the arabs in israel 1948-1966

THE INSTITUTE FOR PALESTINE STUDIES

The Institute for Palestine Studies is an independent non-profit Arab research

organization not ajfiliated to any government> political party, or group, devoted to a

better understanding of the Palestine problem. Books in the Institute series are pub¬

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FOUNDERS AND BOARD OF TRUSTEES

His Excellency, Mr. Charles Helou

Now President of the Republic of Lebanon

Mr. Sami Alami

General Manager, Arab Bank Ltd., Beirut

Mr. Ahmad Baha-Ed-Din

President, Press Association of the U.A.R., Cairo

Mrs. Wad ad Cortas

Principal, Ahliya College, Beirut

Prof. Burhan Dajani

Secre tary - General, Union of Arab Chambers of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture, Beirut

Mr. Pierre Edde

Ex-Minister of Finance (Lebanon)

Dr. Nabih A. Faris *

Professor of History, American University of Beirut

Mr. Maurice Gemayel

Member of Parliament (Lebanon)

Mr. Abdul Latif Hamad

President, Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development

Prof. Said Himadeh

Professor Emeritus, American University of Beirut

Dr. Nejla Tzzeddin

Authoress and Educator, Beirut

Mr. Adib Jadir

Engineer, Baghdad

Mr. Abdul Mohsin Kattan

Businessman (Kuwait)

Prof. Walid Khalidi

Professor of Political Studies, American University of Beirut

Dr. Hicham Nachabeh

Director of Education, Makassed Association, Beirut

Dr. Edmond Rabbath

Lawyer and Professor of Constitutional Law, Lebanese University

Mr. Farid Saad

Former Senator (Jordan), Industrialist and businessman

Dr. Fuad Sarrouf

Vice-President, American University of Beirut

Dr. Constantine Zurayk

Distinguished Professor, American University of Beirut

* Deceased.

THE ARABS IN ISRAEL

1948-1966

(g) Copyright 1968, The Institute for Palestine Studies

First impression, 1968 Second impression, 1969

MONOGRAPH SERIES N° 16


Ashqar Bldg., Clemenceau Str.

Beirut, Lebanon

SABRI JIRYIS

THE ARABS IN ISRAEL

1948 - 1966

Translated by

MERIC DOBSON

1969


Beirut

J)S

113. r T -C O

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface . ix

Chapter One: The Military Government . 1

1. Introduction . 1

2. The Legal Basis of the Military Government. 7

3. How Does the Military Government Operate ? 15

4. The Dispute about the Military Government. 26

5. The Real Aims of the Military Government . 42

Chapter Two: The Establishment of Jewish

Colonies. 55

1. Land. 55

2. The Total Area of Expropriated Land. 80

Chapter Three: From Deir Yasin to Kafr Qasim—

The Strong-Arm Policy . 91

Chapter Four: Strangers in their Own Land. How

the Life of the Arabs in Israel has changed. 119

1. Policy and Society. 120

2. Education. 146

3. Agriculture . 156

4. Labour . 163

5. Development and Services. 170

Conclusion.*. 175

PREFACE

This book is concerned with the living conditions of the Palestine

Arabs, both Christian and Moslem, who remained in territories invaded

by the Israelis in the 1948 Palestine War and held by them throughout

the period 1948-1966'. It does not deal with the Palestine Arabs in the

territories invaded by the Israelis during the June War 1967 and held

by them since then.

The author is himself a Christian Palestinian Arab lawyer and, technically, an Israeli citizen. The book was first published in Hebrew,

in Haifa, in 1966. It is perhaps, the most forthright and comprehensive

study available in any language on the Arab minority in Israel. It is

based on Hebrew source material, particularly the Israeli Parliamentary

Debates, Official Gazette, Judgements of the District and Military

Courts and the relevant Israeli laws.

Copies of this book were smuggled out of Israel in 1966 and

translated separately into Arabic and published by the Arab League

Office in Jerusalem, Jordan, and the Palestine Research Center in

Beirut, in 1966, and 1967 respectively.

The present English translation is based on these two Arabic

versions, which, on comparison, proved to be very similar. Whenever

the footnotes in the book are followed by the word “Translator”, the

reference is to the translators from the original Hebrew. Otherwise the

footnotes are those of the author, Mr. Sabri Jiryis.

Beirut, 2 December, 1968

CHAPTER ONE

THE MILITARY GOVERNMENT

1. Introduction

Ever since the establishment of the State of Israel, large

areas of the country, such as Galilee, the Triangle1 and the

Negev, have been administered by a Military Government,

disposing of very extensive administrative powers and working

through its own network of military courts.

During the first few years of the Military Government,

very few people, particularly amongst the Jewish population,

took much notice of it or its activities or indeed even knew

that it existed. It was during this period that the feeling that

the Military Government should be retained, and even

strengthened, gained ground, on the pretext that it formed

an essential protection for the most vital interests of the state,

and particularly of its security. Today, the situation is very

different, and a large proportion of the people demand the

abolition of the Military Government. For the character of

such a system is essentially incompatible with a regime which

is proud of being democratic, and the harsh measures for

which it has been responsible have gradually discredited it

with public opinion in Israel. It follows that opposition to the

Military Government amongst the Jewish population and

their political leaders has increased, in addition to the un¬

interrupted opposition to it of the Arab population.

1 - During the mandate, the Triangle was that part of the Samaria District enclosing Nablus, Tulkarm and Jenin. In the 1948 war, the villagers in the Triangle successfully resisted the entry of Israeli forces. However, in the Rhodes Agreement of 1949, half of the Triangle was incorporated by Israel. This Israeli Triangle, or the Little Triangle as the Israelis call it, lies about 25 miles to the east of Tel Aviv on the Jordanian border — Tr.

2 THE ARABS IN ISRAEL

With the passage of time, the once solid foundations of

the Military Government have been shaken; a wide spectrum

of society demands its abolition, and this demand has come

to form a serious threat to its continued existence; most

political parties say that it must go, a wide variety of popular

groups have been, and still are, campaigning against it, and

there have been large scale political and popular conflicts

over it. In fact the debate has reached as far as the Knesset.

In 1963, the motion to retain the system was passed by a

tiny majority (59 votes to 55), while a year later it was passed

by only one vote (57 to 56).

None of this should be surprising. The alien character

of the Military Government, and its transformation from a

system whose aim was ostensibly to protect the security of the

State to a pawn, whose only raison d'etre is to serve specific

political interests, has alienated large sections of public

opinion and united them against it.

The present form of military government in Israel has

British origins. Certain of the powers it enjoys today were

enforced in the U.K. during World War II, although most

of these were abolished there as soon as the war ended.

However, the laws in force in Israel differ radically from the

original British World War II laws.

The whole system owes its legal existence to the British

Mandate Government’s Defence Laws (State of Emergency)

1945,1 and the Israeli Defence Laws (Security Areas) 1949.

The former were not, however, the first repressive measures

introduced by the British Mandate and were preceded by the

Emergency Laws, 1936, and the Defence Laws, 1939, which

were enacted in order to subdue the Arab population after

the 1936 Arab Revolt in Palestine. At the end of World

War II, these laws were re-enacted in their present form.

However, this time they were not only directed against the

Arab population but against the Jewish population as well.

It was with the sanction of these laws that the British

carried out most of their operations against the Jewish secret

1 - Official Gazette, No. 1442, 27 Sept. 1945, Supplement 2, p. 855.

THE MILITARY GOVERNMENT 3

organisations. It was these laws that gave the British their

power to banish members of ETZEL1 and LEHI2 to Eritrea,

to search for arms in Jewish colonies, to send the leaders of

the Jewish Agency to Latrun prison and to impose curfews

in Jewish towns. These laws were, in fact, one of the most

advanced methods evolved by the British to curb opposition

to themselves.

The laws were violently opposed by Jewish settlers in

Palestine in various ways. One such protest was voiced at a

conference of the Lawyers Association held in Tel Aviv in

February 1946, and attended by about 400 Jewish lawyers.

During the conference Dr. Dunkelbaum,3 later to become a

Supreme Court Judge, said: “These laws, of course, constitute

a danger to (Jewish) settlement as a whole, but we, as lawyers,

are particularly concerned with them. The laws contradict

the most fundamental principles of law, justice and jurispru¬

dence. They give the administrative and military authorities

the power to impose penalties which, even had they been

ratified by a legislative body, could only be regarded as

anarchical and irregular. The Defence Laws abolish the rights

of the individual and grant unlimited power to the adminis¬

tration. The aim of this Conference is to express our attitude,

as settlers and lawyers, to these laws, which include the

deprivation of the basic rights of every settler ... in contra¬

diction to law, order and justice.”

1 - ETZEL — full name Irgun Zvai Leumi be Eretz Israel (National Military Organisation in Palestine) a Jewish terrorist organisation responsible under the Mandate for large scale attacks with explosives on Arab market-places and Government Departments and, during the Pales¬ tine War of 1948, for many atrocities, including the massacre of Deir Yasin. Its head, Menachem Begin, member of the Israeli Parliament and leader of the Herut Party since 1949, is currently a member of the Israeli Coalition Government headed by Eshkol — Tr.

2 - LEHI — short for Lochmei Herut Israel (Fighters for the Freedom of Israel—otherwise known as the Stern Gang.) This was another Jewish terrorist group under the Mandate and during the Palestine War of 1948. It specialised in assassinations, of which the most notorious was the mur¬ der of Count Folke Bernadotte the U.N. Mediator, shot dead in Jerusalem in September 1948. Its leader, Nathan Friedman, subsequently became a member of the Israeli Parliament — Tr.

3 - The periodical Hapraklit (The Lawyer), Febr. 1946, pp. 58-64.


Even more vigorous than this statement were the words

of the representative of the Jewish Agency, Dr. Bernard

Joseph, (who, as Dov Joseph, was later to become the Israeli

Minister of Justice until the end of 1965):

“With regard to the Defence Laws themselves, the ques¬

tion is: Are we all to become the victims of officially licensed

terrorism, or will the freedom of the individual prevail?

Is the administration to be allowed to interfere in the life of

each individual without any safeguards for us? There is

nothing to prevent a citizen from being imprisoned all his

life without trial. There is no safeguard for the freedom of

the individual. There is no possibility of appeal against the

decision of the Military Commander, no possibility of resort

to the Supreme Court, and the administration has unrestricted

freedom to banish any citizen at any moment.

“What is more, there is no need for a man to actually

commit an offence. It is enough for a decision to be taken in

an office for his fate to be sealed. The principle of collective

responsibility has been carried beyond the bounds of reason. All Hebrew settlers are liable to be hanged for an offence

committed by any single person in this country. It is intoler¬

able that the citizen should be at the mercy or the goodwill

of an official. It is intolerable that we should be forced to

place our lives and property in the hands of such an official.

There is no choice between freedom and anarchy. In a

country where the administration itself arouses anger against

the law and contempt and resentment of it, it is impossible

to expect any respect for the law. The citizen cannot be

expected to respect a law that outlaws him completely.”

Mr. Ya‘acov Shimshon Shapiro, who was later Attorney-

General of Israel and is the present Minister of Justice, was

even more emphatic. He said:

“The system established in Palestine since the issue of

the Defence Laws is unparalleled in any civilised country;

there were no such laws even in Nazi Germany . . . There is

indeed only one form of government which resembles the

system in force here now—the case of an occupied country.

They try to pacify us by saying that these laws are only

directed against malefactors, not against honest citizens. But


the Nazi Governor of Occupied Oslo also announced that

no harm would come to citizens who minded their own busi¬

ness. It is our duty to tell the whole world that the Defence

Laws passed by the British Mandatory Government of Pales¬

tine destroy the very foundations of justice in this land. It is

pure euphemism to call the Military Courts “courts.55 In fact,

they are nothing more than, (to use Nazi nomenclature),

‘Military Judicial Committees Advising the General5.

The transformation and restriction of much civil juris¬

diction to emergency jurisdiction, or to military courts, which

amounts to the same thing, means the abolition of justice

itself. No government has the right to pass such laws ...55

The Conference passed a number of resolutions including

the following:

“The community of Jewish lawyers in theLand of Israel,

assembled at Tel Aviv on 2 July 1946, hereby decides that:

1. The powers granted to the authorities under the

Emergency Laws deprive the Palestinian citizen (in the Land

of Israel) of the fundamental rights of man.

2. These laws undermine law and justice, constitute a

grave danger to the life and liberty of the individual and

establish a rule of violence without any judicial control. The

Conference demands the repeal of these laws . . .”

When the State of Israel was established, one of its first

steps should have been the repeal of these oppressive and

imperialist laws. In fact, the laws not only remained on the

Statute Books, (with the exception of the sections dealing

with immigration and the acquisition of land), but they were

employed by the new regime to the same extent as under

its predecessor. It is as if nothing had changed. The leaders

of the new regime changed their coats overnight. They forgot

the battles they themselves had waged against the Defence

Laws, and shamelessly went on to enforce them as rigorously

as possible.

It would also seem that the lawyers forgot the decisions

they themselves had taken at an earlier date. It was these

same Jewish lawyers, who, as judges in the State of Israel or


legal advisers to the Israeli Government, developed and inter¬

preted these laws, when they were used by the new regime,

which was almost entirely hostile to the Arab population. The

only opposition to these laws has come from Judge

Shalom Kassan who, in a case concerning an order for

arrest issued under the Defence Laws a few months after

the establishment of Israel, refused to apply these laws, and

gave his judgement that they were illegal. Judge Kassan’s

judgement was as follows: “Everyone knows that all groups

and classes of Jewish settlers in this country, and the Jewish

people in exile, have protested violently against the Defence

Laws, and have submitted petitions against them, couched

in the strongest language on every possible occasion. Why?

Because these laws abolish the rights of the individual and,

in particular, the control of the competent courts over the

actions of the authorities. The Emergency Laws stretch on

over many pages and include 14 chapters of some 150 articles,

most of them long. But each article shares one aim—to

suspend the building of the (Jewish) national home. The

Minister of Defence, Mr. Ben Gurion, knows all about these

laws and their aims. The Attorney General of Israel,

Mr. Ya'acov Shimshon Shapiro, knows all about these laws.

These two men were the first to fight against these laws.

I cannot act and give judgement in accordance with the

Defence Laws, which are still on the Statute Book.Inasmuch

as I am convinced that these laws are essentially invalid,

I should not be asked to act against my conscience, merely

because the present government has not yet officially repealed

these laws, although the members of this same government

themselves declared them illegal soon after they were passed.

If the courts of the British Mandate did not erase these laws

from the Statute Book, this court is in honour bound to erase

them and utterly eradicate them.”1

However, as we shall see, this minority view did not

tally with the views of the rest of the state judges or those

of the political leaders.

1 - The District Court of Tel Aviv, sitting as the Supreme Court. Defence Appeal No. 48/1 & 2. Hamishpat (Justice), Volume 3.


2. The Legal Basis of the Military Government

The Defence Laws (State of Emergency), 1945, consist

of 170 articles divided into 15 sections. They deal with cen¬

sorship, the restriction of freedom of movement, every aspect

of control of the freedom of speech and the press, control of

the various means of transport, regulations on the possession

of arms etc. etc. At the same time as these laws were enacted,

military courts were established to try those who infringed

them. The laws give the Minister of Defence the power to

appoint military commander’s as governors over any area he

may see fit. On appointment, the governor automatically

becomes a competent authority with the power to enforce,

at his own discretion, all the powers covered by the Defence

Laws.

It is common knowledge that the Defence Laws give

extensive and extremely rigorous powers, whose enforcement

is highly prejudicial to individual liberty and to an individual’s

right over his possessions. In order to understand the full

extent of these powers, we must examine in detail some of

the most important of the laws enforced by the Military

Government.

One of the most frequently employed laws is Article 125,

which grants Military Governors the power to declare an

area as closed, and to restrict entrance to and exit from it.

This article provides the Military Government with its legal

sanction for restricting liberty of movement, by insisting on

permits to enter or leave a closed area.

Articles 109 and 110 empower the Military Government

to issue an administrative order for police supervision. An

individual under such an order may be restricted in his move¬

ments and must inform the police of them; he may be deprived

of his right to his possessions and he may be refused access

to them; his contacts with other people may be rigorously

controlled; his professional work may be supervised and

restricted (this is particularly so with journalists); he may be

ordered to live in a certain area and a certain place and for¬

bidden to leave it; he must inform the police of his where¬

abouts at all times, appear at the nearest police station when


so required and remain indoors between sunset and sunrise;

the police have right of access to his home at any hour of the day or night.

Article 111 allows the detention of anyone whom the

Military Government may decide to detain, for any reason

whatsoever, for an unlimited period, without trial and without declaring the charge.

Article 112 empowers the Military Government to expel

a person from the country or to banish him permanently; it

also makes it possible to forbid any person outside the country

to return to it.

Article 119 empowers the Military Government to con¬

fiscate or destroy a person’s property if the Military Governor

suspects that a shot has been fired or a bomb thrown from such property.


fiscate an individual’s property if the Minister of Defence is

satisfied that this person has broken these laws or has com¬

mitted an offence for which he is liable to be tried by a military court.

Article 121 empowers the Military Government to order

the inhabitants of any area or village to provide food and

lodging at their expense to such members of the police force

as may be sent there for any purpose, for as long as the military

authorities shall see fit.

Article 124 empowers the Military Government to impose

a total or partial curfew in any village or area.

Articles 126 and 132 empower the Military Government

to forbid or restrict the movement of persons, vehicles or

animals in specified streets or districts.


trol the sale, possession and use of arms, to forbid, restrict

and regulate the purchase or sale of arms, ammunition and

explosives and to withdraw or extend all permits to carry

arms.1

1 - The Military Government exploits this Article to grant arms

permits to such Arabs as “cooperate” with the Government.


By virtue of these laws, a series of Military Courts was

established, whose main task was to try cases which involved

the infringement of the Defence Laws, to enforce these laws

and to punish offenders against them. These Military Courts

should not be confused with the Courts Martial of the Israeli

Army. The Military Courts are competent to try only civilian

offenders against the Defence Laws (State of Emergency)

1945, and have no connection with the Courts Martial, except

insofar as the judges of the Military Courts are soldiers or

officers of the Israeli Army.

The Military Courts are divided into two categories:

a) The Military Court, which consists, by virtue of

Article 13, of a president, who must be a senior officer, and

two other members of officer rank. They are appointed by

the Army Chief of Staff. This court is empowered to try all

offences against the Defence Laws and, in practice, to impose

any penalty that the Central Court is empowered to impose,

including life imprisonment and the death penalty.

b) The Summary Military Court, consisting of one

Israeli Army officer, appointed by the Chief of Staff by virtue

of Article 156. This court is not empowered to inflict the

death penalty or to impose sentences of imprisonment of more

than two years, or a fine of more than l£ 3,000.

When the laws were passed, Articles 30, 46, 47 and 48

stipulated that there was no appeal to any other court, mili¬

tary or civil, against judgements of the Military Courts, but

the military authorities (the Minister of Defence and the

Chief of Staff of the Army) have the power to reduce or even

quash the judgements of these courts, or to order a retrial.

In 1963 the law was amended to allow for appeals. (We shall

consider this question later.)

The second legal sanction for the Military Government

is provided by the Emergency Laws (Security Areas) 1949.1

1. The Minister of Defence used the “Order for the

Form of Government and Justice 1948” as a basis for these

1 - Collected Laws (11), 27 April 1949, p. 169.


laws, which are prolonged every year by special legislation

—the latest prolongation extending them up to December

1965.1

2. There are also the amendments which are passed

from time to time.

These Emergency Laws impose the same restrictions on

the “security areas” as the Defence Laws (State of Emer¬

gency) 1945 impose on the “closed areas,” and forbid entry

into or exit from these areas without a written permit from

the Military Commander.

In addition to these restrictions, the laws give the

Minister of Defence very important powers as regards the

permanent eviction of the population living in these security

areas from their places of residence, by an order issued by

the Minister of Defence.

These powers are, as we said, very extensive. In fact they

make the Military Government a state within a state, inas¬

much as it has “legislative,” judicial and executive powers.

The mere enforcement of these powers, quite apart from their

abuse, can be extremely prejudicial to the citizen against whom

the Military Government decides they shall be exploited.

In practice, the Military Government exploits some of

these powers more than others, in particular those provided

for by Articles 109 (expulsion), 110 (police supervision), 112

(administrative detention), 124 (curfew), 135 (closed areas

and movement permits) and 137 (arms permits.)

The decision to enforce the powers granted to them by

these laws is left to the discretion of the Military Government,

which has the right to enforce them in every case where it is

required “to ensure the safety of the people, the security of

Israel, the maintenance of public order, the suppression of

risings, revolt or rebellion, or the supply of provisions and

vital services to the people.” This extremely wide definition

enables the Military Government, in practice, to interfere in

1 - The Laws or the State of Israel. (412), 2 January 1964, p. 34. (Since the publication of this book the laws have been extended by the Knesset up to December 1967 — Tr.)


every aspect of the lives of the citizens who live under its

authority.

The Military Government has absolute power in the

areas it controls, because it can do precisely what it likes.

There is no administrative control whatsoever over its actions

and judicial control is restricted to the possibility of applying

to the Supreme Court. Time has proved that there is no prac¬

tical advantage in doing this, for the Supreme Court has made

it a rule not to interfere with the Military Government when

its actions are based on “security reasons.’5 It has also proved

impossible to question the military judges in the court about

the nature of the “security reasons,” inasmuch as such ques¬

tioning is, in itself, prejudicial to the security of the State.

This principle has been established and vindicated in a

long series of judgements of the Supreme Court of Justice.

In Appeal No.53/1971 the judgement of the Court included

the following statement:

“The object of the order (to impose police supervision

on the plaintiff) issued by the defendant was to ensure the

safety of the people and public order, and we have no right

to express an opinion as to whether this object can be achieved

in this manner, this being left to the absolute discretion of the

defendant. . . and we see no justification for interference in

the matter.”

In Appeal No. 50/462 the Court’s judgement included

the following statement:

“The competence of this Court to criticise the actions

of the competent authorities acting in accordance with the

Defence Laws (State of Emergency) 1945, is extremely limit¬

ed. When the Article under discussion allows the competent

authority freedom of action as regards the individual in all

cases £in which it thinks’, or £in which it is of the opinion’

that circumstances of which it is cognisant require such action,

this, in a general way, makes the competent authority itself

1 - Ismail Ali vs. the Police Inspector et al. Judgements of the Supreme Court, No. 7, p. 913.

2 - Ayyubi vs. the Minister of Defence. Judgements of the Supreme Court, No. 10, p. 105.


the final judge as regards the existence of such circumstances

. . . and inasmuch as this Court is subject to this narrow com¬

petence, it has no right to criticise the grounds adduced by

the competent authority in justification of its issue of the said order.55

Similarly, the judgement on Appeal No. 59/1261 2 con¬ tains the following:

“It should be mentioned that this power (to give orders

for banishment, detention etc.) is very extensive. It is at the

discretion of the (Military) Commander, not of the Court,

and he has the right to give the order even if it merely seems

to him that such an order is desirable.55

These statements in themselves grant immunity to the

actions of the Military Government. In effect they say that

it is not permissible to question the military judges in the

Court to ascertain the real, fundamental motives for their

actions, and all efforts made in this direction have been firmly

rejected by the Supreme Court. Thus, for example, the verdict

on Appeal No. 50/46, already referred to, states:

“The responsibility for protecting the higher interests of

the State rests on the Military Commander and it is his duty

to decide whether or not these interests make it undesirable

that he should disclose additional details which might throw

light on the grounds for the issue of the order; or, in other

words, it may be understood that the justification for the im¬

position of supervision (which is subject to criticism by this

Court only within the narrow limits allowed) is the same as

that which is used to justify the maintenance of strict secrecy

in regard to such matters.55

The Court’s judgement in connection with Appeal No. 53/1112 says:

“A public authority must not be obliged to submit to the Court verbal or written proofs, the disclosure of which

might lead to the endangering of vital affairs of State,

1 - Hasanein vs. the Minister of Defence. Judgements of the Supreme Court, No. 41, p. 272.

2 - Kaufmann vs. the Minister of Defence et al. Judgements of the Supreme Court, No. 7, p. 543.


including matters connected with security ... in particular it

is forbidden to disclose the ways in which information on such

matters reached the public authority . . . The same degree of

caution is required not only with regard to sources of in¬

formation, but also to their purport.55

These Supreme Court decisions have acquired the force

of customary law, and it has become the practice in Military

Government circles whenever their conduct meets any oppo¬

sition, to submit a certificate signed by the Minister of Defence

to the Court, which states that the reasons for the competent

authority’s actions are connected with security. These certi¬

ficates and claims “for security reasons55 have become normal

procedure in all legal arguments about the Military Govern¬

ment’s actions, to such an extent that the Supreme Court of

Justice found it appropriate to state, in its judgement on

Appeal No. 53/1881 that:

“We must here establish that there is no magic in the

words “for security reasons” or “the state of security” and

other such expressions, that can justify the actions of the com¬

petent authority or prevent the Court from inquiring into the

justice of affairs and actions. If it appears to the Court that

these words are being used merely as a cover for severity, ar¬

bitrary actions or illegal aims, (this Court) will not hesitate to

disclose this frankly and clearly, for the sake of the truth

and to ensure that justice is done.”

How can the Court decide when “these expressions” are

no more than a cover for severity, arbitrary action and illegal

objections? The answer to this question is to be found in the

judgement just quoted; it contains the following words:

. . We are faced with two alternatives: either we be¬

lieve that what the Military Governor says is the truth, and

that security considerations were to the fore when the expul¬

sion order was given ... or we reject what he says absolutely

and say that we do not believe it.”

In practice, this is the principle which is enforced today.

As it is impossible to disclose the “security reasons” used by

1 - Abu Ali and others vs. Verben et al. Judgements of the Supreme Court) No. 13, p. 473.


the Military Government to justify its actions, or to make any

inquiries about them, the control of the Supreme Court of

Justice is diminished to a degree where it consists of merely

deciding whether to believe the word of the citizen or that

of the Military Governor—and of course in most cases the

scales are weighted in favour of the Military Governor.

The Supreme Court’s attitude has led to the actions of

the Military Government getting completely out of control.

The immunity allowed to these actions by the Court

has, in fact, exempted the Military Government of all effective

control, so that there have been no curbs on its already very

extensive powers. One example of this is provided by Appeal

No. 56/1261 which concerned a case of “mediation”—that

is to say interference—by the Military Government, in the

affairs of a certain Municipal Council. Then there is Appeal

No. 56/1462 which deals with the Military Government’s

refusal to grant an entry permit to a certain closed area

unless those applying for the permit could prove that they

owned or rented the land they wished to go to. A third

example is Appeal No. 59/126, in which the Court was asked

for the repeal of an expulsion order made by the Military

Government against the plaintiff because he had distributed

certain leaflets in his village. All these cases are, in fact, quite

clearly civil or criminal cases, which come under the jurisdic¬

tion of the State’s civil courts.3

Armed with all these powers, wrapped in the cloak of

“for security reasons” and immune to practically all inter-

1 - Iraqi et al. vs. the Military Governor in the Central Region et al.

Judgements of the Supreme Court, No. 30, p. 103.

2 - Abdul Fattah et al. vs. the Minister of Defence et al. Judgements of the Supreme Court, No. 30, p. 103.

3 - Hasanein vs. the Minister of Defence et al. Judgements of the

Supreme Court, No. 41, p. 272. In certain cases the attitude of the Supreme Court has been similar

to that criticised by the well-known judge, Lord Aitken, in the House of Lords, as follows: “I regard with alarm the attitude of certain judges who, when they come into direct collision with measures connected with the liberty of the individual, assert their personalities by interpreting the law in a manner more royalist than the King.”


ference in its decisions and its conduct, the Military Govern¬

ment is free to act as it will.1

3. How Does the Military Government Operate?

The Minister of Defence has used the powers granted

to him by the Emergency Laws to appoint military comman¬

ders (governors) for three principle areas which cover exten¬

sive parts of the country. These three areas are: Galilee (the

Military Government—The Northern Area), the Triangle

(the Military Government—The Central Area), and the

Negev (the Military Government—The Southern Area).

75 per cent of the Arab inhabitants of the country live in these

areas, parts of which have been sub-divided, by order of the

Military Governors themselves, into areas known as "closed

areas,55 by virtue of Article 125.

The precise frontiers of these Military Government areas

and the closed areas are known to no one in the country

except the staff of the Military Government. The Military

Government, by virtue of Article 4 (paragraph 2) of the

Defence Laws (which says: "It shall not be required to pub¬

lish a declaration of a State of Emergency in Reshumot,552)

publishes nothing about the frontiers of the areas it controls,

or indeed how far these areas stretch. Nor does it disclose

anything about its actions. Thus the citizen who wishes to

know what places he may leave or enter without permit is

obliged to go every time either to the offices of the Military

Government, which are few and far between—or to the

police stations, most of which are unable to provide the in¬

formation required. The same citizen, if he leaves or enters

1 - The English writer Walter Schwartz has described the reaction

of the Arab inhabitants to what is called “for security reasons” by the reaction of an angry Arab of Galilee : “They take our land. Why? For security reasons! They take our jobs. Why? For security reasons! And when we ask them how it happens that we, our lands and our jobs threaten the security of the State, they do not tell us. Why not? For security reasons!” {The Arabs in Israel, London, 1959, p. 15) — Tr.

2 - Reshumot: The Israeli Official Gazette — Tr.


a closed area without a permit, is liable to prosecution for

breaking the Defence Laws, despite the fact that he does not,

and cannot know the boundaries of these areas. Nor is this

fact regarded as a valid excuse when he is on trial in the military courts.

However, with the passage of time, most citizens have

come to know the extent of the areas, either through daily

contact with the Military Government or from information

published in the press or in various government publications.

Perhaps the most reliable description of the administra¬

tive composition of the Military Government is the one that

appears in one of the reports by the State Controller1 on the

machinery of the Ministry of Defence.2 In this report the

Controller says: “By virtue of the Defence Laws (Article 6),

Military Commanders have been appointed to the following areas:

“1. The North, including the whole of Galilee, Acre,

the Coast of Bashan and Marj ibn Amer, including the town

of Afula, but not the Carmel area and the coast of Zebulun.

“2. The Centre, including the Triangle and Wadi Ara.

“3. The Negev, including the whole of the Negev and Wadi Araba.

“These areas are sub-divided into a number of smaller

areas, in each of which there is a branch of the Military

Government which acts as liaison with the inhabitants of the

area with regard to matters arising out of the functions of

the Military Government.”

These branches are as follows:

a) The Northern Area. This has five branches in the

following places:

1. Nazareth. This branch includes the town of Nazareth

and neighbouring villages.

2. Nazareth. This branch includes Eastern Galilee, that

is, the villages on Mount Tabor as far as Safad.

1 - The State Controller is the Israeli Ombudsman — Tr. 2 - Report of the State Controller on the Ministry of Defence for the financial

year 1957-59, No. 9, 2 February 1959, p. 52.


3. Shafa Amr. This branch includes Shafa Amr and the

villages near the town, the villages of the Battuf Plain

and the villages near the village of Sakhnin.

4. Tarshisha Macuna. This branch includes the villages

of Western Galilee.

5. Majd al-Kurum. This branch includes the Kurum

plain and the village of Jish. (A new branch has re¬

cently been set up in Acre.)

b) The Central Area has the following three branches:

1. The village of Ara. This branch includes the country

around Ara and Umm al-Fahm.

2. Baqa Al-Gharbiya. This branch includes the village

of Baqa, Jatt, and the surrounding villages.

3. Tayyiba. This branch includes the villages of Tayyiba,

Tira, and Jaljuliya.

c) The Southern Area has two branches:

1. Shufal. This branch includes the Bedouin of the fol¬

lowing tribes: Huzayyel, Asad, and Abu Abdin. These

tribes move around in an area that stretches from

Beersheba and Hebron in the East to the kibbutz of

Gevulot in the West, the road between the kibbutzim

of Lahav and Davira marking the northern limit of

their migrations.

2. Umm Batin. This branch includes the following tribes:

Abu Raqiq, Abu Suraihan, Aqabi, Atauni, Abu Bilal,

Afunish, Qulaiq, and Talaliqa. The migration area

of these tribes lies to the east of the Beersheba road

as far as the armistice line with Jordan, the area to

the east of Rosh Zohar, to the south of the same road,

and the area of Tel Yeroham to the west of Wadi

Utayyir.

In the area of the Military Government in the North

there are about 130,000 Arabs living in 65 villages and small

towns: the Central Area has about 50,000 inhabitants living

in 27 villages, and in the South there arq about 20,000 Bedouins

and nomads belonging to some 18 tribes.


“Each of these three areas is subject to the control of a

Military Governor, who is the only person empowered to en¬

force the Defence Laws.”

Of the areas declared “closed areas” by Article 125, the

State Controller’s report (p. 55) says:

“By virtue of Article 125, large parts of the Military

Government areas have been declared closed areas. The

details are as follows:

1. The area of the Military Government in the North

is divided into 14 areas (previously 15 areas) including an

Arab area covering the greater part of Galilee. This is area

No. 15 (today Area T). The following are the details of the

Military Government areas in the North:

a) Area No. 1. This is a Jewish area, consisting of Jewish

colonies, stretching along the whole of the frontier

with Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan.1

b) Areas Nos. 2, 4 and 5 (Area No. 3 has been abolished.)

These areas are inhabited by Bedouin tribes number¬

ing some 25,000, living near the frontiers with Leba¬

non, Syria, and Jordan.

c) Areas Nos. 6 to 14. These are mixed areas, with a

population of some 20,000 Arabs; the majority of the

inhabitants are Jews.2 These areas march with Area

No. 1, which lies near the frontier, and include the

towns of Safad, Afula, and Naharia.

e) Area No. 15. This is an Arab area covering the re¬

mainder of Galilee, including the town of Nazareth.

It has 90,000 Arab inhabitants, constituting the ma¬

jority of the Arabs in the Northern area.

2. The whole of the Central Area constitutes a single

closed area.

1 - This does not mean that the Jewish inhabitants of this area are

subject to military government; what it means is that the Arab inhabitants

are forbidden to enter it — Tr.

2 - The Military Government laws are not enforced on Jews living

in areas subject to military government — Tr.


3. In the Negev, one area has been declared closed.

This stretches to the north and south of Beersheba, but does

not include Beersheba itself.”

It should not be assumed that these statements by the

State Controller are strictly accurate; it is well known that

in the area controlled by the Military Government in the

North alone (Galilee), there are more than ten other “closed

areas,” like ghettos within the larger “closed areas.” Some of

these small “closed areas” consist of demolished villages,

which were declared closed areas after the eviction of their

Arab inhabitants. The remainder are areas used for the

training of the Israel Defence Army, or they are lands de¬

clared closed to facilitate their expropriation from their Arab

owners, as happened in the case of the lands of the villages

of Sakhnin and Araba in the Battuf Plain,1 or in the case of

the lands of the villages of Deir Asad, Nahaf and Majd al-

Kurum, which were confiscated so that the Jewish town of

Karmiel might be built on them. In December 1955, a fur¬

ther area of 100,000 dunums2 in Galilee was declared a closed

area, and in June 1959 another area near Baqa al-Gharbiya,

in the Triangle, was declared closed.

Indeed, some people think that until 1954, there were

some 50 closed areas in Galilee and, according to some sources,

there were even more than 50. In any case, it is difficult to

learn the exact figures, because the Military Government

does not publish any official statements about the frontiers

of the areas it controls. After the reorganisation of the Military

Government in 1963, extensive changes were made (to be

discussed later) in connection with the closed areas mentioned

above.

