Genocide, Variations on a Theme #I
Part Nine, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine #1
For Ilan Pappé “a painful journey into the past” is the only way to confront the problems of the present. In his book: “The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine” (2006) Ilan Pappé focuses on Plan D (Dalet), which uprooted over half the Palestinians, roughly 800,000 people, destroyed 531 villages and emptied 11 urban neighborhoods.
The plan commenced in March 1948 and took six months to complete. It consisted of forcibly evicting, besieging, burning and demolishing the homes of the Palestinians.
Pappé challenges the official narrative: “When it created its nation-state, the Zionist movement did not wage a war that ‘tragically but inevitably’ led to the expulsion of ‘parts of’ the indigenous population, but the other way round: the main goal was the ethnic cleansing of all of Palestine, which the movement coveted for its new state.”
Unlike Morris Pappé goes into detail about British policy in the 1920s: “They tried to put into place a political structure that would represent both communities on an equal footing in the state’s parliament as well as in government. In practice, when the offer was made it was less equitable; it advantaged the Zionist colonies and discriminated against the Palestinian majority. The balance within the new proposed legislative council was in favor of the Jewish community who were to be allied with members appointed by the British administration.”
“As the Palestinians made up the majority of between eighty and ninety per cent of the total population in the 1920s, they understandably refused at first to accept the British suggestion of parity, let alone one that disadvantaged them in practice — a position that encouraged the Zionist leaders to endorse it. A pattern now emerges: when, in 1928, the Palestinian leadership, apprehensive of the growing Jewish immigration into the country and the expansion of their settlements, agreed to accept the formula as a basis for negotiations, the Zionist leadership quickly rejected it. The Palestinian uprising in 1929 was the direct result of Britain’s refusal to implement at least their promise of parity...”
The decisive events came in the 1930s: “After the 1929 uprising, the Labor government in London appeared inclined to embrace the Palestinian demands, but the Zionist lobby succeeded in reorienting the British government comfortably back onto the Balfourian track. This made another uprising inevitable. It duly erupted in 1936 in the form of a popular rebellion fought with such determination that it forced the British government to station more troops in Palestine than there were in the Indian subcontinent. After three years, with brutal and ruthless attacks on the Palestinian countryside, the British military subdued the revolt. The Palestinian leadership was exiled, and the paramilitary units that had sustained the guerilla warfare against the Mandatory forces were disbanded. During this process many of the villagers involved were arrested, wounded or killed. The absence of most of the Palestinian leadership and of viable Palestinian fighting units gave the Jewish forces in 1947 an easy ride into the Palestinian countryside.” According to some estimates 10% of the male Palestinian population were killed as a result of the British actions.
Having destroyed the greatest threat to the Zionist project, having helped nurture the Zionist state and having organized and trained its armed forces the British might have been entitled to expect gratitude. What they received was anything but: “As the Second World War drew to a close, the Jewish leadership in Palestine embarked on a campaign to push the British out of the country. Simultaneously, they continued to map out their plans for the Palestinian population, the country’s seventy-five per cent majority. Leading Zionist figures did not air their views in public but confided their thoughts only to their close associates or entered them into their diaries. One of them, Yossef Weitz, wrote (in 1940): ‘...it is our right to transfer the Arabs’ and ‘The Arabs should go!’ Ben Gurion himself, writing to his son in 1937, appeared convinced that this was the only course of action open to Zionism: ‘The Arabs will have to go, but one needs an opportune moment for making it happen, such as a war.’”
What Pappé doesn’t mention at all is the fact that the alliance between the Nazis and the Zionists played a key role in the colonization of Palestine. Without the help of the Nazis the proportion of Jews in the population could never have risen from a tenth to a third. The ideological kinship was plain to see.
The Nazis and Zionists both saw themselves as embodying a rebirth of national life, both emphasized their national origin and sense of uniqueness, both believed that egotistical individualism had to be overcome and be replaced with a sense of community and collective responsibility, both emphasized the need for racial purity and both believed that a separation of the races was to their mutual advantage.
According to Lenni Brenner “... of all of the active Jewish opponents of the boycott idea [of Nazi Germany], the most important was the world Zionists Organization (WZO). It not only bought German wares; it sold them, and even sought out new customers for Hitler and his industrialist backers. The WZO saw Hitler’s victory in much the same way as its German affiliate, the ZVfD [the German Zionist Organization]: not primarily as a defeat for all Jewry, but as positive proof of the bankruptcy of assimilation and liberalism.”
In July 1933 an agreement followed talks between German officials and Chaim Arlosoroff, Political Secretary of the Jewish Agency; the Palestine center of the World Zionist Organization. The Haavara (Transfer) Agreement was a pact that enabled tens of thousands of German Jews to migrate to Palestine. The agreement stipulated: “Jewish emigrants who desire to build a new life in Palestine through the transfer of a portion of their assets over and above the letter of credit required by immigration authorities — £1,000 (Palestinian Pounds) — will receive from the Foreign Currency Control Office upon application permission to deposit an appropriate surplus in a special account that the Reichsbank will set up for the citizens of Jewish origin who cannot yet emigrate, but who wish to prepare for a new life in Palestine and to participate in the development of Palestine, may receive the same permission. The amounts deposited here for their benefit will be credited to them by you according to normal business principles and will be made available to the emigrants. You may have at your disposal the amounts in the special accounts in order to pay for future exports of German manufactured goods to Palestine...”
Each Jew bound for Palestine deposited money in a special account in Germany. The money was then used to purchase German-made agricultural tools, building materials, pumps, fertilizer, and so forth, which were exported to Palestine and sold there by the Jewish-owned Haavara Company in Tel- Aviv. The money from the sales was given to the Jewish emigrant upon his arrival in Palestine in an amount corresponding to his deposit in Germany. This resulted in German goods pouring into Palestine through the Haavara, which was supplemented a short time later with a barter agreement by which Palestine oranges were exchanged for German timber, automobiles, agricultural machinery, and other goods. In October 1933 a leading German shipping line began direct passenger liner services from Hamburg to Haifa.
The Haavara agreement served the Zionist aim of bringing Jewish settlers and development capital to Palestine, while simultaneously serving the German goal of freeing the country of an unwanted “alien group”.
The Haavara agreement allowed the transfer of £8,100,000 (Palestinian Pounds; then $40,419,000) to Palestine along with tens of thousands of German Jews between 1933 and 1939. In addition, the International Trade and Investment Agency, or Intria channeled $900,000 to German Jews in Palestine.
This model was copied internationally. Poland created the Halifin (Hebrew for “exchange”) transfer company in 1937, and by late summer 1939, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Hungary and Italy had signed similar arrangements.
In Germany itself Jewish schools, Jewish sports leagues, Jewish cultural organizations were encouraged, the circulation of the Zionist Federation’s bi-weekly “Juedische Rundschau” grew enormously, numerous Zionist books were published, and a network of some forty camps and agricultural centers where prospective settlers were trained for their new lives in Palestine were organized.
According to Francis Nicosia: “Zionists were encouraged to take their message to the Jewish community, to collect money, to show films on Palestine and generally to educate German Jews about Palestine. There was considerable pressure to teach Jews in Germany to cease identifying themselves as Germans and to awaken a new Jewish national identity in them.”
In 1937 Eichmann visited Palestine and later recounted: “I did see enough to be very impressed with the way the Jewish colonists were building up their land ... In the years that followed I often said to Jews with whom I had dealings that had I been a Jew, I would have been a fanatical Zionist.”