Israel May "Transfer"
Palestinians During the War on Iraq
By WILL YOUMANS,
CounterPunch, 9
October 2002
In 1989 Benjamin Netanyahu told students at Bar-Ilan University:
"Israel should have exploited the repression of the demonstrations in
China, when world attention focused on that country, to carry out mass
expulsions among the Arabs of the territories."
Many commentators and the Palestinian public in general are worried that
the Israeli government will not miss the opportunity with impending war
on Iraq.
Around one hundred Israeli academics wrote a letter warning that talk of
transfer, a sanitized term for ethnic cleansing, is increasing within
mainstream political discourse in Israel. The letter warned that the
"Israeli ruling coalition includes parties that promote 'transfer' of
the Palestinian population as a solution to what they call 'the
demographic problem'".
It cited a recent interview in Ha'aretz, by chief of staff Moshe
Ya'alon. He discussed the possible need for a special "treatment" in the
occupied territories. Prime minister Sharon supported his "assessment of
reality." The letter also mentioned that, "escalating racist
demagoguery" in Israel "may indicate the scope of the crimes that are
possibly being contemplated."
In August, 2002, Ali Abunimah published an expose on Gamla, "a group
founded by former Israeli military officers and settlers." Its website
featured a technical paper entitled "The Logistics of Transfer," which
calls for Israel to ethnically cleanse all of the Palestinian
territories as "the only possible solution." Besides offering
instructional suggestions, it provides a theological justification for
those not convinced by the political rationale.
More mainstream voices have considered it in disturbingly acquiescent
tones.
On October 3rd, the Guardian featured an essay by the prominent Israeli
historian Benny Morris on the history of the concept of transfer as a
political tool in Israel-Palestine. Morris seemed to also write this in
response to the more frequent discussion of transfer as an option. He
cited "Shmuel Eliahu, the chief rabbi of Safad" who "called for the
transfer, to 'Jordan, the Muslim republics of the former Soviet Union,
or Canada,' of Arabs who are unwilling to accept Israel as a Jewish
state."
He points out that as shocking as this may seem, even Arab and British
officials once considered transfer an acceptable political necessity. He
quotes a few private statements of Jordanian and Iraqi officials to that
effect.
Morris is warming us up to the idea to the idea of transfer. Since it
was a historical option, his essay suggests, it may make sense now. He
speculates, "perhapstoday's Middle East would be a healthier, less
violent place" if Israel had dispossessed all of the Palestinians in
1947-48, as opposed to only the "700,000 of Palestine's 1.25 million
Arab inhabitants."
He wrote that ethnic purity would have been the "historically calming
result." The logical and unstated conclusion is that the opportunity to
achieve purity still remains. Thus the article leaves as its end where
it started: that transfer is an option.
That a highly revered historian who helped tarnish Israel's founding
myth that the Palestinian refugees were self-created now flirts with
ethnic cleansing so comfortably proves that ethnic cleansing is becoming
increasingly accepted as an acceptable route in the Israel-Palestinian
conflict.
If Israel plans on displacing Palestinians during the campaign against
Iraq, it will be carefully implemented in order to not upset American
designs on Iraq. Premeditated plans in the absence of an overt pretense
would be piecemeal - Israel's long preferred way of shifting
populations. After all, hundreds of thousands of refugees pouring into
Jordan may force Jordanian officials to disallow American use of
Jordanian airfields, for example.
Displacement en masse could happen after Iraq falls. Observers have
speculated that western Iraq may provide a place for Israel to expel
Palestinians to. It would give Israel somewhere to dump the Palestinians
and would happen after Iraq's chemical arsenal had been fully disarmed.
Transfer could also appear to be a natural response to a
"mega-terrorist" attack or if Saddam Hussein launches enough missiles at
Israel.
The probable starting point for a program of ethnic cleansing would
center on the new security wall complex Israel is building in and
through the outskirts of the West Bank. With a 5-6 meter-high fence,
trenches, mine fields, a sand patch to detect footprints, watchtowers,
and an electrified fence, this complex will snake around the inner
portions of the Palestinian side of green-line. So far, 43 miles of it
has been built. In the end it will run the entire length of Israel's de
facto border with the West Bank (a map of the project is available at
B'Tselem's website).