The Defence Laws (State of Emergency) 1945, are, in

theory, enforced throughout the whole country, but in fact

only in those areas which are subject to the authority of the

Military Governors. In practice they are only enforced in

their full rigour against the Arabs, whether or not they live

in Military Government areas. But whereas the Arabs who

1 - Cf. p. 119 below. 2-1 acre = 2.5 dunums — Tr.


do not live in Military Government areas are, indeed, subject

to restrictions of movement (they are forbidden 5 by virtue of

Article 125, to enter or leave closed areas ),the Arabs who do

live in these areas are subject not only to these restrictions of

movement, but also to all the other harsh legal measures such

as police supervision, expulsion, administrative arrest and so

on. It is the Arabs, essentially, who “enjoy55 these laws, which

are not, in practice, enforced against the Jews whether inside

or outside the Military Government areas. Evidence of this

is to be found even in the report of the State Controller,

quoted above. This report says:1

“If an area is declared closed by the Military Command¬

er this order is, in theory, applicable to all citizens, whether

male or female, without exception, whether they live inside

or outside these areas. Thus anyone who enters or leaves a

closed area without a written permit from the Military

Governor is, in fact, committing a criminal offence. In prac¬

tice, Jews are not expected to have such permits and, in

general criminal actions are not brought against Jews when

they offend against the provisions of Article 125. There is

something improper about this law, which was drafted with

the intention of its being applicable to all the inhabitants of

the country, whereas in fact it is only enforced against some

of them.55

* * *

The conduct of the Military Government towards the

Arab population is based on the organisational structure we

have already discussed, and on the exploitation of the exten¬

sive powers granted it by the Defence Laws. It is thus based

on national and racial discrimination, and on the denial of

the rights of the individual and the group.

One of the articles most often employed by the Military

Government is Article 125 of the Defence Laws, 1945, which

we have already discussed. This repressive article, which

arouses great anger and resentment, is, by its very nature,

enforced day and night. It forbids all Arabs in the State of

1 - Report of the State Controller, op. cit. p. 56.


Israel to enter or leave the closed areas without a written

permit from the Military Governor, and this permit, when it

is given, includes many restrictions of movement.1

Article 125 is a sword of Damocles hanging over the

heads of the Arab masses. The mere threat of it, regardless

of its actual enforcement, is sufficient to crush the opposition

of any Arab peasant, worker or simple citizen who “dares”

to oppose the Military Government for any reason whatso¬

ever, or refuses to cooperate with it. The Article is often in¬

voked against Arab citizens who have links with political

organisations not approved of by the Military Government.

Article 125 has been greatly exploited by the military

authorities. Many inhabitants of the country will certainly

remember the time when both civil and military police used

to board buses and other means of transport and order the

Arab passengers to get down for a thorough examination of

their identity cards. Those of them who did not have permits

from the Military Governor to leave their closed area were

taken off to prison and tried by the Military Courts. Evidence

of the extreme severity with which this Article was enforced

at one time, especially in the years between the establishment

of the State and 1955, is provided by the fact that Arabs were

sentenced by the military courts to fines of up to 1£ 3,000

and 1^ 4,000 per day for being caught either outside or inside

Military Government closed areas without the appropriate

Military Government pass.

Article 125 has been continuously and strenuously op¬

posed by the Arab population, and it is coming to be opposed

by all political parties, who now demand its immediate repeal,

with the exception of Mapai. Since 1957, this opposition has

1 - The permit is printed in Hebrew only and, if it is granted at all, includes a number of irksome restrictions, such as: “The bearer is permitted to remain outside the closed area between 6 a.m. and 3 p.m. only”; “The bearer may not enter the (Jewish) colonies en route”; “The bearer may travel by such-and-such a road only”; “This permit is invalid on Saturdays and on (Jewish) holidays”; “You may only leave the closed area for the purpose mentioned in this permit”; “You may not change your place of residence, as recorded in this permit, without permission from the Military Commander” . . . etc. Certain of these conditions are crossed out as and when appropriate.


forced the authorities to pass a series of alleviations of this

article. In August 1959, before the elections to the Fourth

Knesset, the Military Governors of the North and the

Triangle issued an order permitting the inhabitants of these

areas freedom of movement between their places of residence

and the district capitals of the areas they lived in, but in day¬

light only. Unrestricted travel was only permitted on main

roads.1 During a Knesset debate on the Military Government

in February 1962, the Prime Minister announced that “move¬

ment permits will be granted not for a day or a month only,

but for a whole year, at the end of which they will be auto¬

matically renewed, as long as no information has been received

to the effect that the bearer of the permit has been engaging

in undesirable activities.55 In fact, however, this practice was

already being followed before this.

Furthermore, some members of the Druse sect have been

allowed to move freely, both inside and outside the Military

Government areas, and the Bedouin inhabitants of the closed

areas in the Negev are allowed to enter Beersheba without

a permit one day a week. Similarly, the members of the Cir¬

cassian community of the village of Kafr Kana in Lower

Galilee have been exempted from the necessity of obtaining

movement permits.

In November 1963, after the resignation of Ben Gurion

from the posts of Prime Minister and Minister of Defence,

new measures were passed in connection with the enforcement

of Article 125 and with the extent and number of the closed

areas. A short time after Eshkol succeeded Ben Gurion as

Prime Minister and Minister of Defence, the Military Gov¬

ernment was reorganised, and certain closed areas have been

abolished or annexed to larger areas. In addition, the regula¬

tion which required the inhabitants of closed areas to obtain

permits to leave these areas was repealed, except in the case

of those who were personally notified that they must obtain

permits to leave their areas.2 But this repeal did not cover

1 - As announced by the Prime Minister in the Knesset on 2 August 1959. The Knesset Debates, Vol. 27, p. 2923.

2 - There are about 2,000 such persons, most of them educated men or labour leaders, who criticise the authorities openly.


travel from one closed area to another, (for example, move¬

ment from Galilee to the Triangle.) When these changes were

first enforced, c‘notice5 5 was sent to hundreds of people on the

Military Government’s Black List. This meant that the Mili¬

tary Government had become even more severe, for previously

all citizens were allowed some freedom of movement, at least

in daylight hours. Similarly, before these “alleviations,” the

penalty imposed on those who left the closed areas without

permits was usually a fine imposed by the Military Courts.

Today, a man whose name is on the Black List and who

leaves a closed area without a permit is certain to go to prison

for from one to three months.

In any case, the introduction of all these “alleviations”

has not changed the essentially harsh character of Article 125.

The alleviations, offered as a “favour” by the Military Gov¬

ernment, apply, in practice, to such citizens as the Military

Government had not previously “touched” because of their

“good” conduct. However, for those whose names are on the

Black List, all the restrictions are still enforced as harshly as

ever. What is more, the citizens who enjoy these alleviations

may be deprived of them at any time by the appropriate

notification; for the alleviations were granted in the form

of a “general declaration” to the whole population, which

the Military Governor can withdraw any time he likes. Con¬

sequently, these “alleviations”—introduced as a result of the

adoption of a “new policy” by the new Prime Minister—

are no more than a manoeuvre to conceal the actions of the

Military Government amongst the Arab population. The

Military Government is still “the same lady dressed differ¬

ently.”1

However, Article 125, in itself, is not sufficient to secure

the reign of repression and intimidation that the Military

Government desires and tries to impose in the Arab areas.

Nor is it sufficient to overcome the Arab population’s oppo¬

sition to the stratagems of the regime. So in order to subjugate

Arabs engaged in organised opposition to the Military Gov¬

ernment and its activities, and those who do not allow the

1 - Hebrew proverb.


system of movement permits to prevent them from engaging

in political activities unacceptable to the Military Government

— to “subjugate” such persons the Military Government has

other weapons at its disposal—Articles 109 (Expulsion), 110

(Police Supervision) and 111 (Administrative Arrest).

Normally, the Military Government is chary of enforcing

the powers granted it by these articles, and only does so after

trying the effects of temptation, “admonition,” threats and

pressure on the “candidate.” If these measures do not bring

him back to the “right path,” it enforces several of these

articles concurrently. For example, in addition to suffering

expulsion, which requires that he should reside in a remote

place where he has no house of his own and no means of

providing a living for himself or his family, a man may also

be required to report to a distant police station at least twice

a day. Thus in July 1953 four members of the Shabbali

Bedouin tribe were banished to the remote village of Madia

and ordered to report twice a day to the police station in

Macuna. Similarly, in December 1955, five Arab inhabitants

of Hamdan in Galilee were banished to Zikhron Ya'acov for

six months and ordered to report to the police station twice

a day. In January 1956 a number of inhabitants of villages

in the Triangle were banished to the village of Beit Jann in

Upper Galilee, and told to report every day for six months

at the police station in Macuna, 20 kilometres from their place

of exile. In September 1957, the Military Governor gave

orders that five men of Baqa al-Gharbiya should report every

day to the police station in Bardas Hanna, which is 15 kilo¬

metres from their home village. Similarly, two inhabitants of

Tira in the Triangle were ordered to remain in their homes

all night (from one hour after sunset until sunrise,) and report

twice a day to the police station at Tiba, eight kilometres

away from their home village. A particularly cruel and

“amusing” order was issued in the case of a certain Ahmad

Hasan, a Bedouin of the al-Wadi tribe near the village of

Araba in Galilee. The Military Governor ordered that he

should sit every day for six months, from sunrise to sunset, under a large carob tree which stands to the West of the village of Deir Hanna.

These are just a few examples drawn from a long series


of similar incidents, for which the Military Government has

been responsible.

In addition to Articles 109 and 110, Article 111 (Ad¬

ministrative Detention) is also enforced. By virtue of this

Article, the Military Governor can detain any citizen con¬

tinuously, without stating the charge brought against him,

and with no further justification than the vague charge of

“danger to security.” Under this Article, the Military Gover¬

nor can detain any citizen for as long as he likes, although

the instructions of the Chief of Staff usually limit such periods

to one year at a time. A person detained under such an order

may apply to an Advisory Committee headed by a judge of

the Supreme Court (e.g. The Vitcon Committee or the Suss-

man Committee), but the decisions of such committees are

only “advisory” and the Military Government is not obliged

to submit to them,nor do the committees allow the plaintiff

to hear the charges of the Military Government.

The Military Government has made much use of Ar¬

ticle 111. During the period 1956-1957, for example, 315

administrative detention orders1 were issued, an average of

about one every two days. Dozens of detention and expulsion

orders were issued after the incidents of 1 May (Labour Day)

1958, in Nazareth, and again after the establishment of the

Arab Popular Front in the summer of the same year following

these incidents.

Article 124 was similarly exploited for the imposition of

a curfew on all the villages of the Triangle for most of the

night for fourteen years. At first this curfew was imposed from

9 p.m. to 5 a.m.; in 1953 it was reduced to the hours of 10 p.m.

to 4 a.m., but it was not finally raised until February 1962.

In other areas subject to the Military Government there has

been no permanent curfew, but it has been imposed for short

periods, according to circumstances.

Nor are these the only fundamental restrictions imposed

by the Military Government. The existence of the Military

courts attached to it result in Arab citizens being subjected

1 - The Report of the State Controller on the Ministry of Defence, No. 5,

p. 55, 15 February 1959.


to further restrictions and repression. The judges of these

courts are army officers (who are not generally lawyers )

appointed by the Chief of Staff—who also appoints the

Military Governors—and they are legally subject to his

authority. Nor are there any provisions in the Emergency

Laws to guarantee the independence of the military judges.

The provisions in the civil and Sharia1 codes, such as: “The

judge shall not be subject to any authority, in the field of

justice, except the authority of the law,” are wanting in the

Defence Laws (State of Emergency) 1945. It is generally

agreed that the fact that the judges have no personal or

objective independence deprives these courts of any real judi¬

cial character, and transforms them into administrative insti¬

tutions attached to the Military Government, implementing

the instructions of its various branches. Reference must also

be made to the fact that the procedure followed in the Military

Courts differs from that of the civil courts, and that it was im¬

possible to appeal against the judgements of these courts until

18 July 1963, when the law was amended and appeals allowed

—but only to other Military Courts attached to the Army.

It must also be pointed out that this amendment was made

to the Military Justice Law,2 not to the Defence Laws (State

of Emergency) 1945, which, it seems, cannot be touched

because of their “sacred” character.

Most of the offences which the Military Courts are em¬

powered to try, and for which they inflict extremely severe

sentences, are also within the competence of the civil courts.

It is for the Attorney General to decide whether cases shall

be tried by civil or military courts, but, in the great majority

of cases, he chooses the latter.

4. The Dispute about the Military Government

The question of the continued existence of the Military

Government is a constant preoccupation with the majority

of Israelis of all political circles and parties. Much has been

1 - Moslem Religious Law — Tr. 2 - The Laws of the State of Israel, 400, 18 July 1963, p. 120.


said and written about the subject, but the problem remains

as real and urgent as it was three, five or even ten years ago.

The main—in fact the only—claim made by those

responsible for the Military Government’s existence, is that

this system forms an essential protection for the State’s most

vital interests and above all for its security. They say that

without this system there would be a grave danger of the

overthrow of Jewish rule, and even of the destruction of the

State. According to them, the Military Government was

originally established for “obvious” security requirements,

and it is still concerned with these and nothing else.

There is some degree of truth in the claim that the

Military Government was originally established for security

reasons. When the Military Government was established, the

war between Israel and the Arab countries was still being

fought, and the newly established Israeli regime was con-

fronted both with grave external problems and with an Arab

population within its borders whose loyalty to the new regime

was open to question. At such a time it was only reasonable

that the Military Government should be exclusively concerned

with security matters, although within a very short time the

Military Government was transformed into an important

instrument of the “Party of the Workers of the Land of Israel”

(The Mapai Party) or, to be more precise, of small circles

with decisive authority in that Party, working for the acqui¬

sition of narrow party gains at the expense of the national

interests of the State of Israel.

There is no doubt about the gravity of the security pro¬

blems that have confronted the State in the past and which

still confront it; there can be no doubt that they are extremely

serious, in view of the State’s position and situation. The point

of view of most of the critics of the Military Government

stems from precisely this point.

The distortion of facts and the lies that are disseminated

about the Military Government’s concern for State security,

and the stratagems employed by its staff to misrepresent its

activities, are well known to all who follow events in Israel.

But in point of fact, all who are concerned with and responsible

for security matters, whatever party they belong to, are most


insistent in their demands for the abolition of the Military

Government. This is also the official attitude of the majority

of the political parties in the country, with the exception, of

course, of the 4'mistress of the house,55 the Mapai, and the

religious parties, whose opposition to the Military Govern¬

ment is directly connected with the extent of the concessions

and control allowed them in religious fields by the Mapai.

Here for example is the point of view of Yigal Allon,

a member of the Knesset and a former Palmach1 leader, and

now a leader of the Achdut Haavoda party. Mr. Allon says:2

"It would be fanciful to assume that the Military Gov¬

ernment can, through the powers it exercises, prevent secret

contacts between Israeli Arabs and their brothers over the

border. It is only through Army security control, assisted by

the Frontier Guard and the frontier colonies, that we can

make such contacts less common. There is absolutely no con¬

nection between the effective control of the frontiers and the

existence of the Military Government. It is an error to believe

that the existence of the Military Government can prevent

espionage or that it can prevent the Arab population from

hiding infiltrators. This task can only be undertaken by a

competent security department and an intelligence network

which is worthy of the name. Experience has shown us that

the existence of the Military Government has not prevented

espionage, and that, insofar as such activities have been dis¬

covered, it has been by the Security Department, not by the

Military Government. There is no connection between the

existence of the Military Government and combating treason.

This task has been allotted to the State’s defence organisation.

The Military Government, because of its composition and

methods of operation, is incapable of constituting a tangible

factor in this field. So what power has the Military Govern¬

ment, by its nature an administrative institution, to prevent

1 - Palmach — Storm Troops, the mobile striking force of the Jewish underground army formed during the British Mandate. Allon is a mem¬ ber of Eshkol’s present Cabinet (1968) —Tr.

2 - In his book Veil of Dust, (United Kibbutz Publishing House, 1960)

p. 237.


secret organisations and terrorist and partisan activities,

should the situation deteriorate?

“The Military Government, because it has no direct

security tasks, concentrates on internal political activities,

such as the establishment of a system designed to prevent the

formation of undesirable political organisations.55

A colleague of Mr. Allon’s in the Achdut Haavoda,

Knesset member Israel Bar Yehuda, who often came into

collision with the Military Government when he was Minister

of the Interior, says:1

“The present situation does not mean that the Military

Government must be abolished because there are no dangers

at home or abroad, but that it must be abolished because,

for a long time, it has performed no real security function

and has indeed, become a factor which has greatly increased

the insecurity of the State. The Military Government has

been turned into a private institution which, to keep itself

alive is obliged to invent a variety of new functions which

have no connection with security at all. For a long time now,

it has increased the threat to security, and it must be

abolished.55

A third member of Achdut Haavoda who has similar

views is the Knesset member, Moshe Carmel, who was the

Commander of the Northern Region in the 1948 war.

Mr. Carmel says:

“This institution (the Military Government) is no longer

essential for the security of Israel, and its continued existence

may well harm the establishment of healthy relations between

Israel’s Jewish and Arab inhabitants, the growth of a genuine

democratic government based on the equality of all citizens,

and the development of progressive democratic awareness.

It blocks any genuine feeling of citizenship amongst the Arab

population, and it damages Israel’s reputation abroad. The

Military Government is no longer essential today, 15 years

after the establishment of the State; it is no longer an essential

element of internal security and the protection of our

1 - The Knesset Debates, Vol. 32, pp. 1322-3, 20 February 1962.


frontiers. It no longer performs any positive functions in de¬

fending the country from the interior, and its existence does

more harm than good.5’1 2

The Mapam Party adopts the same attitude. The Knesset

member, Jacov Hazzan, says:

“We are convinced that the Military Government does

no service to the security of the State of Israel and that it is

incompatible with the principles of justice and law. We there¬

fore protest against its continued existence. The Military

Government has isolated the Arab population, through its

discrimination against them in a variety of fields and by the

way it has treated them as second class citizens. The Military

Government has greatly increased the risk of the Arab popu¬

lation coming under the domination of negative elements.

The conduct of the Military Government is making the Arab

minority feel more and more strongly that it is despised,

rejected and discriminated against as a race apart, and this

can only result in the generation of hatred.552

Aharon Cohen states his attitude to the Military Gov¬

ernment as follows:3 “The system of military government

imposed on the Arab population performs no particular func¬

tion in protecting the security of the State against its enemies

from without, or in closing the door to infiltrators entering

the country for espionage, sabotage, theft or killing. As for

the absorption of the Arab population into the State of Israel

and instilling sound feelings of citizenship into them, the Military Government is a negative element which arouses

resentment, creates obstacles, and is an actively injurious

factor which is bound to poison relations between Jews and

Arabs. It is therefore more liable to shake the security of the

State than strengthen it. As Michael Assaf wrote in the

periodical Beterem, on 15 May 1953: ‘Whether it wishes to

or not, the Military Government is, every day, simply by its

existence and its conduct, forcing every Arab to hate or

destroy the State.5 This is because the whole structure of the

1 - The Knesset Debates, Vol. 36, p. 1211, 2 February 1963. 2 - Ibid, Vol. 33, p. 1317, 20 February 1962. 3 - Israel and the Arab World, (Workers’ Library, 1964) p. 509.


Military Government, its thinking and its actions, are based

on the punishment of people, not for offences they have com¬

mitted or conspiracies they have hatched, but because of

offences they are liable to commit, in the judgement of the

Military Government—that is to say, they are punished

merely because they are Arabs.”

For many years now the Mapam Party has been running

an extensive campaign, in both Jewish and Arab circles,

against the continued existence of the Military Government.

However, Mapam is unwilling to allow other circles opposed

to the Military Government to join in its activities in this

field, and refuses to ally itself with them.

The attitude of the Herut Party also resembles that of

the parties mentioned above. The Knesset member Menachem

Begin, leader of the Herut Party, and formerly leader of the

Irgun has declared:

“There is no connection between the problem of external

security and the administrative system known as the Military

Government. Nor is there any connection between the Mili¬

tary Government and the problem of internal security. Some

people say that the ruling party exploits the Military Gov¬

ernment for its own private reasons, and I believe that this is

true. It is certain that the Mapai Party exploits the Military

Government for its own ends.”1

Similarly, the last conference of the Herut Movement

(January 1963) adopted the following resolutions:

“The Conference ratifies the attitude of the Movement

as regards the British Defence Laws (State of Emergency) 1945

and as regards the Military Government, as expressed in the

proposal submitted by the Movement to the Fifth Knesset,

to the effect that ‘We demand the repeal of the imperialist

Emergency Laws, which the Knesset has decided are incom¬

patible with the principles of a democratic state. To replace

the Military Government, proper security organisations can,

and must, be established all along the armistice lines.’ The

Conference declares that the administrative system called the

1 - The Knesset Debates, Vol. 33, p. 1321, 20 February 1962.


Military Government no longer fulfills any real security

function.551

This is also the attitude of the Liberal Party. The fol¬

lowing is the opinion of the leader of this Party, the Knesset

member Pinhas Rosen: “The Military Government has a

disastrous effect on the moral standards of the masses in the

areas under its control. It is bound to lead to the degrading

flattery of the authorities, who have the power to grant

movement permits and other attractions. This situation can

only undermine the moral standards of the masses and

diminish the respect felt by the Arab minority for the State.552

The attitude of the Israeli Communist Party to the

Military Government is clearly defined. The Party itself, and

especially its Arab members, have suffered greatly from the

Military Government. The Party demanded the abolition of

the Military Government shortly after its establishment, and

it still maintains this attitude. It can be truly said of the

communists that they are the only party which has insistently

demanded the abolition of this repressive system ever since

it was established. The communists5 attitude over this and

other matters, has done much to raise their prestige amongst

the Arab population in Israel.

These quotations are not, of course, the only evidence

of the attitude of the Israeli political parties, and of a prom¬

inent section of the Jewish population, to the Military Gov¬

ernment. The Israeli press has published a great variety of

material condemning the system and expressing the opinions

of hundreds of Jewish citizens. Our object in giving these

quotations is merely to give an idea of the characteristic

attitudes of some of these groups to the Military Government,

of how they have criticised the system, and of the principles

on which their criticism was based.

It must also be emphasised that even in the Mapai

Party itself, there are certain circles that call for the abolition

of the Military Government. These include one of the Party’s

most prominent orientalists, Michael Assaf, for many years

1 - From the resolutions of the Conference, quoted by Mr. Begin in a speech in the Knesset. Ibid., Vol. 36, p. 1209.

2 - Ibid., Vol. 33, p. 1320, 20 February 1962.


editor of the newspaper, Al-Yaum, although his views on this

subject are not freely expressed in the columns of this paper,

which is intended mainly for the Arab population.

In addition to the parties and personalities mentioned

above, there are other circles which demand the abolition of

the Military Government, like the Ihud movement1 and the

Semitic Action Movement,2 not to mention other organisa¬

tions formed with the express purpose of combating the

Military Government.3 Similarly, various groups in the coun¬

try have often organised conferences and committees to protest

against the Military Government and demand its abolition.

Numerous petitions have been published, signed by artists,

poets, men of letters and other intellectuals,4 protesting against

1 - Ihud meaning unity—the name of the movement established by the late Dr. Judah Magnes, President of the Hebrew University, Jeru¬ salem. Dr. Magnes was well known for his efforts to promote Arab- Jewish understanding. He died in 1948 — Tr.

2 - A political movement founded in the early sixties by Uri Avneri, chief editor of the Hebrew weekly Haolam Hazeh. Avneri, who is a mem¬ ber of the Knesset, has advocated the adoption of a liberal Israeli Arab

policy.

3 - One of the most important organisations established for this pur¬ pose is the “Jewish-Arab Committee for the Abolition of Military Govern¬ ment.” It was formed after a conference of protest against the Military Government held in Tel Aviv on 2 December 1961, and demanded the abolition of the system. This committee includes representatives of:

The Israeli Communist Party, The Semitic Action Movement, the Third Force, the Israeli Socialist Organisation, The Committee of Arab Students in the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and the

Al-Ard Movement.

4 - According to the newspaper Lamerhav, the organ of the Achdut Haavoda Party, on 25 September 1958: “A large group of journalists, men of letters, poets, and artists today made a public appeal for the immediate abolition of Military Government.” The statement, signed by writers, journalists and artists of various parties and circles included the following paragraph: “The last ten years have increased the bitterness of the Arab population, who have time and again protested against acts of injustice and repression, against the fact that they do not enjoy the same rights as their Jewish fellow-citizens, against the arbitrary closure of their pastures and agricultural lands and against the restriction of movement and the frequent arrests. All this has sown bitterness, and has eventually led to risings in Galilee, the Triangle and the other Military

Government areas ...”


the Military Government and calling for its abolition.1 One

of the most important of these statements was published in

the summer of 1958 by a group of Israeli intellectuals. It was

signed by the representatives of some 20 kibbutzim and about

200 personalities, including 70 lecturers at the Hebrew Uni¬

versity in Jerusalem.

Their statement includes the following words:2

“About 200,000 of the inhabitants of the State of Israel

who belong to another religion and nationality, do not enjoy

equal rights and are the victims of discrimination and repres¬

sion. The overwhelming majority of the Arab population of

Israel live under a system of military government which

deprives them of the fundamental rights of the citizen. They

are deprived of freedom of movement and residence. They

are not accepted as members with equal rights and obligations

in the trade unions (Histadrut,) nor as employees in most con¬

cerns. Their whole life is dependent on the whims of the

Military Governor and his assistants.

“Almost all the parties represented in the Knesset

demand the abolition of military government, or the dimi¬

nution of the areas subject to it and the restriction of its powers

to matters of security only. For the State has other means at

its disposal, in the civil laws and the employment of the

ordinary security forces, through which it can protect the

security of the State, without discriminating against the Arab

population.

“Ten years of discrimination and repression have created

and fostered feelings of despair, melancholy and bitterness

amongst the Arab population, who fall an easy prey to forces

wishing to exploit this situation for their own belligerent pur¬

poses. If this situation continues it may endanger the security

of the State even more gravely.55

Similarly, on the initiative of Mapam, a call for the

abolition of the Military Government was published in the

press, and this call was addressed to the Knesset in the form

1 - Lamerhav, 25 August 1958. 2 - Neri July-August 1958.


of an appeal in February 1963. Amongst those who signed

the appeal were 25 senior reserve officers of the Israeli Army and 440 other reserve officers.1

Here it should be mentioned that Israel’s second Minister

of Defence, Mr. Pinhas Lavon, is in favour of the abolition

of military government; indeed, he has declared that he called for it as early as 1953.

Even in the Knesset itself there has been very considerable

opposition to the military government laws, which have re¬

mained in force only as a result of pressure, threats and even

fraud. As early as 22 May 1951 the First Knesset made the following decision:

“The Defence Laws (State of Emergency) 1945, which

have existed since the time of British rule, are incompatible

with the principles of a democratic state. The Knesset makes

the Committee for the Constitution, Law and Justice respon¬

sible for submitting, in the course of the next two weeks, a

draft law for the repeal of these laws.”2 Seventeen years

have passed, but no such draft has been prepared.

In July 1959, before the elections to the Fourth Knesset,

most of the parliamentary blocs submitted a proposal for the

abolition of military government in a relatively short time,

and although some of the blocs abstained from voting, the

proposal was passed to the Committee for the Constitution,

Law and Justice, but without result.

The two sessions of the Knesset at which military govern¬

ment was almost abolished were held in February 1962 and

February 1963. At these two sessions, which a large number

of members made a point of attending, it was decided by

a very small majority to retain military government. At the

first session, in 1962, the voting was 59 to 56, and at the

second (1963) 57 to 56 in favour of retention.

The attitude of the government during these sessions or,

rather, the attitude of Mapai, (because some of the coalition

parties supported the opposition and submitted a proposal

1 - Maariv, 19 February 1963. 2 - The Knesset Debates, Vol. 9, pp. 1828-1831.


to introduce changes into the system of military government,)

casts grave suspicion on the honesty of the claim that the object

of the Military Government is to protect security. At these

sessions five proposals were submitted by five parties: the

Israeli Communist Party, Mapam, Achdut Haavoda, the

Liberal Party and Herut. Whereas the Communist Party’s

proposal called for the abolition of most of the powers of the

Military Government, Herut’s proposal called for the repeal

of all the British Mandate Government’s 1945 Defence Laws

within a year of the Knesset’s ratification of the proposal,

on condition that appropriate regulations should be passed

(to replace these laws) during the same period. The proposals

of Mapam, Achdut Haavoda and the Liberal Party, which

were coordinated, and described as bills for the abolition of

military government, were, in fact, only aimed at the intro¬

duction of extensive changes in the Military Government and

its powers, and the liberation of Arab citizens from its severe

and ever-increasing restrictions.

The proposals of these three parties included the repeal

of Article 125 (Closed Areas and Movement Permits,) the

introduction of appeals against judgements of the Military

Courts and the transfer of the powers of detention, expulsion

and police supervision to the District Courts, with the right

of appeal to the Supreme Court. The Military Government

was, however, to retain the power to detain suspects for 72

hours on condition that, during this period, it applied to the

District Court for permission to do so. All these proposals,

without exception, were violently opposed by the Prime

Minister and Minister of Defence, David Ben Gurion, in

spite of the objective conditions of the time which would

have made it perfectly possible to introduce them.1 Ben

Gurion pleaded with his customary persistence and obstinacy

against the introduction of these changes, casting accusations

and abuse in all directions—“you understand nothing of

security matters” . . . “they are sacrificing the security of the

1 - There was, however, a belief that these changes would merely result in the judges of the District Courts themselves being turned into virtual military governors.


State55 . . . “they cannot see the future55 . . . etc. and avoiding

a direct objective reply to the grave charges that had been

made against the Military Government.

In spite of the devastating criticism levelled against the

Military Government by all groups, and in spite of all the

demands for its abolition,1 its champions persisted in their

attitude, which may be summarised as follows: “The Military

Government must not be abolished because its abolition

would be gravely prejudicial to the security of the State; it

prevents infiltration and espionage and protects public order,

etc.55 Recently, also, a new claim has been made: that the

Military Government “deters55 hostile elements, and prevents

them from engaging in operations directed against the security

of the State and against peaceful citizens.

All these claims are without foundation, and will not

stand up to criticism. The nature and actions of the Military

Government, the very manner in which it is organised, leave

no room for doubt that not only does it not try to protect

the security of the State, but that it could not do so even

if it tried.

As we have already seen, the Military Government,

controlling three large areas of the country, with more than

200,000 Arabs in them, has only about ten branches in these

areas, and there are never more than seven or eight men

working in any one of these branches. The total staff does not

number more than one hundred in all branches. How can

this handful of men, most of whom leave their offices in the

afternoon and return to their homes, usually outside the

closed areas, be expected to combat espionage and infiltration

successfully ?

Infiltration both into and out of the country is a frequent

occurrence; at no one place has the Military Government

succeeded in preventing such incidents or in even helping to

1 - It is to be observed that even in 1949 the government submitted a bill called the “Defence and Security Law for Times of Emergency 1949,” the object of which, as stated in Paragraph 50 (b) was to repeal the Defence Laws of 1945—that is the same laws which the Mapai leaders say are so necessary for the security of the State.


capture one single infiltrator. This task is performed by the

regular armed forces—the Army, the Frontier Guard and the

Civil Police, with the help of the Intelligence Services, at

times when the Military Government offices are closed and

its staff far away in their homes. In fact, the Military Gov¬

ernment not only plays no part in combating these activities

(espionage and infiltration) but more often than not helps to

bring them about, as a result of its arbitrary actions. The

great majority of Arab infiltrators are young men who have

fallen foul of the Military Government and who have been

badly treated by it before they “learn” to cross the frontier.

The situation in regard to movement permits is also

ridiculous. The recently introduced changes in these permits,

and the fact that a large section of the population of the

Military Government areas no longer needs to procure them

has deprived the Military Government of the power to

“control” the Arab population, and this is the “achievement”

that the Military Government used at one time to boast of

more than anything else.

Just recently, as we have seen, a new claim has been

made that the Military Government’s job is to “deter”

hostile elements among the Arabs of Israel and prevent them

from carrying out their conspiracies. But this claim is no more

true than the previous claims. Neither the power of the Mili¬

tary Government, nor the restrictions it imposes, nor the

power of the “Third Kingdom of Israel,” as Ben Gurion calls

Israel,1 can “deter” the Arabs of this country. After all the

Arabs fought for long years against the British Empire, which

had a deterrent power many times as great as that of Israel.

The deterrent, if it exists, is something quite different. It lies

in certain conditions and facts, which those responsible for

Israeli policy concerning the Arabs, in Israel itself in parti¬

cular, and in the Arab countries in general, have never been

able to understand. But there can be no doubt that their

attention has been drawn to this matter on many occasions.

As early as 7 November 1957, the newspaper Haaretz wrote:

1 - In a cable which he sent to the Sixth Battalion in Sharm al-Shaikh during the Tripartite Aggression (Davar, 7 November 1956.)


“It is impossible to accept the claim that it is the Military

Government that has prevented political sabotage or serious

attempts to organise a secret movement on the part of the

Arab population. Had there been extremist groups of this

population prepared to venture on action against Israel, no

Military Government would have been able to prevent them

from making such attempts. The Military Government is not

a coherent organisation, and the human potential at its dis¬

posal is comparatively limited. Thus the physical presence of

this organisation in the Arab areas could not have prevented

hostile activities by the local Arabs—had they been in a

position to undertake such activities. And if it is not the exist¬

ence of the Military Government that has prevented activities

prejudicial to the State, but rather the fear of the State’s ability

to impose penalties, this fear will not just disappear if the

Military Government is abolished or its powers extensively

modified.55

Ben Tov, Bar Yehuda and Rosen, all of them members

of the Knesset and former Ministers, have also written on

the same subject. In their report as members of the govern¬

ment-appointed Rosen Committee, formed to examine the

Military Government in 1959, they called for the introduction

of extensive changes in the system. These conclusions were

rejected by the then Prime Minister, Mr. Ben Gurion, on the ground that the government already had the findings of

a committee that had made a profound study of the Military

Government and which had reached the unanimous conclu¬

sion that absolutely no changes must be made in the system,

because of the dangers anticipated from hostile and destruc¬

tive elements.1 Ben Gurion was referring to the Ritner Com¬

mittee, which had been appointed by the government and

completed its work in 1955, four years before the formation

of the Rosen Committee. The three Ministers of the Rosen

Committee made the following report:2

“It is true that security problems in the State of Israel


2 - As quoted by Mr. Rosen in his speech to the Knesset on 30 February 1962. The Knesset Debates, Vol. 33, p. 1319.


have no precedent. Yet even if we assume that sections of

the Arab population have not yet resigned themselves to the

existence of the State of Israel, this assumption does not ne¬

cessarily lead to the conclusion that the Arabs of Israel will be

prepared to engage in organised mass action against the State,

and only such organised mass action could justify the existence

of the Military Government. The normal resources of the

security services (the intelligence services) are sufficient to

control individuals. And even if Arab nationalist elements do

exist in the country, these elements are quite different from

other extremist nationalist movements; their chief character¬

istic being that they look beyond the frontiers and wait for

“liberation55 forces to come from abroad. This reliance on its

neighbours to perform this task gives Arab nationalism in

Israel a peaceful character. If this nationalism, insofar as it

exists at all, has not yet exploded, this is not due to the deter¬

rent factor of the Military Government, but because it has

not a sufficient motive to explode. Nearly ten years5 expe¬

rience, including the period of the Suez campaign, has taught

us that there is no inclination among the Arab population

to engage in offensive nationalist activity, and that, should

war break out with neighbouring countries, the present system

of Military Government is a totally inadequate safeguard for

the essential interests of the State of Israel. To confront such

an eventuality, special programmes must be drafted and en¬

forced during the period of military operations only. Even if

we assume that a section of the Arab population is not resigned

to the existence of Israel, this does not mean that any change

in the present situation must be anticipated. Similarly, the

proportion of the Arab population which is not ready to

assume that Israel can be erased from the map increases

steadily.55

These three members of the Knesset were certainly right

in their conclusions. A large section of the Arab population

openly admits that it is resigned to the existence of the State

of Israel, while the remainder is not actively hostile, for the

reasons mentioned in the conclusions of the Rosen Committee.

Anyone in touch with the Arab masses in Israel knows that

both these sections of the Arab population have been almost


entirely peaceable in their attitude and conduct as regards

the State of Israel, simply because they believe that one day

a solution will be found for their problem. It is true that

almost no one, either Jew or Arab, is prepared to forecast

how the problem will be solved, but they all admit that the

solution, whatever form it takes, must come, and that there

is no need for useless sacrifices. It is this that “deters” the

Arabs of Israel, not the existence of the administrative system

called the Military Government.

