ISRAELI VIOLATION: HISTORY & THEORY
Even though the term "ethnic cleansing" has not been codified into international law as the terms Apartheid and Genocide have been, the term has become a commonly used term in international legal writings and discussion such as in UN resolutions and the official papers of international organizations.
In his excellent article on the subject, Drazen Petrovic listed a range of definitions given by accepted experts in the field of international law:
For example, he quotes United Nations Special Rapporteur Mazowiecki as defining ethnic cleansing in his report of 17 November 1992 as:
"The term ethnic cleansing refers to the elimination by the ethnic group exerting control over a given territory of members of other ethnic groups."
and,
| "...ethnic cleansing may be equated with the systematic purge of the civilian population based on ethnic criteria, with the view to forcing it to abandon the territories where it lives." |
He quotes the U.N. Commission of Experts, in their first Interim Report of 10 February 1993:
| "... considered in the context of the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia, ethnic cleansing means rendering an area ethnically homogenous by using force and intimidation to remove persons of given groups from the area." |
And he quotes Andrew Bell-Fialkoff in his excellent article, "A Brief History of Ethnic Cleansing" as defining the term as:
| "... ethnic cleansing can be understood as the expulsion of an `undesirable' population from a given territory due to religious or ethnic discrimination, political, strategic or ideological considerations, or a combination of these." |
Drazen Petrovic also compared and contrasted the practice of ethnic cleansing with the practice of genocide because of the obvious overlap of methods, for example when mass killing is used to create homogenous population ethnicity in a given area (the goal of ethnic cleansing). I quote:
| "Only when the means and methods of ethnic cleansing policies can be identified with genocidal acts, and a combination of different elements implies the existence of intent to destroy a group as such, can such actions represent genocide." |
But Drazen Petrovic also cautioned against examination of the historic record of a given people for evidence of a tendency toward ethnic cleansing in order to place judgment on current events. But I do not believe that this would apply to the historic records of the European Zionist organizations that created the State of Israel because these were the exact groups that then committed the acts which are under examination, and then created the State of Israel which then continued the same pattern. Plus most of the leaders of the State of Israel were the same men and women who were the leaders previously in these same Zionist organizations.
And, they had/have a realistic concern (though it is not a morally valid reason) on which they based their Ethnic Cleansing which still to this day they have not completely succeeded in overcoming - overcoming the higher numbers of Palestinian Arabs who live in the region, and whom have higher birthrates, in order to create a demographic majority to maintain control of the democratic government they have created. Even though they have succeeded in creating a demographic majority within Israel, they are still a minority in the region overall, and the Arab population has a much higher birthrate. Below is a table of statistics showing the various populations in the area. It is gotten from the CIA 2006 World Factbook which contains extensive country profiles, which is found on the website of the US Central Intelligence Agency (www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/index.html), and from the website of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (www.un.org/unrwa/). Check the link for the Publications/Statistics page.
CHART COMPARING 2006 DEMOGRAPHIC STATISTICS FOR PALESTINE & ISRAEL |
Country |
Total Population |
Population Growth Rate |
Ethnic Groups |
| GAZA |
1,428,757 |
3.71% |
- Pal. Arab - 1,420,184 (99.4%)
- Jewish - 8,573 (.6%)
|
| WEST BANK |
2,460,492 |
3.06% |
- Pal. Arab & others - 2,042,208 (83%)
- Jewish - 418,284 (17%)
|
| ISRAEL |
5,968,117* |
1.18% |
- Jewish - 4,780,462 (80.1%)
- Non-Jewish (mostly Arab) - 1,187,655 (19.9%)
|
CHART COMPARING 2006 DEMOGRAPHIC STATISTICS FOR PALESTINIAN ARAB REFUGEES** |
Country |
Registered Refugees |
Number of Camps |
Registered Refugees in Camps |
| JORDAN |
1,835,704 |
10 |
316,549 |
| LEBANON |
405,425 |
12 |
214,093 |
| SYRIA |
434,896 |
10 |
116,253 |
| TOTAL REFUGEES |
2,676,025 |
32 |
646,895 |
TOTAL POPULATION PER ETHNIC GROUPS FOR ISRAEL + OCCUPIED TERRITORIES
Palestinian Arabs - 4,650,047
Jews - 5,207,319
TOTAL POPULATION PER ETHNIC GROUPS FOR REGION (INCLUDING REFUGEES IN SURROUNDING COUNTRIES)
Palestinian Arabs - 5,296,942
Jews - 5,207,319 |
*The statistic on the CIA website for total population of the State of Israel is 6,352,117, but they state this includes 384,000 Israeli settlers who actually live in the occupied territories.
