cheaper oil if they sided with the palis.
Yes, IFS officers always tell me this when I question the support for the Arab world and I have never bought it as an excuse. The nature of the oil sector is such that this kind of discriminatory pricing is not really possible without great expense and I don’t think our diplomatic support was sooo valuable to the Arab world that they would have subsidised it to this degree. The real reason was much less talked about and involves Kashmir, virtually every Arab state has accepted India’s position on Kashmir and do not raise it in international forums, Pakistan is generally left isolated here – the latter had to use a lot of influence to prevent India from being granted formal observer status at the OIC, which the other Islamic countries would have been willing to do so if not for its opposition. Secular regimes like Nasser’s Egypt and Ba’ath Iraq also supported India as another anti-fundamentalist state and had good relations along these lines; the former was a main partner in the NAM period as well and while a misguided venture, in my view, it main rational sense for a closer relationship given the foreign policy aims that Nehru had at the time.
of course, this was always an illusion. the arabs were always going to side with muslim pakistan.
Excuse me, but what a load of complete crap. What evidence is there that the ‘Arabs were always going to side with Muslim Pakistan’ if you look at some of the writing done by Jaffrelot and Margolis on the topic you will find that the complaint of many pro-Pakistani Kashmiris was precisely that the broader Muslim world regarded India as a legitimate state and discounted their demands for secession.
and the palestinians are part of the same worldwide islamist threat that tried to murder the indian parliament.
Er, how are they linked into the supposed global islamist conspiracy. You seem to ignore the very real division between these groups; many of the Iranian Islamists can’t tolerate the Wahhabi strain promoted by OBL and his ilk – the financing of which was sponsored by both Saudi Arabia and the USA, something else you surprisingly overlook completely. You also ignore the Indian mis-policy in creating these opportunities; generally speaking the Indian Muslim population has always avoided getting involved with this kind of terrorist violence and where this has broken down, as in Kashmir there is a complicated history of suppression of local democracy from the Centre. Where we have violated sub-national aspirations with the chauvinism of Greater Indian Nationalism the result has always been negative as in Punjab and the Northeast; where we have accommodated as in Southern India, there has been no breakdown of governance. There are a number of terrorist threats to us, in the past their support has not always come from some global Islamist conspiracy as you seem to think; the Khalistani movement had its supporters here in Britain where they were allowed to use govt facilities like the BBC for propaganda purposes and were tolerated by British intelligence, the relationship with the US is even murkier as a GoI White Paper uncovered evidence of material and political support. It is completely naive to think that when it suits them, states will not use terrorism to further their own interests – we ourselves have done so in the past, the current situation in Sri Lanka would not have been possible otherwise. So it is no use in pretending that the terrorist threat is ‘out there somewhere’ always foisted on us by ‘evil-doers’ it is very much part and structure of inter-state relations and before we get up on our high horse about it we should remember our own complicity in allowing things to come to such an impasse.
even from a totally pragmatic point of view, it makes sense to ally with israel, who can at least provide technology and counterterror advice.
So it is said, I have seen some of this supposed exchange of resources on my last tour of duty in Kashmir and I am less than impressed. We have had an under the counter relationship with Israel pretty much since the end of the 1965 war with Pakistan, all that this would do is formalise it; given the highly pragmatic approach of Israel to arms deals, I doubt we would get much by way of discounts of special access that we would not get otherwise. There is also some controversy over the pricing of some of these transfers as the Israeli equipment and training is held to be much more expensive than some of the alternatives without necessarily an equivalent rise in its quality. In anycase, I can tell you the problem that India faces in defence terms is not one that will really benefit much from this: in terms of training what is needed is a proper and reformed manpower policy and in terms of defence production what is required is a building up of a domestic resource base not reliant on imports. All these are poor substitutes for a balanced and effective political strategy and attempts to avoid political solutions by replacing them with military ones will always fail.
when it was communism vs. capitalism, you carried water for the congress party
huh? First of all the Congress was not a ‘communist’ party or even a socialist one; it supported a form of state capitalism and a mixed economy. Secondly I never supported the Congress party; ever. To me they have been just a softer version of the BJP – what I have always termed soft saffronists – always ready to pander to communal sentiments for cheap political gain.
socialism and the permit raj kept india pumping out ambassador cars well into the 80’s.
See HK Paranjape’s book “the Phoney war against Socialism” and the Hazari Commission report; these will indicate how industrial production in Indian was concentrated very much in a limited number of business houses until the 1970s. It was ‘Communists’ like Ashok Mitra who had argued then for a removal of licensing regimes and restrictions that allowed this kind of oligopoly to exist and continue; advice which was only implemented in the 1980s. Stanley Kochanek has also published some excellent work on the relationship between big capital and government in this period. As Bardhan and others have noted what really kept the state going was a tripartite alliance between large industrialists, surplus farmers and the state bureaucracy all of whom siphoned off the fiscal resources of the state and utilised regulations for rent-seeking – this might be your definition of socialism, it sure as heck isn’t mine.
today it is islamism vs. civilization,
Actually, this indicates you stupidity to me. The Islam vs. Civilisation is completely bankrupt concept and to argue that it somehow represents a Communism vs Capitalism struggle seems to me that you are just attempting to marry two rather different concepts and phenomenon and mis-interpreting both in the process.
you’re trying to make the bjp = hitler
Actually, no, I didn’t anywhere say this. What I did say was that many RSS figures expressed an admiration for Hitler and that Sarvarkar was an unabashed supporter of his policies – well after Nazi crimes were know to pretty much everyone. I have gone elsewhere into how one can see the BJP, but I don’t think it can be categorised as purely a fascist party at all; Fascism can’t come to power on its own, it needs a certain breakdown of social relations and an external crisis as well as support from the rest of the right. The Nazis themselves could never have acceded to power without the aid and tacit acceptance of democratic Conservatives in Weimar Germany, the attitude of Hindu conservatives in India and those such as yourself mirror this development. However as a society we are too fractured internally for such a take-over to occur outside some sort of national crisis, which is unlikely to happen. But this is a separate discussion.
how many stalin supporting comments can we unearth from the congress party’s history?