The Military Government today does not enforce its laws

against the great majority of the Arabs in Israel, whom it

regards as “loyal” to the ruling Mapai Party or, at any rate,

as not liable to engage in any organised action against it.

Proof of this can be found in the words of Mr. Ben Gurion

himself. In 1962, the Prime Minister said, somewhat hesi¬

tantly: “I know that a large section, I suppose it is the ma¬

jority, perhaps the absolute majority—I do not know

exactly—of the Arab population of Israel, wants to live in

peace in the State and desires real peace between Israel and

her neighbours.”1 And a year after this statement, he declared

unequivocally in the Knesset:2 “I am absolutely certain that

the majority of the Arabs in Israel want to live in peace and

do not wish any harm to come to the frontiers and security

of Israel. There are about two thousand persons only who

are known for their machinations against the regime, and

these are granted only temporary permits for one occasion.”

The question must now be asked: Is there any advantage

in retaining the Military Government, which does so much

damage to the reputation of the State both among its Arab

population and in the world outside, especially in national

liberation movements in Asia and Africa, just in order to

control two thousand Arabs out of a total population of more

than a quarter of a million? It is impossible to accept that

this is a wise political attitude, even from the point of view

of complete loyalty to the interests of the State of Israel.


2 - The Knesset Debates, Vol. 36, pp. 1215-1217, 20 February 1963.


5. The Real Aims of the Military Government

There can be no doubt that as far as a large part of her

Arab population is concerned, the State of Israel means the

Military Government, which is nothing more nor less than

an instrument at the service of the leaders of the “Workers

of the Land of Israel55 (the Mapai Party)—even if it is not

a police state in the generally accepted sense of this term.

It is not to be supposed that all the Military Governors and

their staff are members of the Mapai Party, but in practice

they all implement Mapai policy as far as the Arab popula¬

tion is concerned, even at the expense of the government of

Israel, the State of Israel and the reputation of the whole Jewish people.

Many governments are formed and resign in Israel;

elections are held, or postponed, or cancelled; prices rise and

fall; everything changes from time to time — except the

Military Government. Military Governors are replaced by

others, of course, but this makes no difference whatsoever to

the Arab population. Governors are changed, but the policy

remains the same—a policy of odious and arbitrary inter¬

ference in all fields of the life of the Arab citizen, from

political, economic and municipal affairs to education, cul¬

ture, social relations, mail deliveries, social affairs etc. The

Military Governor of the Triangle once “complained55 that

he was not allowed to interfere in tax matters.1 But the

“advice,55 in one form or another, always reaches the ears

of those concerned, supported by the laws providing for the

restriction of freedom of movement, expulsion, administrative

detention, and all the other means of pressure covered by

his powers.

What is more, Military Government interference in

matters outside its competence has become so notorious that

1 - After an interview with the governor, the newspaper Yedioth Ahoronot, wrote on 22 August 1958: “The Colonel (Military Governor of the Triangle) says ‘We can do nothing against tax evaders . . . imagine the fuss there would be if we confiscated the property of an Arab because he had not paid his taxes . . . The situation is quiet because we close our eyes.” It is impossible to discover the source of the Military Govern¬ ment’s powers to “confiscate” Arab property. (Author)


the State Controller can say in his report: “The Military

Government deals with a large number of matters which

come within the competence of the civil administration. It

gives instructions or advice to the Ministry concerned, or

opposes the granting of permits to buy agricultural equip¬

ment, to rent land or to work. The Controller’s Office has

established that, in the field of coordination1 the Military

Government has frequently dealt with matters that fall within

the competence of government offices, without there being

any weighty security reason to justify such interference. It has

been suggested to the Military Government that it should

restrict its activities to matters in which security reasons make

its interference essential . . . The Controller’s Office empha¬

sises the necessity for the Military Government to drastically

curtail its interference in matters that lie within the field of

responsibility of government offices. In addition, the reform

of the legal and administrative system for the closed areas is

essential, to make this system clear in every detail and to

ensure that there may be a practical link between the letter

of the law and its enforcement.”2

This round criticism is perfectly accurate. But the State

Controller speaks in general terms and does not go into detail.

In practice, the Military Governors concentrate in their hands

the powers of most of the Ministries, but without undertaking

their obligations. The Military Government: “Interferes in

the life of the Arab citizen, from the day of his birth to the

day of his death. It has the final say in all matters concerning

workers, peasants, professional men, merchants and educated

men, education and social services. The Military Government

interferes in the registration of the births, deaths, and even

marriages of the population, in land affairs, and the appoint¬

ment and dismissal of teachers and civil servants. Often, too,

it arbitrarily interferes in the affairs of the political parties,

political and social activities and the affairs of local and

municipal councils.”

1 - I.e. the coordination of the Military Government’s policy as regards the Arabs with that of the Ministries and government offices.

2 - Report of the State Controller on the Ministry of Defence, No. 9, 15 February 1959, pp. 57-58.


All classes of the Arab population of Israel regard the

Military Government as an institution which was established

in order to achieve the following three fundamental objectives:

1. To facilitate the expropriation of Arab land by the authorities.

2. To interfere in elections to the Knesset and the mu¬

nicipal councils, in the interests of the Mapai Party and of a

group of hypocritical Arabs, who do what they are told by this party.

3. To prevent the formation of any Arab political move¬

ment which is either independent, or linked with any political

movement other than the Mapai Party.

Whereas the first of these objectives is in the interests of

the State of Israel, so, it is claimed—on the assumption that

the expropriation of Arab lands and the interests of the State

are one and the same thing—the second and third are cal¬

culated to serve only the selfish party interests of the Mapai

Party and its hangers-on.

It is obvious that the expropriation of Arab lands is the

“nominal’5 aim of the Military Government, though its

activities in this field are radical, profound and rapid. To

enforce expropriation, the Military Government invokes the

powers granted to it under Article 125 of the Defence Laws

(State of Emergency) 1945, and those granted it by the

Emergency Laws (Security Areas) 1949.

The enforcement of Article 125 consists of a declaration

by the Military Governor that certain areas are “closed areas”

or are reserved for manoeuvres. Such a declaration is, in fact,

the prelude to the expropriation of lands whose owners are

forbidden to enter them for “security reasons.” It is this

position of force—the prohibition of Arab owners to enter,

develop or exploit their land—that is the basis of all the

Military Government’s other activities as a “mediator” in

the interests of the various Ministries, the Keren Kayemeth

Leisrael (The Jewish National Fund) and the Lands Direc¬

torate, etc., concerned with this land. These “mediation”

activities, accompanied by threats to the owners of the land

of the possible withdrawal of their movement permits, or


by the actual withdrawal of these permits, by the refusal to

grant permits or loans and either the dismissal of civil servants

belonging to the landlord’s family, or offers of special privi¬

leges for them, usually finish with the expropriation of the

land.1

It is to be observed that there are very close links between the Military Government and both the Keren Kayemeth

Leisrael and the Israeli Lands Directorate. The Military

Governors or their representatives, when their services are

terminated, are readily accepted for work in the Keren Kay¬

emeth Leisrael or the Lands Directorate. For example, a

former representative of the Military Government in Galilee

Major Ya"acov Mahres, was accepted for a permanent job in

the Israel Lands Directorate, and his colleague, Lieutenant-

General Sasson Ben Zvi, the Military Governor of the Negev,

was “loaned” to the Israel Lands Directorate for a period

of two years. Men such as these are not specialists in land

affairs and land laws, but the experience they acquire during

their years as Military Governors is extremely useful to the

Israeli Lands Directorate.

There can be no doubt that Article 125 is one of the

methods most extensively used and dearest to the hearts of

the Military Governors. Samuel Seguev, who is close to Min¬

istry of Defence staff, has said: “The repeal of Article 125,

which deals with "closed areas’—the most important Article

as far as the Military Government is concerned—would

mean, in practice, the abolition of the legal power to close

areas. The closing of an area by virtue of this Article means

that it is being prepared for Jewish settlement, which is

1 - The compensation granted to an Arab whose land is expropriated varies between 1£ 120 and I£ 150 per dunum. ($40-$50). This is less than a third of what a dunum produces in one year! (A dunum of irri¬ gated land in Israel produces I£ 400-450 or $130-150 per year.) The majority of the Arabs whose land has been expropriated have refused to accept this “compensation,” with the exception of a number of feudal landlords who do not work their land at all and have no links with it, in contrast to the small farmer who is attached to his land by links of blood and sweat, and who believes that, by refusing compensation, he remains the real owner of the land.


becoming more and more urgent, with the increasing waves of immigration.5 51

Shimon Peres, the Deputy Minister of Defence, and one

of the spiritual sponsors of Military Government in recent years, says of this Article:

“It is by making use of Article 125, on which the Military

Government is to a great extent based, that we can directly

continue the struggle for Jewish settlement and Jewish immi¬

gration. The Sykes-Picot Agreement divided Upper Galilee.

This division has left Galilee without any Jewish settlements

and this may well give rise to a movement similar to the

Ttalia Irredenta5 movement of 1879. In Galilee today there are hundreds of thousands of dunums of unsettled land, and

these areas are earmarked for programmed settlement. But

there has been an attempt at unlicensed settlement; hundreds

of houses have been built on the hills of Galilee without

permits. If we are agreed that settlement has a far-reaching

political import, we must prevent the creation of a fait accompli

incompatible both with the Zionist concept of the State of

Israel and with the law.5’1 2 3

This is confirmed by Peres5 lord and master, Mr. David

Ben Gurion, who says: “The Military Government came into

existence to protect the right of Jewish settlement in all parts

of the State.553

This, then, is one of the principal factors behind the

establishment and maintenance of the Military Government;

to work on behalf of Jewish settlement, threaten the whole

country and expel the Arab population from their land, with

the object of confronting the Arab world with a fait accompli

—and this is the “royal road55 which Zionism has followed

ever since its foundation.

This is the real meaning behind the words quoted above;

what is said about building houses without permits is mere

humbug. It is true that houses have been built without per¬

mits in many Arab villages, for the reasons mentioned above.

1 - Maariv, 29 December 1961. (Author) 2 - Davar, 26 January 1962. 3 - The Knesset Debates, Vol. 36, p. 1217, 20 February 1963.


But, since the establishment of the State, there has been no

new Arab settlement, as Mr. Peres would have us believe.

And there is no need for a Military Government to deal with

the problem of houses built without permits; in most cases

it is possible to obtain demolition orders from the civil courts

—indeed, this is done all the time! The only reason for

retaining the Military Government is in order to Judaise the

country and to confiscate Arab lands—the "direct continu¬

ation of the struggle for Jewish settlement and Jewish immi¬

gration”—as Peres says.

In addition to Article 125 of the Defence Laws, there

are, as we have seen, the 1949 Security Areas Laws, by virtue

of which it is possible to expel the inhabitants of all villages

and colonies from "security areas” for indefinite periods. We

shall deal at length with this subject in the next chapter.

The second aim of the Military Government is the

strengthening of Mapai rule among the Arab population.

When the Military Government throws its weight on the side

of certain quarters in the state, it does great harm to all other

political circles in the State, both right and left, both Jewish

and Arab, with the exception, as we have seen, of Mapai

itself, and a group of Arab collaborators, and the extreme

rightist elements who direct the activities of the General

Federation of Jewish Labour in Arab circles. All other circles,

whatever their political aims and opinions, are unacceptable

to the Military Government, and cooperation with them is

liable to lead to a violent clash with it.

However, the Military Government does not fight this

battle alone. It has the support of the Special Operations

Department of the Israeli police and the Internal Security

Organisation, and its agents in all classes of Arab society.

Of the latter it can be said with perfect truth that, in practice,

there is not a single Arab family, in the broader sense of the

word, in the country which does not have "representatives”

in this organisation. The Military Government has succeeded,

through enormous efforts, including the employment of pres¬

sure, temptation, and threats and the exploitation of every

point of weakness in Arab society, in creating a considerable

number of collaborators, especially among members of the


older generations, who have been accustomed, since the days

of Turkish rule with its mediaeval methods, and of imperialist

British rule, to submit to any regime in power. Some people

of this kind, who at one time violently opposed the Jewish

people, but who have more than once turned their coats with

changing circumstances, have occupied in the past, or still

occupy, positions of respect given to them by the Mapai and

its leaders.

In addition to these forms of collaboration, the Military

Government uses another source of information—the reg¬

ular weekly reports submitted by Arab Mukhtars (village

headmen.) It must be emphasised that the Mukhtar system,

which was set up by the Turks and taken over by the British,

includes the most reactionary elements of the Arab popula¬

tion. “Most of those who call themselves Mukhtars assume

this title illegally.551 Apart from 18 Mukhtars in the Bedouin

tribes, there are only three officially recognised Mukhtars,

all in small Arab villages, but, in practice, the Military

Government recognises 100 Mukhtars in about 80 villages

in Galilee and the Triangle.

The Military Government depends on support from all

these sources, and by fully exploiting the powers granted to

it, over and above the “recognition55 accorded to it by the

Ministries, the Military Government does all it can to further

the interests of the Mapai Party and the Arab circles linked

with it, and the interests of the Arab Department in the

Histadrut, which is completely under the influence of the

Mapai Party.

It is, in fact, these three groups that provide the principal

support for all serious activities or programmes—whether

positive or negative—connected with the Arabs in Israel.

They form an established institution in the life of the Arabs

of Israel, and any one who chooses a course which is incom¬

patible with their interests will meet with all kinds of obstacles

and difficulties. On the other hand, those who choose the

path of servility and submission to threats, can expect to be

1 - From the speech of the Minister of the Interior in the Knesset, on 22 July 1959. The Knesset Debates, Vol. 27, p. 2665.


afforded all the facilities and favourable treatment that a

government can offer its supporters. No teacher or civil

servant is appointed, no loan is granted and no help is given

in any field whatsoever, without the prior approval of these

groups.

The nefarious conduct of these groups is especially cons¬

picuous in the political life of the Arabs in Israel. Here the

Military Government has the lion’s share of both initiative

and execution. It is activities like these, not concern for State

security, which guide the Military Government in its “con¬

cern” for the Arab population, especially during elections to

the Knesset or the municipal councils. It is thanks to this

“activity” on the part of the Military Government that most

of the municipal authorities in the Arab villages (two mu¬

nicipalities and about 30 local councils out of a total of 100

Arab villages) are, in fact, no more than instruments in the

service of the Military Government. The members of these

councils are, for the most part, appointed by the Minister

of the Interior (with the approval of the Military Govern¬

ment) from circles acceptable to Mapai and its leaders, on

a family or confessional basis, regardless of the wishes of the

villagers. When the time comes for election to these councils,

the Military Government carefully prepares the lists of can¬

didates, dividing up its supporters between several lists, so as

to get the largest possible number of votes. At the same time

it forcibly opposes any list it does not approve, employing all

the means and special powers available to it.

Such action by the Military Government is more often

than not successful, thanks to the Ministry of the Interior’s

submission to the pressure and threats of the Military Gov¬

ernment (especially when this Ministry is in the hands of the

National Religious Party.) It must not, however, be supposed

that the course of the Military Government has always been

smooth when it has engaged in such activities. There have

been many clashes between the Military Government and the

Ministry of the Interior in connection with these activities,

especially when the Minister has been a member of Achdut

Haavoda or the General Zionist Party. One such clash took

place in 1958 between Lieutenant-General Zalman Mart,


the Military Governor of the Triangle, and the then Minister

of the Interior, Israel Ben Yehuda. This clash was later dis¬

cussed at a Cabinet meeting, when the Military Governor

“accused55 the Minister of the Interior of interfering in the

affairs of the (Arab) municipal councils, which technically

lie within the exclusive competence of this Ministry. It should

be mentioned that this officer is extremely well known to the

Arabs in Israel, especially those living in the Triangle, who

“enjoyed55 a special share in the strong-arm policy he followed

when he was Military Governor. One conspicuous example

of his interference in the affairs of the municipal councils was

an incident which eventually reached the Supreme Court at

request of the injured parties. In its judgement No. 55/461

the Supreme Court decided:

“That the statement submitted to us, and examination

of witnesses in courts have convinced us that a number of

the actions of defendant No. 1 (Lieutenant-General Zalman

Mart) and his subordinates proceeded from a desire to exert

pressure on plaintiff No. 1 and his associates, to induce them

to change their attitude to the election of a president of the

local council of the village of Tira. In my opinion, expulsion

orders were issued in a manner which gives serious ground

for suspicion that the aim of these orders was to expel two

members of the council from the village to diminish the in¬

fluence of their list in the election of a president of the council.55

What the Supreme Court said about the Governor is, in prac¬

tice, applicable to the Military Government as a whole.

During elections to the Knesset, interference by the

Military Government is more extensive and forceful. Thanks

to this interference the Mapai Party wins all elections to the

Knesset. Four or five Arab members of Mapai are always

elected, whose sole functions are to support the Mapai at

every division and to draw their monthly stipends.

We can also obtain an idea of the extent of the influence

of the Military Government from the number of votes ob¬

tained from all classes of the Arab population by the Arab

1 - Iraqi et al. vs. the Military Governor of the Central Region et al.

Judgements of the Supreme Court, I, p. 103.


candidates attached to the Mapai. In the elections to the

Fifth Knesset on 15 August 1961, these lists obtained 36.9 per

cent of the votes of Arab electors in the towns, and 46.1 per

cent of the votes in the Arab villages. Among the Bedouin

tribes, where the full force of Military Government is imposed,

these lists obtained 56.2 per cent of the total votes.

At the same time, we find that the Israeli Communist

Party, which is the real opposition to the Mapai Party in

Arab circles, obtained the following percentages of the votes

of the Arab electorate: 45 per cent in the towns, 26.6 per cent

in the villages and 2.6 per cent among the Bedouin.1 Of course,

these differences must not be attributed to the efforts of the

Military Government alone, because there are many other

factors affecting the situation, such as culture, education,

development etc. But there can be no doubt that the Military

Government’s efforts were largely responsible for these results.

Before the elections to the Fifth Knesset, for example, the

Military Government forbade the distribution of a leaflet

issued by the Central Election Committee, calling on the

Arab population to vote according to their consciences,

assuring them that Israeli law guaranteed every citizen full

freedom and secrecy in the ballot. The distribution of the

leaflet was only permitted after the intervention of the Min¬

ister of the Interior, and of the Judge, Dr. Sussman, the

President of the Central Electoral Committee.

A typical example of Military Government interference

1 - Statistical Abstract of Israel 1962, pp. 224-225. In this connection, Aharon Cohen says: “The ruling party’s refusal

to relinquish this position of power (the Military Government) is due, above all, to the fact that it is through this system that the Mapai secures the majority of Arab votes in elections to the Knesset, by virtue of its ability to threaten Arab voters who support hostile parties.” In fact, in the election to the Second Knesset in 1951, the Mapai Party and its Arab lists obtained 66.9 per cent of the votes of the Arab electorate, and in the election to the Third Knesset 64 per cent—that is, nearly twice as many votes as the Mapai Party obtained from the Jewish electorate. In the elections to the Fourth Knesset, in November 1959, the Mapai and its Arab lists obtained 51 per cent of the total votes of the electorate in the Arab villages. Israel and the Arab World, (The Workers’ Library,

1964) p. 510.


in parliamentary elections, and of an infringement of the law,

was a meeting held in a village in Galilee, three days before

the elections to the Fifth Knesset. This meeting, at which the

author of this study was present, was attended by the repre¬

sentative of the Military Governor of the area, two intelligence

men and two candidates whose names were on one of the

Arab lists connected with Mapai. The meeting was called by

all the heads of clans in the village. After a brief opening

ceremony, the representative of the Military Governor was

called on to speak. He said: “The government has decided

that the inhabitants of the village should vote for one of the

Arab lists connected with the Mapai,” mentioning the name

of the list and the distinguishing initial allotted to it. He went

on to say that, to ensure the enforcement of this decision, and

to ascertain what citizens were “loyal” to the State, it had

been decided that every clan and family should be divided

into small units of 15 to 20 voters, a supervisor for each unit

being appointed by the Military Governor. The represent¬

ative of the Governor further declared that the voters were

not entitled, when voting, to use the printed ballot papers

bearing the initial of the list, which were available at the

voting stations, but that they were to use sheets of white paper

provided for the purpose on which they were to write the

distinguishing letter of the list in a certain manner, as ap¬

pointed for each unit. For example, it was decided that the

members of the first unit should write the symbol of the list

in Arabic at the head of the ballot paper; the second unit

should write it in Hebrew, also at the head of the paper, the

third should write the symbol in both Hebrew and Arabic,

with the Arabic at the top of the paper, the fourth should

write the symbol in the middle of the paper . . . the tenth at

the bottom, and so on. The Governor’s representative em¬

phasised in his speech that this method would ensure that

the names of those who refused to cooperate with the “gov¬

ernment” would be known, and that infringement of these

instructions would not be viewed favourably.

The results of the election showed that the list backed

by the advice of the Military Governor’s representative had

won the votes of 400 out of the 500 electors in the village.


After the count a special report was written and sent to the

Military Governor.

Such activities also help the Military Government itself,

for it was the Arab members of the Mapai Party in the

Knesset who voted against the abolition of the system in 1962

and 1963. The member of the Knesset Menachem Begin

was quite right when, during the February 1965 debate on

the Military Government, he said: “The Military Govern¬

ment safeguards a special corner in this House, (he meant a

place for the Arab members of the Knesset connected with

the Mapai) and today this corner is safeguarding the survival

of the Military Government.”1

The negative influence of the Military Government on

Arab society is embodied in the Israeli Government’s un¬

ceasing efforts to retain what remains of the clannish character

of this society, its encouragment of its most corrupt elements

and in the way it prevents the rise of a genuinely modern

leadership acceptable to the Arab population and to progres¬

sive circles. Another expression of this negative influence is

to be found in the system of repression and persecution used

by the Military Government, which gives the Arab popula¬

tion extremely unfavourable ideas about the Israeli Govern¬

ment, the State of Israel and, most regrettably, about the

whole Jewish people. These ideas are spreading more and

more among large sections of the Arab population, who do

not or cannot distinguish between the government and the

people it represents. For these Arabs, it is coming to appear

that every Jew, whether he is a citizen of the State or not,

is connected with the Military Government. It can be said

with perfect truth that, for a certain section of the Arab

population of Israel, the difference between Israeli rule and

Ottoman or British rule is^very small indeed.

Furthermore, the Military Government constitutes a

serious and continuous danger to the existence of democratic

government in the country. At present the Israeli government

uses this organisation (the Military Government) only against

its political enemies amongst the Israeli Arabs, but there is

1 - The Knesset Debates. Vol. 36, p. 1219, 29 February 1963.


nothing to prevent its using the same powers against all the

inhabitants of the country, including the Jewish population.

Article 4 of the Defence Laws (State of Emergency) 1945,

stipulates that:

“In every area or place in which there is no Military

Commander, by virtue of this Article, the Governor of the

liwa (district) has the right to make use of the powers granted

to the Military Commander by these Articles, and to perform

the task entrusted by these Articles to the Military Com¬

mander.”

In practice, this means that the Military Government

is legally established in all parts of the country and that its

powers can be enforced against every citizen without distinc¬

tion as to race, sex or religion. It is true that these powers

have not yet been used against the Jewish population of the

State, but there is no legal impediment to this should the

occasion arise. This possibility should receive very serious con¬

sideration from the supporters of the Military Government.

CHAPTER TWO

THE ESTABLISHMENT OF JEWISH COLONIES

I. Land

The acquisition of land in Israel has been one of the

central aims of the Zionist movement ever since its foundation

at the end of the last century. It was to “rescue the land in

the Land of Israel55 that Zionism first launched its violent

and stubborn campaign, using all the means at its disposal

and ruthlessly exploiting every weakness amongst its internally

divided enemies.

The struggle of the Zionist movement to acquire land

—whether against the British authorities or the Arabs who

formed the majority of the population—continued with

varying degrees of success until 1948, when Israel was estab¬

lished. After that the task of acquiring such land as remained

in Arab hands was entrusted to the Jewish sovereign state.

In fact, since the establishment of Israel, the methods of

acquiring land have changed radically. Whereas before 1948,

Zionism was obliged to employ extremely unobtrusive means

to acquire land, such as temptation, pressure or veiled threats,

since that date the situation has been very different.

The establishment of Israel eliminated many of the

obstacles which stood in the way of the Jewish attempts to

acquire Arab lands, such as the opposition of nationalist

elements to the sale of land to Jews, and the occasional op¬

position of the Mandatory Government. The acquisition of

land became much easier after the consolidation of the au¬

thority of the State of Israel, which had already succeeded

in acquiring extensive areas of land through the mass expul¬

sion of the Arab inhabitants.

The best evidence of the great extent of the areas of land


acquired at this period—the period of the Arab-Jewish war

of 1948—is the existence within Israel of the ruins of more

than 250 Arab villages demolished after the expulsion of their

inhabitants. In addition, of course, there are the lands of the

Arabs who were expelled or fled from the larger towns.

Land acquisition proceeded more rapidly after the cessa¬

tion of hostilities at the end of 1948 and after the signing of

the armistice agreements between Israel and the neighbouring

Arab states. It was at this stage that the authorities carried out

the majority of the acquisition operations, using the army to

drive out the Arab inhabitants over the armistice lines or

to remove them forcibly from their villages to other parts of

the country. In this way, too, the kibbutzim and agricultural

colonies near Arab villages acquired Arab lands, with the

encouragement and approval of the government, by sur¬

rounding them with barbed wire fences and taking final and

absolute possession of the land.

It was not long, however, before the Israeli authorities

came to understand that this was not the most desirable way

of expropriating Arab lands. At that time the refugee problem

was at its height, so that the expulsion of the Arabs and the

expropriation of their lands was like adding fuel to a fire.

The sensitivity of world opinion and the Arab countries5

“exploitation5 5 of this problem led the Israeli authorities to

look for other ways of completing the expropriation operation.

This did not take them long. An iniquitous series of laws,

amended articles and orders were published, whose main

object was to justify the acts of expropriation that had already

been carried out, and to give the authorities additional powers

to seize such lands as still remained in Arab hands. The first

of these laws was issued at the end of 1948 and the last in

1958, and they prepared the way for the Israeli Zionist regime

to steal about a million dunums of land from the Arabs who

had remained in their country after the establishment of the

State. From that time until today two mutually complemen¬

tary methods have been employed for the acquisition of land

—forcible expropriation and the invocation of these laws to justify it.

One of the first cases of the expulsion of the Arab popu-

THE ESTABLISHMENT OF JEWISH COLONIES 57

lation, or their forcible removal from their villages after the

end of hostilities, was the evacuation of the inhabitants of the

village of Rama on 5 November 1948. Ten days later, on

15 November 1948, the Arab population of Kafr Barcam was

evacuated from the village. Three months later again, on

4 February 1949, the inhabitants of the village of Anan were

evicted from their homes; half of them were sent to the

Triangle, where they were forced to cross the armistice line.

Three years later, when those villagers who still remained in

the country submitted a request to the Supreme Court to be

allowed to return to the village, all the houses in the village

were blown up by the Israel Defence Army.

On 28 February 1949, 700 refugees were expelled from

the village of Kafr Yasif, where they had taken refuge during

the hostilities, after leaving their own villages not far away

in Galilee. Most of them were put in trucks and driven to the

front lines, where they were forced to cross the frontier.

On 5 June 1949, the Israeli army and police surrounded

three Arab villages in Galilee, Hisam, Qatiya and Jauneh,

and expelled their inhabitants to the Safad area.

On 24 January 1950 an army unit arrived in the village

of Ghabisiya and told the inhabitants that they must leave

their homes by 3 p.m. on 26 January 1950, or else they would

be expelled over the frontier. Seeing no alternative, they left

their village for another demolished village, Damun.

At the beginning of March 1950, the inhabitants of the

village of Batat were expelled from their village.

On 17 August 1950, the inhabitants of Mijdal (now

called Mijdal Ashqelon) received an expulsion order, and

the first group of them were taken to the Gaza Strip. The

expulsion was completed in three weeks.

At the beginning of February 1951, the inhabitants of

13 Arab villages in Wadi Ara were expelled over the Israeli

frontier.

On 17 November 1951, a military detachment sur¬

rounded the village of Buwaishat (near Umm al-Fahm),

expelled the inhabitants and dynamited their homes.


In September 1953, the inhabitants of Umm al-Faraj

(near Naharia) were expelled from their village, which was

blown up immediately afterwards.

In October 1953, seven families were expelled from the

village of Rihaniya, despite a Supreme Court judgement that

the expulsion was illegal.

On 30 October 1956, the Baqqar tribe, which lived in

the North of the country, was forced to cross the frontier

into Syria.

As late as 1959—11 years after the establishment of the

State of Israel—Bedouin tribes were expelled from Israel

into Jordan and Egypt, the expulsion being reversed only

after United Nations intervention.

It is not claimed that this list includes all the Arab

villages whose inhabitants were expelled. There are many

other empty Arab villages, either partly or completely demol¬

ished, and a large proportion of their former inhabitants live

as refugees in different parts of Israel. Among them are the

villages of Amqa, Saffuriya, Mansura, Mi‘ar, Quwaiqat,

Barwa, Damun and Ruways. But the above list of villages

gives some idea of the extent of the operations undertaken by

the Israeli authorities to rescue land during the first few years

after the establishment of the State of Israel.

Side by side with these expropriation and expulsion

operations, a series of laws and amended articles was pro¬

mulgated, (because Israel is a state in which the rule of law

prevails,) whose main aim was to justify the illegal measures

already taken, and to give the authorities extensive powers

to continue in their seizure of such lands as still remained in

Arab hands.

The first of these notorious laws is the Law on the Ac¬

quisition of Absentees5 Property of 1950.1 This law first ap¬

peared in 1949 in the form of emergency articles connected

with absentees’ property2 promulgated by the Minister of

Finance on 12 December 1948. These articles were renewed

1 - The Laws of the State of Israel, 1950, Vol. 37, p. 86.

2 - Official Gazette, 37, p. 59.


from time to time, until the above law came into force on 20 March 1950.

The function of this law, and of the amended articles,

was to define the legal status of the property of absentees who

had left the country, their property being transferred to the

“custodian of absentees5 property55 who was appointed by virtue of the law.

At first sight this law looks like an “ordinary55 law to deal

with the affairs of specific citizens and to decide what legal

measures should be taken to solve one of the problems caused

by the 1948 war. But it is much more than this; its definition

of the word “absentee55 in the first paragraph includes the following:

“. . . (b) the word 'absentee5 shall mean the following:

1. Any person who was a citizen of the Land of Israel, and

left his ordinary place of residence in the Land of Israel at

any time between 29 November 1948 and the day on which

it is announced that the State of Emergency declared by the

Provisional Council of State is abrogated, shall be regarded

as an 'absentee5 if he left the country (during the above

period) to: (a) a place outside the Land of Israel before

1 September 1948, or (b) a place inside the Land of Israel

at that time occupied by forces that wished to prevent the

establishment of the State of Israel or fought against it after

its establishment.55

What does this article mean, and why was it introduced

into the law?

The answer to these questions lies in the date—1 Sep¬

tember 1948—which appears in the definition of the word

“absentee.55 Until that date, large areas in Galilee and the

Triangle remained under the control of Arab forces. After

this date, Israel either occupied or annexed these areas—

according to the armistice agreements. The inhabitants of

these areas were, of course, accustomed to travelling from

their villages and towns to the neighbouring countries of

Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan, in connection with their business

affairs. Furthermore, when Israel occupied these areas the

Arab inhabitants often left their villages and moved to neigh¬

bouring towns or large villages, waiting for the situation to


return to normal and hoping to return to their homes in a

few days.

But the Israeli authorities had other ideas. They did

allow a minority of those who had left their villages to return

to them, but the great majority—despite the fact that they

were in Israeli-controlled areas—were prevented from re¬

turning to their villages, and forced to remain far away from

the areas they lived in after their land had been confiscated

by the authorities. Thus the sole object of the articles providing

for the acquisition of land (and the law that followed them)

was to prepare the way for the expropriation of these lands.

The pretext was, as we have seen, that an Arab citizen had

left for a neighbouring Arab country at any time before

1 September 1948, even if he could have returned to his

village before Israel occupied it, or that such a citizen had

changed his place of residence during this period, or had been

expelled from his village by the Israeli army or had left his

home for some days during the fighting.

It is difficult to understand the connection between an

Arab citizen’s leaving his home to visit a neighbouring country

—at that time absolutely legally—and his being declared

an absentee, and the consequent seizure of his property; or

indeed between such an expropriation and a person’s merely

leaving his village for a neighbouring village. It is extremely

difficult to explain this arbitrary and illogical article except

as the result of an insatiable greed for Arab lands.

All the reasons adduced by the authorities in self-justifi¬

cation for expropriation are, in fact, no more than excuses.

According to the article under discussion, it would appear

that it was the duty of an Arab citizen in 1947 to know that

on 12 December 1948 the c‘Articles Providing for the Acqui¬

sition of Land” would be promulgated, by virtue of which,

the fact that he had visited a neighbouring Arab country or

changed his place of residence would be regarded as sufficient

reason to consider him an “absentee” under these articles.

This law is one of the cruellest of all the land expropria¬

tion measures. Under it, hundreds of thousands of dunums

of land have been expropriated, not to mention other forms


of property,1 (for the declaring of a person an “absentee”

means that not only his land but all his property is transferred

to the Custodian of Absentee Property) valued at millions of

pounds, which formerly belonged to Arabs who are still in

Israel and are regarded as citizens of Israel. 2

Furthermore, the enforcement of this law has been car¬

ried out extremely harshly. Paragraph 28 empowers the Cus¬

todian to decide “in writing that a person or group of persons

are absentees,” and when he does this “such a person or

group shall be regarded as absentees.” The taking of such

decisions has become perfectly normal practice; the Custodian

issuing them on no further evidence than the testimony of a

Mukhtar or a collaborator. Furthermore, to ensure that these

decisions remain in force and to protect them against possible

future attacks in the courts, there is an article in the law that

stipulates that: “The Custodian may not be questioned about

the information sources which led him to issue a decision by

virtue of this law.” Another Article stipulates that: “No deal

concluded spontaneously between the Custodian and another

person in connection with property which the Custodian

1 - In his book Israel and the Arab World, published in 1964, pp. 514- 515, Aharon Cohen says:

“Inasmuch as the law for absentees’ property has also been enforced in the case of Arab property in the mixed towns, where the majority of the population were forced to change their places of residence, this means, in practice, that all Arab property in the towns is regarded as “absentees’ property,” unless the contrary can be proved. It is by no means unusual for an Arab who has moved from one quarter in the same town to another to be forced to pay the Custodian of Absentees’ Property rent for the house he has moved to, as the house has been acquired by the Custodian from other persons, while at the same time, he receives no rent for his former house, in which others are now living, and paying their rent to the Custodian.”

2 - “ ‘Village property,’ belonging to all Arab absentees, whether they are outside the country or living in Israel, ‘acquired’ by the Custodian of Absentees’ Property, includes some 300 abandoned or semi-abandoned villages with a total area of 3-| million dunums. The agricultural property includes 80 thousand dunums of orange groves and more than 200 thousand dunums of orchards... Property in the towns includes 25,416 buildings, consisting of 57,497 residential apartments, and 10,729 shops and light industry workshops . . From the Israel Government Yearbook, 1959, pp. 74-75.


believes to be absentee property at the moment the deal is

concluded may be invalidated, but shall remain in force even

if it is later proved that such property was not absentee

property at that time.”