**It is probably not too far-fetched to assume that the Palestinian Arab population outside the occupied territories and Israel also have birthrates higher than the Jewish population. |
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Thus we find in the records of these Zionist Organizations extensive discussion by these same leaders and other leaders and members of the planning of "transfer" - meaning mass deportation of the Palestinian people out of the area of Palestine which the Zionist people were considering for their new State. "Transfer" was discussed extensively - whether it should be involuntary or voluntary, and if it were voluntary whether there should be incentive or not, or compensation or not, and if there was incentive, should it be negative or positive (make the people want to move for a positive reason, or out of fear).
In addition, the British Mandate Government itself at certain times published official policy papers supporting transfer as part of its official policy of supporting the eventual creation of a Jewish State.
Thus, this constitutes the planning and formulation of official policy to "transfer" the Palestinian Arab population out of its homeland, based solely on their ethnic identity, so that the region could become dominated by a different ethnic group from outside the region - this clearly fits the modern definition of "Ethnic Cleansing".
Here is a small selection of quotes reflecting the debate and planning of "Ethnic Cleansing" by the leaders of the European Zionist movement that then founded the State of Israel (collected from Masalha, 1992):
For example the founder of Political Zionism, Theodor Herzl wrote in his diary in 1895,
“When we occupy the land, we shall bring immediate benefits to the state that receives us. We must expropriate gently the private property on the estates assigned to us.
We shall try to spirit the penniless population across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while denying it any employment in our own country.
The property owners will come over to our side. Both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly.” |
Israel Zangwill, another important political Zionist said in a talk in 1905, “(We) must be prepared either to drive out by the sword the (Arab) Tribes in possession as our forefathers did or to grapple with the problem of a large alien population, mostly Mohammedan and accustomed for centuries to despise us.”
Around 1928, Shabtai Levi, a land purchasing agent for Baron de Rothschild wrote in his memoirs, “He (the Baron) advised me to carry on in similar activities, but it is better, he said, not to transfer the Arabs to Syria and Transjordan, as these are part of the Land of Israel, but to Mesopotamia (Iraq), He added that in these cases he would be ready to send the Arabs, at his expense, new agricultural machines, and agricultural advisers.”
Around 1930, Zionist Socialist (Mapai) leader, David Hacohen wrote, “… I would not accept Arabs in my trade union, the Histadrut; to defend preaching to housewives that they not buy at Arab stores; to prevent Arab workers from getting jobs there… To pour kerosene on Arab tomatoes, to attack Jewish housewives in the markets and smash the Arab eggs they had bought; to praise to the skies the Keren Kayemet that sent Hankin to Beirut to buy land from absentee effendi (landowners) and to throw the fellahin (peasant farmers) off the land – to buy dozens of dunams – from an Arab is permitted, but sell, God forbid, one Jewish dunam to an Arab is prohibited.”
Menahem Ussishkin, chairman of the Jewish National Fund, and member of the executive of the Jewish Agency, said in a 1930 speech to journalists, “We must continually raise the demand that our land be returned to our possession … if there are other inhabitants there, they must be transferred to some other place. We must take over the land. We have a greater and nobler ideal than preserving several hundred thousands of Arab fellahin.”.
In 1936, Maurice Hexter, with the Jewish Agency Executive, summarized the transfer goals of the Jewish Agency as “the herding together of the existing Arab villages and their concentration in order to evacuate their territories for Jewish colonization…. Force the people to exchange land and move from one place to another… our intention is that the Jewish settlements will be only for Jews.”.