Again, I didn’t support the Congress and I don’t see why you are trying to foist Stalinism on them? I would imagine very few such comments exist there, given that the bulk of the Congress party outside a small band of urban intellectuals who left the party in the first two decades, were mostly moderate conservatives like Vallabhai Patel, who frustrated most of Nehru’s economic reforms like land redistribution and social policies like the Hindu Code Bill. If you want these comments you need to look at the CPI (M) or some of the Dravidian parties like the DMK – Karanuadhi’s son is I believe actually named after Stalin, though I don’t think anybody seriously believes that the DMK is interested in Stalinism.
i think the hindu chauvinism of the bjp is regrettable. but they need to unify the nation somehow.
Ha, I think this can only really be the viewpoint of the upper caste Hindu elite in India. For the victims of riots fomented and instigated by the saffronists, I imagine their ‘chauvinism’ is much more than merely regrettable. It is also completely idiotic to talk about unifying the nation; the nation is already unified, accentuating these division will only proceed in the reverse direction and actually create disunity. I don’t see how scapegoating Muslims and burning missionaries alive will ‘unify’ the nation.
if they can paper over caste differences, build a strong defense, and continue economic liberalization
first of all, you are under a delusion if you think the BJP is going to ‘paper over caste differences’ caste differences are here and they are very real. The Ramjambhoomi campaign was taken up as a direct response to Mandal, the BJP is interested in maintaining an upper caste hegemony not dismantling it; which is why in areas of high caste conflict such as Bihar and UP where Dalits are getting butchered by their landlords and caste warfare is rife in the countryside, the call to stop fighting and become good Hindus is going to be treated with the derision it deserves. This kind of appeal will also have no effect in adivasi areas like the Northeast and only a limited one in Central India, where Hinduism has always been associated with exploitation by plains-dwellers.
As for strong defence, the BJP has been quite frankly incompetent on this front. The joker George Fernandes has seen fit to spend more time in making money of lucrative contracts including those for coffins meant for war dead from the Kargil campaign, his only answer to the fact that Migs are dropping out of the sky like flies is to mount a silly stunt where he flies a pre-checked one to show how ‘safe’ they really are. Operation Parakaram was a complete failure and has resulted in the loss of over 130 lives as well as thousands of crores of rupees with no discernible benefit whatsoever- in the end we have had to climb down and go for talks with Pakistan, with no real change on the ground (see here). The nuclearisation policy was ill thought through, has only accelerated proliferation and has brought us to strategic parity with Pakistan, when we had a tactical superiority before – another stupid move by our great Hindu nationalists. The supine attitude towards the US, has as usual given no benefits whatsover, with Washington, sensible from its point of view, maintaining its traditionally close relationship with Pakistan and not accepting Indian claims at face value. You don’t need to take my word for it, the poor planning, under-utilisation of allocated funds are all contained in the 19th Report of the Standing Committee on Defence in the current Lok Sabha, a particularly relevant extract of which I reproduce here below:
The Committee note with the gravest and utmost concern that the Tenth Defence Plan (2002-2007) has still not been finalised along with indications of rough financial commitments, even though the first two years of the projected Plan are already over. This is a repetition of earlier similar mistakes in the defence planning process and is indicative of the adhoc-ism and the non-serious approach which still seems to prevail, notwithstanding the trauma of Kargil 1999 and other assaults on national security. The Committee urge the Government, not to repeat earlier mistakes on this issue and focus on ensuring that the Tenth Defence Plan is finalised and put into effect without further loss of precious time.
We shall see how seriously the recommendations will be put into practise by the BJP coalition but I have me doubts, the full text of the report can be found at this link.
As for economic liberalisation, this has pretty much a consensus across the party spectrum and was initiated by Congress govts in the 1980s; what is more necessary is a proper growth strategy instead of one that simply gives sops to the middle classes and passes all the costs of adjustments onto those least able to bear it, which is more or less what the BJP seems to believe in.
it will be worth the ridiculous hindutva.
I wonder whether you would feel the same way if it was you on the receiving end of some of this ‘ridicoulousness’. I have a feeling that you might become rapidly less charitable about Hindutva if this was the case.
fundamentally, hindutva is a reaction to militant islam. it is foolish, but it is not expansionist.
I agree completely, Hinduvta is a reaction to other external influences, I don’t think it is purely to do with militant Islam; it has more to do with modernity, the insecurities of post-colonialism and fear of the great unwashed masses. It doesn’t draw upon any real genuine or indigenous Indic tradition, it is almost completely a reactive attempt at mimicry, which is why it is often referred to as a ‘Semitisation’ process, whereby one seeks to supposedly destroy an enemy by taking on his perceived attributes. It is foolish and self-defeating, not to mention enormously destructive and narrow-minded.
To me, this has always made a difference; I have always had sympathy for Arabs who had their land confiscated in the name of Zionism. I have, and have had, no sympathy whatsoever for those who abandoned the Jewish state for the dream of Arab domination.
The dog barks sense. Once the 1948 war was over Arabs in Israel should have been treated as complete equals. They weren’t. I’ll post about this. The “fifth column” problem is very much of Israel’s doing. It didn’t have to be that way.