Furthermore, this law is enforced in the case of the

population of the Arab Triangle, which was annexed to Israel

under the armistice agreement concluded between Israel and

Jordan in Rhodes on 3 April 1949. The law is enforced in

spite of the fact that Paragraph 6 of the agreement says:

“Whenever villages are affected as a result of the armistice

demarcation line, the inhabitants of such villages shall be

entitled to keep their rights—these rights being protected by

the law—as regards their places of residence, their property

and their freedom ...” Certain of the inhabitants of the

Triangle brought an action, based on this paragraph, against

the Custodian of Absentees5 Property in the Tel Aviv District

Court, for the return of their confiscated lands. But their

application was rejected when the Custodian appealed to the

Supreme Court, which gave judgement as follows: “Any

decision on matters connected with this Agreement does not

lie within the competence of the courts of Israel, because the

rights conferred by this Agreement, and the obligations im¬

posed by it, are rights and obligations connected with the

States that concluded the Agreement, and their enforcement

is in the hands of these States alone . . -”1

It should be mentioned here that it is, in fact, the popu¬

lation of the Triangle who have suffered most under this law:

half of the lands that have been confiscated from the Arabs

in Israel were formerly the property of the inhabitants of this

area. Commenting on this law, Tewfiq Tubi, a member of

the Knesset, rightly says:

“This law is a symbol; it is an expression of the discrimi¬

nation practised against the Arabs of this country ... By

virtue of the provisions of this law, thousands of the Arab

inhabitants of Israel are regarded as absentees and are

1 - The Custodian of Absentees5 Property vs. Sammara, al-Rabi and al-Jayyusi, Dossier: Civil Appeal 55/25, + 55/145 + 55/148. Judgements

of the Supreme Court, p. 209.


deprived of their rights to legally dispose of their property.

This law does not allow them to enjoy their rights to their

lands and their homes and they are quite unjustifiably

regarded as ‘absentees’.

“The main function of the Custodian of Absentees’

Property is to steal more and more . . .”1

What is even more astonishing is the enforcement of

this law in the case of Islamic Waqf property. According to

the religious laws of Islam, Waqf property is considered as

belonging to God, income from such property being devoted

to the members of the Islamic community, to charitable

projects or to the purpose for which the property was mort-

mained in Waqf. In this case it cannot be assumed that the

Islamic community no longer exists in the country since the

establishment of the State of Israel. Nevertheless, Islamic

Waqf property has been transferred to the Custodian of

Absentees’ Property, on the assumption, perhaps, that God

also is an absentee, by virtue of the Law for the Acquisition

of Absentees’ Property.

The enormous value of Islamic Waqf property can be

judged from the figures that appear in the report of the

Committee of Inquiry on Palestine in 1936. According to

this report, one sixteenth of the total area of Palestine was

Islamic Waqf property. In cities like Jaffa and Acre 70 per¬

cent of all the shops were Waqf property. Today it is impos¬

sible to find out how much Waqf property contributes to the

State of Israel every year, the matter being “left to the dis¬

cretion of the Custodian of Absentee Property.”

Ever since this Waqf property was placed under the

control of the Custodian, the Islamic community has been

making constant efforts to secure its release and restoration

to the control of the community. As early as 1952, a com¬

mittee, on which a number of Ministries were represented,

was established to make recommendations to the government

on the way in which Waqf property should be exploited.

Nine years later, when the recommendations of this com¬

mittee “succeeded” in reaching the government, it was

1 - The Knesset Debates, Vol. 8, pp. 789-790, 16 January 1951.


announced that: The government is preparing to hand over

in the near future Islamic Wakf properties devoted to

charitable works and worship to an independent administra¬

tion of the Islamic communities in the towns.”1 A year later,

in 1962, it was announced that “government programmes for

the near future include plans for the release of Waqf proper¬

ties, or handing them over to the administration of reliable

local Islamic committees.”2

It seems, however, that the government changed its

mind. In a draft law3 submitted for first reading in the

Knesset on 7 July 1964, the government proposed the estab¬

lishment of a committee to examine Waqf land affairs from

the point of view of the religious law applicable to them, and

then issue orders for the registration of such lands in the

names of persons or institutions entitled to administer them

or enjoy their usufruct. In the event of there being no such persons or institutions in Israel, the lands would be registered

in the name of the “People’s Trustee for Charitable Affairs.”

Naturally, however, these instructions “are not to be con¬

sidered as repealing the provisions of the Law for the Acqui¬

sition of Absentees’ Property of 1950.”

In another proposal,4 submitted to “remove suspicions

that have arisen” as regards the status of Waqf property, it

was suggested that, in case of “a Waqf being for general pur¬

poses, its ownership should be transferred to the Custodian,

unconditionally,” by prescription, as from 12 December 1948.

In this way the “release of Waqfs,” which had been left to

the absolute discretion of the Custodian, was now only per¬

missible to “reliable committees,” the appointment of which

was left to the absolute discretion of the government.

Since the acceptance of this proposal by the Knesset on

2 February 1965, it is to be assumed that most of the Waqfs

that were being administered by the Custodian will be trans¬

ferred to the government once and for all.

1 - Israel Government Yearbook, 1961, p. 25. 2 - Israel Government Yearbook, 1962, p. 27. 3 - Draft Law No. 615 of 15 June 1964. 4 - No. 629, of 15 October 1964. See The Laws of the State of Israel,

445, p. 58, published on 5 February 1965.


It should be mentioned that, of the income from Waqf

properties, estimated at tens of millions of Israeli pounds, the

government had, by 19 February 1963, spent no more than

I£ 2.5 million1 on education, social affairs, holy places,

mosques, etc., while in the financial year 1963-1964 only

I£ 700,000 were allocated for these purposes.2

* * *

The second of the series of land expropriation laws is

the perennial law on which the Military Government is based,

and which is called the Defence Laws (State of Emergency)

1945, or, to be more precise, Article 125 of these laws.

Article 125, as we have seen, empowers Military Gover¬

nors to declare specific areas closed areas which no one may

enter or leave without a written permit from the Military

Governor or his representative.

In addition to the restriction of movement within the

State imposed on the Arab population, the authorities have

exploited Article 125 to prevent Arab villagers from returning

to the villages from which they were expelled as a result of,

or after, the hostilities of 1948.

The enforcement of Article 125 is an extremely simple

and easy operation. Should the inhabitants of a certain village

have left it, been expelled from it, or been prevented from

returning to it, it is proposed to them that they should accept

“compensation” in return for relinquishing their property.

Most of them, however, determinedly refuse such offers and

continue their attempts to return to their homes. To prevent

their achieving this, and in preparation for any legal or illegal

action against them should they try to carry out their pro¬

gramme of returning to their village, the Military Govern¬

ment declares the village a closed area.3 After this it automat-

1 - According to the statement of the Minister of Finance on the above date. The Knesset Debates, Vol. 36, p. 183.

2 - Israel Government Yearbook, 1964, p. 31. 3 - This also permits the use of pressure to expel other inhabitants

from the area. In connection with pressure of this kind, Maariv wrote on 4 April 1956:

“The Defence authorities are now taking administrative measures


ically becomes impossible to obtain permits to enter the vil¬

lage “for reasons connected with State security” without the

approval of the Minister of Defence, for the Military Govern¬ ment is “not permitted” to issue such permits. The Military

Government areas include many such villages, regarded as

closed areas. An example of the use made of Article 125 is

provided by the story of the expulsion of the inhabitants of

the village of Ghabisiya on 1 February 1950, by order of

the Military Governor of Galilee, after which their village

was declared a closed area. The villagers submitted a com¬

plaint against the Military Governor to the Supreme Court1

which gave judgement to the effect that the declaration of

an area to be a “closed area” was a “legal act” which was

not valid unless it was published in the Official Gazette. As

this declaration had not yet been published the Court ruled

that the villagers should be allowed to return to their village.

But the Court’s judgement constituted a grave “viola¬

tion” of the expropriation laws, which the Military Govern¬

ment found extremely difficult to accept. The response of

the authorities was firm and rapid. They refused to let the

villagers return to their village, and a few days after the issue

of the Court’s judgement, Lieutenant-General Nacaman

Stavi, the then Military Governor of Galilee, published an

against the Bedouin tribe of the Sawa‘id, who live in the hills of Galilee, after their ‘revolt’ against a military order and their refusal to remove their tents, which were pitched in a closed area. The penalties imposed on this Bedouin tribe include the prohibition of its members to move from their place of residence to the neighbouring area, the withdrawal of all government permits (for hunting, pasturing, movement etc.), the closing of the primary school, and a ban on the providing of the tribe with food¬ stuffs, and on its selling its produce outside its place of residence. The members of the tribe say that they will not leave the land which has been theirs for generations as long as there is breath left in their bodies.

“In the same area in the last few days, dozens of peasants of Majd al-Kurum, Arraba, Deir al-Asad, Sakhnin and other villages, have been arrested on charges of ‘infiltration’ into closed areas. The Military Court before which they were arraigned has sentenced them to terms of six months imprisonment and fines of from I£ 50 to I£ 1,000.”

1 - Jamil Aslan et al. vs. the Military Governor of Jerusalem. Appeal

No. 51/220, Judgements of the Supreme Court, 6, p. 284.


order in the Official Gazette declaring the village a closed area.1

Thus the case of the village of Ghabisiya was closed. But

there were many other villages like Ghabisiya, the majority

or part of whose population lived in Israel. Therefore to face

the storm before it broke, Article 125 was invoked in the same

way to declare 12 other villages “closed areas.” They were: Amqa, Ghardiya, Kafr Anan, Saffuriya, Mijdal, KafrBar£am,

Mansura, Mi'ar, Quwaiqat, Barwa, Damun and Ruways.

After the issue of the order, the inhabitants of Ghabisiya

once more applied to the Supreme Court,2 which decided

that those inhabitants of the village who had not returned to

it before the publication of the above order (and, as we have

seen, they were prevented by force from doing so) could not

return to their village after its publication.

The fate of the village of Kafr Bar‘am, which was de¬

clared a closed area by virtue of this order, was even more

bitter. The inhabitants of this village also, after some hesita¬

tion, applied to the Supreme Court in 1953. At the beginning

of September 1953 the Court gave judgement to the effect

that they should be allowed to return to their village. The

reaction of the authorities was very violent. In a huge display

of force, infantry and planes of the Israeli Defence Army

attacked and bombed the empty village on 16 September

1953. The bombardment continued until the whole village

was a burning ruin, when the Israeli planes returned to their

bases unharmed.

The lands of the villages mentioned above were given

to neighbouring Jewish colonies to cultivate.

* * *

The third series of laws providing for the confiscation

of land are the laws which, in addition to the Defence Laws

of the British Mandate, form the basis of the Military Govern¬

ment. These are The Emergency Laws (Security Areas)

1 - Collected Laws, 225, 6 December 1951, p. 242. 2 - Aslan, Mahmud et al. vs. the Military Commander and Governor

of Galilee. Appeal 51/288, 52/33, Judgements of the Supreme Court, 9, p. 689.


1949”1 promulgated by the Minister of Defence in 1949. They

have been renewed every year since then by special legisla¬

tion, and amendments have been introduced. They were last

renewed until 31 December 1965.2

These laws empower the Minister of Defence to declare

— with the approval of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and

Security Committee — the “Protected Area”3 or part of it,

a “Security Area.” The mere publication of such an order

automatically means that it is forbidden for any one to live

permanently in the “Security Area,” to enter it, or be in it,

without a special permit from the competent authorities

appointed by the Minister of Defence to enforce the law.

Not that the provisions of these laws add much to the

situation of the “closed areas” already provided for by Article

125 of the Defence Laws, 1945, nor indeed, was this the object

of these laws, which give the Minister of Defence, or the com¬

petent authorities, very extensive powers.

But amongst the other powers granted to the authorities

by these laws, we find that Article 8(1) says: “The competent

authority may order a permanent resident in a Security Area

to leave it,” and, when he has been notified of the order,

“such a resident shall be obliged to leave the Security Area

within 14 days of receiving notice to leave,” or appeal to a

special Appeal Committee (Article 10) within four days.

Should this Committee ratify the order to leave, the appellant

must leave the area “within five days of being informed of

the Appeal Committee’s decision.”

To put it more simply, this law has enabled the Minister

of Defence, and the authorities appointed by him, to expel

the inhabitants of all Arab villages in the “Security Areas,”

which cover a large part of Galilee and the Triangle.4 The

1 - Collected Laws, 11, 27 April 1949, p. 169. 2 - The Laws of the State of Israel, 412, 2 January 1964, p. 34. These

laws have since been renewed twice more and are still in force. - Tr. 3 - This is a strip of land inside Israel stretching ten kilometres to

the North, and 25 kilometres to the South, of Latitude 31 N, on the whole length of the frontier.

4 - See Collected Laws, 215, 2 November 1951, p. 144, and Collected Laws, 18, 8 June 1949, p. 230.


task of the “Appeal Committees,55 appointed by the Minister

of Defence himself, were to act as a cover for the arbitrary

actions of the authorities. In fact, these committees have, so

far, never cancelled an order for Arabs to leave their villages.

The articles were enforced with particular harshness on

the village of Aqrat. On 31 October 1948 the Israel Defence

Army occupied this village, which is in Western Galilee, near

the frontier with Lebanon, without meeting any kind of

opposition on the part of the population. Six days later, on 5

November 1948, the villagers received an order to leave their

village “for two weeks55 until “military operations in the area

were concluded.55 They were told to take only what they

needed for two weeks as it was a purely temporary measure.

So, during the next three days, the villagers left for the village

of Rama, which lies on the road which runs from Acre to Safad.

But much more than two weeks were to pass before the

villagers were allowed to return,and all applications to the

authorities were rejected. Negotiations between the villagers

and the authorities lasted for a year and a half, during which

the villagers came to understand that the authorities had

decided to prevent them from returning to their village. They

therefore appealed to the Supreme Court1 against the Minister

of Defence, the Military Governor and the Custodian of

Absentees5 Property, and asked to be allowed to return to

their village. On 31 July 1951, the Court gave judgement

to the effect that there was no legal impediment to the ap¬

plicants5 returning to their village.

After this judgement, the villagers asked the Military

Governor of Galilee to implement the decision and let them

return to their village. The Governor, however, referred them

to the Minister of Defence, who referred them back to the

Military Governor.

This “referring55 went on for more than a month, at

the end of which the whole population of the village received

orders to leave it, by virtue of the Security Areas Articles.

1 - Mabda Daud et al. vs. the Minister of Defence et al. Appeal 51/64. Judgements of the Supreme Court, 4, p. 461.


They immediately appealed to the Appeal Committee, which,

of course, after a session lasting until after midnight, ratified

the expulsion order.

The villagers then once more appealed to the Supreme

Court1 which decided to consider the case on 6 February

1952. But a month and a half before that date, on 25 December

1951—Christmas Day itself—Israeli Defence Army forces

blew up all the houses in the village, all of whose inhabitants

were Catholic Christians.2

This affair had very strong repercussions both in Israel

and abroad, particularly in the Vatican and in Western

Europe. Ever since the destruction of the village, the Israeli

Government has been making great efforts to settle this case

and that of the village of Kafr Bar'am, another Arab Christian

village. The villagers have rejected numerous proposals for

the payment of compensation for their property, for re-housing

them elsewhere or for giving them land similar to their own

in another place. They have firmly and determinedly refused

all such offers, and insisted on returning to their demolished

village. It would appear, however, that the difficult economic

situation of most of the villagers, and the time factor, have

done their work. Thus, ct15 families have agreed to the matter

being settled by compensation; such compensation being

estimated at 1£ 122,000 and 250 dunums of land,55 according

to the Government Yearbook.3 The Yearbook, however,

does not tell us anything about the real value of the property

for which this compensation was paid.

1 - Mabda Daud et al. vs. the Security Areas Appeal Committee. Appeal 51/239, Judgements of the Supreme Court, 12, p. 102.

2 - The forces of the Israel Defence Army which had been ordered to blow up the village took the Mukhtar of the village, the late Mabda Daud, to the top of a hill overlooking the village, where he was forced to watch the “show” of the destruction of the village from beginning to end.

3 - Israel Government Yearbook, 1964, p. 32. On p. 3 of the 1965 Gov¬ ernment Yearbook, however, it is stated that 30 per cent of the villagers of Aqrat have been compensated for their property, and that “Bishop Georgios Hakim, head of the Greek Catholic Community in Israel, played a great part in persuading the villagers who belong to his com¬

munity.”


Moreover, in a debate in the Knesset after the destruc¬

tion of Aqrat, the Minister of Defence, Mr. Ben Gurion,

said: “As regards the destruction of the houses, I wish to

state that the order for this did not come from me.5’1 This is

reminiscent of a subsequent case, with which Ben Gurion deni¬

ed all connection.2 And in the case we are considering, too, it

is impossible not to ask the question “Who gave the order?”

The land of this village, which totals 24,000 dunums, is

now being cultivated by two Jewish colonies : Allone and

Shmorah in Western Galilee.

A similar incident concerns the village of Hasas, in Upper

Galilee, near the Israeli-Syrian frontier. The population of

this village was expelled by the authorities in 1949, to Mount

Canaan, and from there to the Wadi Hammam. They stayed

away from their village until 1952, when they appealed to

the Supreme Court, asking to be allowed to return. On 7

July 1952 the Court ordered that they be allowed to return

to their village, but the authorities immediately served

“removal orders” on them. The Court then decided that it

had no power to interfere with the authorities that had given

the “removal orders,” as the powers of these authorities

“were absolute in so far as they were connected with security

matters.”3

1 - The Knesset Debates, Vol. 10, p. 1012, 16 January 1952.

2 - The reference is presumably to the Lavon Affair: In 1955-56, an Israeli espionage ring was discovered in Cairo whose objective was to damage Egyptian-American relations. The Egyptian Authorities brought the members of the ring to trial during which it was revealed that they were responsible for the setting on fire of the United States Information Service offices and library in Cairo in 1954. After the trial several members of the ring were hanged. These revelations by the Egyp¬ tian Authorities caused world wide repercussions. In Israel, the whole operation became entangled in the rivalry between the then Prime Min¬ ister, Mr. Ben Gurion, and his Defence Minister, Mr. Lavon. First, the blame was put on the Israeli Intelligence Service which retaliated by bringing into the open the authorisation for the operation with the signature of the Defence Minister, Mr. Lavon, on it. The signature, however, proved to be a forgery. Mr. Ben Gurion denied any knowledge of the matter. — Tr.

3 - Atiya Juwaid et al. vs. the Minister of Defence et al. Appeal 51/ 132, Judgements of the Supreme Court, 13, p. 203.


* * *

The fourth link in the chain of laws for the expropriation

of Arab lands is the “Emergency Articles for the Exploitation

of Uncultivated Lands.551

The authorities claim that the object of the Emergency

Articles is to encourage landowners to cultivate their land, by

empowering the Minister of Agriculture to “take possession

of uncultivated land, to ensure that it is cultivated,55 in cases

where “the Minister is not satisfied that the owner of the land

has begun, or is about to begin, to cultivate it, or is going to continue to cultivate it.55

However, the real object of the Article is to facilitate the

expropriation of further land from the Arab population, in the following ways:

a) By legitimising and giving a legal status to the acqui¬

sition of lands by Jewish kibbutzim and colonies, in accordance

with the powers granted to the Minister of Agriculture, which

enable him to “approve all or part of the operations connected

with the cultivation of land that was uncultivated, such

cultivation having been undertaken without permission either

before or since the enforcement of the Emergency Articles.55

b) By expropriating other lands through the coordinated

enforcement of Article 125 of the Defence Laws, 1945, the

Security Areas Articles 1949, and the Articles under discussion.

How is this done?

It is extremely simple. The Minister of Defence, by virtue

of the Emergency Laws (Security Areas) 1949, declares a

certain area a closed area, or a security area, entry to which,

without a written permit from the Military Governor, is a

grave security offence. At the same time, of course, the

Military Governor is unable, “for reasons of state security55

to grant such permits to the owners of the land, which soon be¬

comes “uncultivated land.55 When this happens, the Minister

of Agriculture immediately issues an order to the effect that

the land is “uncultivated.55 This in turn gives him the right

1 - Official Gazette, 27, 15 October 1948, (b) p. 3.


—“in order to ensure that it is cultivated”—to have such land

cultivated, either “by labourers engaged by him,” or by

“handing it over to another party to cultivate it.” The “other

party” is always the neighbouring Jewish colonies.

According to the original version of the Emergency

Articles, the Minister of Agriculture may not keep such

“uncultivated” land for more than “two years and eleven

months from the date he took possession of it.” But, before

the expiry of this period, it was extended to five years by

an “extension order.”1 And eventually the ownership of

such land reverted to the State.

* * *

It appears, however, that all the laws so far mentioned

were not sufficient to ensure the acquisition of all the lands

occupied by Arabs, and that despite all the restrictions that

had been imposed and all the laws that had been passed,

there were still serious gaps in the network of legislation,

through which the Arabs could wriggle out and could continue

to own some part of their lands. To close these gaps, and to

provide new powers of expropriation, at the end of 1949, the

fifth law in this series was promuglated—the “Law for the

Requisitioning of Land in Times of Emergency, 1949.”2

This law empowers the government to appoint a “com¬

petent authority” entitled to “give orders for the requisition¬

ing of land” or a “settlement order” in all cases where it is

convinced that such orders are “required for the defence of

the State and the security of the people, to safeguard essential

provisions or essential public services, or to absorb immigrants

or settle retired soldiers or men disabled while on active

service.”

This law states that the “competent authority” may not

retain requisitioned lands for more than three years. But

before this period expired it was extended to six years, by

an amendment of the law,3 and before the expiry of six years

1 - The Laws of the State of Israel, 122, 20 March 1953, p. 58. 2 - The Laws of the State of Israel, 27, 23 November 1949, p. 1. 3 - The Laws of the State of Israel, 106, 23 August 1952, p. 293.


the law was again amended1 to extend the period for which

land could be retained up to 1 August 1958. Lands retained

after this date are regarded as having been expropriated by the State!

* * *

As we have seen, certain of the laws we have discussed

speak of the “transfer,55 “requisitioning55 or “usufruct55 of

property; they do not mention “ownership.55 Thus the owner¬

ship of the land from a legal point of view, and according

to certain of these laws, remains in the hands of its original

owners, although they have been deprived of their right to

hold it. Moreover, most of the provisions of the five laws we

have mentioned were “provisional55 and conditional on the

existence of a state of emergency in the country. (Such a

state of emergency was declared in the country four days

after the establishment of the State, and the declaration is

still in force today.) It was therefore essential to give permanent

effect to the temporary measures laid down by previous

laws and to take another measure—the transfer to the State

of the ownership of requisitioned lands finally and irrevocably.

This sixth law in the series was the Law for the Acquisition

of Land (Operations and Compensation), 1953.2

This law is an epitome of its five predecessors. Briefly,

it empowers the Minister of Finance to transfer lands expro¬

priated under the previous laws into the possession of the State of Israel.

This law stipulates that in all cases where the Ministry

of Finance issues a certificate in connection with a specific

property to which the following three conditions are applic¬

able: (1) that such property was not at the disposal of

its owners on 1 April 1952, (2) that during the period

between 14 May 1948 and 1 April 1952 such property was

employed for essential purposes of development, or (Jewish)

settlement or security, — (it will be remembered that all

the previous laws were passed before 1 April 1952 and the

object of most of them was the expropriation of land for

1 - The Laws of the State of Israel, 149, 8 July 1955, p. 149. 2 - The Laws of the State of Israel, 122, 20 March 1953, p. 58.


purposes of development, settlement or security), (3) that

such property is still required for the afore-mentioned pur¬

poses... “such property shall be transferred to the ownership

of the Development Authority which shall have the right to

take immediate possession of it.55

Seven months after the promulgation of this law, there

were published in the “Government Notices”1 certificates

signed by the Minister of Finance, on the authority of this

law, providing for the expropriation of the lands belonging

to more than 250 Arab villages in all parts of the country. Most

of these villages belonged to absentees—those who had left

their homes and property and crossed the frontier during

the war. But the “certificates” also covered large portions

of land belonging to Arab citizens who are still living in the

State of Israel.

Of course, the land belonging to absentees was transfer¬

red to the Development Authority without any payment

being made, on the ground that there was no one to whom such payment could be made. The problem still, therefore,

awaits a solution within the framework of a comprehensive

settlement.

The situation of the Arabs who remain in Israel is differ¬

ent. The Israeli legislator was very “generous” to them, being

so kind as to lay down conditions and methods for the payment

to them of “appropriate” compensation. It was supposed

that this compensation would be a good way of expressing

the government’s good intentions towards those who had

suffered damage, but, in fact, the compensation provided for

by the law bore no relation whatsoever to the true value of

the land expropriated. It was trifling to a degree, intended

merely to act as a cover for the expropriation of Arab lands

without payment.

The law stipulates that “the owner of expropriated land

is entitled to compensation for it, to be paid to him in cash,

should no other arrangement be agreed upon.” But how much

compensation was to be paid ? The law provides an immediate

1 - Government Notices (317) 29 October 1954 until (355) 13 June 1954.


answer to this question. It states that for purposes of the assess¬

ment of compensation, “1 January 1950 shall be considered

as the date on which the expropriation order was given,”

although the law promulgated on 20 March 1953, and the

expropriation “certificates” issued by virtue of this law,

were published at the beginning of 1953 and the beginning

of 1954.

Why was 1 January 1950 chosen as the date determining

the amount of compensation although the law under dis¬

cussion was not passed until three years later? In fact, this

was a clever move by the government, to gain possession of the

land for practically nothing, for on this operative date prac¬

tically no sales of land had taken place, with the result that

prices were extremely low. Moreover, the Israeli pound was,

at that time, equivalent to the pound sterling, whereas by the

time the law was passed and the expropriation certificates pu¬

blished it was worth only 20 per cent of the pound sterling. The

government was thus able to gain legal possession of the most

fertile land at the lowest price. This may be seen from the way

in which the law was enforced: I£ 12 million were paid in

compensation for 104,000 dunums of land—that is, about

\-£ 140 per dunum.1 In the year 1961-62 also, similar com¬

pensation was paid for 20,000 dunums, although the price of

land in the free market had risen to hundreds, and sometimes,

thousands, of pounds per dunum.

As regards the transfer of land from one authority to

another for purposes of administration and practical use,

between the establishment of the State and the passing of

the Law for the Acquisition of Lands, 1953, the Government

Yearbook explains2 the situation as follows:

“Very soon after the establishment of the State, a special

department, called the “Arab Property Department,” was

established... In July 1948 a Custodian of Absentees5 Property

was appointed, to act under the orders of the Minister of

Finance, whose Ministry was responsible for the policy to

be followed in connection with such property. Very large

1 - Israel Government Yearbook, 1954, p. 32. 2 - Israel Government Yearbook, 1959, pp. 74-77.


amounts of property, of many different kinds, were placed

under the control and at the disposal of this Custodian. It

included movable and immovable property, in all parts of the

country. The function of the Custodian was to control this

property, keep it and employ it for such purposes as might

arise during this period... With the beginning of the immigra¬

tion in 1948 a start was made on placing empty houses at

the disposal of the immigrants and of various institutions that

needed housing at that period... In March 1950 the Knesset

passed the Absentees5 Property Law, which embodied an

important principle—that the Custodian might sell immo¬

vable property in his possession only to the Development

Authority (which was officially established in July 1950.) In

passing the Lands Acquisition Law, the Knesset allotted the

task of enforcing it to the Development Authority, whereby

a start was made on the wide-scale transfer of property in the

possession of the Custodian of Absentees5 Property to the

Development Authority, and from it to institutions (in parti¬

cular the Keren Kayeneth Leisrael) and to individuals to

whom these lands were granted. In 1953 the Custodian hand¬

ed over dwelling houses in the towns to the Amidar Company,

which acts as the Custodian’s agent. At the end of 1953 an

agreement was signed between the Custodian of Absentee

Property and the Development Authority, in accordance

with which “all immovable property under the control of

the Custodian was transferred to this Authority.55

* * *

The seventh in the series of laws concerning the confisca¬

tion of Arab property is the Law of Prescription, 1958.1

This law deals with very obvious civil matters, but it also

contains certain provisions, the object of which was to facili¬

tate the acquisition of thousands of dunums of Arab land in

Galilee, and other Arab lands not registered at the Land

Registration Office.

To understand the provisions of the Prescription Law,

we must take a brief glance at the Ottoman Land Law of

1 - The Laws of the State of Israel, 251, 6 April 1958, p. 112.


1858 and the Mandate Land Law (Regulation of Property

Rights) of 1928. These two laws stipulate that anyone who

controls land and exploits it for ten consecutive years is

entitled, at the end of these ten years (which are regarded

as the “prescriptive period55) to ask that the land be registered

in his name on the files of the Land Registration Department.

The Israeli Law of Prescription was passed to change this

situation.

In the draft of this law, the period of prescription was

extended to fifty years. This means that anyone who claims

the ownership of land that has not been surveyed must prove

that he has controlled and cultivated this land for fifty years.

The publication of this draft caused great consternation

among the Arabs in Israel. Protest meetings were held and

memorandums submitted to the Minister of Justice, the

Prime Minister and the Knesset. In one of these memoran¬

dums, submitted to the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice

Committee, the Arab lawyers wrote:

“There are many Arab peasants, who over much time

and as a result of great efforts, have developed extensive

areas of land. But this land is not registered in their names,

because registration was not carried out in their areas in

the days of the British Mandate. If the land in these areas

is now to be surveyed (registered), those who control this land

must have the right to demand that it is registered in their

names, because the majority of them have been cultivating

this land for more than ten years and they can easily prove

this. The extension of the “prescriptive55 period to fifty years

would be gravely prejudicial to the legitimate rights of Arab

peasants. We regard this law as yet another effort by the

authorities to dispossess the Arabs of their land.551

Following a flood of complaints from the Arab popula¬

tion and, apparently, because of the difficulty of proving

control of land for fifty years, the “prescriptive55 period for

land was fixed at 15 years, and for other property at seven

years. In addition to the extension of the period from ten

1 - The periodical Al-Rcied (published in Israel) September 1957,

p. 118.


to fifteen years (as regards land) the law contains a provision to

the effect that, in the case of a man who started to cultivate

land after 1 March 1943, the five years starting on the day

the law was passed should not be taken into account in the

calculation of the “prescriptive’5 period.

What does this provision mean?

It means, in fact, that the prescriptive period, for those

who started to cultivate land on or after 1 March 1943 is

extended to 20 years.

It was difficult at first to understand why this provision

was introduced, but two facts later disclosed the real motives

for its introduction. The first of these was the declaration,

even before 1 March 1963,1 that all the lands which had not

been surveyed were subject to survey, to prevent the possi¬

bility of “prescription,”2 the second fact came to light during

the hearing of a case brought by an Arab from Galilee who

claimed to a government representative that he was the owner

of a certain piece of land. In the course of the hearing the

government representative produced an aerial photograph

on which was written the number 45. He claimed that it

was a photograph of the land in question taken in 1945, and

that a survey official had accepted this claim and made his

decision in accordance with it.

After hearing the appeal3 submitted to it, the Supreme

Court ratified the decision of the official, and decided, (in

the words of Judge Cohen) that “the photograph in question

appears to have been taken in 1945 and inasmuch as no

proof to the contrary satisfactory to this court and to the

survey official has been submitted, we accept it as it was

represented to us, as having been taken on the date that

1 - Le. even before the passage of twenty years from 1 March 1943,.

the date fixed by the law. — Tr. 2 - According to the Israel Government Yearbook, 1964, p. 280. The

survey of the land before the termination of the period of twenty years, in March 1963, would enable the authorities to expropriate it on the pretext that twenty years had not passed since its owner began to cul¬

tivate it. — Tr. 3 - Ahmad Badwan vs. the State of Israel. Civil Appeal 59/482,.

Judgements of the Supreme Court, 15, p. 906.


appears on it... No proof has been submitted to us that the

photograph was taken not in 1945 but in another year. The

photograph can therefore be considered as having been taken in 1945.”

This photograph is at present the subject of a violent

legal dispute connected with the thousands of dunums of

land belonging to the Arabs of Galilee, but the owners of

the land have been put in a very difficult situation by the

Supreme Court judgement. It should be observed that the

State’s acquisition of land by virtue of this law does not

entitle its owner to any compensation, despite all the efforts

he has expended in developing such land.

2. The Total Area Of Expropriated Land

What is the total area of Arab land expropriated under these laws?

There is no simple answer to this question, because the

official expropriation orders cover both land belonging to

absentees outside Israel and land belonging to Arabs still

living in the country, whether or not they are regarded as

absentees. Moreover, there are no statistics as regards this

land. It is therefore difficult to decide the exact area of land

expropriated from the Arabs who have remained in Irsael,

although there can be no doubt whatsoever that this area is

extremely large. One proof of this is the fact that a total of

136,000 dunums of land has been expropriated from eleven

Arab villages above, all of whose inhabitants are still in Israel.

These villages are: Umm al-Fahm, 34,000 dunums, Tayyiba,

23,000 dunums, Tira, 23,000 dunums, Ma£lia, 12,800 dunums, Baqa al-Gharbiya, 10,995 dunums, Jaljuliya, 10,468 dunums, Kafr Qarc, 5,805 dunums, Mijdal, 3,960 dunums, Kafr Qasim,

3,880 dunums, Qalansuwa, 2,976 dunums, Sajur, 2,460 dunums.

The statistics oi the area of land expropriated vary with

the sources that provide them. The Administration of the

Development Authority has estimated the area of the land

which it was decided to expropriate under the Land Acquisi¬

tion Law at 1,200,000 dunums1 but according to other reliable

1 - Jerusalem Post, 29 June 1954.


sources, the area did not exceed 800,000 dunums, while

according to the report of the Israel Lands Directorate,1

by 1962 380,000 dunums had been transferred to the State

from Arab villages under the Land Acquisition Law. This

report says that some 9,300 complaints had been settled in

a manner that put the State in possession of 146,474 dunums.

According to another report of the Israeli Lands Directorate,2

the Arab villages in the North were in possession of 406,409

dunums, of which the State, the Custodian of Absentees’

Property and the Development Authority were claiming

364,115 dunums. (So far 135,302 dunums of this land have

been irrevocably expropriated.)

However, according to the report on the investigations

carried out by the “Joint Centre for Agricultural and Settle¬

ment Planning” in 104 Arab villages in the Galilee area,3 it

appears that these villages cultivate 385,993 dunums under

private ownership, while the member of the Knesset Tewfiq

Tubi4 says that, since 1948, 418,000 dunums of agricultural

land have been confiscated under the Absentees’ Property

Law, 70,000 dunums of (Islamic) Waqf land under the Land

Acquisition Law, and 205,000 dunums under the Prescription Law.

In any case, we can regard the estimate of one million

dunums of land expropriated from Arabs living in Israel as

reasonably accurate.

In 1960, the Israeli Government made another attempt,

unsuccessful this time, to dispossess the Arabs of further land.

Through the submission of a draft Law for the Concentration

of Agricultural Land, the Minister of Agriculture was to be

given the power to declare an area as an “area for land

concentration.” This would permit him, within such an

area, to “exchange” one piece of land for another, on the

pretext of concentrating government land in one area. Should

1 - The report that appeared in June 1962, p. 39. 2 - Issued in July 1963, pp. 67-77.

3 - See the Report on the results of this investigation, Nazareth, July 1963, p. 3.

4 - The newspaper Al-Ittihad, 1 July 1964.


there not have been enough land available to effect an ex¬

change, the Minister would have been empowered to propose

“compensation” for the land, at a sum fixed by a “committee

appointed by him.”

There can be no doubt that the object of this law was the

expropriation of further Arab lands, but the Arab population,

who had already gained rich experience of the process of

their dispossession of their lands, immediately grasped the

meaning of the expression “compensation” used in the law

and prepared to fight it, showing a surprising unity of ranks,

which eventually led to the frustration of the conspiracy

against them.

The Arab population was extremely active in its efforts

to oppose this law. Thirteen Arab municipal councils adopted

resolutions demanding the withdrawal of the draft; three

protest meetings were organised by the Arab Farmers’

Organisation and the Arab Popular Front, the largest of

which was held in Acre on 5 February 1961, and was attended

by representatives of 43 Arab villages. Strikes and demonstra¬

tions were organised in several Arab villages, such as ‘Ailabun,

Tayyiba, Kafr Yasif and Rama.

In the face of this flood of protest and violent opposition

to the draft law from the Arab population, it was decided

not to submit the draft law to the Knesset. This was the first

time that a government conspiracy against the Arab popula¬

tion was defeated by organised mass action.

Before concluding this chapter we must consider two

more of the expropriation laws, which were promulgated,

after the authorities had exploited most of the powers granted

to them by the laws which we have already reviewed.

The first of these is the Forests Law, which, at first sight,

appears to have no connection with Arab lands. According

to this law there are in Israel numerous woodlands, registered

in the names of certain villages, whose inhabitants are en¬

titled to use them for pasturing their flocks, cutting wood, etc.