The long and winding complex drops deep into parts of the West Bank in
order to bring settlements into the Israeli side of the wall. So far,
10,000 Palestinians in 8 towns and villages have also fallen on the
west-side of the wall, separated from the rest of the West Bank,
according to a report by the Israel human rights group B'Tselem. Also,
"thirty-five Palestinian families residing along the northern edge of
Bethlehem are expected to remain on the northern side of the barrier in
south Jerusalem, due to the decision to include Rachel's tomb inside the
barrier."
Besides the fact that this impinges on Palestinian lands, involves the
bulldozing of homes and farmlands, separates families, violates the
basic rights of mobility and work, and further disjoints Palestinian
rootedness in the land, it leaves in limbo the fate of over ten thousand
Palestinians. They could be the most attractive targets for ethnic
cleansing.
On a practical level, all of Israel's security mechanisms, from the
checkpoints, curfews, and closures, to this new wall, regard all
Palestinians as potential terrorists. Given the broadness of most of
these arrangements, will Israel really allow over 10,000 Palestinians to
remain on the other side of this wall? The wall complex is immensely
popular in Israel and moves to bolster its efficacy will be well
received by most Israelis.
Israeli officials know that it will give the Palestinians even more to
be angry about. The Financial Times reported that farmers have lost
direct access to their fields, people's homes have been commandeered for
military use, and schools and other edifices have been demolished just
for being too close to the wall complex's vicinity.
At a deeper level, Israeli officials across the ideological spectrum
read the Palestinians as a demographic threat. That is, by their very
existence Palestinians challenge Israel's dominant historical mythology.
They are the noxious foot-note to Zionism's colonizing slogan that
declared Palestine "a land without people for a people without a land."
However, the extent of any forthcoming ethnic cleansing is
indeterminable. It could be limited to the more than 10,000 Palestinians
who escaped containment by Israel's wall security complex, or it could
be the "full-fledged ethnic cleansing" the 100 Israeli academics warn
of.
Further ethnic cleansing is a realistic possibility given the centrality
of transfer in Israel's history. Benny Morris affirms what every
Palestinian knows: "The idea of transfer is as old as modern Zionism and
has accompanied its evolution and praxis during the past century." Other
circumstances point to transfer as well: Israel is in an economic and
political crisis, the ruling coalition is made up of parties calling for
transfer, Sharon is running out of ideas and his raison d'etre is not
peaceful diplomacy but military action premised on Israel's security
obsession.
Like the massacre at Tiananmen Square, the next war on Iraq may be a
period of relaxed international scrutiny of Israel's actions. Already we
have seen Israel use the wake of the September 11th attacks to enhance
its operations against the Palestinians by extending and aggrandizing
its violent incursions into Palestinian populations. Sharon's comment
that "the concern now is not about a few Scud missiles, but suicide
bombers everywhere" offers no solace.
The contemporary path to the moment of transfer is paved with Israel's
recent expulsions of the Palestinian fighters who were in the Church of
Nativity, and families of suicide bombers. Reports that Iraq facilitates
suicide bombs and would encourage them more in the event of an attack
further links the war on Iraq with Israeli security. When combined with
Israel's security premise that all Palestinians are potential
terrorists, this formula hints at the Palestinian "demographic threat"
that once left Golda Meir sleepless at night and now serves as the
subject of obsession for Israeli conferences and nervous policy
analysts.
The Israeli academics' letter calls for "the international community to
pay close attention to events that unfold within Israel and in the
occupied territories." International activists must "make it absolutely
clear that crimes against humanity will not be tolerated." It also
recommends, "concrete measures to prevent such crimes from taking
place."
Anti-war activities should include messages to this effect. Anytime an
Israeli spokesperson takes questions, they should be asked about this.
This idea must enter into the media via op/eds, letters, and so on.
Confront and deluge congressional representatives with this suspicion.
The goal should be to force Israeli spokespeople to take a position now
and to recognize that the world will be watching them. Activists should
establish our own preemptive doctrine. Let's act now, and not react
after Israel has established new facts on the ground.