Zack, your question is excellent but I can’t point you to a source that would pinpoint an exact answer to your question. A good general history of Israel is Howard Sachar’s A HISTORY OF ISRAEL and he might address that issue there. It’s my impression that no one was counting on the Arabs not invading…so your question as I understand it might be moot. (I’d prefer to say “moot” rather than “pure stupid-hand-waving.”)
You could also write to him. I wrote Prof. Sachar a letter about an obscure topic of Sephardic history and he wrote me back. He’s an academic star in his field but a modest & approachable one.
http://www.gwu.edu/~elliott/facultystaff/sachar.cfm
Zack,
Benny Morris is famous and controversial. He is considered a post-Zionist, but is probably the most mainstream one.
I think this is somewhat mistaken, as far as I know, ‘post-Zionist’ is usually taken to mean someone who believed that Zionism was a historical necessity for its time but now needs to be reworked under different prevailing conditions and is in many ways an idea whose time has passed. The origins of this kind of thinking goes back to June War and its aftermath and many of the post-Zionists were part of the ‘New Left’ movement that emerged after this period. Morris I think is basically a pragmatic Zionist, in the orthodox Labour tradition, he is quite removed from even the moderate wing of the ‘doves’ in the IP conflict a good example is the exchange he had with Joseph Massad in the History Workshop Journal moderated by Andrew Whitehead; it is a good read and shows how even these academics and supposed moderates can reflect the intransigence of their nationalisms and completely fail to communicate effectively with each other. However, the basic point is that, I don’t think Morris or Shlaim for that matter fall outside the Labour Zionist consensus on the National question, so they cannot be said to be ‘post-Zionist’ as such; you might be thinking more along the lines of Illan Pappe who characterises his position as an ‘a-Zionist’ and writers like Yitzhak Laor or Baruch Kimmerlung who tend to be relatively isolated intellectual figures. There is a good collection of essays edited by Ephraim Nimni entitled “The Challenge of Post-Zionism: Alternatives to Fundamentalist Politics” that examines the concept and diversity of viewpoints associated with the idea of ‘Post-Zionism’.
TD,
That said, the original Jewish state was dominated by European idealists, mostly of the pinko variety; indeed, the Soviet Union courted Israel for its sphere for some time.
More than this I think they could be characterised as solid Red, even. Unsurprising given the strong representation of East European Jews both as intellectuals in various Socialist parties on the Continent and as rank and file members of worker-based parties (hence the favoured Judeo-Bolshevik fantasy of the Nazis which conveniently for them, killed two birds with one label). I think Soviet support for the Zionists was important in some respects, though it had died away by the mid-1950s. Many Jewish immigrants were favourably disposed to the USSR having been liberated from the concentration camps in Eastern Europe by the Red Army, some of the reminisces of that can be found in the kibbutzim they went to, recount with satisfaction how the Russians asked former Concentration camp detainees to identify the camp commanders and guards who had discarded their uniforms and disguised themselves and then shot them. Understandably this kind of action, endeared the Soviets more than the slower justice of the Allies, to the internees; it is also partly informs the kind of rabid anti-Semitic/anti-Russian outbursts that erupt periodically from the German Far Right.
Yes, there was doubtless an element that realized that a “Jewish state” should be populated by Jews, but I think the “Meir Kahane” types were the minority.
Well, yes and no. there was a realisation that the project of a Jewish state would arouse a great deal of hostility and resentment and so was couched in very moderate and cautious terms. Ben-Zvi and Ben-Gurion actually came out with a pamphlet in the 1920s that purported to show how the returning Jews and Palestinian Arabs shared a common Hebraic ancestry and were therefore ethnically speaking strongly related and so conflict should be avoided!!! One cannot imagine that a serious Zionist politician could say this now without arousing a lot of ire as well as incredulity. However, while there was no Kahanist-type of racism; institution-building and setting of social and political organisations went along very much strictly ethnic lines; for all their Leftist enthusiasm, the Labour Zionists were very quick to clamp down on any effort to organise Jewish and Arab workers/peasants along class-economic as opposed to ethnic-nationalist lines. The majority of the Labour movement fell in with this, and only isolated examples of pan-ethnic collaboration can be seen as in the Railway workers strike of the 1930s. The Zionist-Left adhered to the line of “the primacy of race over that of class” in the words of the revered Labour leader Berl Katznelson; When some Zionist Leftists, like Ya’ari, objected to land transfers and then eviction of fellahin tenants, Kaztnelson rubbed in the fact that these same Leftists had not protested when the Soviets had forcibly relocated the Volga Germans for security reasons. An excellent history of this kind of labour-worker politics can be found in Ze’ev Sternhell’s “the Founding Myths of Israel” which takes a critical look at Labour Zionism from its own perspective of Left-orientated politics.
I tend to think the founders of ISrael, ben-Gurion included if not ben-Gurion especially, knew that the Jewish state would have to live with a substantial Arab minority. They also knew that there were lots of Jews still to come- refugees and displaced persons from WWII at that time, and eventually, Jews from the former Ottoman Empire and possibly the West.