Recently, however, the authorities have started de¬

claring large areas of these woodlands as Government Forest

Areas, protected by the Forests Law. This means that it is


forbidden to enter such areas. For example, 20,000 dunums

of land belonging to the village of Sakhnin, 16,000 dunums

belonging to the village of Kafr Tur‘an, 3,000 dunums be¬

longing to the village of Kafr Sami4, 2,600 dunums belong¬

ing to the Sawa'id Bedouin, have been declared protected Government Forests.

This procedure, in fact, is no more than a prelude to

the reclassification of the land by order of the Minister of

Justice, to change it from common land into another “cate¬

gory55 of land, the ownership to be transferred to the govern¬

ment when the time is ripe.

The second law, which is much more important than

the first, is the Law for the Acquisition of Land in the Public

Interest, 1943. This law covers, or, to be more exact, is en¬

forced on all such land in the country as the government,

the municipal authorities or public institutions may require

and wish to acquire. The acquisition is carried out through

the Minister of Finance, who publishes an announcement

in the Official Gazette to the effect that the Minister “is

satisfied that this acquisition is required or is essential for

public purposes.55

This law has, so far, been enforced in the case of Arab

lands on rare occasions only, and has led to “satisfactory55

results. But it may be assumed that from now on it will be

employed at more frequent intervals, because, it is, in fact,

no longer possible to expropriate further Arab lands under

the laws we have already dealt with. All the powers granted

to the authorities by these laws have been exploited to the

full, and the greater part of the lands that it was possible to

expropriate have already been transferred to the State.

The most important occasion on which this Law for

the Acquisition of Land in the Public Interest was enforced

was when 1,200 dunums of the best land in Nazareth were

expropriated, on the pretext that the land was required for

building various government offices. The Supreme Court

rejected an appeal against the government by the owners of

the land because it was satisfied that the acquisition of the

land was required for the building of government offices

which was, of course a “public interest.” But when the land


was acquired it was used for the building of houses for newly

arrived Jewish immigrants, and for spinning and weaving,

chocolate and biscuit factories. It is thus clear that the aim

of the authorities (in this case the Ministry of Defence) was

to establish a new Jewish colony, called Upper Nazareth, in

the heart of Nazareth, to strangle the Arab city.

In 1961, again, this law was enforced on the land of the

villages of Sakhnin and Arraba, in the Battuf Plain, on the

pretext that this land was essential for the Israeli project

for the diversion of the Jordan river. It had been previously

agreed between the inhabitants and the authorities that the

pipeline should run through a low-lying swampy area, which

was uncultivable in rainy years. However, in 1961, the au¬

thorities changed their plans and announced the confiscation of

another area running right through the Plain—93 metres

wide (the total area was 2,000 dunums) in spite of the fact

that the proposed canal was to be only four metres wide.1

Moreover, whereas in Jewish areas, the pipeline runs under¬

ground, in the Battuf Plain, which belongs to Arab peasants,

it runs at ground level. This does the peasants great harm,

because it divides their plots of land. But when they asked

why the pipeline had to run above ground in this area only

the answer was that there was no other technical solution

possible. And it really does seem that Israeli science, which

is “one of the most highly developed in the world,” and

which provides “aid” in all fields to most of the African

countries, and carries out important secret research for the

U.S.A., was incapable of laying the Jordan waters project

pipeline underground in this area.

Just recently this law has been enforced in connection

with 5,500 dunums of land belonging to the villages of Ba’na,

Deir al-Asad and Nahf, in Western Galilee, the expropriation

of which we discussed in connection with our description of

the building of the town of Karmiel.2 The authorities had had

their eye on these lands for a long time, for they were declared

1 - After this incident people started asking the bitter question: “Do the authorities want to build a new Suez or Panama Canal?”

2 - See p. 23, above.


closed areas under Article 125 of the Defence Laws, 1945,

about ten years earlier.1 For a certain period entry permits

to these areas, which contain the best marble quarries in

the country, were conditional on the applicant signing a

document to the effect that he waived all his rights in case

he should suffer bodily injury or be killed in that area as a

result of military operations. These conditions were abolished

only after application was made to the Supreme Court.2

The expropriation of these lands was violently opposed

by the villagers, and this led to an extremely provocative

attack on them in the Israeli press, and even to the “closing”

of their villages on two occasions, by order of the Military

Governor,3 when the villagers called protest meetings. More¬

over, the villagers offered the government other land that

belonged to them in the same area, suitable for the building

of the town on condition that it refrained from expropriating

their best agricultural land. But the government refused to

relinquish its position, asserting that it would compensate

the owners of the land with other good land in the area. The

falsity of this assertion was disclosed when the conclusions of

the Knesset Financial Committee on this matter were

1 - After the inhabitants had submitted numerous complaints and petitions expressing their fear that once they had been declared closed areas, these lands would be confiscated, a government representative told the Knesset People’s Complaints Committee on 13 June 1956 that “there is no ground for the fears expressed in the numerous complaints submitted to the Knesset, that the closing of these areas will be used as a justification to dispossess the inhabitants of their land . . . The Prime Minister . . . who has appeared before this Committee . . . has clearly stated that not an inch of this land has been expropriated and that there is no plan to exploit this order for closing in the future on behalf of confiscation.” From the letter sent by the member of the Knesset, M. Norok, President of the People’s Complaints Committee, to the Mukhtar ofBa’na on 3 July 1956,

as quoted in the booklet called Report on Karmiel by Uri Davis under the supervision of Dr. D. Shereshefsky, October 1964, p. 5.

2 - During the hearing of this case, Major-General Joshua Verben, then Military Governor of Galilee, stated on oath that “there is no ground for the villagers’ fears that it is intended to take their lands.” (Bulos Bulos et al. vs. the Minister of Defence et al. Appeal No. 60/65, as published in Report on Karmiel, p. 7)

3 - The first occasion was in March 1962 and the second in January

1963.


published. The proposed decision submitted by the minority

of this Committee contained the following:

“The Committee is not satisfied that there is no possibility

of abandoning the expropriation of the best agricultural land

belonging to these three villages. The expropriation of this

good agricultural land is an injustice not only because there

is no possibility of the government compensating the

owners of the land with equally good land, because there is no

such land in the area, but also because the expropriation is not

essential for the building of the town in view of the fact that the

Planning Authority does not intend to erect any buildings

on the land.”1

Thus the expropriation of this land was just one more

link in the chain of operations undertaken by the authorities

to “rescue” the land.

The expropriation by the authorities of Arab lands is

the most painful chapter in the history of the Arabs of Israel.

It has led to violent convulsions and changes in Arab society,

and still constitutes one of the most important of the charges

brought against the State of Israel by Arabs both inside and

outside the country.

One of the first results of the expropriation of land under

the Acquisition of Absentees’ Property Law was the removal

of some 20,000 Arabs from their villages, so that they became

refugees in every sense of the word, in spite of the fact that

most of them are still living in Israel,2 only a few kilometres

away from their original villages, which have been used for

Jewish settlement. These Arabs are allowed to enter the lands

that were formerly theirs only if they work as paid labourers

for the new “owners” of the lands. These refugees, according

to a Zionist Jewish writer, “mostly live in humble houses of

tin, sacking or wood, that they have erected on the outskirts

of their villages, the authorities regarding them as temporary

residents. Very few of them are rich enough to have succeeded

in buying a plot of land on which to build a house in the

1 - The Knesset Debates, Vol. 35, p. 23, 31 October 1962. 2 - This is the origin of the name ‘Non-Absent Absentees’ Law’ that

has been given to the Absentees’ Property Law.


villages they now live in, or in renting a house in one of these

villages. In some, but not all, of the villages of these refugees

new immigrants have settled, while most, though not all of

the cultivable land has been annexed to already existing

Jewish colonies to meet their land requirements, or granted

to new colonies.

“The great majority of these refugees—nearly all of

them—ask to be allowed to return to their villages, refusing

to sell their rights to their land, in spite of their unfavourable

material conditions. They do not become absorbed by other villages, firmly maintaining their attitude.”1

These refugees received aid from the United Nations

until 1952, when the U.N. decided that they were “property

owners” in Israel, and stopped the aid immediately. The

Israeli Government obstinately ignored the existence of these

refugees for ten years. It was only in 1958 that the govern¬

ment announced a plan for their settlement by building some

thousands of housing units and establishing a special fund to

provide the refugees with loans and grants. But this plan

failed almost entirely, as the majority of the refugees refused

to enter the housing units that had been built for them, or

to accept the loans offered to them, as soon as they realised

that these were conditional on their relinquishing their rights,

and that what was being offered them was a “grace and

favour” which they could not accept.

The expropriation of land—and not a single Arab

village has escaped—has done great damage to Arab agri¬

culture, and brought into existence a new generation of un¬

employed, who were formerly agricultural workers, because

they have been unable to learn new trades since they were

dispossessed of their lands.

The Arabs of Israel have met the expropriation of their

lands with violent and continuous opposition but the problem

has not yet been solved. The majority of landowners refuse

to accept the “compensation” offered them, because such

1 - Israel Hertz, in an article in Al-Hamishmar, as quoted in the

periodical Ner, April 1960.


sums, as we have seen, are extremely small. The refugees also

include persons who refuse to accept compensation in the form

of land in the villages where they are now living, because

such land belongs to “absentees,” either still living in Israel

or living abroad as refugees. To encourage the Arabs to accept

compensation, the Minister of Finance, in 1959, appointed

“popular committees” which were told to suggest solutions

to the problem. The result was that these committees sug¬

gested that the compensation should be 15 per cent higher

than the figure stipulated by the law, and fixed 1 April 1963

as the last day for the submission of requests for such com¬

pensation. But even this “generous” proposal did not succeed

in providing a solution.

Opposition is not restricted to Arab landowners whose

land has been expropriated in return for compensation: the

entire Arab population of Israel and their leaders are demand¬

ing the return of such land to its rightful owners. This demand

has resulted in the holding of many protest meetings attended

by considerable numbers of educated elements in the popu¬

lation. These meetings have demanded the stopping of ex¬

propriation and the return of such land as has been expro¬

priated to its owners. This demand for the return of the land

is something deeply rooted in Arab circles, to the extent that

anyone who tries to ignore it and is prepared to accept com¬

pensation for his confiscated land immediately suffers social

ostracism and is considered by his friends and neighbours as

a traitor to the national interest.

The fact is that the land problem is not merely a problem

of compensation; it is something much deeper. It is a fun¬

damental problem, which is regarded by the majority of the

Arab population as part of the Palestine problem itself. The

prevalent view amongst the Arab population is that it is

wrong to assist in the finding of even a partial solution of

the land problem as long as no radical solution is found for

the Palestine problem as a whole.

In spite of this, however, the authorities have continued

their efforts to solve the land problem through compensation.

For a long time all branches of government have been put¬

ting great pressure on the Arab population in the hope of


terminating this problem (and, of course, of expropriating

more land.)

The large-scale efforts to expropriate or buy Arab land,

which the authorities have been making recently, and which

constitute a danger to the very existence of the Arabs, are

based on two factors.

The first is the factor of strategy and security. The

“security services” believe that the existence of certain areas

in Israel (Galilee and the Triangle) inhabited by an Arab

majority, constitutes a serious security problem, and that, in

order to solve this problem, large areas of land must be ex¬

propriated from the Arabs and Jewish settlements built on

them, so as to smash the present Arab control of the area.

It would thus seem certain that it is no coincidence that three

“development cities” (Ma£alot, Upper Nazareth and Kar-

miel) have been built in Galilee under the supervision of the

Ministry of Defence, rather than under any other government

department.

The second factor is the political factor. Most of the

confiscated Arab land is situated in areas which, by virtue

of the Resolutions of the United Nations of 1947, belong to

the Arab State of Palestine. The Israeli authorities are afraid

that there might come a time, should there ever be peace

talks between Israel and Arab countries, when the Arabs,

who are a majority in these areas, might ask to be attached

to such Arab or Palestinian state as might be established, on

the grounds that there is an Arab majority in these areas.

In this connection Yeshiahu Ben-Porat wrote:1

“The claim is repeatedly made that Galilee is not a part

of Israel, according to the partition resolution, and that it is

still possible to dream of a plebiscite in this area, which is

essentially Arab and not Jewish.

“ cGalilee is ours5? On the map, yes, perhaps.

“But in fact, in the area itself, things are very different.

We have only ourselves to thank, for the problem of Galilee

1 - Yedioth Aharonot, 28 December 1962.


is a Jewish problem . . . but Galilee is an Arab empire inside

the State.1 2

". . . Without profound mass awareness built on a know¬

ledge of the wilderness in the North, we shall not be able to

rescue Galilee.

"Those who believe—and this includes the government—

that the Military Government alone can rescue Galilee, are

gravely mistaken.55

The Deputy Minister of Defence, Shimon Peres, states:

"There are areas of land in Israel which are either

unsettled or settled in a specific manner which constitute and

must continue to constitute an object of concern which goes

beyond Israel’s settlement policy. The Arab countries cover

areas that are inhabited by Jews; what of the areas in Israel

that are not inhabited at all or are not inhabited by Jews?552

This is why the Ministry of Defence is "hastening55 to

settle Jews in these areas, thus transforming the Arab popu¬

lation everywhere into a minority, and confronting the Arabs,

both inside and outside Israel, with a fait accompli.

1 - This is not true in fact. On 31 December 1963 it was found that there were in the Northern Province 224,850 Jews and 230 Jewish settle¬ ments, as against 157,944 Arabs and 65 Arab villages. (Statistical Abstract

of Israel, 1964, p. 15.)

2 - Davar, 26 January 1962.

CHAPTER THREE

FROM DEIR YASIN TO KAFR QASIM—

THE STRONG-ARM POLICY

The names of Deir Yasin and Kafr Qasim are landmarks

in the history of the Arabs of Israel. The Deir Yasin incident

dates back to 9 April 1948, about a month before the estab¬

lishment of Israel. An armed force of members of the Irgun

Zvai Leumi and LEHI1 2 attacked the village of Deir Yasin

near Jerusalem, now the site of a hospital for mental diseases

called “Beit Shaul,55 and perpetrated a frightful massacre

which was to become notorious throughout the world. More

than 200 of the Arab inhabitants of the village, including old

people, women and children, were butchered; those who sur¬

vived were led in a “victory procession55 through the streets

of Jerusalem, in their bloodstained clothes.

The object of this appalling massacre at Deir Yasin was

to terrorise the Arabs of the country into fleeing from their

homes, and the policy was crowned with almost complete

success when nearly three quarters of a million Arabs fled

from Palestine. That this was the aim of the massacre was

established by official statements of the organisations which

were responsible for it, and it has been established again

recently by reliable historians of the Israel Defence Army,

who say that this incident resulted in “the terrified flight55

of the Arabs. It must also be put on record that, four days

after the massacre, the Haganah leader in Jerusalem stated

that the village of Deir Yasin “took no part in the attack on

Hebrew Jerusalem; it was one of the Arab villages that did

not allow the invading forces to enter it.552

1 - See footnote 2, page 3 above. 2 - Davar, 12 April 1948.


With their customary hypocritical pretence of high-

minded disapproval of such activities, the official Zionist

leaders laid the whole blame for this massacre on. LEHI

and the Irgun Zvai Leumi, which they described at the time

as "dissidents551 though it was only a few months before the

leaders of these two groups were to assume the reins of power,

which they hold to this day.

It was during the period between the massacre of Deir

Yasin and the present day that, in spite of the fact that the

status of the Arab population had undergone a radical change

—they had become citizens of the State, whereas in 1947-48

they were regarded as belligerent enemies—that another

crime was committed that was to gain both local and world¬

wide notoriety. This was the killing of 49 innocent Arab cit¬

izens in the Israeli village of Kafr Qasim, in the "Triangle,552

on 29 October 1956, on the eve of the British-French-Israeli

aggression against Egypt.

The massacre of Kafr Qasim is an ineffaceable blot on

the history of the State of Israel, and the responsibility for it

falls squarely on the official leaders of the State and on a

large section of the Jewish educated classes and particularly

the Hebrew press, which had long been doing its best to stir

up hatred between Jews and Arabs.

As we have seen, the massacre of Kafr Qasim took place

on 29 October, 1956. A few days later, on 16 November, 1956,

the Prime Minister issued a vague statement in the Knesset,

in which he referred to people having been "injured55 by the

Frontier Guards. He also referred to the formation of a three-

member committee1 2 3 which would have the task of studying:

a) the circumstances surrounding the incident of 29 October

1956, b) the extent of the responsibility of the Frontier Guards,

and, c) what compensation should be paid by the govern¬

ment to the families injured by the action of the Frontier

1 - I.e. rebels against the official Zionist authorities.

2 - See footnote 1, page 1 above.

3 - This committee was established on December 1956, with Judge

Benjamin Zohar as chairman, and the Mayor of Haifa, Abba Hushi,

and a lawyer, Hotar Yshay, as members.

FROM DEIR YASIN TO KAFR QASIM 93

Guard . (Perhaps the Prime Minister was thinking at the

time of the compensation agreement concluded between Israel

and West Germany.) He also spoke of bringing certain mem¬

bers of the Frontier Guard to trial before a Military Court

for “carrying out an illegal order.”

Nothing in this statement threw much light on what had

really happened, and only a small minority of the Jewish

population ever learned the facts, whereas the Arab popula¬

tion got to know practically all the details from certain

quarters who took it on themselves to spread these details

—sometimes in an exaggerated manner—in all the Arab

areas.

This official silence continued for about a month after

the crime was committed, but a profound concern began to

be felt in Jewish circles, which was expressed in the statements

and information published by most of the press. The situation

was well described in a poem by Nathan Eltermann1 in Davar on 7 December 1956, in which he said:

“As, little by little, the details of that terrible action

became clear to you;

As its nature and extent were revealed to you, and stood

stark as an everlasting wave,

You compared them with the statement of the govern¬

ment,

Its statement about ‘the injured5; its pallid, perplexing

statement.

We do not know if this was what the government really

intended . . . because a terrible gulf lies between the facts and

their repercussions.

As the details of that terrible action became clear to you,

details which the hand cannot bear to write, not only because

of the laws of censorship . . .

Then you knew that nothing must be written, about

anything else,

No story or ode must be written, because the Hebrew

1 - A famous Israeli poet, reputedly close to Ben Gurion.


language refuses to be silent about this abominable deed that

has been done in Israel—

Such is the nature of Hebrew, such its qualities.

They tell us: ‘There will be a trial, the affair will be

concluded. Justice will speak and deliver its judgement.”

They say: ‘Let us leave it to judicial proceedings; is that not enough?5

No, that is nothing.

The justice dispensed by the courts is an outworn alpha¬

bet; crime must awaken the law.

But, both before and after the trial, the matter will lack

a great principle:

No human society can exist in which such depravity

occurs without its quivering with anger,

Mass anger, the vehicle of human and individual indig¬

nation, the indignation of men and women,

For without this, justice will be no more than a mechan¬

ical reaction, planned, automatic,

A reaction that spins in a vacuum, not in the hearts of

a people with wakened emotions.

We have learned, indeed we have been told, that the

police chiefs are concerned at what its members have done*

(But duty demands that we say ‘Those who committed

the crime were not subject to the police chiefs on a night of

Jewish curfew . . .’)

We have learned, too, indeed we have been told, that

the Army Commanders have been shocked, that more than

one Minister has held his head in his hands.

But they are robbing us, us the children of the House of

Israel, of our right to know and decide.

For, since the day the crime was committed the matter

has been under consideration,

It is mentioned only in furtive whispers, although it has

already gone out to stalk abroad in other parts of the world.

Since that time the affair has been surrounded by secrecy,

inhuman, unjust, and unnecessary secrecy, and poets and

poetesses continue to sing the praises of the Frontier Guard,


While the blood of the innocent cuts a channel, a river through this eulogy.

Instead of there being a strong, clear line to divide the

people from criminal elements,

Between the essential duty of the Guard and those who

turned this duty into something frightful—

Instead of this, the peril of silence extends over every¬

thing and a committee is established, more secret, obscure and dumb than any other,

And all of us become, without will or intention, all of us,

from the man in the street, to the heads of commands and

government ministers,

Become partners in the responsibility for keeping secret

a bloody deed, so that its voice may not be heard.

And we find that our people who wish to be a light to

lighten the Gentiles show not the slightest sign of disturbance,

In the face of this terrible crime committed by the police

who guard their frontiers because everything is left to justice; that is all.

There can be no human society, no enlightened people

That does not cry out when such as this occurs, asking

(with no need for preachers),

How did it happen? How could it have happened?

What must be done to ensure the same thing does not happen

tomorrow ?

There can be no human society which is not afflicted

with terror by this incident as by a nightmare,

In which the thrones of inspectors and chief inspectors

and their assistants do not tremble,

And totter under the blows dealt to their roots by these sins;

In which teachers and overseers do not cry out to awaken

hearts to take account of themselves and bear their respon¬

sibilities.

All this is in addition to the penalties that will be inflicted

on the imprisoned criminals.


So it is not only because what happened must not be

kept secret,

And not only that the trial must not take place behind

closed doors, or the crime investigated in whispers,

But the whole affair must be taken out of its frame and

examined in the full light of day, along with its direct and

fundamental causes,

Because only in this way can it be said and determined

that this people had no hand in the crime.

True, the crime was committed on the eve of a war, the

eve of a great trial and a mighty tempest,

But if the word Circumstances5 has any meaning, the

hour of trial itself raises its voice in accusation.

Indeed, on the edge of the battlefield the crime was

committed, but it befell on the farthest limits of the battlefield,

While on the southern limits of the field

Stands the Mount of Ten Commandments.55

As a result of the long, detailed articles in the press, the

Jewish population gradually came to learn most of the facts

connected with the crime committed at Kafr Qasim, and the

government was obliged to bring the eleven accused to trial

before a Military Court. The accused were:

1. Major Shmuel Melinki

2. Lieutenant Joubrael Dahan

3. Sergeant Shalom Ofer

4. Corporal Gabriel Olial

5. Private Makhlouf Herish

6. Private Eliahu Abraham

7. Private Albert Fahima

8. Private Edmond Nahmani

9. Corporal Ismail Abdul Rahman

10. Private Sha£ban Sa£id Zakariya

11. Private Daniel Semnitz

The last three were acquitted.

During the trial the full details of the appalling massacre

at Kafr Qasim, on 29 October 1956, were gradually but fully


revealed. The following extracts provide a description of the events on October 29:

“On the eve of the Sinai War ... a battalion attached

to the Central Area Command was ordered to prepare itself

to defend a section of the Israeli-Jordanian frontier. (With

this end in view) ... a unit of the Frontier Guard was at¬

tached to the said battalion and the commander of this Fron¬

tier Guard unit, Major Melinki, was placed under the orders

of the battalion commander, Brigadier Yshishkhar Shadmi.

In the morning of 29 October 1956, the Commander of the

Central Area, Major-General Zvi Tsur, (later Chief of Staff)

informed Brigadier Shadmi and the other battalion comman¬

ders, of the policy it had been decided to adopt towards the Arab population.1

“The Area Commander went on to emphasize to the

battalion commanders that the safeguarding of the operation

in the South (i.e. the Suez campaign) required that the area

coterminous with Jordan be kept absolutely quiet.

“. . . Brigadier Shadmi requested that he be empowered

to impose a night curfew in the villages of the minorities in

the area under his command in order to: a) facilitate the

movements of his forces, and b) prevent the population being

exposed to injury by the reserve troops. These arguments

convinced the Area Commander, who empowered Brigadier

Shadmi to impose a curfew. . .1

“On the same day, (29 October 1956) Brigadier Shadmi

summoned Major Melinki to his headquarters, informed him

of the duties of the unit under his command, and gave him

instructions about the execution of these duties. One of the

duties of this Frontier Guard unit was to impose the curfew

and implement the order for the inhabitants to remain in

their houses in the villages of Kafr Qasim, Kafr Barra, Jal-

juliya, Tira, Tayyiba, Qalansuwa, Bir al-Sikka and Ibthan

1 - This description is based on news items and articles published in the Israeli press and, in particular, on the judgement of the Military Court attached to the Israeli (Central Area) Defence Army Military Court MD/57/3—The Military Prosecutor vs. Major Melinki et al.

Judgements of the District Court 17, 90, p. 99.


during the night. The two commanders agreed that the curfew should be enforced between 5 p.m. and 6 a.m.

“The battalion commander (Shadmi) also told the unit

commander (Melinki) that the curfew must be extremely

strict and that strong measures must be taken to enforce it.

It would not be enough to arrest those who broke it—they

must be shot. In explanation he said ‘A dead man (or ac¬

cording to other evidence ‘a few dead men’) is better than

the complications of detention.’

“When Melinki asked what was to happen to a man

returning from his work outside the village, without knowing

about the curfew, who might well meet the Frontier Guard

units at the entrance to the village, Shadmi replied: T don’t

want any sentimentality,’ and ‘That’s just too bad for him.”

“Shadmi gave his orders to Melinki verbally, while they

were alone and Melinki wrote the following words in his diary

during the interview:

“Curfew imposed from evening till morning (1700-

0600). Strict policy.”1

Similarly, the draft order drawn up by Melinki and

handed to the reserve forces attached to his group, shortly

before the curfew was imposed, contained the following words

under the heading, “Method:”

“No inhabitant shall be allowed to leave his home

during the curfew. Anyone leaving his home shall be shot;

there shall be no arrests.”2

Armed with these instructions, Major Melinki returned

to his headquarters, where with the help of all his officers,

he prepared a series of orders for his forces. During this

meeting, “He (Melinki) informed the assembled officers that

the war had begun, that their units were now under the

command of the Israeli Defence Army, and that their task

was to impose the curfew in the minority villages from 1700

to 0600, after informing the Mukhtars to this effect at 16.30.

With regard to the observation of the curfew, Melinki

1 - Judgements of the District Court, 17, pp. 100-101. 2 - Ibid. p. 101.


emphasised that it was forbidden to harm inhabitants who

stayed in their homes, but that anyone found outside his home

(or, according to other witnesses, anyone leaving his home, or

anyone breaking the curfew) should be shot dead. He added

that there were to be no arrests, and that if a number of people

were killed in the night (according to other witnesses: it was

desirable that a number of people should be killed as) this

would facilitate the imposition of the curfew during succeeding

nights.”1

. . While he was outlining this series of orders, Major

Melinki allowed the officers to ask him questions. Lieutenant

Franknanthal asked him ‘What do we do with the dead?’

(or, according to other witnesses ‘with the wounded ?’)

Melinki replied: ‘Take no notice of them’ (or, according to

other evidence: ‘They must not be removed,’ or, according

to a third witness: ‘There will not be any wounded.’) Arieh

Menches, a section leader, then asked ‘What about women

and children?’ to which Melinki replied ‘No sentimentality’

(according to another witness: ‘They are to be treated like

anyone else; the curfew covers them too.’) Menches then

asked a second question: ‘What about people returning from

their work?’ Here Alexandroni tried to intervene, but Melinki

silenced him, and answered: ‘They are to be treated like any¬

one else’ (according to another witness, he added: ‘It will be

just too bad for them, as the Commander said.’ ”)

In the minutes of the meeting . . . which were taken

down . . . and signed by Melinki a short time after he signed

the series of orders, the following appears:

“As from today, at 1700 hours, curfew shall be imposed

in the minority villages until 0600 hours, and all who disobey

this order will be shot dead.”2

After this psychological preparation, and the instructions

given to the policemen-soldiers to “shoot to kill all who broke

the curfew,” the unit went out to the village of Kafr Qasim

to start its work:

1 - Ibid. p. 101. 2 - Ibid. p. 102.


“Lieutenant Dahan gave instructions to his men before

they started for Kafr Qasim, and told them that it was their

job to enforce the curfew in Kafr Qasim from 1700 to 0600

hours and that they should shoot to kill any person seen out¬

side his home after 1700 hours, including women, children

and persons returning from their work outside the village.”1

In Kafr Qasim itself, Lieutenant Dahan divided his unit

into sections of three or four men each (including their leader)

armed with sub-machine guns, automatic rifles and rifles,

and posted each section in a place overlooking one of the

quarters of the village, or at the entrance to the village or its

end. He made the leaders of each section responsible for the

enforcement of the curfew, and authorised them to shoot

according to his previous instructions, which he repeated.

“One of these sections, under Sergeant Shalom Ofer,

who was in command of two other men, Makhlouf Hreish

and Eliahu Abraham, armed with a Bren gun and two rifles,

was posted at the western entrance of the village, which com¬

mands the one metalled road leading to Kafr Qasim.

“A second section, under Corporal Gabriel Olial with

three men (Police Constable Borstein and Privates Albert

Fahimi and Edmond Nahmani), was posted at the eastern

entrance to the village. This section had a bazooka, an Uzi

sub-machine gun, a Bren gun and a rifle. Some time after

the curfew began, this section was moved from its position at

the eastern entrance of the village, and attached to Sergeant

Ofer’s section at the western entrance. Other sections were

similarly posted to the north, to the centre and to the south

of the village.

“Lieutenant Dahan himself, with Corporal Rahman and

Privates Zakariya and Semnitz and the driver of the jeep,

armed with an Uzi, a Bren gun and three rifles, formed a

mobile section which went round the village acting as liaison

between the different sections.5’2

On the same day (29 October 1956) at 16.30 hours, a

Frontier Guard Sergeant informed the Mukhtar of the village

1 - Ibid. p. 103. 2 - Ibid. p. 104.


that a curfew was to be imposed from 5 p.m. to 6 a.m. the

following morning, and warned him that it would be strictly

enforced and would involve danger of death, telling him to

inform the village. The Mukhtar, Wadi£ Ahmad Sarsur, in¬

formed the sergeant that £CThere were 400 villagers who

worked outside the village, some of them in the neighbourhood

or in nearby places, such as the Osriah colony, while the re¬ mainder were in more distant places, like Petah Tiqva, Lydda

Jaffa and elsewhere, so that he could not inform them all of

the curfew in time. After an argument the sergeant promised

the Mukhtar that he would let all men returning from work

pass on his own responsibility and that of the government.

The Mukhtar, assisted by his relations, announced the impo¬

sition of the curfew in the centre and to the north and south

of the village, saying that everyone inside the village must enter his home before 5 p.m.”1

In other words, the curfew in Kafr Qasim, of which the

Mukhtar was informed at 4.30 p.m. on 29 October 1956,

came into force half an hour later that same day, at 5 p.m.,

when dozens of the villagers were in their different places of

work, so that they could not possibly know of the imposition

of the curfew. And a bitter fate awaited them when they

returned to the village from their day’s work. In the first hour

of the curfew, between 5 and 6 p.m., the men of the Israeli

Frontier Guard killed 47 Arab citizens in Kafr Qasim. The

killing was carried out in cold blood and for no reason. Of

the 47 killed during that hour, 43 were killed at the western

entrance to the village, one in the centre and three to the

north, while several other villagers were wounded.

The 43 killed at the western entrance included seven boys

and girls and nine women of all ages—one of them 66 years

old. Most of them were inhabitants of Kafr Qasim, returning

from their work outside the village between 5 and 6 p.m.

Nearly all of them returned by the main road, a few on foot,

the majority on bicycles or in mule carts or lorries. In most

cases the villagers, when they reached the borders of their

village, were met by sections of the Frontier Guard who

1 - Ibid. p. 104.


ordered the passengers to get down from their transport. When

it was clear that they were residents of Kafr Qasim returning

from their work, the order to fire was given, and shots were

immediately fired at short range from automatic weapons and

rifles, “and of every group of returning workers, some were

killed and others wounded; very few succeeded in escaping

unhurt. The proportion of those killed increased, until, of the

last group, which consisted of 14 women, a boy and 4 men,

all were killed, except one girl, who was seriously wounded.3’

The killing might have gone on increasing like this,

leading to even more casualties, “but Dahan, who had per¬

sonally taken part in the killing and who had seen all that

was going on as he went round the village in the jeep, informed

the command several times over the radio apparatus in the

jeep, of the number of killed. Opinions differ as to the figure

he gave in his reports, but all are agreed that in his first report

he said: cone less3 (i.e. one killed), and in the next two reports:

‘fifteen less3 and ‘many less; it is difficult to count them.3 The

last two reports, which followed each other in quick succession,

were picked up by Captain Levy, who passed them on to

Melinki. When he was informed that there were ‘fifteen less3

in Kafr Qasim, Melinki gave orders which he was unable to

transmit to Dahan before the report arrived of ‘many less;

it is difficult to count them,3 for the firing to stop and for more

moderate procedure to be adopted in the whole area . . .

This order finally ended the bloodshed at Kafr Qasim.33 1

This is a general outline of the principal events, but it is

essential to go into details, in order to fully explain just how

this appalling crime was committed. We believe that a fully

detailed description of the massacre may throw some light on

the basic motives that led to it, and help towards an under¬

standing of its scope and significance. We must therefore

return to the judgement of the District Court, which describes

the details of the crime clearly and precisely.

After it had heard the great mass of evidence, the Court

reported:

1 - Ibid. p. 106.


“The first to be shot at the western entrance to the

village were four quarrymen returning on bicycles from the

places where they worked near Petah Tiqva and Ras al-Ain.

A short time after the curfew began these four workmen came

round the bend in the road pushing their bicycles. When they

had gone some ten to fifteen metres along the road towards

the school, they were shot from behind at close range, from

the left. Two of the four (Ahmad Mahmud Freij and Ali

Othman Taha, both 30 years old,) were killed outright. The

third (Muhammad Mahmud Freij, brother of Ahmad Freij)

was wounded in the thigh and the forearm, while the fourth,

Abdullah Samir Badir, escaped by throwing himself to the

ground. The bicycle of the wounded man, Ahmad, fell on

him and covered his body, and he managed to lie motionless

throughout the bloody incidents that took place around him.

Eventually he crawled into an olive grove and lay under an

olive tree until morning. Abdullah was shot at again when

he rolled from the road to the sidewalk, whereupon he sighed

and pretended to be dead. After the two subsequent massacres,

which took place beside him, he hid himself among a flock

of sheep, whose shepherd had been killed, and escaped into

the village with the flock.1

“A short time after the above incident, a two-wheeled

cart drawn by a mule arrived at the bend. Sitting in it were

Ismail Mahmud Badir . . . and his little-daughter, aged 8,

who were coming back from Petah Tiqva in the cart, with

three people, one of whom came from Kafr Bara, walking

beside or behind the cart, carrying vegetables. One of these

was a boy of fourteen, Muhammad Abdul Rahman Issa. At

this moment Dahan arrived at the bend in the jeep with the

mobile squad . . . and the driver, Ya'acov Hazkial, on a tour

of inspection. Dahan ordered his men to get out of the jeep,

which they did, carrying their arms (a Bren gun and two

rifles) while he himself got out with his Uzi in his hand and

went over to the cart. He then told Ismail to get out of the

cart and stand in a row with the other two men (who had

been walking beside the cart) at the side of the road. Dahan

1 - Ibid. pp. 108-109.


then ordered the boy Muhammad to get into the cart, and

sent him off to the village with the weeping girl. Dahan

ordered the three men to be shot, shooting them with the Auzi

he was carrying. The three men fell under the rain of bullets

and the firing continued after they had fallen. Two of them,

Ghazi Ahmad Darwish Issa and Muhammad Abdul-Rahman

Asi, who had been walking and carrying vegetables, were

killed, while Ismail was seriously wounded, with several bul¬

lets in his hips and thigh—he survived only because the

Frontier Guards believed him dead.551

“A short time after this killing a shepherd and his twelve

year old son came back from the pasture with their flock.