Around 1936, David Ben-Gurion (the father of the State of Israel), wrote “It was permissible to move an Arab from the Galilee to Judea, why is it impossible to move an Arab from Hebron to Transjordan, which is much closer? There are vast expanses of land there and we are overcrowded… Even the High Commissioner agrees to a transfer to Transjordan if we equip the peasants with land and money.”.
Then in 1937, in a letter to his son, Ben-Gurion wrote, “We must expel Arabs and take their places… and, if we have to use force – not to dispossess the Arabs of the Negev and Transjordan, but to guarantee our own right to settle in those places – then we have force at our disposal.”.
Around 1937, Simha Flapan, head of Zionist Socialist (Mapam) Party Arab Dept. said of Zionist planning in Palestine, “…schemes for transfer cropped up repeatedly in Zionist deliberations on Arab opposition in Palestine. These plans were suggested as feelers in negotiations with the British, though there was no mention of them in public announcements.”
In June of 1938, Moshe Shertok, head of the Jewish Agency Political Dept., said, “The (Royal Peel) Commission does not only not see something fundamentally wrong in removing people who have lived here for many generations; but it says to the Arabs that if there is a need to move out – they should move out – It points out that after the population transfer between Greece and Turkey, good relations once again prevailed between the two countries.”.
In a speech in July, 1938, Ben-Gurion said, “In the proposal of transferring the Arab population from the area, if it is possible voluntarily and if not by coercion, it would be possible to expand the Jewish settlement…The basic difference with the Commission proposal is that the transfer will be on a much larger scale, from the Jewish to the Arab territory;. If it were possible to transfer Arabs from one village to another within the British Mandate – it is difficult to find any political or moral argument against the transfer of these Arabs from the proposed Jewish–ruled area…. And is there any need to explain the value in a continuous Jewish Yishuv…”.
Also in July, 1938, Yosef Bankover, founding member of the Kibbutz Hameuhad movement and member of the Haganah Regional Command, said, “…as for compulsory transfer, as a member of Kibbutz Ramat Hakovesh, I would be very pleased if it would be possible to be rid of the pleasant neighbourliness of the people of Miski, Tirah and Qalqilyah.”.
Another leader of the Kibbutz Hameuhad movement, Aharon Zisling said, “I do not contest our moral right to propose population transfer. There is no moral flaw in a proposal aimed at concentrating the development of national life. On the contrary: in a new world order it can and should be a noble human vision…”.
Then in August, 1938, Berl Katznelson, a labor leader, wrote, “The matter of population transfer has provoked a debate among us: Is it permitted or forbidden? My conscience is absolutely clear in this respect. A remote neighbour is better than a close enemy. They will not lose from being transferred and we most certainly will not lose from it…. But it never crossed my mind that transfer to outside the Land of Israel would mean merely to the vicinity of Nablus, I have always believed and still believe that they were destined to be transferred to Syria or Iraq.”.
In 1938, Golda Meyerson, leader of the Histadrut (Hebrew Trade Union), said, “.I, too, would want the Arabs out of the country, and my conscience would be absolutely clear. But is there a possibility of its implementation without Arab consent and British assistance?”.
Also around the same time, Berl Locker, one of the founding members of Po’ale Tzion, said, “I do not raise any moral objections. If suitable land will be ensured for the Arab transferees, no injustice will have been done to them… however, the question is whether it is possible to uproot and re-plant tens of thousands of peasant families against their will.”.
Yosef Weitz, director of the Land Dept. of the Jewish National Fund, and founding member of the Population Transfer Committee of the Jewish Agency, said in 1938, “the transfer of the Arab population from the area of the Jewish State does not serve only one aim - to diminish the Arab population, it also serves a second, no less important aim which is to evacuate land presently held and cultivated by the Arabs and thus to release it for the Jewish inhabitants.”.
Vladimir Jabotinsky, the father of the Revisionist Zionism movement, wrote in 1939, “There is no choice: the Arabs must make room for the Jews in Eretz Israel. If it was possible to transfer the Baltic peoples, it is also possible to move the Palestinian Arabs (to Iraq and Saudi Arabia).”
In 1941, Ben-Gurion wrote, “…the land of Israel is only a small part of the territories inhabited by Arabs, and the Arabs of the Land of Israel are only a negligible group among the Arabic-speaking peoples. (But) it is impossible to imagine general evacuation without compulsion, and brutal compulsion. There are of course sections of the non-Jewish population of the Land of Israel which will not resist transfer under adequate conditions… but it would be very difficult to bring about the resettlement of other sections of the Arab populations such as the fellahin and also urban populations (to) neighbouring Arab countries by transferring them voluntarily, whatever economic inducements are offered to them.”
In 1943, Eliahu Ben-Horin, editor of a Zionist newspaper and member of the revisionist Zionist movement, wrote, “I suggest that the Arabs of Palestine and Transjordania be transferred to Iraq, or a united Iraq-Syrian state. That means the shifting of about 1,200,00 pesons. (Thus) the Palestinian Arabs will not be removed to a foreign land but to an Arab land…”.
In May, 1944, at a meeting of the Jewish Agency Executive, Ben-Gurion said, “Zionism is a transfer of the Jews. Regarding the transfer of the Arabs this is much easier than any other transfer. There are Arab states in the vicinity… and it is clear that if the Arabs are removed (to these states) this will improve their condition and not the contrary.”.
Once fighting began in 1948, realization of transfer planning became clear.
Ben-Gurion told the Mapai Party Council, “The war will give us the land. The concepts of ‘ours’ and ‘not ours’ are peace concepts, only, and in war they lose their whole meaning.”.
In 1948, Aharon Cohen, head of the Arab Dept. wrote to Political Committee of the United Workers’ Party (Mapam), “There is reason to believe that what is being done… is being done out of certain political objectives and not only out of military necessities, as they claim sometimes. In fact, the ‘transfer’ of the Arabs from the boundaries of the Jewish State is being implemented… the evacuation/clearing out of Arab villages is not always done out of military necessity. The complete destruction of villages is not always done only because there are no sufficient forces to maintain a garrison (there).”.
Thus in 1948, Yosef Weitz, head of the Jewish Agency Population Transfer Committee, met with military and intelligence officers, and said, “…must direct our war towards the removal of as many Arabs as possible from the boundaries of our state. The guarding of their property after their removal is a secondary question.”
He also presented to them a plan of transfer, “I made a summary of a list of the Arab villages which in my opinion must be cleared out in order to complete Jewish regions. I also made a summary of the places that have land disputes and must be settled by military means.”. |
When finally in the early 1900's, the European Zionist Organizations began working in the Palestine region to set up Jewish-only communities, activities began which could clearly be labeled "Ethnic Cleansing". Below they are listed in chronological order with the percentage of area that the native Palestinian population was "transferred" out of:
- 6% - 1916 - 1948: Area bought by Jewish National Fund (JNF). Although purchase of land is definitely not considered "Ethnic Cleansing", the JNF then instituted a policy that no one could live on the land or even be employed on the land that was not Jewish. Reflecting this, all non-Jewish tenant farmers cultivating or living on that land were subsequently evicted. In addition, the JNF imposed this policy on other Jewish communities in the area if they wanted funding from the JNF or the World Zionist Organization.
- 30% - 1929 - 1947: Area lost due to change in land registration regulations. The British Mandate Government, with the encouragement and assistance of the European Zionist Organizations, replaced the land registration system in use in the region with a European style land registration system. The result of this was that many Palestinian landowners and Palestinian communally-owned lands were lost and thus became State lands of the British Mandate Government, which stated it would then turn over to the new Jewish State when it was created, or became especially vulnerable to sale to Zionist buyers. Almost no assistance was given to the palestinian landowners to help them convert their lands over to the new registration system, and thus many of them saw this new system as a ploy to take lands from Palestinian landowers to eventually give over to the new State that the British and Zionist were planning for the area.
- 55% -1947: Area lost due to U.N. Partition Plan for Palestine. The Zionist supported a number of partition plans over the years, but especially this one, whereas the Palestinian Arabs vehemently rejected it in favor of a Single-State solution where everyone would live and rule equally and democratically. The Palestinians rejected this plan so strongly because it gave to 16% of the area's population, who only owned about 6% of the land at the time, an increase to more than half of the area - 55% - which was their native lands where they had lived for over 2000 years.
- 70% - 1948: Area lost in 1948 war. The Palestinian people rebelled against the U.N. Partition Plan, with the help of surrounding Arab nations. But the Zionist forces won, and in the process, they took over an additional 15% of land which they then kept - land gained by military force - which is illegal according to international law. But before the Arab armies even struck, the Zionist forces emptied and destroyed over 300 Arab villages, and by the end of the fighting over 400 Arab villages had been emptied and destroyed. Many of these people left voluntarily, and some were ordered out by their own leaders, but most were chased out or scared away by the Zionist forces, but all had the idea that they would be able to return to their homes after the fighting, who ever was in control. But the new State of Israel quickly passed laws forbidding Palestinians from returning to their villages, and then set up a government agency to manage and redistribute their property to Jewish immigrants moving into those areas (Custodian of Absentees' Property). Later, a small number of Palestinian refugees were compensated for their losses, and some were even allowed to return.
- (95% within Israel) - 1948-present: Land lost within Israel. The new State of Israel quickly adopted laws that forbade non-Jews from leasing homes or property on State lands, called "Israel Lands". This also passed a range of laws that enabled them to take lands from private landowners for different reasons. Thus Palestinians found themselves confined to smaller and smaller areas of land. At this time, they are confined to less than 5% of the lands of Israel, and then these areas are discriminated against in many ways. Most notorious of these land laws was the Planning and Building Law of 1980, which facilitated the zoning out of existence over 40 ancient Arab villages, which were then denied basic services such as electricity and sewer maintenance. Only following United Nations intervention were some services restored.
- 85% - 1967-present: Land lost in occupation of adjacent Palestinian Territories. The Palestinians rebelled again in 1967 with the help of neighboring Arab nations, but they also lost again. This time the Israeli forces occupied land all the way to the Jordan River. But they returned much of this land to neighboring Arab nations (Suez Peninsula in 1968) or to the Palestinians themselves (Gaza in 2005). But parts they also annexed into Israel proper in violation of international law. In the other parts (West Bank) they have broken numerous international laws, and installed an oppressive and exploitive Apartheid government. But they have also taken over unofficially almost 70% of this area either kicking out the Palestinian residents completely, or sharply restricting their access. Much of this area is occupied by illegal Israeli civilian settlements linked legally to Israel proper. And now with the doubling in size of the Maale Abunim settlement east of Jerusalem, the West Bank has been virtually cut in half for the use of the Palestinian residents. The economy in the West Bank Palestinian communities has been strangled, malnutrition is spreading, and Israeli settlers are allowed to abuse the Palestinians virtually without police restraint. This abuse of the Palestinian residents is considered to be itself a form of Ethnic Cleansing because many believe it is part of an effort to chase out the Palestinian people who still remain in these areas. Some of the methods used are so brutal that they may even qualify as Genocidal because they are practically destroying Palestinian society in these areas (see section on crime of Genocide).
- Violating Family Unity - 2003-present: Knesset passes a the Nationality and Entry into Israel (Temporary Order) Law (2003) which forbids residents of the occupied territories who are married to Israeli citizens from joining their families in Israel (with a few temporary exceptions). The public rationale is security concerns, but the long term rationale is to help maintain the Jewish demographic majority.
We can see from this that over the years there has been a range of actions and policies by both the Zionist groups and the Israelis which were aimed at driving the Palestinian people out of the area. In addition to these actions, there have also been numbers of massacres. Some count as many as 12 massacres (and only one performed by the Palestinian forces against the Israelis or Zionists, in addition to hundreds of suicide bombings). The worst by far was the Sabra-Satila Refugee Camp massacres in Southern Lebanon which were facilitated by Ariel Sharon who later motivated the Al Aqsa Intifada with his highly provocative year 2000 invasion of the Al Aqsa Mosque Compound with over 1000 Israeli mercenaries, and then was voted in as Prime Minister of Israel by the Knesset in year 2001.
In terms of International Law, the only law coming close to forbidding Ethnic Cleansing is article 49 of the Geneva Conventions of 1949, which were later confirmed in article 85(4a) of the Geneva Conventions (Protocol I) of 1977, which actually called deportation of "protected persons" a "grave breach" of international law (see below for quotes from these laws).
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