I think this reflects the problem. The question is not over whether there would be an Arab minority in Israel or not but whether action could be taken to reduce it; some of the members of the first coalition govt, such as Mapam were very unhappy at the eviction of Arabs that was going on under the guise of military operations and made it clear to Ben-Gurion that unless some of the more over-eager Haganah commanders were reined in they would be forced to resign from the government. The question of further Jewish immigration also presented a problem in that if the UN plan would have been adhered to it would have placed a lot of strain on the Jewish state as envisaged in it, as on top of having a 40% Arab minority it would have to absorb a large influx of refugees. The expanded Israel of 1948 found this a difficult task, with the take-over of abandoned Arab property and land; in a smaller area with a greater minority it would have been a truly Olympian obstacle. Which is not to say that it could not have been done, but that it would have presented a set of problems, that I don’t think the actors at the time were interested in solving. Most Zionist leaders including Ben-Gurion discussed transfer as a possible solution; and an ideal state for them would have included a small as possible Arab minority – the question arises as to what steps they would take to achieve this; Morris’s view is that the flight occurred due to ‘war and not by design’ which is a defensible and legitimate argument given the evidence available.
That said, I think the Jewish State was done a tremendous favor in its early days (albeit a costly one that cost the lives of 1% of the original Jewish population) when the new state was immediately attacked by Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia (IIRC), who themselves invited the Arab population “to get out of the way” so that the mighty Arab armies could drive the Jews into the sea.
TD, as far as I know, the major thrust of Morris’s work indicates that no such order was given; given that most Arab states knew that they were ill-prepared for war and that the best equipped and trained Arab army in the region – that of Jordan, was led by a state which had already entered into a discreet understanding with Israel not to take part in attacking territory allocated to the Jewish state by the UN plan – something largely adhered to outside Jerusalem which the Hashemite monarchy wanted for dynastic-symbolic reasons, would have meant that a better course of action would have been to insist that Arab local populations should remain where they were to encourage more confusion and potential for dispersed resistance, negating the advantage of shorter and stronger lines of communication which the Jewish state enjoyed. This is not to say that the entire flight was due to ethnic cleansing; the urban segment of the Palestinian population fled much earlier before the start of hostilities and temporary flight to the hills has always been a survival strategy of the rural peasantry; it is difficult to disentangle exactly which factor was responsible for what proportion of the refugee problem and herein lies a lot of the controversy. I think it is a mix of several factors and what weight is attached to which is variable given the amount of evidence that is currently available.
Morris himself avoids the ‘original sin’ charge by deflecting attention from the causes and process of the refugee crisis to the question of who started the firing first; the problem here is that one would need to go back further before this to unravel the set of factors at work here – the Arab revolt of 1936, British colonial policy and early Jewish settlement to fully understand the contending forces at work. One can discuss the refugee flows both Jewish and Arab by starting from 1947, one cannot however, discuss the question of who bears the responsibility for the conflict by taking this starting point and Morris, as a historian should know better than to do so, which leaves me a little uncertain as to his reasons for doing so. The HWJ exchange he had with Massad reflects the lack of mutual ground shared between the two nationalisms here and the Palestinians are in quite a bit of denial about the origins of their nationalism in the pre-Mandate period as well as the historical links operative within Jewish nationalism. In many ways they are still replaying the old mistakes of the 1920s and 1930s and not adjusting to the changing conditions on the ground.
To me, this has always made a difference; I have always had sympathy for Arabs who had their land confiscated in the name of Zionism. I have, and have had, no sympathy whatsoever for those who abandoned the Jewish state for the dream of Arab domination.
Quite understandably, a very fair position.
jesus conrad, re-start your blog!
Benny Morris Is Not An Optimist
From a really horrifying interview with previously left-wing Israeli historian Benny Morris: Benny Morris, for decades you have been researching…
Conrad: ‘transfer’ debate which was being argued amongst Zionist leadership circles way back in the 1930s
I am familiar with some of the debate in the 1920s and 1930s. The demographic situation then was different. There was no large piece of land where Jews had a large majority. The Peel Commission came up with giving 20% of the land to a Jewish state in 1937 (?) and even that required more than 100,000 Arabs to move. I haven’t read any discussions about transfer in the 1940s. It seems that Morris is saying there is such evidence during the war.
pro-Palestinian scholars are as eager as can be possible to read nefarious Zionist designs into this internal discussion over the demographics
That is obviously true. Most pro-Palestinian scholars and laymen take these statements in the worst possible way. On the other hand, quite a few Israelis are unwilling to acknowledge the truth even as they talk about demographics again nowadays.
Godless: “The Palestinians would wipe out the Israelis, but can’t. The Israelis could wipe out the Palestinians, but won’t”.
I don’t think that is actually correct. I am not going to defend suicide bombing or the antisemitism in Palestinian society. But to reduce the conflict to your statement is overly simplistic and not very useful.
Going back to the discussion about 1948 which is what this post is about, I disagree with Morris that the choice was between genocide of the Jews or ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians. In hindsight, it is clear that the Arabs were never close to victory, let alone genocide. However, I would argue that even at the time a dispassionate obsever on the ground would have considered this as a false choice. The refugee problem started in November 1947. By March 1948, Haganah had complete superiority over the Palestinians and they were no longer a threat. Haganah controlled western Galilee (an area allocated to an Arab state in the UN partition plan) by March-April 1948. The Arab states did not attack Israel until May 1948. That obviously was an existential threat to Israel. In the history of the 1948 war with the Arab states, we do not see much of a role for the Palestinian villagers or town-dwellers. Also, note that Jordan, for example, never attacked any territory allocated to Israel in the UN plan. It just gobbled up the Palestinian territory and East Jerusalem.
this wall is a good idea. good fences make good neighbors. it’s really the best of a bad situation.
I agree with you there. But the wall will only work with a few conditions. It should be built as close to what the final borders should look like and Israeli checkpoints and settlements on the Palestinian side of the fence must be removed. Then Israel can defend the fence properly.
Regarding India, Conrad has said it better than I could have.