They approached the bend along the road from the Jewish

colony of Masha. The flock went along the road as far as the

village school, the shepherd throwing stones at sheep that had

strayed to turn them back on to the Masha road. Two or

three soldiers, standing by the bend, opened fire at close range

on the shepherd and his son and killed them. Their names

were Othman Abdullah Issa, aged 30, and his son Fathi

Othman Abdullah Issa, aged twelve.552

“Some time later Omar Mahmud Awda, a farmer and

merchant, aged 57, arrived at the bend, returning from

Petah Tiqva in his lorry. He was sitting beside the driver,

while in the back of the lorry were his son and his partner,

and two workmen from Kafr Qasim. As he approached the

bend, Omar saw three soldiers shooting someone, and imme¬

diately told the driver to stop. One of the soldiers then came

up to the lorry, and, without asking any questions, told the

driver to go on. The driver obeyed the soldier’s order, and

as it passed the bend, the lorry was shot at from behind by

the soldiers who were standing there. Firing continued while

the lorry drove away at high speed. The terrified driver drove

the lorry off the road, but eventually managed to get back on

to it again, and reached Awda’s house, which lies behind the

school. When Awda looked into the back of the lorry, he

1 - Ibid. pp. 109-110. 2 - Ibid. p. 110.


found that his partner, Mahmud Abdul Jassar Rayyan had

been killed.551

“A short time after the incident of Awda’s lorry, a four-

wheeled cart, drawn by a mule, arrived at the bend. In it

was its owner, Ismail Aqqab Badir, returning from Petah

Tiqva, and his cousin, Tewfiq Ibrahim Badir, who had

joined him on the way. Near the bend, a soldier stopped the

cart, ordered the two men to get down and to stand beside

it in the road. The soldier himself stood at the bend, and not

far from him two other armed soldiers were lying in the road

leading to the school. Immediately after the arrival of this

cart, several groups of workers started arriving, riding bicycles

with lighted lamps. The soldier ordered them all to lay their

bicycles beside the road, and stand in a row with the two

men who had been in the cart. There were thirteen men in

this row, and when one of them, Salim Ahmad Bashir Badir,

tried to stand at the end of the row, the soldier shouted at

him: £Dog, stand in the middle of the row.5 He thereupon

moved to the middle.

“When no more bicycle lamps were visible on the hori¬

zon, the same soldier asked the men standing in the row

where they came from. They all answered that they were

from Kafr Qasim, whereupon the soldier took a step back¬

wards and shouted to the soldiers lying opposite the row (one

of whom had a Bren gun): ‘Mow them down.5 All the men

in the row fell under the hail of bullets that followed, except

for Mustafa . . * who escaped by jumping over the wall. The

soldiers continued firing at any of the fallen men who showed

any signs of life. When it was clear that they were all dead,

or almost so, the soldiers cleared the road of the bodies, piling

them on the side of the road. Of these thirteen men, six were

killed, while four were seriously injured.

The names of the six men killed were:

Mahmud Abdul Razzaq Sarsur (18)

Ali Nimr Muhammad Freij (17)

Salah Muhammad Ahmad Amer

1 - Ibid. p. 111.


Selim Ahmad Bashir Badir (50)

Abdullah Abdul Jassar Badir (25)

Abd Selim Saleh Issa (20).

“Ismail (20) was hit in the right leg, and when the sol¬

diers had left he crawled to a tree and lay concealed in its

branches, for two days. Then he was taken to hospital where

his leg was amputated. Tewfiq (25) was hit in the right hip,

while Salah (19) was hit in the right leg and the left hand,

and, falling under the wheels of the cart to escape the bullets

that were being shot at the wounded, and pretending to be

dead. The soldiers threw him on the heap of dead bodies,

where he remained until it was all over. Then he crawled to a

tree and sat under it until morning, when he was taken to hos¬

pital. As'ad (26) (the brother of Abd Selim Saleh Issa, who was

killed) was hit in the right hip, and after he fell he was shot

again in the left hip. He too was put on the heap of dead

bodies by the soldiers, where he lay until the end of the inci¬

dents; he was taken to hospital during the night. Tewfiq and

Ascad both saw how Selim Ahmad Bashir Badir (it was he

who had been told to stand in the middle of the row) fell

wounded, and how a soldier went up to him and deciding

that he was still alive, shot him dead.”1

A short time after the killing of the cyclists, a lorry

with its lights on approached the bend. Ten to fifteen metres

before the bend^ it was stopped by a soldier, who ordered the

driver and passengers (18 persons in all) to get out and stand

in a single group to the left (north) of the road, in front of the

vehicle. The soldier then asked them where they came from,

and when they said that they were from Kafr Qasim, he

ordered his two men, who were lying beside the road between

this group of workers and the bend, (one of them with a Bren

gun) to open fire. They killed ten of the nineteen. These were:

Ata Ya'qub Sarsur (22)

Riyadh Raja Hamdan Baud (8)

Jamal Selim Muhammad Taha (11)

Jum'a Muhammad Abed Sarsur (20)

1 - Ibid. pp. 112-113.


Musa Diyab Abed Freij

Abed Selim Muhammad Freij (14)

Saleh Mustafa Ahmad Issa (17)

Abdul Rahim Muhammad Badir (25)

Ahmad Muhammad Jawda Ammar (17)

Jum'a Tewfiq Ahmad Jabbarein.

“Four of the passengers in the lorry who escaped gave

evidence in this Court; they are: Raja Hamdan Daud, father

of Riyadh, the child who was killed, Issa Diyab Freij, aged 13,

brother of Musa Diyab Freij who was killed, Abdul Rahim

Selim Taha and Jamal Nimr Freij, all of them inhabitants

of Kafr Qasim.

“Raja said in his evidence that, at five o’clock, his little

son Riyadh came with the boy Jamal and told him that there

was a curfew in the village and that his mother had said that

he must hurry home . . . Nineteen people got into the lorry

including the driver . . . and set out for the village. The people

in this lorry, unlike most of the other people returning to the

village, knew of the curfew, but they did not see that this

prevented them from returning to the village. On the con¬

trary . . . they tried to get back to their homes as soon as

possible because of the curfew. Indeed, it was Raja who per¬

suaded the driver, who had no licence to carry passengers,

to take them because he thought that it would be safer to go

by bus rather than on foot during the curfew. After the lorry

had been stopped, and Raja and his companions had got out,

his little son shouted: 'Father, take me down.’ This was why

Raja went back and took his son down from the back of the

lorry, and rejoined the group on the road.

“Raja held out his identity card to the soldier and was

about to ask him why they had been detained. But at that

moment the soldier gave the order to fire, and a hail of bullets

mowed down the workmen. When Raja jumped over the

wall, the Bren gun was fired at the wall, and this is perhaps

how some of the workmen escaped. But Raja’s son, Riyadh,

aged 8, and his friend Jamal, aged 11, were among those

killed.

“Issa, a boy of 13, and his brother were in this group of


workmen when they were shot. He was not hit, but fell un¬ conscious; his brother, however, was killed.

“Another of the workmen, Abdul Rahim, was so fright¬

ened that he fell down when the shots were fired, but he was

not hit. Afterwards one of the soldiers came up and shot any

one who showed signs of life. Abdul Rahim was shot in the

leg and the hand while he was lying on the ground.”1

“Shortly after this a second lorry was seen coming towards

the village. Sergeant Shalom Ofer and his men stood some

ten metres to the west of the place at which the first lorry

had been stopped. In the cab of this second lorry, which was

loaded with building bricks, were the driver and another man.

The soldiers ordered them to get out and asked them where

they came from. When they replied that they were from Kafr

Qasim, were both shot dead. The names of the men who

were killed were Mahmud Khidr Jaber Sarsur (27), and

Yusef Muhammad Ismail Sarsur.”2

£CA little while after the arrival of this lorry, a third lorry

arrived, carrying 4 men and 14 women, aged from 12 to 66

years, on their way to Kafr Qasim. The lorry went on past

the bend without stopping, whereupon a soldier who was still

at the site of the previous incident, ran behind it shouting

‘Stop!5 The lorry had already passed the bend and was mak¬

ing for the school road; the soldier crossed the space between

the two roads and again shouted 'Stop! Stop!5 At the same

time he called to two or three other soldiers who were standing

in the space between the two roads to follow him, which

they did.

££The lorry stopped in the road that passes near the school,

whereupon the first soldier ordered the driver and the passen¬

gers to get out. The driver hooked the steps on to the back

of the lorry, and said to the women*/ Get out, sisters, and have

your identity cards ready.’ The women had already seen the

dead bodies of people from their village as the lorry turned

the bend, and started imploring the soldier in command to

let them stay in the bus. But he took no notice of the identity

1 - Ibid. pp. 114-115. 2 - Ibid. p. 117.


cards or of the women’s entreaties, and insisted on their getting out. As soon as the 14 women and four men had got down from the lorry he ordered the other soldiers, who had by then joined him, to fire. They obeyed and continued firing until 17 of the total of 18 persons were killed. The sole surviver was a girl of 14, Hannah Suleiman Amer, who was seriously wounded in the head and leg and appeared to be dead. The following are the names of those who were killed:

Mahmud Muhammad Masarweh (25) Muhammad Diyab Abed Sarsur Muhammad Selim Khidr Sarsur (15) Abdullah Muhammad Abed Sarsur Safa Muhammad Issa Sarsur (45) Fatima Saleh Ahmad Sarsur Amina Qasim Saeid Taha (50) Khamisa Faraj Muhammad Amer (50) Zaghlula Ahmad Bashir Issa (45) Halwa Muhammad Awda Badir (60) Fatima Daud Hamad Sarsur (50) Rashiqa Fayeq Ibrahim Badir Zaina Abdul Rahman Taha (45) Fatima Muhammad Suleiman Badir (40) Fatima Mustafa Muhammad Issa (18) Latifa Daud Muhammad Issa Zuhdiya Muhammad Ismail Taha.

“Two of the girls who were killed, Rashiqa and Latifa, were 12 years old, and two others, Fatima and Zuhdiya, 14.”1

These were the main incidents of that night in Kafr Qasim, and they led to the participants being brought to trial by court martial.

The trial lasted for a long time. Judgement was finally given in 16 October 1958, two years after the incident.

In its judgement the court said that it found Major Shmuel Melinki and Lieutenant Dahan guilty of killing 43 citizens, and sentenced the former to 17 years imprisonment and the latter to 15 years imprisonment. The third accused,

1 - Ibid. pp. 117-118.


Sergeant Shalom Ofer, who perpetrated most of these terrible killings, was found guilty, with Dahan, of killing 41 citizens, and was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment. The accused, Private Makhlouf Hreish and Private Eliahu Abraham, were found guilty of killing 22 citizens, while Corporal Gabriel Olial, Private Albert Fahimi and Private Edmond Nahmani were found guilty of killing 17 citizens. All these five were sentenced to seven years imprisonment, and deprived of their ranks. The remaining three accused, Corporal Ismail Abdul Rahman, Private Sha'ban Sacid Zakariya and Private Daniel Semnitz, were acquitted.

These light sentences (premeditated murder incurs a sentence of life imprisonment) amazed the majority of the Arab population of Israel, who had been following the trial with the closest attention. The lenient treatment meted out to the guilty men gave rise to profound fears in the minds of many Arabs that similar incidents might recur in the future; it also amazed a section of the Jewish population and many of them gave vent to their bitter feelings.

But there were other circles who thought differently. To these circles the trial of the killers, and even their arrest, seemed a grave injustice. Their argument was that, in doing what they did, the killers had performed their national duty, and they started to launch an extensive campaign, led by the two “moderate55 newspapers, well known for their “love55 of the Arabs, Herut and Lamerhav, which demanded the par¬ doning of the killers and the quashing of their sentences.

An appeal against the sentences was brought in the Supreme Military Court, which gave judgement that the sentences passed on the killers were “harsh55 and that they should be reduced. Thus Melinki’s sentence was reduced to 14 years, Dahan’s to 10 years, and Ofer’s to 9 years. The Chief of Staff then proceeded to reduce Melinki’s sentence to 10 years, Dahan’s to 8, and the sentences of the rest of the killers to four years each.

The Head of State then proceeded to adopt an exemplary attitude, and one that provides some food for thought. He decided that justice required that after all the reductions al¬ ready mentioned, he too should reduce the killers’ sentences.


He therefore granted a "partial pardon” to Melinki and Dahan, reducing their sentences to five years each.

However, the pardon granted by the Head of State was not to be the last of this series of reductions, to which all the various government authorities contributed so generously. The last contribution came from the "Committee for the Release of Prisoners,” which ordered the remission of a third of the prison sentences of all those convicted. Thus it was that the last of them was released at the beginning of 1960— about three and a half years after the massacre.

Moreover, in September 1960, the Municipality of Ramla engaged Joubrael Dahan, convicted of killing 43 Arabs in an hour, to work as the "Officer responsible for Arab affairs in the city.”

But the Kafr Qasim affair did not end here. Particular concern was aroused by the part played in the massacre by Brigadier Yshishkar Shadmi, for he was the man under whose command Melinki’s unit had operated that night. But Shadmi was not brought to trial with the two police officers, Melinki and Dahan, who had carried out the massacre, and the part he played in the affair only became known after the District Court had given judgement. During the trial, public indigna¬ tion was aroused by certain comments Brigadier Shadmi had made to his subordinates during his briefing on the imposition of the curfew in the villages of the Triangle, particularly his replies to the officer who had asked him what was to happen to people returning to the village from their work: "I don’t want any sentimentality” and "That’s just too bad for them.” In its judgement the Court stated quite indisputably that Shadmi was responsible for what had happened, through the detailed orders he gave to his subordinates.

After this judgement, various groups demanded that Shadmi should be brought to trial, and there was a prolonged dispute between two camps; one insisted that Shadmi must be prosecuted, the other opposed it. Especially important was the role played by the newspaper, Lamerhav, the organ of the Achdut Haavoda Party, to which Shadmi belonged. On 24 October 1958, it published an article signed by "Hebrew


Prisoner,55 the nom-de-plume of the member of the Knesset, Moshe Carmel,1 2 in which he said:

“It is essential that we should ask whether the ultimate responsibility was Shadmi’s and his alone. A Brigadier com¬ manding a brigade in the Israel Defence Army, who is charged with the task of supervising an area of operations, does not act in accordance with his own personal opinions; he is restricted to a framework of plans, orders and instructions drawn up somewhere and imposed on him by the authority of a higher command. And inasmuch as the Court has dis¬ closed the facts to the people at large, the people have the right to know, and insist on knowing, what orders and instruc¬ tions were given to Brigadier Shadmi by those responsible for him, in accordance with which orders he acted, and then gave his own more detailed orders in the light of conditions as he saw them and in the field in which he had experience, and also from whom he received his orders.

“If indeed, it is found that the orders given by Brigadier Shadmi, whether they were oral or written, were a cause of the tragedy that took place, the following question must be asked:

“Were these orders incompatible (in italics in the original) or compatible (in italics in the original) with the orders he received? It is on this basis that the problem must be con¬ sidered.552

Eventually Shadmi was tried by another Military Court, whose members were appointed by the Chief of Staff, because the President of the previous court, Judge B. Halevi, President of the District Court in Jerusalem, (now a Supreme Court Judge) pronounced himself to be “unsuitable55 to preside over the second court, because of the judgement he had given in

1 - Now Minister of Communications — Tr.

2 - When this article was published, some people regarded it as a warning to the Mapai Party that, should it lay the whole burden of responsibility on Shadmi, who was a member of the Achdut Haavoda Party, he would disclose the orders he had received from his direct superior, in this case Major-General Zvi Tsur, a member of Mapai and later Chief of Staff. — Tr.


the Kafr Qasim case, which the rapporteurs in the Ministry of Defence regarded as “lethal.55 The second court tried Shadmi rapidly and found him guilty of a “merely technical55 error . . . sentencing him to a reprimand and a fine of one Israeli piastre.

A merely technical error. This is how the judges of the Military Court defined Shadmi’s orders to his subordinates to shoot any person found outside his home after the beginning of a curfew. This, apparently, is the correct definition of the words spoken by Shadmi to his subordinate as regards people returning from their work—“No sentimentality55 and “That5s just too bad for them,55 accompanied by an appropriate ges¬ ture of the hand.

It is to be observed that the District Court of the Israel Defence Army1 found it appropriate to say, in connection with this “technical error:552

“In the rest of his speech the brigade commander (Shadmi) gave orders to the unit commander (Melinki) to the effect that that curfew must be extremely strict and strin¬ gently enforced, not by arrest but by shooting. In explanation he added: ‘Better one dead man (or, according to other wit¬ nesses, ‘better several people killed5) than the complications of arrests.55

And again:

“The defendant, Melinki, when he gave his orders to his unit, was not acting on his own initiative or according to his own judgement. He was obeying an order received. It was not he who initiated the imposition of the curfew—either as a curfew or as regards the manner of its enforcement. He only passed on the order he had received from his responsible commander, Brigadier Shadmi. . . There can be no doubt that the order given by Melinki was only one link in a chain of firm orders given by the brigade commander, who imposed the curfew until the end of his operations. The orders given by Melinki were the direct result of the placing of a Frontier

1 - The first court, presided over by Dr. B. Halevi. — Tr. 2 - Judgement of the District Court, 17, p. 100.


Guard unit under the orders of the brigade of the Israel Defence Army commanded by Brigadier Shadmi, and of the assignment to that unit of a task in accordance with the wishes of the brigade commander and with the direct order he gave in connection with the curfew and the way in which it was to be carried out.

“Shadmi not only entrusted Melinki with the ‘task5; he also himself informed him of the 'method5 in which the cur¬ few was to be enforced. The method in which the curfew was to be imposed was defined, as stipulated by the brigade commander, as one of'stringent severity5 and 'decisive policy5, the enforcement of the curfew by firing rather than by arrests. We are satisfied that the paragraph 'method5 prepared by Melinki before the bloody incidents at Kafr Qasim, as a sum¬ mary of the orders of the brigade commander and for the purpose of including it in the orders to be given to the units to carry out, ('No villager shall leave his home during the hours of curfew5, 'Anyone leaving his home will be killed; there will be no arrests5) was a true reflection of the order given by the brigade commander. There was no misunder¬ standing by Melinki of how the curfew was to be enforced, as decided by the brigade commander, and the harsh distinc¬ tion made in the order given by the unit commander, Melinki, between villagers in their homes, who were to come to no harm, and persons out of doors, to whom the principle of shooting was to be applicable in its full severity, derived from the order given by the brigade commander, Shadmi. The unit commander’s statement that 'it would be better that several people should be killed5 was derived directly from the state¬ ment of the brigade commander to the effect that 'it is better to get rid of some in this way5 (his words being accompanied by a gesture with his hand, as described by Melinki) 'than to have the complications of arrests5 . . . Our conclusion is that the method of enforcing the curfew, as decided by Melinki in his orders (before the questions and answers) corresponded in all important aspects with the method of enforcing the curfew stipulated in the order given by the brigade com¬ mander. It was Brigadier Shadmi who initiated and ordered, in a manner that could not be disobeyed, the enforcement of


illegal instructions; it was he who ordered the shooting of citizens as a way of enforcing the curfew, and Melinki, in submitting to the orders of his commander was only trans¬ mitting these instructions to his subordinates.”1

It now only remains for us to ask how it is possible to reconcile the mutually conflicting conclusions of the two courts.

Certainly Shadmi, Melinki and the other members of the Frontier Guard who took part in the Kafr Qasim massacre were not basically responsible for the massacre. No military commander, even of the rank of Major-General, in full pos¬ session of his mental powers (and there is no evidence, and no one has claimed, that this was not so in the case of Shadmi,) can give orders as clear and indisputable as these, at his own discretion, for premeditated mass murder. Lamerhav was right when it gave the warning, in an attempt to defend a member of its party, that the disclosure of other matters connected with the Kafr Qasim affair would “embarrass other person¬ alities in high positions.”

It must be observed that, right through the Kafr Qasim affair, from the actual killings to the pardoning of the killers, the reduction of their sentences and their release, one parti¬ cularly conspicuous factor was the indifferent attitude of certain influential groups, though the attitude of much less important circles, such as the Ihud and the Third Force2 was admirable throughout. Dissociating himself from this indif¬ ferent attitude, Boaz Afron, one of the most prominent progressive editors in Israel, writes:

“Now that the instinct for mercy has achieved all it desired, and that the killers have been freed, or are on the point of being released, now that compensation or bribes3 have been paid to the relatives of those that were killed, the time has come to call ourselves to account. We did not at

1 - Judgement of the District Courts 17, p. 208. 2 - The Third Force is a small group of liberal intellectuals headed

by the lawyer, Dr. Stein. — Tr. 3 - The writer is referring to the money p&id by the authorities to

the heads of the massacred families, in Kafr Qasim, to buy their silence.

— Tr.


first feel the impact of this affair. But during the last three

years since the crime, we have been put to the test. Our

integrity, our humanity and our courage have been put to

the test, and have been found wanting . . .

“Let us begin by listing the chief culprits, those whose

claim to be spiritual and moral leaders should have obliged

them to fight, those who, far from fighting, have sometimes

even stretched out their hands to collaborate in the filthy

business.

“The main culprit is the press. With the exception of two

or three papers, the whole press agreed to compound a con¬

spiracy of silence, and threw a veil over the crime. Instead

of using the word ‘killers5 they wrote of ‘the condemned5.

Instead of writing of the killing and the crime of Kafr Qasim,

they wrote of the ‘disaster5, the ‘mistake5, the ‘regrettable in¬

cident5. When these papers wrote of the ‘victims of the dis¬

aster5, it was not even clear whom they were writing about

—the killers or the killed. And when judgement was given,

a cowardly campaign was launched against the judge, whose

judgement has now been torn up as if it were no more than

a scrap of paper. In this manner that terrible day has been

covered with a cloak of evasive talk. You may be sure of one

thing: Whenever you come across colourless words, neutral

and cautious words, something terrible is concealed behind

them.

“The second culprit is our religious leadership—the

rabbinate and the religious circles in the country, who demand

authority so that ‘the Jewish character5 and the ‘spirit of our

father Israel5 may prevail, who are always quoting phrases

such as ‘Thou shalt not kill5, ‘Terrible things are being done,

but you think only of your own pleasures5, and ‘He who takes

a life, it is as if he has lost the whole world5—the religious

leadership have been silent in utter indifference. Not one

single religious personality has stood up to save the honour

of the Jewish religion and to express moral indignation and

anger at the trial. Is this ‘the light that is in Jewry5 ?

The third culprit is our academic leaders. When there

is an appeal for regional elections, dozens of academics sign

the appeal. But, with the exception of a few ‘crazy eccentrics’,

FROM DEIR YASIN TO KAFR QA.SIM 117

not one professor or lecturer was found to cry out ‘This is

murder5. Certainly screaming and shouting is not very good

academic behaviour, nor is it an indication of beautiful man¬

ners. But the professors of the Sorbonne went on strike in

protest against the killings in Algeria, and English academics

have demonstrated against nuclear experiments and cried out

against the massacres in Kenya . . .

“The fourth culprit is our literary and artistic leadership,

Irgun Hasofrim, (The Organisation of Men of Letters,)

famous for its ‘violent protests5, and its ‘appeals to the con¬

science of the enlightened world5. This Organisation was

silent, is still silent, and will remain silent. Nowadays, in

matters that are of direct concern to it, like writers5 pay and

the allocation of chairs and honours, it is extremely energetic,

but when it is called on to perform a spiritual duty, when it

should act like an organisation of men of letters, rather than

as a trades union, when it should stand up against authority

and demand what conscience demands, without self-indul¬

gence—it suddenly becomes non-existent.

“Where were the parties who sat all that time in the

seats of power, mouthing the slogans of peace, justice, and the

brotherhood of mankind? Where were the revolutionaries?

And where were we, the simple citizens, who were overcome

with loathing and contempt when we witnessed the crazy

dance which, we were told, was an expression of the ‘shock5 people were suffering from ? Where were we when they told

us that the affair was settled by the sentences? Why were

we silent?

“If you do not fight for your own moral principles, you

will, in spite of yourself, find yourself accepting the moral

principles of those who hide from the realities of the killing

behind diplomatic verbiage, you will find yourself accepting

the moral principles of the demagogues and the smooth pro¬

pagandists without principles, the senior officials who have no

roots — the principles of all that new ruling class which has

no peer and no principles and which muddies the clear

atmosphere . . ,551

1 - Ner, August-October 1959.


Every year, the Arabs of Israel remember the martyrs

of Kafr Qasim with meetings, strikes and demonstrations, and

by observing mourning in many Arab villages. These occa¬

sions have always led to clashes with the police and to those

who take part being brought before the Military Courts. For

the last three years on the anniversary of the killings the

Military Government has closed the village of Kafr Qasim

to people from other villages, who want to take part in the

memorial ceremonies held at the cemetery of the martyrs.

CHAPTER FOUR

STRANGERS IN THEIR OWN LAND HOW THE LIFE OF THE ARABS IN ISRAEL

HAS CHANGED

It is commonly held by the Jewish population of Israel

that the Arabs in the country have made great advances in

all fields of life since the establishment of the State. Official

spokesmen for government institutions talk on every possible

occasion of the progress and development of the Arabs since

the foundation of the State. The Government Yearbook,

indeed, goes so far as to boast that £'government activities in

the field of development (among the Arabs of Israel) are so

far unparalleled in any Arab country.551 It is not our inten¬

tion here either to examine the truth of these views and claims,

or to compare development programmes in Israel with those

in the different Arab countries, but there can be no doubt

that these claims are exaggerated.

We do not maintain that there has been no development

among the Arabs of Israel. There has been progress, but it

cannot be said that all of it has been solely due to the efforts

of the Israeli Government. These changes stem from a number

of factors working in Arab society in Israel, not from the

establishment of the State of Israel, as the authorities claim.

The fact is, in our opinion, that in certain important fields

of the life of the Arabs in Israel, desirable developments have

taken place in spite of the negative attitude of the authorities,

and, in any case, most of these developments have not been

entirely satisfactory. The time factor must also be taken into

account. We must not therefore try to compare the way and

standard of living of these Arabs today with those of, say,

1 - Israel Government Yearbook, 1962, p. 22.


fifty years ago, under the Turkish regime, or of thirty or forty

years ago, under the rule of British imperialism. For it is in

the nature of the world to develop.

1. Policy and Society

Years of stagnation under the oppressive foreign regimes

of the Turks and the British sowed a crop of hatred, fear and

subservience to the government in the minds of the Arabs of

Palestine. The attitude of the population may be said to have

been characterised by disloyalty to their rulers and suspicion

of anything done by the authorities.

The oppressive and backward Turkish regime, which

ruled the country (and most of the other countries of the

Middle East as well) for nearly four hundred years, left a

profound imprint on the political, economic and social life

of Middle East society, and did much to destroy the remaining

vestiges of the brilliant Arab culture of the Middle Ages.

Throughout this period, during which some of the most con¬

spicuous social, political and scientific revolutions known to

human history were taking place in Europe, the peoples of

the Middle East stood still. It was as if they had been given

the order “As you were,55 and at the end of this period, with

the expulsion of the Turks from the area at the end of the

First World War, Arab society in this part of the world still

had much in common with European society at the beginning

of the Middle Ages.

The British Mandate on the other hand did bring about

certain changes and improvements in comparison with the

preceding era. More progressive methods of government were

introduced, means of production were improved, light indus¬

tries were established, schools and educational establishments

of various kinds were opened and the educated class grew,

even if not to a sufficient extent. The “blockade55 imposed on

the country by the Turks was abolished, so that it was at last

open to the influence of more progressive trends and cultures.

But all this was not enough to effect a fundamental

and total change in Arab society, where feudalism, poverty

and ignorance remained the rule, and where religious and

STRANGERS IN THEIR OWN LAND 121

confessional fanaticism was practically universal. Thus the life

of the masses remained under the influence of these factors,

and the majority of the political and popular leaders in Arab

society came from this reactionary background. Most of the

leaders of that time were appointed by the big families, by

the masses who were economically subject to these families,

or by fanatical religious circles. There were no ideological

parties, in the true sense of the word, with the possible excep¬

tion of the communists and a few other parties with little

influence.

The establishment of Israel and the consolidation of

Jewish rule in the country led ta violent upheavals in Arab

society. Most of the traditional and social leaders, the owners

of capital, the members of thejiberal professions and the men

of educ atlon, left the country. The Arab masses who stayed

-behind and who had been changed overnight from a dominant

majority to a minority living under,the rule of an alien people,

suddenly found themseTvesjyithout leaders or direction. The

Israeli authorities exploited this.situation and based their

policy on It.

The first to fall on the “spoils” was the ruling Mapai

Party, which, as early as the elections to the First Knesset on

25 January 1949, succeeded in forming a separate list of Arab

supporters. Two of their candidates were elected.

As Israeli rule became more firmly established, the

activities of this party among the Arabs in Israel grew more

extensive. The Military Government, the Arab Department

of the Histadrut, the Intelligence Services and other machin¬

ery at the disposal of the ruling party, came to constitute the

backbone of these activities. In fact, Mapai policy achieved a

great measure of success in Arab circles. In the elections to

the Second, Third and Fourth Knessets, three Arab lists allied

with the Mapai took part, and five candidates on these three

lists were elected at each of these elections, although in the

election to the Fifth Knesset only four Arabs connected with

the Mapai were elected.

In practice there is no ideological basis for the activities

of the Mapai Party among the Arabs of Israel, nor do the

Arab lists connected with this party have any organisation,


constitution or political programme. The sole object of forming

these lists was to use them as a parliamentary instrument

whose function was to capture the votes of the Arab electors.

Evidence for this is provided by the composition and number

of these lists (three instead of one at the beginning), all of

which depend on the traditional leaders of Arab society and

promote confessional fragmentation in its ranks. The estab¬

lishment of three separate lists, each of which includes can¬

didates from different circles and confessions, is aimed at

attracting as many votes as possible at elections, so that it

may appear that each list is opposed to the others. In practice,

these lists represent the majority of the Arab hangers-on of

the Mapai Party. These Arabs enjoy the support of all the

government machinery subject to the Mapai and to the Mili¬

tary Government, while the Arabs who support these lists

enjoy the many and various benefits and advantages that the

government offices have to offer.1 Most of these people operate

without any ideological principle and belong to the same

circles that are ready to cooperate with the government in

power—any government in power. They once supported the

British Mandate authorities. Later, they supported the army

sent by the Arab League to save them, and when the State

of Israel was established they stood firm beside its rulers.

Thus the function of the Arab members of the Knesset elected

through these lists has never consisted of anything but sup¬

porting the Mapai Party in the Knesset. An examination of

1 - Evidence of the extent and nature of these “advantages5’ was provided by the facts published after the quarrel between the deputy Saleh Khneifes and the Mapai, when the Party refused to include his name in one of the Arab lists of candidates for election to the 1959 elec¬ tions to the Knesset. This dispute led to certain measures being taken against the deputy in question, with the object of depriving him of his “rights.55

“First his cows were seized . . . The Income Tax Department seized 40 cows belonging to Deputy Khneifes, who had succeeded in postponing the payment of taxes to a total of I£ 15,000 .Before he had recovered from the shock of this confiscation, another blow fell. For years he had been keeping a collection of arms, including a Bren gun, a number of semi-automatic guns and several rifles. Last year he failed to renew his license for these weapons and suddently a police detachment arrived in his village, Shafa Amr, and confiscated the lot55 (Maariv, 7 Oct. 1959).


The Knesset Debates confirms that these “deputies of the

people55 have never done more than make a few speeches

before the formation of each new government or during

budget debates, and most of the speeches are simply fulsome

eulogies of the different governments. The people, naturally,

will never forget the two decisive debates on the Military

Government, during which it was decided that this system

should survive, a decision which was taken as a result of the

support of some of these Arab members of the Knesset.

The Mapai also depends on one Arabic language daily

paper, Al-Yaum, which has been issued continuously since

1948 by the Al-Yaum Company (in the middle of 1960 the

Histadrut’s Arab Department became its partner in the run¬

ning and editing of the paper.) The circulation of Al-Yaum

recently reached 5,000 copies 2,000 of which go to regular

subscribers, who are Arab teachers and government officials.

Their subscriptions are deducted directly from their salaries

and the paper enjoys a permanent government subsidy.1

Government aid to this paper recently exceeded the govern¬

ment subvention to Arabic broadcasting in the “Voice of

Israel.55 But, in spite of its government subsidy, this paper is

1 - Details of the financing of this paper during the last five years are to be found in the State Controller's Report No. 15, of 2 February 1965, pp. 107-108, where the Controller says:

“At the end of July 1960 a draft agreement was prepared for the management and publication of the paper between the government, the Al-Yaum Company, and the Histadrut, represented by the “Workers and Farmers Fund.” It was decided that the cost of publishing and distributing the paper, as well as debts and covering the budget deficit should be borne by the Company and the Fund. The government covers half the annual budget deficit on condition that this does not exceed I£ 120,000 per year. Although it had not been signed, this agreement came into force in November 1963, at a meeting attended by representatives of the Prime Minister’s Office, the Ministry of Finance and the Histadrut, when new and final means of covering the paper’s budget deficit for the years 1963-1964 and 1964-1965 were decided. It was agreed that the Prime Minister’s Office should bear two-thirds of the deficit, which was estimated at I£ 120,000 for the year 1963-1964 and 1£ 130,000 for the year 1964- 1965, the Histadrut bearing the other third. The deficit accumulated over previous years, which totalled I£ 600,000, was to be divided equally between the Prime Minister’s Office and the Histadrut.”


the organ of the Mapai Party, and when necessary, it attacks

the other parties that cooperate with the Mapai in the

government.

The Mapai, however, is not the only party active among

the Arabs of Israel. In the elections to the Second Knesset,

the General Zionist Party appeared on the scene; like the

Mapai its approach to the Arabs is not based on any ideo¬

logical principles. This party exploited the government policy

of bringing pressure to bear on some of the few Arab feudal

landlords left in the country and on certain Arab capitalists.

It succeeded in gathering a certain following and in forming

a list of candidates loyal to it, who stood forelection in 1951.

However, not one of the candidates on this list was elected.

The General Zionists tried once more in the 1955 elections,

but were again unsuccessful.

When the General Zionists united with the Liberal Party

in 1960, forming the Independent Liberal Party, the activities

of this new party amongst the Arabs diminished, and the

Arab candidate included in its list for the elections to the

Fifth Knesset was not elected.

Achdut Haavoda was another of the Zionist parties that

entered the lists among the Arabs of Israel without any

ideological principles. For some years after its secession from

the Mapam it engaged in no political activity in Arab circles,

but in 1958, before the elections to the Fourth Knesset, when

a representative of Achdut Haavoda was Minister of the

Interior, this party conducted an extremely energetic cam¬

paign to win Arab votes. The Ministry of the Interior cam¬

paigned feverishly, in spite of opposition from the Military

Government, for the establishment of an Arab Labour Party

linked with Achdut Haavoda, and the new party issued a

weekly Arabic-language called Al-Amal (later closed down.)

The Arab Labour Party fought the elections to the Fourth

Knesset with a list separate from that of the mother party,

but none of its candidates was elected.

In fact, the Israeli Communist Party is the only party

active among the Arabs of Israel which has an ideological

basis. This party, one of whose notable characteristics is that

it is the only party with a high proportion of Arab members,


has been operating legally since the establishment of the State,

and has continued its activities uninterrupted until today.

The Communist Party works through its branches in all the

Arab towns and villages and through a comparatively large

number of party newspapers, including Al-Ittihad, published

bi-weekly, the literary and political monthly Al-Jadid, the

youth monthly Al-Ghad, and the party’s ideological period¬

ical, Al-Darb.

The Israeli Communist Party has played a unique role

in the history of the Arabs in Israel. By going into opposition

shortly after the establishment of the state, it became the

principal defender of the rights of the Arabs. The Communist

Party has taken the initiative in all the political and social

activities that have expressed local Arab opposition to the

policy of repression adopted by different Israeli governments,

and this was particularly the case in the three or four years

of anarchy that prevailed in Arab society after the establish¬

ment of the state. The Party has been supported by Arab

circles who cooperated with it, because it was only through

it that they could oppose the conspiracies of the authorities.

However by far the greater part of such opposition has been

organised and carried out by the party’s own organisations,

while its press, especially its Arabic language section, truly

reflects the problems of the Arabs of Israel and their struggle

since the establishment of the state.

The Israeli Communist Party’s attitude has won it

increasing support among the Arab masses. The number of

Arabs who support it and cooperate with it (but who are not

party members) has greatly increased, while those who oppose

it have been gradually isolated. The party’s influence on

Arab society has increased to the point that in the year 1956-

1957 it became the virtual spokesman of the Arabs in Israel.

At that time any Arab, who refused to submit to the govern¬

ment was dubbed a “communist.” There can be no doubt,

however, that the influence of the Israeli Communist Party

among the Arabs of Israel reached its height in 1958, when

international communism was giving its full support to the

Arab nationalist movement, against Western imperialism and

the latter’s activities in the Middle East, especially after the


establishment of the United Arab Republic (the union of

Egypt and Syria.) At that time the Israeli Communist Party

was employing nearly all the slogans of Arab nationalism,

including “the right of the Arabs of Israel to self-determina¬ tion, even to the extent of secession.55

At that time too, the Israeli Communist Party, along

with various Arab leaders, formed the Arab Front, also called

the Popular Front. The founding of this organisation was offi¬

cially announced both in Nazareth and Acre in July 1958,

and it very soon established branches in most Arab centres.

The Popular Front hoped to become the supreme body for

the communists and various other Israeli Arab groups, to

coordinate activities in defence of Arab rights and to deal

generally with Arab communal problems.

The establishment of this Front constituted, in fact, a

popular recognition that the Israeli Communist Party was

the party with the greatest influence in Arab circles. This

inevitably aroused a reaction from the authorities. The first

sign was a frenzied campaign by the Hebrew press, inspired

by the intelligence services, against the Arabs of Israel. This

was followed by an extensive campaign of expulsion and

detention mounted by the Military Government, which was

seriously alarmed by the formation of this organisation and

by the failure of its own attack on the workers of Nazareth

and its Arab suburbs in their Labour Day demonstration on 1 May 1959.

However, the Israeli Communist Party was not destined

to reap the fruit of its labours. Certain external causes, with

no connection with either the party or with the Arabs of

Israel, reversed the entire situation. For the communist parties

in the Arab countries changed their attitude to the Arab na¬

tionalist movement. This was especially the case with the

Syrian communists, under the leadership of Khalid Bikdash

who embarked on a series of anti-U.A.R. activities which led

to a split between the two sides. The split was underlined by

President Nasser in his Port Said speech at the end of 1958,

in which he violently attacked the Syrian Communist Party

for its negative attitude towards Arab unity and Arab na¬

tionalism. The Egyptian attacks that followed this speech


and the counter-attacks launched by the communists in the

Arab world, later joined by most of the communist parties

throughout the world, led to this split becoming much more

acute. Meanwhile, the Israeli Communist Party abandoned

its “extremist55 slogans and returned to the more usual ones

regularly employed by international communism.

This new situation soon led to a change in the attitude of

the Arabs of Israel. Most of the Arab leaders and the Arab

masses left the party and abandoned political cooperation

with it, while the Popular Front, which was the party’s most

conspicuous achievement, split into two parts when the com¬

munists refused to restrict discussion to domestic affairs as had

been previously agreed. This new attitude of the Communist

Party did great damage to its prestige in Arab circles. In the

1959 Knesset elections only three communist deputies were

elected, as against six in 1955. Since then the prestige of the

Communist Party has risen again, but not up to its peak

of 1958.

The Mapam Party (United Labour Party) enjoys a spe¬

cial and sometimes anomalous position in Arab circles in

Israel. The political activities of this party among the Arabs,

which began with the establishment of Israel and which have

been based on a mixture of ideology and expediency, have

assumed different forms on different occasions. Its flexibility

and its sympathetic and tolerant attitude to certain “inflam¬

matory55 Arab problems have attracted a group of angry

young Arabs, who refused to cooperate with the Israeli Com¬

munist Party and were unable to organise themselves in an

independent framework. These young men joined Mapam

when they could find no other alternative.

The Mapam Party is the only Zionist party which accepts

Arab members with equal rights and obligations in its ranks

—if only as a matter of form. It has engaged in extensive

and continuous activity in Arab circles, using as its mouth¬

piece, its Arabic-language weekly, Al-Mirsad. It also used to

publish a monthly literary and political journal, Al-Fajr,

(which stopped publication in 1962) and it founded the Arab

Book Society, which has published a number of Arabic books

to meet part of the prevalent shortage.


But the Mapam Party has failed in its activities among

the Arabs of Israel. The reasons for this failure are to be found

in the nature of this party and its traditional shortcomings.

The talk of socialism, pioneering and the brotherhood of

peoples has attracted a certain section of Arab youth to its

ranks, but its attachment to half-solutions, its contradictory

attitudes, and the incapacity of its leaders to make firm deci¬

sions, have led more and more Arab members to leave its

ranks. Mapam5s support for national liberation movements,

for example, has not convinced its Arab members of the

genuineness of its attitude to the Arab nationalist movement,

and its proclaimed belief in self-determination is not com¬

patible with its attitude to the problem of the Arabs of

Palestine. Similarly, the contradictory attitudes adopted by

the party’s Jewish and Arab spokesmen, as expressed in the

incompatible statements and articles which have been often

published in the party’s Hebrew paper, Al-Hamishmar, and

its Arabic paper, Al-Mirsad, have disclosed its fickleness. Its

call for “moderation” and for abstention from “resolute”

actions, when represented in the various governments that

have prosecuted the policy of repression of the Arabs, have

lowered its prestige in the eyes of educated Arabs.

In spite of this, however, it must be admitted that the

Mapam Party has done much for the Arabs in many fields.

Many young Arabs have found work for long periods in its

kibbutzim and other projects, when they could find no other

work. The Arab members of the party, unlike others who

have joined other Zionist parties, are able to a certain extent

to preserve their “independence” as regards their opinions,

their identity and their national affiliations. The Ministries

that have been entrusted to Mapam members, in particular

the Ministry of Health, have made considerable efforts to

improve the conditions of the Arabs.

This, then, is the political situation of the Arabs in Israel.

Political activity in Arab circles is, for various reasons, only

permitted to the Zionist parties, which concentrate their

efforts on catching the votes of Arab electors by a variety of

remarkable means, both legal and illegal, such as the exploi¬

tation of State institutions and ministries, the offering of


benefits, (better described as bribes,) and even the buying of

votes. Against this bloc of Zionist parties stands the Israeli

Communist Party which, for a long time, claimed to be the

sole protector of the Arabs in Israel. All these groups have,

however, agreed, in preservation of their party interests, to

prevent the establishment of any independent Arab organisa¬

tion, and this agreement has so far been astonishingly suc¬

cessful. There have naturally been many attempts to start

an independent Arab party, but most of them have not been

serious and were therefore doomed to failure from the start.

Many factors have prevented the establishment of an

independent Arab political organisation or movement in

Israel. In the first few years after the establishment of the

state, no one but a few individuals even thought of such a

thing. The Arab population in general made little progress

in this field, both because of their lack of political experience,

(most of their leaders left the country in 1948) and because

of the strict control and stern measures taken by the authorities

against those who showed signs of having ideas of this kind.

Thus the groups that wanted to engage in political activity

or express their bitterness had only one outlet—to join the

Communist Party or to cooperate with it.

Cooperation with the Communist Party became ex¬

tremely close with the raising of the banner of Arab nation¬

alism, especially after the 23 July 1952 Revolution in Egypt,

and the intensification of the struggle against Western

imperialism and its influence in the Middle East and later

in North Africa, and as a result of the policy of repression

and discrimination practised against the Arab population in

Israel. At that time, the communists, both in Israel and the

Arab world, supported the Arab struggle almost without

reserve. Especially between 1954 and 1958, the Arab leaders

no longer envisaged the establishment of an Arab party in

Israel, and the (Arab) Popular Front was established instead.

Cooperation with the Communist Party continued until

1958, when the open split occurred between Arab nationalism

and the communist parties in the Arab world. This led to a

cooling off in the relationship between the nationalists and

the communists in the Front and to increased tension between


the two parties. Within five or six months the Popular Front

itself had split into two groups.

The first group, which consisted, in practice, of three or

four members, continued to cooperate with the Communist

Party within the framework of the Front. The second group,

which, in principle, supported the Arab nationalist move¬

ment, finally left the Front and decided to continue its political

activities independently. Immediately afterwards this group

founded the organisation known as Al-Ard and issued its own

programme. It also submitted an application for a licence to

publish a weekly newspaper in Arabic called Al-Ard (The

Land.) Publication started immediately, pending the granting

of the licence. The thirteen issues of this paper that were

published had a wide circulation, because it expressed the

feeling of opposition to the authorities. On 31 January 1960,

Schmuel Toledano, the Prime Minister’s adviser on Arab

affairs, had a press conference in the press club, Sokolov

House, in Tel Aviv. He warned his audience that this group’s

activities constitued a threat to the existence of the State,

and threatened to take strong measures against it. The reac¬

tion was swift. Two weeks later the paper was closed down

and six of its editorial staff were prosecuted. A short time

afterwards, the members of Al-Ard applied for the registra¬

tion of a printing and publishing company called the Al-Ard

Company, Ltd., but the Government’s Company Registrar

refused to register it, maintaining that such an action was

‘‘opposed to the security of the State and the interests of the

people.” A case was brought against the Company Registrar

in the Supreme Court, but the Supreme Court upheld the

Registrar. After a request by the Legal Adviser to the Gov¬

ernment of Israel, the Supreme Court re-heard the case, and

the company was eventually registered.

But this group was not to be so successful when it applied

again for permission to publish an Arabic weekly. The District

Commissioner rejected its application without giving any

reason, exercising the powers granted him under the Defence

Laws (State of Emergency) 1945. The Supreme Court re¬

jected the group’s request for an injuction against the District

Commissioner saying: “This question must be discussed


elsewhere, it cannot be discussed here.”1 In this situation

there was no alternative to comparatively silent action. This

reorganisation had already been started and new branches of

the group were opened in the Arab areas. This resulted in the group’s field of activity being extended and in such an

increase in its influence that copies of the certificate of

the group’s establishment were used by its members as a

membership card.

Early in 1964 the group decided to register its association

with the Journalists’ League, under the name of the Al-Ard

Movement, and sent a statement to this effect, containing the

movement’s constitution, to the authorities. It was not long

before the reply came. The authorities said that the Al-Ard

Movement was illegal, because it had been established with

the aim of prejudicing the security and the very existence of

the State of Israel. The group was thus obliged to apply once

more to the Supreme Court, to which it submitted the group’s

interpretation of the law, including a memorandum to the

effect that the Al-Ard Movement was working for the

achievement of some or all of the following objectives:

ccl. To raise the educational, health, economic and po¬

litical standards of all its members.

2. To achieve complete equality and social justice for

all classes of people in Israel. (This demand was interpreted

as a reference to the domestic aspect of the Arab-Israeli

problem.) The founders of the Al-Ard Movement stated that

they were in favour of a reversal of the policy of repression

and racial discrimination enforced on the Arabs in Israel, the

abolition of military government, that the expropriation of

Arab land should stop, and that, as far as possible, expro¬

priated land should be returned to its owners. The Al-Ard

Movement stated that it supported improved conditions for

Arab labour, Arab education, and health services etc., and

that it was for the abolition of all forms of repression of all

1 - Judgement by Judge Olshan, the President of the Supreme Court, in case No. 39/64 the Al-Ard group vs. The District Commissioner, Northern District. See Judgement 18, part 2, pp. 340 and 343.


classes of people in Israel, without religious, confessional,

racial or national discrimination.

3. To find a just solution for the Palestine problem as

a whole, and as an indivisible unit; that is to say, a just solu¬

tion to all aspects of the Palestine problem seen as a complete

unity. The founders of the Al-Ard Movement regarded all

matters connected with relations between the Arabs and

Israel, such as the Arab refugee problem, the frontiers,

property left behind by Arabs when they left Israel, the

Jordan waters, etc., as a single whole which required a final

and comprehensive solution. They maintained that partial

solutions, covering one or more of these problems only, could

not achieve the stability, security and peace in the Middle

East, which were the sole hope of the Palestinian Arab people,

and the only possible hope for the restoration of their political

entity, and the restitution of their full legitimate rights. The

Al-Ard Movement regarded the Palestinian Arab people as

being the people principally entitled to decide their own

future.

Inasmuch as this solution concerned the Palestinian

Arab people, who had lost their political entity and their

legitimate rights, and who were now scattered to the four

winds and dispersed over a number of countries, where they

were subject to a variety of governments—the principal

factor in the lack of stability and peace in the Middle East—

the Al-Ard Movement proposed a solution that would restore

their political entity to the Palestine people and which would

enable them to decide their own future without any outside

interference whatsoever. These principles were recognised

by the United Nations and had been ratified by all kinds of

international conferences and meetings.

As regards the highest aspirations of the Arab people,

the founders of the Al-Ard Movement considered that the

Palestinian people were an indivisible part of the Arab nation.

It was therefore natural that this people, when deciding their

own future, should accord their due weight to Arab interests

and aspirations.

The founders of the Al-Ard Movement considered that


the Palestine problem now existed for the Arab people of

Palestine only. This problem had already been solved for the

Jewish people, who had decided their own future, realised

their sovereignty and established their State, which could not

be said to be the case with the Arabs of Palestine.

The Al-Ard Movement had stated this basic attitude,

many times and in many ways, in the first numbers of the

newspaper that it published at the end of 1959 and the

beginning of 1960. These principles were also set out in the

letter addressed by the Al-Ard group, on 23 June 1964, to

the Secretary General of the United Nations, the foreign em¬

bassies in Israel and the world press, in which it emphasised

that it was essential that any solution to this problem should

safeguard the rights of the Arab and Jewish peoples.

4. To support liberation, unionist and socialist movements

in the Arab world by all legitimate means. The Al-Ard

group saw these movements as a decisive force in the Arab

world, to which Israel ought to adopt a positive attitude. The

founders of the Al-Ard group supported the Arab nationalist

movement, which it regarded as a progressive, constructive

and decisive force in the Arab world. Israel’s adoption of a

positive attitude to this movement would certainly help to

solve the problems of the area and would help to bring peace

to it.

5. To work for peace in the Middle East in particular,

and the world in general.

6. To support all progressive movements in all parts of

the world, to oppose imperialism and to support peoples who

wish to liberate themselves from it.”

After examining these objectives, and ridiculing them as

only being connected with what he described as a “purely

imaginary” state, Judge Vitcon delivered the following

judgement: “Article 3 of the objectives of the Al-Ard group

is utterly destructive of the existence of the State of Israel in

general and of its existence within its present frontiers in par¬

ticular. This article raises the Palestine problem and demands

its solution as an indivisible unit in accordance with the wishes

of the Palestinian people, as being alone entitled to decide


their future, within the framework of the highest aspirations

of the Arab nation. Those who advocate such objectives ignore

the existence of the State of Israel and the rights of the Jewish

people who live in it.55

The judge went on to say: “The founders of the Al-Ard

Movement have not seen fit to qualify their references to the

highest interests of the Arab nation, nor to mention their

recognition of Israel as a sovereign state or the principles and

basis on which it is established, nor their acceptance of the

principle that the extent of the area of the State of Israel

shall be linked with Jewish acceptance of the principle of

existence of the Arabs within this political unit. The Al-Ard

group do not publish or mention these views because their

whole struggle is directed against them.55

Concluding his comments on the Al-Ard Movement’s

memorandum, the judge said: “It has never happened in

history that in countries where there is a sound democratic

regime, monopolistic fascist movements have been allowed to

operate against the state, using the rights of freedom of speech,

freedom of the press and freedom of association, in order to

organise destructive activities under cover of these freedoms.

Never in all history have such events been permitted without

calamitous results following. No one who witnessed the events

that took place in the Weimar Republic will ever forget the

lesson they taught. With this in mind we shall not be long

in reaching the final conclusion that it would be blind error

to grant a licence to the Al-Ard Movement.55

Judge Landau wrote: “The expressions 'freedom, unity

and socialism5 have clear and precise meanings in the Arab

world, which are to be found in the contemporary political

dictionary. It is on the strength of these slogans that Egypt

arrogates to herself the leadership of the Arab world, which

endorses this claim by regarding Cairo as its centre, seeing it

as the preponderant force in the Arab world—a force which

is hostile to the State of Israel and which hopes to eliminate

it by force. The most elementary rights of any state call for

the protection of its independence and existence, against its

enemies both at home and abroad, and it is too much to ask

of any government that it should help to establish a fifth


column within its frontiers in the name of maintaining freedom

of association.”

Commenting on this judgement on 13 November 1964,

the newspaper, Al-Ittihad, wrote: “We believe that the courts

were established to give judgement on the legality of any

political movement. To represent the courts as the judicial

guardian of political movements must be regarded as a

debasement of the essential separation of the legislative,

judicial and executive powers. We are convinced that the

judgement given by the Court was no more than a political

quarrel with the members of the Al-Ard Movement, par¬

ticularly as the government authorities were unable to find

any valid grounds whatsoever for accusing the members of

Al-Ard of breaking the law, but based their charges on

broadcasts from Cairo and quotations from the press . . . It is

not permissible to accuse Al-Ard of not recognising Israel,

for it mentions as one of its primary objectives the achieve¬

ment of complete equality and social justice for all classes of

people in Israel. Nor is it permissible to accuse the movement

of not recognising the Jewish people, the policy of peaceful

coexistence or the equality of the Arab and Jewish people,

when the rulers of Israel themselves ignore the rights of the

Arab people of Palestine and the rights of the refugee mem¬

bers of this people to return to their homeland.

“The nefarious intentions and activities of the Govern¬

ment of Israel are revealed in the way it bases its case on

statements and declarations which have no connection with

the members of Al-Ard. If it really wants to base its case on

statements and declarations, why does it ignore the appeal

contained in Al-Ard’s memorandum to the United Nations,

in which the movement called for a solution of the Palestine

problem on the basis of the United Nations resolutions, this

being an implicit recognition of the State of Israel? Al-Ard’s

application for recognition as a legally constituted organisa¬

tion is also evidence of its recognition of Israel, and so are

the statements it has issued on the subject which have been

published in the local press.

“The fact that in opposing the registration of Al-Ard, the

Legal Adviser bases his case on statements and declarations


that were not issued by the movement shows that a poli¬

tical decision had been made in advance to take arbitrary

action incompatible with democracy. This decision aimed at

depriving a group of citizens in the State of the right to engage

in political activity and to work in a clear and legitimate

manner for entirely constitutional objectives.

“To deprive Al-Ard of its right to engage in legitimate

political activity is not only a blow aimed at this movement.

It is yet one more attack on democratic freedoms in the

country under the bogus pretext of ‘defence affairs5—some¬

thing which we utterly condemn.55

It can safely be said that it was not opposition to, or a

failure to sympathise with these requests, that was a decisive

factor in the government’s attitude; it is open to question

whether official circles in Israel saw fit to pay attention to

any such considerations. For it is clear that Israel’s policy

towards the Arab world is pre-determined. The Arabs, it

maintains, condemn the truce between Israel and the neigh¬

bouring Arab countries; if they recognised Israel they would

have no difficulty in arriving at a solution of all outstanding

disputes at one blow. It is Arab obstinacy that obliges Israel

to undertake military reprisals against them, with the object

of securing such recognition. When, however, it became clear

that in practice this method was ineffectual, a new method

was devised. This time the idea was that the countries of the

Western camp should exert pressure on the Arabs to settle

the dispute between the Arab countries and Israel. And when

this method, too, was found wanting, yet another project was

put into operation, which aimed at the creation of a cordon

sunitaire of friendly Afro-Asian countries around Israel, the

idea being that, when the time came, these countries would

force the Arabs to recognise Israel’s demands. What are these

demands? The recognition of the sovereign State of Israel,

and of its desire for the immigration of all of world Jewry

into Israel, which might well require the occupation of further

areas of the Arab world on the pretext of “liberating” them

—-in this connection it is always necessary to bear in mind

the special status of this Jewish state. And what are the Arabs

to receive in return? That Israel should “recognise” the Arab


world, and that, after the establishment of peaceful relations,

it should agree to requests being submitted to the Israeli

Government to grant aid in certain vital fields, such as the

training of paratroops and the rearing of poultry.

Thus it was not foreign policy considerations that led

the Government of Israel to adopt the course it has followed

as regards Al-Ard, and indeed Al-Ard was far from having

reached the stage where it could have any real influence on

foreign policy. On the contrary, the government’s attitude

was based on its studied domestic policy as regards the Arabs

living in Israel.

The Government of Israel, by which we mean the Mapai

Party, has for many years—in practice since the establish¬

ment of the State—been trying to establish a strong Arab

bloc within Israel which would control all aspects of Arab life

in the country and which would serve the interests of the State.

The government has set up special departments in most of

the ministries, most of which are called the “administration

of Arab affairs.” These elements, linked with the Arab colla¬

borators, have developed with time into an independent or¬

ganisation with its own political, economic and social interests,

which call for the use of particular methods among the Arabs

of Israel in order to safeguard these special interests. This

organisation has rendered important services to its bosses; it is

through its assistance that the Mapai has succeeded in bring¬

ing into the Knesset at every election four or five Arab

deputies who have unreservedly supported it. In exchange

for this support, these deputies and their supporters have ob¬

tained many benefits and amenities from the authorities, and

the civil servants who work in this organisation have helped

in the transfer of thousands of dunums of Arab land from its

Arab owners to government ownership—in return they have

lined their pockets with thousands of Israeli pounds.

This organisation, which has developed with astonishing

speed, has its representatives everywhere in institutions with

any influence on Israeli public opinion, especially in the press;

while in the broadcasting service, the Knesset and the other

parties, they are practically uncountable. The majority of its

servants, in particular those planted in the Israeli press, and


the group of professional agents provocateurs called “specialists

in Arab affairs/5 work for the organisation in return for

financial benefits, while the remainder support it for ideo¬

logical reasons, being convinced that such activities are essen¬

tial for the protection of the security, safety and vital interests

of the State.

Many of the Arabs living in Israel have not accepted the

activities of this organisation, but most of them have done

nothing to oppose it. It is true to say that sparks of opposition

to this organisation's schemes have made their appearance

from time to time, but they have been an ephemeral pheno¬

menon which has been suppressed by the police, aided by the

military authorities. The activities of Al-Ard have been re¬

stricted to a narrow field, but they have covered the whole

country, despite the criminally misleading propaganda against

the movement, devised to misrepresent its objectives. It is not

to be supposed, however, that this instrument of the Mapai

has come into collision only with Al-Ard in its efforts to defend

the party’s interests; there have been other clashes with Jewish

parties that have tried to spread their influence amongst the

Arabs in Israel. Mapam Party circles, for example, are well

acquainted with the way this organisation exerts pressure on

the Arab members of Mapam. This pressure is employed

against all Jewish groups that belong neither to Mapai nor

to the organisation under its control, and which would like

to engage in political or social activities in Arab circles. The

only difference between the conduct of this organisation

towards Al-Ard and its conduct towards a Jewish group is in

the extent of the pressure exerted—it does not dare to in¬

crease its pressure on the Jews, but there is no such barrier

in its attitude to Al-Ard.

As we have already seen, the efforts of this organisation,

fully supported by the State, are directed principally against

the independent Arab organisations which might possibly

frustrate or hinder its nefarious schemes against the Arabs.

Thus political or social activity amongst the Arabs of Israel

can only be undertaken within the scope allowed by this

organisation. Al-Ard has therefore been “accused,” in an

excessively heavy-handed way, of helping to open indepen-


dent sports clubs in certain Arab villages. On one occasion,

the Military Governor of the Central Region declared a village

in the Triangle a closed area, in order to prevent a football

match between teams from Galilee and the Triangle. The

establishment of sports clubs among the Arabs of Israel is

regarded as an unforgivable sin by the Military Government

and its associates. Indeed, what need is there to form inde¬

pendent sports clubs ? It was long ago decided that the Arab

Department of Histadrut, the General Federation of Jewish

Labour, which is under the absolute control of the Mapai

Party, is alone allowed to establish clubs in the Arab villages,

which clubs, alone, are allowed to form football teams, and

that these circles alone are empowered to decide how football

shall be played, and with whom. Things have also been ar¬

ranged in the same way in other Arab regions. Special super¬

visors have been appointed for every branch of activity, and

special regulations drafted. Those who wish to engage in

social activities have to apply to the Arab Department of the

Histadrut Central Propaganda Committee, whose employees

inform them what social activity is desirable, where lectures

should be delivered and what subjects they should be on, at

times even providing the full text of the lecture. Again, those

who wish to publish political programmes have to contact the

editor of the Histadrut paper, Al-Yaum, and if its Censorship

Board approves them they will be published with all due

respect. If someone insists on his right to show that he is a

“revolutionary” or intends to publish a love poem, he may

contact the Mapai paper, Al-Mirsad, when he will be warned

not to break the accepted rules by approaching the communist

Al-Ittihad; while if a problem arises for which no solution is

provided by all these regulations, reference must be made to

the Adviser on Arab Affairs in the Prime Minister’s Office,

who is one of the mainstays of this organisation and holds

the keys to the solution of all these problems.

These, then, are the characteristics of the organisation

that controls the lives of the Arabs in Israel, which regards

the Supreme Court judgement mentioned above as a gift

from Heaven specially designed for the removal of an obstacle

called Al-Ard. In fact, a few days after this judgement was


delivered, certain of Al-Ard’s leaders were arrested, and a

search was carried out of most of its centres in Nazareth,

Tayyiba, Jaffa, Haifa and Jerusalem, and in the Arab villages

in Galilee and the Triangle. A week later, invoking the

Defence Laws (State of Emergency) 1945, the Minister of

Defence announced that 4‘the group of persons known as the

Al-Ard Group, or the Al-Ard Movement, or whatever its

name happens to be from time to time, and the group of

persons calling themselves the Al-Ard Company, Limited,

and, in general, the group of persons formed as a result of

the joint activities of some or all of the shareholders in the

said company, constitute an illegal association.”1

The result of this statement was that every member of

this group, who allowed himself to engage in any activity of

any kind whatsoever, became liable to ten years imprisonment.

As to the future, it can be assumed that the official

Israeli policy of suppressing any manifestation of the nation¬

alist movement amongst the Arabs resident in Israel, and of

combating any organisation that claims to defend their rights,

will continue unchanged.

However, ever since the establishment of Israel, there

have been people, groups and journalists, who have entered

the lists on behalf of the Arabs in Israel and have resolutely

defended their rights. Amongst their number are the weekly

and monthly papers, such as Haolam Hazeh and Ner, the or¬

gans of the Ihud, The Democratic Periodical which speaks for

the Third Force, Ethgar, the mouth-piece of the Semitic Ac¬

tion Movement and Matsavan, the mouth-piece of the Israeli

Socialist Organisation. We do not precisely know how great

is the role played by these papers in improving official Israeli

policy towards the Arabs. The influence of these elements

with the Arabs has been restricted to educated members of

the community, or, to be more precise, to those of them who

read Hebrew, the majority of whom hold these papers and

their editors in great esteem.

Finally, reference must be made to the apparent fact that

the Arabs of Israel have approved this situation and flocked

1 - Collected Declarations, No. 1134, 23 November 1964, p. 638.


to the polling stations at election times. The percentage of

Arabs who have boycotted the elections is lower than among

the Jews. The following table shows election results. (Table 1)

The Israeli Government’s fear of Arab political organisa¬

tions is not the only reason for their repressive policies. The

mere fear of organised Arab political activity or the possible

exploitation of non-political organisations for political ends,

and the desire to maintain absolute control over the lives of

Arabs in Israel, have all played their part in the authorities’

negative attitude to any attempt at organisation made by any

sort of Arab group—from sporting clubs to committees for

the abolition of the bride price. Every single initiative in the

field of social activity of all kinds and in all classes of Arab

society is closely watched by the Military Governors or the

defence services, who try to steer such activities under the

control of the Arab Department of the Histadrut or the

Mapai Party. There have been innumerable cases when

Arabs, who have taken the initiative in social, religious or

educational fields, have been obliged to drop their plans

because of the obstacles placed in their way. The result is

that they either abstain from all activity whatsoever or,

eventually, turn to political activity.

These efforts have been especially harmful to Arab

youth, which has been neglected and prevented from organ¬

ising itself. No alternative has been proposed to them, and

in daily close contact with neglect and repression from the

authorities, many young men have grown desperate and turn

to drastic solutions, such as leaving the country, for example.

There are very many, of course, who disapprove of the way

the Arabs are treated, and would like it changed, but there

is no future for those who complain.

A similar negative attitude has been adopted to educated

Arab youth, which has been deliberately and consistently

neglected, and has met innumerable obstacles, especially as

regards employment. Most private employers refuse to engage

such young men and the government departments absorb less

of them every year. Of a total of 48,792 civil servants in 1961,

only 500, or approximately 1 per cent, were Arabs; whereas,

Table

1:

Percentage D

istrib

utio

n o

f A

rab V

oters at E

lectio

ns to th

e K

nesset


N iO N 0 N 0 0

O CM O CM

CT> *-h tO (N 0 r-H* CM CO

r— co Th LO ^ r-H* to ^

in m io to

o. cr> co

o ^ r? > £ K %

a a V) P -P Ph a a O 2 * a ^ & * (2 3

5 rfi M ^ bD

8*3 £ * §3 s % a a *


according to the Israeli Statistical Yearbook for 1963, Arabs

constitute 11 per cent of the total population.1

Nor has the Government of Israel hesitated to interfere

in the religious affairs of the various Arab religious commu¬

nities in Israel. This interference differs only in extent from

one community to the other. Israel has succeeded in inter¬

fering in this manner because the government has “bought”

the greater part of the religious leaders, whether Moslems,

Christians or Druses.

As regards the various Christian communities, Israeli

interference in their affairs, and the harm it does, have been

very restricted. The reason is that the spiritual centres of these

communities lie outside the frontiers of Israel, which is obliged

to accord due weight to Christian opinion throughout the

world, for fear of unfavourable reactions from Christian coun¬

tries whose aid Israel still requires. Certain fanatically religious

Jewish elements, it is true, do engage in hostile activities

against Christian missions in Israel, but such activities are

not directed particularly against the Arab Christians who

live in the country.

However, the situation of the Moslem community is by

no means the same. This community has suffered more than

any other in Israel; for the great majority of Islamic Waqf

possessions have been confiscated by the Custodian of Absen¬

tees5 Property, so that the financial resources available for

religious purposes are extremely meagre.

In the days of the British Mandate, the Moslem religious

community used to enjoy extensive and almost complete

independence, and the Higher Moslem Council, which was

officially recognised, supervised religious affairs. But with the

establishment of the State of Israel this Council ceased to

exist. The government abolished it officially by a law passed

in 1961. This law provides for the formation of a committee

of nine members (three, at least, of whom must be non-

Moslems) to appoint Qadis2 in Israel. The authority of these

Qadis is dubious, for Islam does not recognise judges appointed

1 - Statistical Abstract of Israel, 1963, pp. 540 and 629. 2 - Judges in the religious courts.


by persons who are not Moslems, or in whose appointment

persons who are non-Moslems have participated. Since then

chaos has reigned in Moslem religious circles, and the Councils

of Guardians appointed by the government to supervise

Islamic affairs have squandered the funds of the Moslem

community, often with government help and encouragement.

It must also be put on record that the sanctity of a number

of Moslem holy places, such as mosques and tombs, has been

violated in a most regrettable manner.

One of the reasons for this hostile attitude to the Moslem

community is the widely held Israeli idea that Islam is linked

with Arab nationalism. This belief has more than once been

the main-spring of incidents which have damaged Islam and

Moslems in Israel. Dr Azriel, formerly chief editor of the

newspaper Maariv, wrote in that paper, on 1 October 1955:

“Islam is the enemy of all fruitful thought, all genuine initi¬

ative and all productive ideas. It has produced nothing good

in the past, nor will it do so in the future. It represents

darkness, reaction and imprisonment for five hundred million human beings.”

But the Israeli Government’s attitude to the Druse com¬

munity is quite different. The Druses have enjoyed extremely

good treatment ever since 1948, when young Druses volun¬

teered for the Israeli army, and since then there has been,

close cooperation between the government and the Shaikhs of

the Druse community. The good treatment enjoyed by the Dru¬

ses springs from a studied and highly detailed Israeli policy,

devised to recruit allies for Zionism in its campaign against

the liberation movements in which the eastern peoples are

involved. The fruits of this policy began already to be apparent

in the days of the Mandate, when young Druses volunteered for the Haganah.

A propaganda campaign was launched, both inside and

outside Israel, representing the Druses as a separate people, but

with a common language with the Jews in Israel, where they live

as though in the Garden of Eden. This was intended to weaken

the position of the Druses in the Arab countries, particularly

in Syria, and arouse suspicions as to their loyalty or even

their status as Arabs. Support for this theory can be found


in the way the Israeli government exploited the events in Syria

in 1954, making the Knesset a platform for propaganda

speeches against Shishakli’s1 government. The Druse member

of the Knesset, Jabr Ma5di, threatened that the Druses in

Israel would not stand idly by while Syrian planes bombarded

the villages of the Jebel Druse. And, despite the fact that the

Syrian people and their leaders, and the whole of the Arab

world, condemned these incidents, Moshe Sharett, the Israeli

Foreign Minister, stated in the Knesset that the Israeli Gov¬

ernment was following events in Syria with close attention,

especially the events in the Jebel Druse, which were preju¬

dicial to the Druses in Israel.

Developing this policy, Israel in 1957 announced its

recognition2 3 of the Druse religious community as independent

of the Moslem religious community. Five years later the

Knesset approved the Druse Courts Law, whose apparent

purpose was to treat the religious affairs of the Druse com¬

munity on a par with the other religious communities in

Israel. Its real aim was to unscrupulously encourage the

growth of a Druse nationalism, which would be separate from

Arab nationalism. When the Minister of the Interior was

asked why the identity cards of members of this community

mentioned the fact they were Druses, he replied that this had

been done at the request of Druse leaders in Israel.

In Israel today, Jews often differentiate between Arabs

and Druses—“The Arab and Druse villages.55 The same is

done by official government spokesmen and the Hebrew

press. Hypocrisy as regards the Druses reached its peak with

the publication of a school book by Shaikh Amin Zarif, the

religious head of the Druse community in Israel, intended

to be a special “reader for Druse pupils in the higher classes

of elementary schools.553 The Propaganda Department of the

Prime Minister’s Office supervised the composition of this work,

which states that there was a marriage relationship between the

1 - Lieutenant-Colonel Adib Shishakli exercised effective power in Syria from the time of his Coup d’Etat in December 1949 until his deposi¬ tion in February 1954.

2 - Laws of the State of Israel, Vol. 695, 21 September 1957, p. 1280. 3 - Israel Government Yearbook, 1965, p. 31.


Prophet Shu‘aib, whom the Druses hold in particular venera¬

tion, and the Prophet Moses, who married Shu‘aib’s daughter.

This particular manoeuvre angered the members of the Druse

community in Israel. For the claim that their Prophet Shucaib

married an Israelite woman does not conform with their

religious tenets, according to which Shucaib never married.

In fact the Druses are an Arab religious sect founded at

the end of the tenth century A.D., and their religious customs

resemble Islam in most details. This community is, from the

ethnic point of view, an indivisible part of the Arab nation,

and its history of opposition to French imperialism in Syria

in the twenties of this century is an integral part of Arab

history. It should be emphasised that the great majority of

educated and younger Druses are strongly opposed to the

“creation” of this new nationalism, and are proud of belonging

to the Arab nation.

In any case, the myth of “Druse nationalism” has not

protected the Druses from the expropriation of their lands in

just the same way as the other Palestinian Arabs. 2,500

dunums of land were expropriated in Sajur, 3,000 dunums

in Harfish and 5,000 dunums in Beit Jan—all Druse villages in

Galilee. An extraordinary thing is that it was a detachment of

Druse Frontier Guards that forcibly prevented their kinsfolk

who owned these lands, from going to them and managing them.

It must be said that Israeli interference in the affairs of

the Druse community has been made possible by the sub¬

mission of the traditional leaders of this community to the

Israeli authorities. These leaders are no more than a group

of ignorant hypocrites who bow to the demands of the gov¬

ernment, whereas the Druse community as a whole has

benefited not at all from this subservience, for the majority

of their villages are extremely backward in comparison with

other Arab villages in Israel. Israel’s policy towards the Druse

people has been violently opposed by educated young Druses.

2. Education

There have been many developments in the field of

Arab education since the establishment of the State of Israel,


and the dispute still continues between Arab educationalists

and the Ministry of Education and indeed between the Arab

population and successive Israeli governments.

Certainly, the number of Arab pupils studying in Arab

elementary schools has increased, but in comparison with the

figures in Jewish schools this increase is inconsiderable, for

more than one third of Arab children of school age are still

not in schools. And although all Arab villages, even the

remotest ones, now have elementary schools—in the year

1961-1962 there were 167 Arab schools and kindergartens in

135 Arab and mixed villages—it is not the government of

Israel alone that has been responsible for this progress. For

side by side with the government elementary schools for

Arabs resident in Israel, there is an extensive network of

confessional and missionary schools, which receive little ma¬

terial aid from the Ministry of Education, carrying on their

work with the assistance of independent organisations.

Apart from this increase in the number of Arab pupils

in elementary schools, the educational situation of the Arabs

in Israel is most unsatisfactory and Israel is responsible for

this. The educational standards in the Arab schools are ex¬

tremely low, in comparison not only with Jewish schools in

Israel, but also with present standards all over the Middle

East and with those prevailing in Palestine under the Man¬

date. There are many reasons for these low standards: Arab

schools in Israel suffer from a grave shortage of buildings,

equipment, furniture, books and professional teachers, and

the teaching curricula are liable to be changed at any time.

There has been a shortage of teachers ever since the

establishment of the State; for at that time most of the best

teachers left the country, and their places were taken in the

Arab schools by large numbers of untrained teachers. As the

numbers of these schools has increased, the teaching staff has

been augmented by a certain number of teachers who have

completed their secondary education. These teachers are

chosen not for their qualifications, but for far less respectable

reasons, such as the fact that the Military Government or the

Ministry of Defence approve of their appointment, or because

of their loyalty to certain elements, or because of nepotism.


The following table gives the numbers of Jewish and Arab

children attending schools, in relation to the total school-age

population. (Table 2)

The Israeli Government has made no serious attempt to

solve the problem of education. It did nothing at all for a

long time, and then in 1962 it was gracious enough to open

an Arab Teachers5 Training College in Jaffa, for both men

and women teachers, and female kindergarten teachers for

elementary schools. But this college can only train fifty

teachers a year, and about half of them do not find work in

Israel after they have graduated.

Moreover, Arab teachers in Israel are constantly inti¬

midated by the threat of dismissal for political reasons, and the

government exploits the many difficulties they experience in

finding jobs and their inability to work outside the field of

education. Harsh measures are frequently enforced against

them, and the Arab Department of the Jewish Teachers

Association cooperates with the authorities in creating an

atmosphere of intimidation.

Another reason for the low educational standard is the

absence of clear and permanent curricula, due to the arbitrary

modification of current curricula in Arab schools. For example

in 1952 the Ministry of Education revised the Arabic language

courses for the first and second classes only, while the other

classes continued to follow the old curriculum. Other second¬

ary school curricula are constantly being changed.

Furthermore, Arab schools in Israel suffer from a serious

shortage of school books. Both teachers and pupils are obliged

to use old ones. This situation has improved to a certain

extent in most schools, but there is still a grave shortage in

secondary schools. This shortage applies not only to school

books, but also to books in general. Up until April 1964 only

270 books in the Arabic language had been published in

Israel, 45 of them written by authors resident in the country,

both Arabs and Jews, the remainder being reprints of books

first published in Arab countries.

The shortage of maps and laboratory equipment is also

acute.

ab

le

2:

Att

endance in E

lem

en

tary S

chools and K

ind

erg

art

en

s

Po

pu

lati

on

Aged 4-1

5

Pu

pil

s in

Ele

men

tary

Sch

oo

ls

Per

centa

ge

of

Sch

oo

l-

STRANGERS IN THEIR OWN LAND

H

§

-5 CO J__1 tq q to to 1_H CO g 05 r-H CO CO o 0 0

to to to CO CO CO

§ r—1 CO to to q q r-H CM CM to* CO to* CO CO o> 05 05 05 05 05 05 05 05

iO CO 05 CO to to CO CO CO CO 05 CO to CO

*>Q> iO tO CM CO cq I>> CM q q CO co" co" o' CM to 05" CM co" cm CM CM co CO CO CO

co r—H o CM 05 CO 05 v V

0 05 0

s 00 q cq i—H

cq cq cq cq co" to" 05 CO CO co" to" oT CO CM lO 05 r-H CO CO to CM CO CO CO Th

o o o CO CO co CO CO «-5 O o o CO r-H 05 r-H

to co^ CO o q CM 00 cq CO to rC oT T CO 0" to" to to to to co CO CO

05 CO CM 05 CO 0 CO o CO 05 o CO CM CO r-H

§ CD q o CD cq cq q CO CM

co" r—T o' CM o" TjH to" 05" T—t iO 05 r-H CO to CO CO CO CO

>3 CO CO 05 o CM co LO to to to CO co CO CO CO

•^3 to CO CO 05 o r-H CM co o to to lO to to CO co CO CO

05 05 05 05 05 05 05 05 05 vS ?—H f-H r-H

149


The situation as regards school buildings is sad indeed.

Most of them are not fit to be used as schools. They are old

constructions with small, dark rooms, and few sanitary amen¬

ities, while playing fields, furniture and other equipment are

totally inadequate. The Ministry of Education is not legally

obliged to provide schools with buildings, playing fields and

equipment, but there should be the maximum aid to ensure

that they are available. The Ministry, however, turns a blind

eye on the pretext that it is unable to provide such aid to

villages that have no local authorities (a municipality or a

local council,) and of course the Ministry of the Interior has

not established any form of local government in 40 per cent

of Arab villages, inhabited by 60 per cent of the Arab popu¬

lation of Israel. The government’s negative attitude has

played an important part in the deplorable condition of Arab

schools with regard to buildings, equipment and furniture.

In the course of five financial years the State allocated about

1£ 3 million for the improvement of Arab schools in the

country. We do not know what proportion of this sum has

been actually used for the purpose, but certainly it constitutes

only an extremely small proportion of the Ministry of Edu¬

cation’s budget, which totals tens of millions of Israeli pounds.

These factors have had an extremely damaging effect on

Arab secondary education in Israel. In the year 1962/1963,

there were ten Arab secondary schools with 1,425 pupils, as

against 132 Jewish schools with 41,425 Jewish pupils.1 The

decline in the level of elementary education has resulted in

a corresponding decline in the standard of Arab secondary

schools, which gives serious cause for alarm. In its report

dated 24 January 1962, the Knesset Education Committee

recommended that “The Ministry of Education must make

special efforts to provide aid to raise this standard to an

acceptable level.”2

All this is reflected in the failure ratio of Arab pupils who

sit for the secondary certificate examination which has been

steadily higher than 85 per cent, while the results of those who

1 - Israel Government Yearbook, 1963, pp. 627, 634. 2 - Report No. 33, p. 1058.


pass are extremely unsatisfactory. The following table based

on the statement of the Minister of Education in the

Knesset on 27 December 19631 shows the percentage of

passes. This table has been compiled from the Israeli Statis¬

tical Yearbook for 1956-1964.

Nor is it possible to compare Arab pupils who hold the

General Certificate of Secondary Studies with their Jewish

counterparts. The following table gives relevant figures.

Table 3: Percentage of Passes among Arab Pupils

in the General Secondary Certificate Examinations

School Year Percentage Passes

1957-58 8.6

1958-59 6.7

1959-60 9.5

1960-61 13.1

1961-62 10.3

These results have had a disastrous effect on Arab society,

in that they have caused widespread unemployment and des¬

pair among young educated Arabs. Arab higher education

has also suffered—only 171 Arab students out of a total

population of more than a quarter of a million, are receiving

university education, as against 14,000 Jews. So it is hardly

surprising that the Arab population of Israel are now nearly

all labourers or small tradesmen.

In other fields of Arab education the situation is equally

unsatisfactory. In the year 1963-1964 there were two Arab

schools for apprentices, with a total of 105 pupils, as against

140 such schools for Jews, with 5,138 pupils. There were two

Arab vocational training schools with 166 students, and 138

such schools with 21,111 students for Jews; one agricultural

school with 51 students for Arabs, 41 schools with 7,309 stu¬

dents for Jews; one teacher training college with 104 trainees

for Arabs and 42 colleges with 7,575 trainees for Jews.

1 - The Knesset Debates, Vol. 26, p. 1668.


The Israeli Government cannot disown its responsibility

for the deplorable situation of Arab education. It is the gov¬

ernment which has appointed dozens of untrained teachers

to the Arab schools and which has kept them in their posts

for years without giving them the opportunity to obtain

teaching diplomas. Nor can the government deny its respon¬

sibility for the dismissal of dozens of trained teachers for

political reasons. The government has ignored the urgent

requests of Arab schools for trained teachers and has refused

to establish permanent curricula. The government has time

and time again modified and altered the curricula, sometimes,

and particularly inconveniently, just before the Secondary

Certificate examinations. It is responsible, too, for the shocking

shortage of school-books in the Arab schools over long periods

of time. Israel does not lack the capacity to produce school¬

books in the Arabic language, whether the authors of such

books are Arabs resident in Israel or Jewish immigrants from

Arab countries. Even if this was not possible, it would be very

easy to translate some of the Hebrew school-books, or books

written in other foreign languages, or to reprint Arabic

school-books published in neighbouring Arab countries with¬

out permission, as the Histadrut has done with Arab fiction.

In this connection it should be mentioned that all copies of

the novel Ana Ahya (I Live) by the Lebanese woman writer

Laila Baalbaki, which was reprinted in this manner in colla¬

boration with the Ministry of Education, were confiscated

shortly after the book appeared in November 1960, on the

pretext that it contained matter offensive to Judaism.

This shortage of books in Arab schools is mentioned in

the report of the Histadrut’s Educational and Cultural Com¬

mittee.1 The Committee called on the Ministry of Education

to make every effort to overcome this shortage, to which it

ascribes the low standards of education among the Arabs

in Israel.

The neglect by successive Israeli governments of educa¬

tion of the Arabs in Israel may be ascribed to a studied plan

to keep the greater part of Arab pupils in a state of ignorance

1 - The Knesset Debates, Vol. 33, p. 1658, 24 January 1962.


or semi-ignorance, to diminish national consciousness among

the Arabs, to make them uncertain about their national

affiliation and to confuse their thinking about Jewish society.

A large percentage of those who leave Arab elementary schools

can only read and write Arabic with difficulty, although they

come from Arab stock. The curricula in Arabs schools omit

long passages from famous Arabic poems and prose by some

of the most celebrated names in the cultural history of the

Arab peoples, replacing them by weak and banal passages

drawn from obscure authors. Moreover, the study of the Old

Testament is compulsory in the Arab secondary schools, while

the Islamic and Christian religions are not studied at all.

Certain chapters of the Koran may not be studied in the

Arab elementary schools, and the study of the Chapter of

“The Woman Tested” in the Koran is forbidden for Moslem

students attending Jewish schools, as verses 8 and 9 call

for a holy war against those who fought the Moslems because

of their religion and expelled them from their habitations . . .

etc.

Even more extraordinary is the attitude of the Ministry

of Education to the Arab schools. The intention here is to

confuse the rising generation of Arabs in Israel. The history

of the Arab peoples is falsified and represented as a series of

revolutions, killings, feuds, plunderings and robberies, with

the aim of belittling Arab achievements and triumphs

throughout the centuries. Jewish history, on the contrary, is

glorified and enriched, with everything seen through rose-

coloured spectacles.

A quick glance at the official curricula drawn up by the

Ministry of Education and Culture is sufficient to disclose

these objectives. In the fifth elementary class ten hours are

devoted to the study of the Hebrews, as against five hours for

the study of the Arabian Peninsula; while in the sixth class

Islamic history gets 36 periods out of a total of 64 for the

whole of Arab history up to the end of the thirteenth century

A.D. (Special attention is paid to the Jewish physician Moses

Maimonides who lived in the time of Saladin, and the Spanish

Jewish poet Ibn Gabirol.) In the seventh elementary class

Arab history is not studied at all, whereas a sixth of the school


year is devoted to the study of the relations between Jewish

communities abroad and Israel, while in the eighth and last

class ten periods are devoted to Arab history from the 19th

century up to the present day, as against thirty periods for

the study of the history of the State of Israel. It is quite easy

to see that the Arab pupil learns nothing whatsoever about

Arab history from the beginning of the fourteenth century

to the end of the eighteenth. But the curricula for the eighth

class include the religious troubles in Syria and Lebanon and

the Druse massacres of the Maronites in 1860.

Nor is the situation as regards the study of Arab history

any better in secondary schools than it is in elementary schools.

In the whole of the four years of secondary education only

32 periods are devoted to Arab history, the Arab conquest of

Spain and the Arab civilisation that made that country so

brilliant during the 700 years of Arab rule. In contrast, 384

hours are devoted to the study of Jewish history.

Even more outrageous are some of the questions in the

secondary examinations. Questions connected with the Jews

are extremely serious and to the point and conform to the

official political line of the Israeli government. The questions

on Arab history, on the other hand, are mere riddles and

emphasise the most trivial movements and feuds that have

taken place in the Arab world, and the decline of the Arabs,

ignoring all the great historical leaders who have embodied

great qualities of the Arab nation. There is never a question

about the Prophet Muhammad, the Caliph Harun al-Rashid,

the Omayyad Caliph Muawiya or Saladin, who were some

of the greatest men in Arab history.

But it is the Hebrew and Arabic language curricula that

provides the best illustration of the nefarious plan to Judaise

the rising generation of Arabs. There is only one paragraph

devoted in the instructions to teachers to why Arabic should

be taught; for Hebrew there are three paragraphs, the last of

which says: “The Hebrew language is to be studied in accord¬

ance with a regular and permanent curriculum in the Arab

schools, starting with the fourth class. It is also recommended

that the study of Hebrew should start in the first elementary

class, or even at kindergarten stage, through singing and


games. It is clear that whoever drew up this curriculum

wished to go even further and allow for the possibility of

Hebrew taking the place of Arabic under certain conditions.

The Israeli Government’s negative attitude to the teach¬

ing of Arabic was referred to by Uri Lubrani, a former

Adviser on Arab Affairs to the Prime Minister, in a statement

he made to the newspaper, Haaretz, on 4 April 1961: “If there

were no pupils the situation would be better and more stable.

If the Arabs remained hewers of wood it might be easier for

us to control them. But there are certain things that are

beyond our control. This is unavoidable; all we can do is

to put our advice on record and suggest how the problems are to be dealt with.”

It is clear from this that the Prime Minister’s Adviser

on Arab Affairs wishes that the Arabs living in Palestine were hewers of wood, but that things do not always go as one

would wish. Great efforts have been made by many governments

at different times all over the world to obliterate national

entities. It is our duty to study these things and to learn from them.

Table 4: Arab and Jewish Holders

of the General Secondary Certificate

Total Population Holders of General

Secondary Certificate

School Year Jews Arabs Jews Arabs

1954-55 1,252,609 191,800 2,520 38 1955-56 1,590,500 198,556 2,723 96 1956-57 1,667,445 204,935 2,904 77 1957-58 1,762,741 213,213 2,698 60 1958-59 1,810,148 221,524 2,264 28 1959-60 1,858,841 229,844 2,685 53 1960-61 1,911,189 239,169 3,464 94 1961-62 1,932,357 247,134 4,356 75 1962-63 2,068,882 262,919 5,702 76


3. Agriculture

Under the British Mandate, and since the establishment

of the State of Israel, Arab society in Israel has been essentially

agricultural. Despite all the changes in recent years in the

outward form of this society, as a result of the drift from the

village to the town, and despite the fact that young Arabs

have tended to abandon agriculture, this society has remained

predominantly agricultural and a large section of the Arab

population of Israel still works in, and lives on, agriculture.

There have been many obstacles put in the way of Arab agri¬

cultural development and tens of thousands of dunums of the

best Arab agricultural land have been expropriated. Arab

agriculture and agriculturalists have been deprived of suitable

machinery. The whole field of agriculture has suffered from

arbitrary political planning, especially in the field of market¬

ing. All this has diminished the scope and the rewards of

agriculture.

There are 171,729 Arabs living in 104 villages in Israel.

Of this total only 95,406 persons, or 55.5 per cent, possess

their own agricultural land. This means that half the Arab

village population have no land and make their living from

other occupations of various kinds, both in their villages

and elsewhere.

In the first few years after the establishment of the State,

the government took a number of arbitrary measures aimed

at the development, consolidation and expansion of Jewish

agriculture, at the expense of Arab agriculture. It was with

this aim that prices of Arab agricultural produce were fixed

at a very low level in comparison with the prices of equivalent

Jewish produce, with the result that it became extremely

difficult for Arabs to market their crops. The market was

monopolised by companies which quite illegally compelled

the Arabs to sell their produce at low prices. The best known

of these companies was the Bustan al-Jeel Company, which

was founded in August 1951 as a branch of the Zionist com¬

pany, Tnuva.

There was also a negative attitude towards supplying

Arab farmers with agricultural machinery and difficulties


were made for those who wanted to buy modern machinery.

The Minister of Finance pretends to be amazed and reserved

about the feasibility of Arab attempts to improve and moder¬

nise their agriculture. In fact, Arab agriculture is much more

backward than Jewish agriculture. In the year 1961-1962,

for example, 25,000 Arab farmers, that is to say 50 per cent

of all the well-to-do Arabs in the whole country, had 250

agricultural machines, as against the hundreds of tractors

and modern mechanical ploughs of all kinds employed by

Jewish farmers.1

Similarly, government aid to Arab farmers is negligible

compared with that given to Jewish farmers. The following

table shows the total of loans granted to Arab farmers in

three successive years. (Table 5)

As opposed to these meagre sums, tens of millions of

Israeli pounds have been granted to Jewish agriculture in

the form of loans and aid. The number of Arab farmers who

have benefited from these loans is extremely small in com¬

parison with the hundreds that require aid.

This, and the way in which loans are granted, show the

extent of governmental neglect of Arab agriculture. In draft¬

ing its annual budget, the Ministry of Agriculture has no

separate plan for Arab agricultural development, nor does it

specify the projects for which the money is destined. It simply

estimates an annual lump sum for Arab agriculture in general.

Very frequently the Agricultural Loans Office has not for¬

warded requests by Arab farmers for loans to the central office

in (occupied) Jerusalem, while in other cases it had taken

a whole year to do so, so that the agricultural season has ended

before the Arab farmer has received the approved loan al¬

though all the formalities may have been duly completed.

Another injustice Arab farmers have to face lies in the

prices they receive in comparison with prices for Jewish pro¬

ducts. This is particularly so with their principal crops of

tobacco and olive oil. Arab farmers are obliged to sell their

tobacco crop at a very low price to Jewish monopoly com¬

panies, whereas other private companies purchase equivalent

1 - Israel Government Yearbook, 1962, p. 222.


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quantities of Jewish-grown tobacco at higher prices. Not only

this, the company withholds one third of the value of Arab

tobacco crops for any one year until the Arab farmer under¬

takes to sell it in his following year’s crop and so on. In this

way Arab tobacco production is completely paralysed.

The prices of olive oil produced by Arabs were subject

to direct government control until 1955.

This injustice also applies in the case of all other Arab

crops. In the year 1948-1949 the price of Arab-grown barley

was I£ 32 per ton, whereas Jewish-grown barley was sold for

I£ 38 per ton. In 1961-1962 a ton of Arab-grown barley was

sold for 1^ 215, while Jewish-grown barley was sold for I£ 225

per ton. Again, in 1948-1949, Arab wheat brought between

l£ 48 and 1£ 55 per ton, but the price rose to between 1£ 230

and l£ 246 per ton in 1961-1962.1

The following Tables 6 and 7 provide the production

figures for the total annual crops of tobacco and oil of both

Arabs and Jews, and show the difference in the prices paid for them.2

These price variations together with other factors, such

as the use of agricultural machinery on Jewish land, the pro¬

vision of various kinds of financial aid for Jewish agriculture,

and the larger area of Jewish irrigated land, (constituting

43.9 per cent of all Jewish agricultural land as against 3.6 per

cent in the case of Arab land in 1963-64) have resulted in a

very great difference in the yield per dunum between Arab

and Jewish land.

This difference rose to 186 per cent in the year 1950-51,

308 per cent in 1954-55, 355 per cent in 1957-58 and 387

per cent in 1962-63. This very large discrepancy is due to a number of factors. The most important are the out-of-date

methods of Arab agriculture, and also the fact that two-

thirds of all Arab agricultural land lies in mountainous

and rocky areas, which are difficult to cultivate. Obviously

1 - Israel Government Yearbook, 1963, pp. 134-237 and 240-243. 2 - Israel Government Yearbook, 1958-59, 1961, 1962, 1963, and 1964.

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this difference has had a great effect on the standard of living

of the greater part of the Arab population of Israel, who live

on agriculture. To understand how great is this effect we

must recall that 50 per cent of the well-to-do Arabs in Israel

work in the field of agriculture. So it is hardly surprising that

the situation of Arab agriculture is gradually going from bad

to worse, that revenues from this vital field of economic ac¬

tivity are gradually diminishing, and that the flight from

villages to the towns is increasing, to the extent that the per¬

centage of Arabs engaged in agriculture has fallen from 57.9

per cent in 1954, to 54.6 in 1956 and 53.1 per cent in 1962.

These figures show the dazzling success achieved by the

Israeli Government’s schemes to detach the Arab masses from

their lands and turn them into a community of labourers.

Their aim is to use the cleared land to build new Jewish

colonies in every part of the country.

The following table provides figures for total areas of

Arab and Jewish cultivated lands, with estimated total agri¬

cultural produce and agricultural product per dunum, and the

differences between Arab and Jewish total products. (Table 9)

4. Labour

Under the British Mandate, Arab labour in Palestine

was not fully organised although there was a certain amount

of organisation of those who worked in the various govern¬

ment departments. But the Arab labour organisations that

claimed to be general and comprehensive were frequently

dissolved after a few years of activity, whereas the Jewish

labour organisations, especially the Histadrut, the General

Federation of Jewish Labour, grew yearly stronger.

This is how matters stood in 1948, on the eve of the

establishment of the State of Israel. The only Arab labour

organisation to remain in existence after the establishment of

the State was the Arab Workers Congress, which had split

off from the League of Palestinian Arab Workers, and it too

ceased to exist shortly after the establishment of the State.

This situation, which was unique of its kind, resulted in

a critical labour situation amongst Arab workers, hindered

Table

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progress and exposed them to a concentrated attack mounted

by Arab capitalists and feudalists. The Zionist movement,

and the labour parties attached to it, joined in this attack

under the ugly racialist slogan of “Jewish labour,” and, under

the influence of this slogan, Zionist delegates drove hundreds

of Arab workers from their jobs and inflicted special penalties

on any Jews who gave them jobs.

In the first few years after the establishment of the State

of Israel, this situation remained unchanged as far as Arab

workers were concerned. No organisation undertook to defend

their rights, while the General Federation of Jewish Labour

in the Land of Israel (Histadrut) fought them under the

slogan of “organised labour,” the original slogan of “Jewish

labour” having fallen into desuetude. In such a situation

Arab workers were obliged to sell themselves on the black

market. They had no security and were forced to accept

wages much lower than those paid to Jewish workers for the

same work.

“Organised labour” was a piece of humbug as far as

Arab workers were concerned—the Histadrut and other

labour organisations refused to give them work; but if they

did succeed in finding “black market” jobs, they were liable

to dismissal on the ground that they were not “organised.”

At certain periods, especially when there was a high level of

Jewish unemployment, such dismissals of Arab workers be¬

came daily events. Sometimes the dismissals were supervised

by foremen, and sometimes by the Labour Committees, with

police assistance. In the past three or four years, however,

such dismissals have become rare.

Arab workers were also the victims of deliberate dis¬

crimination in wage-scales, from the government as well as

private employers. At that time Arab workers were not or¬

ganised, so that it was not possible for them to defend their

rights. As a result, the persecution became more acute. Some¬

times Arab workers received less than half the wages paid to

Jews for the same work. For example, in 1952, the unskilled

Arab workers used to be paid one Israeli pound for a day’s

work for the Public Works Department, whereas a Jewish

worker doing the same work, in the same grade, used to


receive I£ 2.63. Similarly, whereas a skilled Arab labourer

—a builder for example—received 1£ 2.50 per day, his

Jewish counterpart was paid 1£ 3.14. It was the government

that enforced this discrimination against Arab workers. In

reply to a question in the Knesset on 28 January 1952, the

Minister of Education admitted that an unmarried Jewish

teacher, holding the Secondary and Teachers Training Col¬

lege certificates was paid 1£ 69 per month, whereas an Arab

teacher with the same qualifications, and with experience as

well, received only I£ 41 per month. Similarly, an unmarried

Jewish teacher with the Eighth Secondary Certificate earned

51 Israeli pounds per month, while his Arab colleague was

paid only 36.5 pounds. And teachers form a large proportion

of the total of Arabs working in Israel.

The Jewish writer Aharon Cohen has described the lot

of Arab workers and employees as follows:1 “The Arab

worker who managed to find a job in the first ten years after

the establishment of Israel, was restricted to unpleasant jobs

that Jewish workers would not accept, like work in sewage

or building. The wages paid to Arab workers never equalled

those paid to Jews, even if the Arab was doing the same work.

In practice many jobs were closed to Arab workers and em¬

ployees. The Arab worker who found a temporary agricultural

job in a remote Jewish colony could be dismissed on the

ground that he was cnot organised.’ And as Arab unemploy¬

ment increased, efforts were made to make it even more acute

by seeking out such Arabs as were working for Jews and dis¬

missing them, with the help of the police. A further injustice

was that Arab workers were obliged to take the hardest and

most degrading jobs.”

This chaotic state of affairs gradually improved as the

number of Arab workers increased and as the Histadrut and

the Ministry of Labour began to feel the necessity to solve

the bitter problems of Arab workers. The Histadrut allowed

Arab workers to join certain of its organisations, such as the

Medical Services Fund, although they were not admitted to

membership on an equal basis with Jews. Similarly, the

1 - Israel and the Arab World by Aharon Cohen, p. 530. Published 1964.


Ministry of Labour set up nine labour committees for Arab

workers in Nazareth, Acre, Umm al-Fahm, Tayyiba, Baqa

al-Gharbiya, Jaffa, Lydda, Ramla and Haifa, under the direct

control and supervision of the Ministry of Labour. But this

measure did not result in any basic improvement in the con¬

ditions of Arab workers. The great majority of them, who

could not join these committees, remained unorganised, and

had no protection from sudden dismissal. These committees

themselves provided very little work for Arab workers and

the majority were obliged to find jobs through their own per¬

sonal efforts. The turning point in the history of Arab workers

in Israel was 16 January 1959, when the Histadrut decided

to allow Arab workers to join it on a basis of equal rights and

obligations with Jewish workers. This decision came into force

at the beginning of 1960, when the Histadrut began to accept

Arabs as members. By the end of 1962, there were 36,000

Arab members of the Histadrut.

In spite of this, the general situation of Arab workers

has not greatly improved. The majority of them, especially

those who work in the Triangle and Galilee, do not officially

belong to any labour organisation; they are obliged to find

work by their own efforts and have no protection from dis¬

missal and unemployment. The result is that there has always

been more unemployment among Arabs than Jews.

Another problem facing Arab workers is the shortage of

work in the places where they live. Many of them are obliged

to travel long distances every day to their places of work,

with the resulting loss of time, money and peace of mind.

Many of them spend the night in the distant places where

they work, in extremely bad conditions, only returning to

their homes once a week or once a month. These may be

called “itinerant workers;” they constitute half of the total

Arab labour force in Israel. Out of 54,000 workers, 27,000

are itinerant; 23,500 out of the total are men, 69 per cent of

them live in villages, 13 per cent belong to the Arab cities

of Nazareth and Shafa Amr; 10 per cent to Bedouin tribes,

while the remaining 8 per cent live in towns and suburbs;

34 per cent of these itinerant workers work in agriculture,

forestry and fishing, 24 per cent in the building trade, 22 per


cent in factories, mines and quarries, and 20 per cent in

public services. (Table 10)

Nor can there said to be anything like true equality

between Arab and Jewish workers as regards the kind of

jobs they get, for as the table 10 shows, all the harder and

less well paid jobs are held by Arabs.

However, the number of Arab workers is gradually in¬

creasing, and their situation is gradually improving. Many

of them belong to organisations which provide social assist¬

ance, insurance and other services, but these have not reached

the standard of development of the Jewish labour associations.

This is because, as far as the Arabs are concerned, the possi¬

bilities of progress, and the extent of the vocational, cultural

and social aid provided for them bears no comparison to the

aid received by Jewish workers in the same fields. The unem¬

ployment rate is also higher among Arabs than Jews, and the

fact that Arab workers still have to obtain movement and

work permits issued by the Military Government constitutes

a practical problem that cannot be left out of account, espe¬

cially with regard to work in certain highly developed areas.

There are many reasons for the increased number of

Arab non-agricultural workers. These include the lack of

Arab agricultural land, the increase in the Arab population

and the small income they derive from Arab agriculture and

the drift of young Arabs, most of whom have received inter¬

mediate or elementary education, from the villages to the

towns, where they automatically come to form part of the

the urban working class.

Behind these developments there is a fundamental and

comprehensive plan drawn up by the Israeli Government,

which started to put it into execution in 1958. The object of

this scheme is to sever relations between the basically agri¬

cultural society of the Arabs of Israel, and mechanised agri¬

culture, in order to facilitate the acquisition of Arab land.

So all sorts of obstacles have been put in the way of Arab

agricultural development and the Arab village in general,

and the drift to the town has been systematically encouraged

in such a manner as to ensure the complete success of the

policy.

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5. Development and Services

The picture we have drawn of the life of the Arabs in

Israel in the fields of education, agriculture and labour, con¬

tinues through all the various facets of their lives. In the first

few years after the establishment of the State, the Ministry

of the Interior did not permit elections to Arab municipalities

or local councils, allegedly on grounds connected with the

security and safety of the state, and when these bugbears

were no longer valid, it was with the utmost reluctance and

hesitation that the Ministry of the Interior started to permit

any activity in this field.

In fact, the Ministry of the Interior’s activities have been

restricted to the formation of 11 local authorities between

1950 and 1953, nine local councils between 1953 and 1959,

and ten more local councils between 1959 and 1962.1 This shows that, in 1961, in nearly 57 per cent of the areas inhabited

by Arabs, where 38 per cent of the total Arab population live, there was no municipal representation at all as against 2.3 per

cent of the Jewish colonies, inhabited by 0.43 per cent of the

total Jewish population. This may be seen from the following

table.

In its report on Arab municipalities and local councils

submitted to the Knesset on 28 March 1963, the Knesset

Internal Affairs Committee claimed that there were no such

councils in 70 Arab villages, or in about 60 per cent of the

total area inhabited by Arabs.

It is obvious that such a situation is bound to impede

the progress of the Arab village and paralyse its development.

Many members of the Arab local councils are appointed by

the Ministry of the Interior for reasons of favouritism, without

any sort of prior consultation with the local inhabitants. Many

of these councils, too, stop operating shortly after they are

appointed, because of differences between their members, and

because of the intrigues of the Military Government and the

Ministries of Defence and the Interior, so that every member

of an Arab local council works exclusively for the interests of

1 - Israel Government Yearbook, 1963, p. 290; 1964, p. 317.


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his own group. The result is chaos, and the employees of the

Ministry of the Interior are only too delighted to say that the

Arabs are incapable of organising themselves.

Similarly, the absence of any local authorities in many

Arab villages stands in the way of building and construction

operations in these villages, for it is impossible to demarcate

boundaries or survey the building sites. Moreover, it is quite

normal for a whole year to pass before the villagers receive

replies to their requests for building permits. Such requests

are dealt with by the administrative departments, which do

not begin to issue building permits before a year and a half

or two years have elapsed. As a result, nearly 4,000 houses

have been built in Arab villages without permits and the

authorities are now threatening to demolish them. More than

two thousand demolition orders have already been approved.

All of this clearly illustrates the low standard of living

in the Arab village.

Electricity has so far been installed in only a few Arab

villages. The Arab village of Tayyiba in the Triangle was the

first to have electricity in 1955. By 5 April 1961, lines had

been laid to five more Arab villages, and during the last three

years, a few more have received electricity supplies.

The standards of the postal services are on a par with

the electricity service. There is only one post office, one

branch office and fifteen postal sub-divisions amongst all the

Arab villages. Thirty Arab villages are linked by a mobile

postal service, while 59 villages, including Bedouin encamp¬

ments, have no postal services whatsoever.

There are telephone services in 26 Arab villages—one

quarter of all the Arab villages in the country.

The situation as regards the health services in the Arab

villages has somewhat improved. Health centres and dispen¬

saries have been established in many Arab areas of the coun¬

try, including the Bedouin encampments, and the mortality

rate, especially among infants, has declined. All the same, the

standard of the health services provided to Arabs is by no

means as high as is the case with Jews. For example, many

Arab villages, especially in the Khudaira and Acre area, have


no dispensaries, and in some of these villages there is no doc¬

tor, nurse, or pharmacist within easy reach. No medical

services are provided for Arab mothers and infants in 46 Arab

villages, although there are schools in 40 of them. In 5 villages

in the Acre area the villagers have not been vaccinated, and,

in the year 1963-1964 no doctor or nurse visited 17 villages

in the Acre area, although the medical services do cover these

villages. Although the government has ordered the Ministry of

Health to provide medical services for 82 of the Arab villages,

this has not been done.

We are now in a position to appreciate the facts about

the situation of the Arab villages in Israel, and to understand

the reasons for the high infant mortality rate—for example

in 1964, 15 infants died of measles in the Arab village of

Kisra, in Galilee.

As regards other vital amenities, roads have been built

and water pipes laid to some Arab villages in return for the

payment of very large sums of money by the villagers.

A comparison between the services provided to Arabs

and Jews clearly shows how great the discrimination has been.

Arab standards approach those of the Jews only in the case

of prison services. There are many more Arab prisoners than

Jewish prisoners; this is particularly so with offenders against

the Defence and Emergency laws.

Ever since the establishment of Israel, a great deal has

been said about the progress achieved by the Arabs living in

Israel, and about the great developments that have been

carried out on their behalf—developments, it is claimed,

which are unparalleled in any other Middle Eastern country—

and about the democratic methods of government employed

to deal with the Arabs. Completely unfounded statements

have been issued in support of these claims. We do not wish

to issue statements contradicting them, or indeed any state¬

ment as lacking either in good sense or good taste as those

made by the government of Israel. The extraordinary thing

is that these statements should have been made by official

Israeli spokesmen with the probable object of deceiving Arabs,

Jews and world opinion alike.


In this connection, mention must be made of the fact

that the “progress’5 and “development55 of which Israel is so

fond of boasting, do not, in fact, reach the minimal level of

the services that any country is expected to provide for its

subjects, if only to maintain a certain prestige in the eyes of

others, or as part of the services provided by the state to its

subjects in return for the obligations it requires from them.

There is no comparison between these services and what has

been taken or stolen from the Arabs in Israel. Admittedly,

the standard of living of a great part of the Arabs living in

Israel has improved, especially since the demand for labour

in all fields of activity in the country has grown, but it must

be pointed out that the slightest deterioration in any of these

fields will be felt by the Arabs only, and will do them extensive

damage.

Moreover, the progress, services and minor projects have

only been provided for the Arabs in Israel as a by-product

of the many development projects devised principally for the

benefit of the Jewish colonies, and we have no knowledge of

any project being drafted with the primary object of benefiting

the Arabs.

CONCLUSION

In the foregoing chapters we have seen that the policy

towards the Arabs in Israel has been nothing more nor less

than one aspect of the systematic Zionist policy followed vis-

a-vis the Arabs in general, and that the policies of military

government, racial discrimination and repression are all

different aspects of this same policy.

Both the domestic and foreign policies of Israel reflect

the utter and devastating failure of Israeli and Zionist policy.

For while the failure of the foreign policy towards the Arab

countries can be ascribed to external reasons unconnected

with Israeli influence or control, the failure of their domestic

policy towards the Arabs living in the country is the direct

result of Israel’s faulty management, of its negative attitude

and of the destructive activities of its rulers. There are par¬

ticular individuals in Israel who are largely responsible for

this deplorable situation. They have been the force behind

Zionism for many years; they conceived the idea of the

Jewish State and led it after it was established. