Role in the
Israeli–Palestinian conflict
The arrival
of Zionist settlers to Palestine in the late 19th century is widely seen as the
start of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Zionists wanted to create a Jewish
state in Palestine with as much land, as many Jews, and as few Palestinian
Arabs as possible.In response to Ben-Gurion's 1938 quote that "politically
we are the aggressors and they [the Palestinians] defend themselves",
Israeli historian Benny Morris says, "Ben-Gurion, of course, was right.
Zionism was a colonizing and expansionist ideology and movement", and that
"Zionist ideology and practice were necessarily and elementally
expansionist." Morris describes the Zionist goal of establishing a Jewish
state in Palestine as necessarily displacing and dispossessing the Arab
population. The practical issue of establishing a Jewish state in a majority
non-Jewish and Arab region was a fundamental issue for the Zionist
movement. Zionists used the term "transfer" as a euphemism for
the removal, or ethnic cleansing, of the Arab Palestinian population. According
to Benny Morris, "the idea of transferring the Arabs out... was seen as
the chief means of assuring the stability of the 'Jewishness' of the proposed
Jewish State".
In fact, the
concept of forcibly removing the non-Jewish population from Palestine was a
notion that garnered support across the entire spectrum of Zionist groups,
including its farthest left factions from early on in the movement's
development. The concept of transfer was not only seen as desirable but also as
an ideal solution by the Zionist leadership. The notion of forcible transfer was
so appealing to this leadership that it was considered the most attractive
provision in the Peel Commission. Indeed, this sentiment was deeply ingrained
to the extent that Ben Gurion's acceptance of partition was contingent upon the
removal of the Palestinian population. He would go as far as to say that
transfer was such an ideal solution that it "must happen some day".
It was the right wing of the Zionist movement that put forward the main
arguments against transfer, their objections being primarily on practical
rather than moral grounds.
According to
Morris, the idea of ethnically cleansing the land of Palestine was to play a
large role in Zionist ideology from the inception of the movement. He explains
that "transfer" was "inevitable and inbuilt into Zionism"
and that a land which was primarily Arab could not be transformed into a Jewish
state without displacing the Arab population. Further, the stability of the
Jewish state could not be ensured given the Arab population's fear of
displacement. He explains that this would be the primary source of conflict
between the Zionist movement and the Arab population.
End of the Mandate and Expulsion of the Palestinians
Towards the end of the war, the Zionist leadership was
motivated more than ever to establish a Jewish state. Since the British were no
longer sponsoring its development, many Zionists considered it would be
necessary to establish the state by force by upending the British position in
Palestine. In this the IRA's tactics against Britain in the Irish War of
Independence served as a both a model and source of inspiration.[t] The Irgun,
the military arm of the revisionist Zionists, led by Menachem Begin, and the
Stern Gang, which at one point sought an alliance with the Nazis, would lead a
series of terrorist attacks against the British starting in 1944. This included
the King David Hotel bombing, British immigration and tax offices and police
stations. It was only by the war's end that the Haganah joined in the sabotage
against the British. The combined impact of US opinion and the attacks on
British presence eventually led the British to refer the situation to the
United Nations in 1947.
The UNSCOP found that Jews were a minority in
Palestine, owning 6% of the total land. The urgency of the condition of the
Jewish refugees in Europe motivated the committee to unanimously vote in favor
of terminating the British mandate in Palestine. The disagreement came with
regards to whether Palestine should be partitioned or if it should constitute a
federal state. American lobbying efforts, pressuring UN delegates with the
threat of withdrawal of US aid, eventually secured the General Assembly votes
in favor of the partition of Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states
which was passed 29 November 1947.
Outbursts of violence slowly grew into a wider civil
war between the Arabs and Zionist militias. By mid-December, the Haganah had
shifted to a more "aggressive defense", abandoning notions of
restraint it had espoused from 1936 to 1939. The Haganah reprisal raids were
often disproportionate to the initial Arab offenses, which led to the spread of
violence to previously unaffected areas. The Zionist militias, employed terror
attacks against Arab civilian and militia centers. In response, Arabs planted
bombs in Jewish civilian areas, particularly in Jerusalem.
The first expulsion of Palestinians began 12 days
after the adoption of the UN resolution, and the first Palestinian village was
eliminated a month later.[135] In March of 1948, Zionist forces began
implementing Plan D, which warranted the expulsion of civilians and the
destruction of Arab towns and villages in pursuit of eliminating potentially
hostile Arab elements.According to Benny Morris Zionist forces committed 24
massacres of Palestinians in the ensuing war, in part as a form of
psychological warfare, the most notorious of which is the Deir Yassin massacre.
Between 1948 and 1949, 750,000 Palestinians would be driven out of their homes,
primarily as a result of these expulsions and massacres.
The British left Palestine (having done little to
maintain order) on May 14 as planned. The British had done little to
fascilitate a formal transfer of power;a fully functioning Jewish quasi-state
had already been operating under the British for the past several decades. The
same day, Ben-Gurion declared the establishment of the state of Israel.
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