TD: I don’t think there were many Kahane-like people among the Zionist leaders of the time. But demographics was an issue they were concerned with since the Arabs were in a majority. Transfer was talked about but was not a dominant idea in my opinion. On the other hand, even though most Zionists of the time were socialists, they did not build any links across ethnic lines. Arabs and Jews lived completely separately from what my granddad told me.
All said and done, I think the Palestinian refugee problem is really an issue today because no Palestinian state was allowed to exist by the other Arab states. If Palestine had appeared on the map along with Israel, most refugees would have settled in their new country and the problem would not be as bad.
Consider Pakistan and India: More people (1 million) died there at the time of partition than became refugees (700,000? total refugees, not the number of the ethnically cleansed) in the British Palestine. On the other hand, this constitutes about half the Arab population there at the time.
Diana: Definitely the treatment of Israeli Arabs is much more important and has implications for the future of Israel. Their treatment immediately after the 1948 war is part of that issue.
Zack: Scott Martens at Pedantry has done an excellent series recounting his family history from Russia to Manitoba. Your Kashmir posts were also very interesting. Would you consider writing down and posting your grandfathers rememberences of pre-partition Palestine? OR, given your family background, other oral history that is worth retelling?
Ikram: I liked Scott’s posts about his family history very much. It would be great if I could do something similar. However, he has a lot of written record that I am not sure my family does. I’ll have to check with my Dad.
Regarding oral history, I was never close to my grandparents. For most of my life, my maternal grandparents and I lived on different continents. When I was in Pakistan, they lived in Britain. They returned to Pakistan after retirement when I was in Libya. Within about a year of my return to Pakistan, they both died. My paternal grandparents lived in Pakistan, but my granmother died when we were in Libya. I barely remember her. My grandfather did live with us for a while when he was sick late in life and actually died in my room when I was a sophomore in college. As a teenager, I didn’t have much interest in asking him about his life in Egypt and Palestine. So I know little about it. I’ll check with my Dad and his siblings if they can contribute something.
Unless my grandfather left some written record, however, I would take his children’s recollection of impressions about the Arab-Israel issue with a grain of salt. The human mind plays a lot of tricks with us and we remember things very differently than they actually were.
I am familiar with some of the debate in the 1920s and 1930s. The demographic situation then was different. There was no large piece of land where Jews had a large majority. The Peel Commission came up with giving 20% of the land to a Jewish state in 1937 (?) and even that required more than 100,000 Arabs to move. I haven’t read any discussions about transfer in the 1940s. It seems that Morris is saying there is such evidence during the war.
I think like most concepts in the political discourse, once these ideas enter into the mainstream they tend to remain as long as the conditions that provoke them continue to exist. The problem with the 1920s and 1930s was that no one was quite sure what a Jewish state would look like, whether there would be one, what would happen to the Arabs etc. This is actually an excellent way to compare the Partition in India – how many people would have voted for the ML if they thought that the two most important Muslim majority provinces would be bifurcated as opposed to going complete to Pakistan? In some sense given the fluidity of the time these issues were kept deliberately vague and general; also the position of the Zionist movement in Palestine being much weaker pre-1939 things were rather different in terms of the problems being faced. The Zionist demand and appeals all rested on under ideal conditions obtaining the full Mandate territory and under pragmatic conditions accepting as much as would be given – none of the Zionist leadership were particularly happy about the UN Partition plan, which is why there was a lively debate about it and even the majority of those who voted for it, did so with what many sympathetic writers have called a “heavy heart”. Given that this plan was proportionally quite generous to the existing demographic conditions then prevailing; it is obvious that in the plans for any prospective Jewish state the problem of what to do with the Arabs was definitely one that the yishuv leadership would have thought about. It is actually a mistake to think that transfer was a natural outcome or that this is what was intended; if the Partition plan had been accepted and no civil war broken out, it is unlikely that it would have occurred. However, given the nature of Zionist settlement, the history and how it was seen by most Arabs; it was obvious that this was unlikely; hence transferist solutions were thought out. Most of these were strictly for security reasons and to preserve the state – by which I mean that insofar as they were planned or premeditated they were primarily done to enhance the position of the new state; not out of some ideological need for more land.
I do not know the debates that Morris refers to; certainly I would have thought that with the history of transfer thinking and the past discussions on the internal “Arab problem” what happened in 1948 would have been a continuation of this. The only debate that I am aware of that indicates awareness of something along these lines going on; was the fact that those in the leadership unhappy with the transfers that occurred were in agreement that they should be limited as far as possible and were not official policy; their disagreement centres around whether Ben-Gurion and many commanders were simply responding to exigencies of warfare or were taking advantage of wartime conditions to actually implement a more drastic and wholesale policy. Opinions on this were, I think divided at the time, so no clear picture emerges. I assume that Morris sheds more light on this, but actually I would think that it would be difficult to make out that there was such a wholesale policy, outside some limited geographic areas.
On the other hand, quite a few Israelis are unwilling to acknowledge the truth even as they talk about demographics again nowadays.
Hmmm, I don’t know, I actually have found Israelis to be very upfront and sensible about this (in my limited encounters so far) and actually I admire this kind of attitude even if it is only shared by a relative minority. I only wish this kind of self-criticism existed amongst my own co-nationals to the same degree. The major obstacle occurs, I believe when one discusses this with non-Israeli Jewish Zionists as they immediately feel defensive and have rather idealised notions of Israeli history and the Zionist movement. In this sense I feel that most diasporic communities are similar, in that they retain a romanticised notion of their national histories and cling, perhaps more tenaciously to white-washed nationalist hagiographies, than those actually residing in the nation; due to their greater distance both physically and emotionally from their homeland. There are other factors, such as that of long-distance nationalism which tends to encourage conservative and more assertive sentiments of loyalty and the desire amongst immigrant-descended communities to always project their nation of origin as a strong and attractive place and talk it up as it were. This problem exists everywhere.
Conrad:
if the Partition plan had been accepted and no civil war broken out, it is unlikely that it would have occurred. However, given the nature of Zionist settlement, the history and how it was seen by most Arabs; it was obvious that this was unlikely
I agree.
I assume that Morris sheds more light on this, but actually I would think that it would be difficult to make out that there was such a wholesale policy, outside some limited geographic areas.
I think you are correct. Read Morris’s Guardian article. It briefly addresses his evidence in the book and is much easier to read without bursting into anger than the Haaretz interview. I think I’ll buy his book soon.
On the other hand, quite a few Israelis are unwilling to acknowledge the truth even as they talk about demographics again nowadays.
Hmmm, I don’t know, I actually have found Israelis to be very upfront and sensible about this
Well, my interaction with Israelis is extremely limited, especially in real life. The people I know are moderates and definitely pragmatic and sensible about peace and Palestinian state etc. However, they are a bit sensitive to national history issues. Perhaps, it is my bias against nationalism showing. I do admit that they are much better than most Pakistanis or Indians.
long-distance nationalism
There are some very strange samples of that that I have seen, particularly among South Asians.
I think you are correct. Read Morris’s Guardian article. It briefly addresses his evidence in the book and is much easier to read without bursting into anger than the Haaretz interview. I think I’ll buy his book soon.
Yes, thanks for the link it is more reasoned. I would take issue with some of what he is saying about the critical reception of his book; Norman Finkelstein pointed out that Morris didn’t have access to the record on atrocities committed by the Haganah as those files were not made available to Morris. Not that it matters too much since the scale of these were, relatively, small. However, I am not as impressed as many others seem to be by Morris’s concessions or perceived ones; I mean a lot of it might be news to some pro-Zionists but much of this had been said much before and is kind of old hat really. Morris is basically just updating the Israeli side onto something that had been already largely understood; work done by younger scholars has gone much beyond in this sense and made his revelations seem much less, well, revealing. Still it is good that he has basically accepted some of these criticisms.
I am less than enthused about the rather bizarre characterisations of Arab ‘culture of revenge’ or the supposed attributed of Islam; but these are just recycling old prejudices here; what upsets me is less that he had them, than he professes to be some sort of leftist while he does so. It would be difficult to say that some of these views, are anything other than, bordering on, if not crossing over into blatant racism.
The only point of contention is the evacuation orders given to Palestinian civilians; this is the first time I have heard such strong evidence of this and given the past controversies on this issue, I am interested to see how strong his evidence is and how credible. I remain kind of sceptical but am willing to be swayed on this; you should put up a review of the book when you finish it.
Well, my interaction with Israelis is extremely limited, especially in real life. The people I know are moderates and definitely pragmatic and sensible about peace and Palestinian state etc. However, they are a bit sensitive to national history issues. Perhaps, it is my bias against nationalism showing. I do admit that they are much better than most Pakistanis or Indians.
I would say that when it comes down to it, what matters more to many people is how the current situation is resolved; everything else is mainly background. Obviously there is an amount of self-selection in the Israelis I have met, but even those with more nationalist-rightist views/politics; don’t disagree much about the history of what has happened, it is the politics that flows from this that creates the difficulties. Certainly the number of sensible moderates both outside and inside Israel within the Zionist camp, and the lively political debate that this generates, is something I wish could be emulated more in other national-conflicts.
For South Asians things are slightly different, civil society is less highly developed and differentiated and the state is still rather paranoid about democratic participation and inclusion and all too willing to resort to coercion rather than persuasion. This affects the intensity with which external and security policy is debated; unlike the Israelis and the Palestinians, we are more evenly balanced and pose a serious threat to each other; so there is less willingness by either the stronger or weaker side to show any concessions or desire for accommodation. There are some moves which can be seen as parallel to both conflicts; I was amused to see how both Israel and India did make some changes in the nationalist recapitulation of the past on the commemoration of their respective semi-official popular cultural productions. If one looks at the TV series Tamas and Tekuma; you can see how the official narrative of the past usually advanced in a self-serving manner by the state and political elites, has been tempered to include a more balanced view of the genesis and causes of conflicts and while they remain within the nationalist consensus there is some movement here – the former showing the complicity and indiscriminate nature of mass rioting during the 1947 Partition and the role of local political elites such as thekkadars in fomenting and organising the violence on both sides; while the latter recounts some of the kind of incidents of forced cleansing of local villages and excesses committed by the armed forces. There is still a long way to go, but things have not stood still by any means.
There are some very strange samples of that that I have seen, particularly among South Asians.
Well, the homeland becomes an important source of identity and emotional strength for the Self, in a society and state that can be difficult to adapt to and seem indifferent or threatening. Distance makes the heart grow fonder and a certain amount of projection here produces a rosy view of what should be rather than what is. The trouble is that this then creates a space for all sorts of odd politics and rationalisations as to what can explain this discrepancy and dissonance.
Conrad: you should put up a review of the book when you finish it.
I’ll, though the book is not yet available. Should be by next month. It is also expensive. $110 for the hardcover and $40 for the paperback.
If one looks at the TV series Tamas and Tekuma; you can see how the official narrative of the past usually advanced in a self-serving manner by the state and political elites, has been tempered to include a more balanced view of the genesis and causes of conflicts
Interesting. I think Pakistan is still somewhat behind India on these things.
very strange samples of that that I have seen, particularly among South Asians.
[Conrad’s writing snipped]
I should probably clarify for anyone wondering that the reason I picked South Asians as an example is that I am one and this is one group that I can claim to know a large sample of, other than Americans.
Zack,
since the discussion goes on, a belated comment. I haven’t yet made up my mind on Morris and most likely never will, but on your main question:
I want to focus on the demographics at the time.
Looking at the demographics of the British mandate of Palestine in 1947, under the UN partition plan, Israel would have contained 500,000 Jews and 400,000 Arabs. Another 100,000 Jews lived in Jerusalam’s international zone. If we add the Jewish population of Jerusalem, we get about 60% Jewish percentage in the Israel of the UN plan. That Israel did not come into existence because of Arab rejection of the partition plan and then the 1948 war. At the end of the 1948 war, Israel got 78% of the mandate territory instead of the 55% it was to get under the UN plan. Some of this was heavily Arab: the triangle, Jaffa (Yafo) and western Galilee. I don’t have 1947 population figures for these areas, but I would speculate that if there had been no refugees or if the refugees had been allowed to return, Israel would have been almost evenly divided between Jews and Arabs. However, there are a few caveats:
There is no evidence that Israel had any plans to invade or capture territory that it had not been given in the UN plan if the Arabs had not started the war.2
We also have to consider the overall context of the situation and Israel looks somewhat reasonable overall, though with faults and crimes.
This balance of population between Arabs and Jews would only have been for a couple of years. Then, the Jewish refugees from the Arabs countries started streaming in.
Now, my question is whether there is any historical evidence of the Israeli leaders thinking about the demographic issue along these lines or is this pure stupid hand-waving on my part?
It’s a while now that I’ve read any serious work on ME history, real life being what it is, nevertheless, I’d question the assumptions. Some points, relying purely on my normally faulty memory:
1. The main point of struggle of that time was much less demography than territory. It was territorial control that determined military security, and it was military security that determined survival. Some argue that this is the thinking of many Israeli leaders to this very day.
2. Zionist leadership is a rather vague term in a way. As of the period leading to the establishment of the Sate of Israel, it was hardly a closed group sharing more or less the same view on goals and tactics, as you’d expect of a modern government administration. Zionism was work in progress (still is, in fact), and you can find quotes from major figures to support almost every thesis. And a lot of explosive stuff, considered these figures tended to be rather quarrelsome individualists. Nice to use in present-day political mud-throwing in all directions, but all the more difficult to make out the reality behind the phrasing. Reminds me a bit of the fashionable “Islam” debate, btw.
3. The ideas on what to do about Arabs varied widely from the beginning. Here, you should take the diverse social, cultural and political backgrounds of the early Zionists in account. Back as a kid in the Soviet Union, I heard stories about Zionists of the Socialist school going to Palestine in order — among other things, of course — to liberate poor subjugated Arabs from rich landlords and to build a progressive Jewish state together, just to name a personally familiar case.
4. The issue of maintaining the “Jewish identity” is a relatively new one to a number of the Jews involved. Part of it is founded in traditionalist religious views, something certain members of the earlier Zionist generation didn’t care to be bothered with too much.
5. Jews from Arab countries were present on the mental map of the European Jewry marginally at best. The emerging Israel was largely an Ashkenazic project, to much of its Jewish population the “other Jews” were utter savages. There is a record of debate on who of them and how many could have been accepted into the country, and at what speed. In fact, the larger immigration wave was a result of the 1967 war, a development that was unlikely to be anticipated at the time in question.
This is just for starters, there are a lot of other things to look out for of course.
Last but not least, I’m not delighted with what Morris said. The moment someone starts chattering about a “war of civilizations” I cross him off my list of esteemable individuals, and all the worse for a professional historian without the excuse of being uncapable of anything better than grabbing the latest and greatest in pseudo-intellectual debate the guy next door with or without a blog has. Which is not to say that there are no dangerous and potentially lethal trends in the region, but rather that they can and ought to be explained within a conceptual framework based on hard facts.
and while I’m at it, don’t miss this: Link
Miranda:
Thanks for the mideastweb link. It’s definitely very interesting.
1. Once Morris will have publicized his new findings from the Israeli military archives in detail, I hope that someone with sufficient expertise would check whether the locations the attacks on Palestinian civilians took place did in fact correspond to strategic positions according to the military thinking of that time. Another point is that while demography was indeed a factor, it was never a pure numbers game, the security of the anticipated new arrivals was a serious concern as well: jamming them into places vulnerable to Arab artillery wasn’t really the big idea.
This is something that radiates into the present situation as well, and one of the problems is that all the screeching makes it almost impossible to distinguish genuine concerns. Here (more here and here) is, for example, an almost hysterically anti-Sharonite explanation of the settlement project, yet, assumed that the overall concept is what the author claims it to be, while it isn’t nice towards the Palestinians it isn’t utterly irrational in terms of Israeli security, especially if one continues to think in 1948 terms.
3. At the moment, without checking the respective sources, none, I’m afraid, at least not in English. What I know, and, I believe, Morris mentions it somewhere as well, is that many of the new Jewish social institutions were open to a number of non-Jewish locals. As for the great Socialist dream, it didn’t stand up to reality — my point was that what I’d term here “exclusive Jewishness” wasn’t the sole manner of thinking.
5. The better-documented part of the Jewish-Arab world is the Frankophone Maghreb. I recall mentions of local Zionist youth cells in the post-WWI period, but, the place being not isolated from the rest of the world, usually under Ashkenazi influence. I know of no Zionism of the autochtone Sephardic variety, although AFAIK there has always been a small trickle towards Jerusalem, mostly religiosly motivated.
Zack;
I’ll, though the book is not yet available. Should be by next month. It is also expensive. $110 for the hardcover and $40 for the paperback
Yes, the Guardian had it advertised for 30 pound sterling and this would be I think the paperback version. Personally I read the first edition from a library copy and I didn’t think it worth buying since so many things about it annoyed me but I suppose it is a valuable resource for those who want to have a good researched source on this aspect of the conflict. I did see one of his latest books, on Glubb Pasha and the Jordanian campaign a few weeks ago; as well.
Interesting. I think Pakistan is still somewhat behind India on these things.
Well, I wouldn’t get too excited about this; we seem to have gone back a few steps of late. Given our relative position and hegemonic regional status, one could make a strong argument that we should have had the security to reach this stage much earlier and moved beyond it. This has not really been the case and even relatively mild revisions in the official history produce a strong backlash; I imagine that to a degree a similar story exists in Israeli debates on the issue as well.
Re: (4) that you and Miranda discuss above, there was a recent article in the journal “Middle Eastern Studies” that looks at several different Jewish and Arabic newspapers from 1910-1914 in Palestine in their discussion of local politics and the ‘Arab Question’ it pays some attention to the perspective of Sephardim and Ashkenazi thinkers contrasting the differing newspapers of different groups with ha-Po-el ha-Tza’ir and ha-Ahdut for the former and ha-Herut for the latter. It is entitled “Sephardim, Ashkenazim and the ‘Arab Question’ in pre-First World War Palestine: A Reading of Three Zionist Newspapers” and is written by Abigail Johnson. You can find it in volume 39, No; 2 in the April 2003 issue of the MES journal.
Miranda:
1. That analysis is definitely something I want to read.
I haven’t yet read the links you provided, so any related comments will have to wait.
3. I agree tha “Jewish exclusiveness” wasn’t the only idea at the time, but somehow I haven’t read anything about actual cooperation between Jews and Arabs at the time. It might be more my ignorance though. It seems like an interesting topic for articles or books. Will have to dig up something.
Conrad: I think his Glubb Pasha book is in one of the libraries I can borrow from. Might take a look at that one of these days. I think Morris concludes in that book that Jordan was trying to take over Palestinian land and not destroy Israel in 1948. Isn’t most of that accepted for some time now? Morris hinted at that in “Righteous Victims” as well.
Thanks for that article. Seems like we only have an electronic subscription to “Middle Eastern Studies” and only have articles at least a year old. So I’ll have to wait until April.
Zack,
a larger part of my information is based on oral history, I’m afraid. he subject has been too close to me for many years to keep a formal record. I wouldn’t exactly call it co-operation, but I’ve been told several times that the early settlements offered social services (mostly health but sometimes education as well) to the locals. Pity I don’t have the time resources to check it.
I happen to have the 2001 edition of “Righteous Victims” right on my table at the moment, though. A superficial discussion is in ch. 2, p. 50 ff., the bibliography looks quite useful.
re. N. African Jews — can you read French?
On the whole, an excellent “alternative history” subject: if the native Arabs (and the Brits, and the Turks) would have assumed a more welcoming stance, and the integrationist Socialist trait would have won among the Jewish immigrants…
Miranda: a larger part of my information is based on oral history
How about restarting your weblog and writing it all down?
A superficial discussion is in ch. 2, p. 50 ff., the bibliography looks quite useful.
Thanks. I read it a couple of years ago. I’ll check the bibliograpghy for further reading.
can you read French?
No. Unless you count a vocabulary of 20 words.
an excellent “alternative history” subject
Definitely. I have started getting interested in alternative history recently. Especially related to events around World War I.
Zack,
I think his Glubb Pasha book is in one of the libraries I can borrow from. Might take a look at that one of these days. I think Morris concludes in that book that Jordan was trying to take over Palestinian land and not destroy Israel in 1948. Isn’t most of that accepted for some time now?
Yeah, I don’t think the book is a worthwhile read for non-specialists as such, it is just the only one from Morris I have seen in the shops of late. The argument about Israeli-Jordanian co-operation is, as you say, old hat by now. One of the first in-depth working of this was Avi Shlaim’s 1988 book “Collusion across the Jordan” which did some good primary mining of sources here. A look at what the Arab legion actually did during the 1948 makes it quite clear what they were up to and a wide-scale war of politicide was not one of the aims. But outside hysterical nationalist circles I don’t think anybody claims this anymore.
Seems like we only have an electronic subscription to “Middle Eastern Studies” and only have articles at least a year old. So I’ll have to wait until April.
That sucks, I will see if there is some form of the article online but I don’t think so. On a lighter note, I did pick up in secondhand bookshop today a remarkable little volume entitled “The Arab-Israelu Peace Process: Lessons for India and Pakistan” edited by Moonis Ahmar —- this should be a right barrel of laughs. I have decided that I will read what these clowns have to say in a strictly non-sober state; given the fact that most sober people would probably have not thought to draw their lessons from this source.
useful, the right-hand bar on your front page, prevents one from forgetting the old discussions 🙂
I don’t have much time to write these days, unfortunately
of these French authors who are likely to have been translated: try to find the works of (1) Albert Memmi in English, especially a book with a title “Jews and Arabs”, or similar (2) Esther Benbassa, probably only articles
Conrad: “The Arab-Israeli Peace Process: Lessons for India and Pakistan”
That should be a fun read. 😉
Miranda: Thanks for the references. Surprisingly, my school library has Memmi’s “Jews and Arabs” in the English translation.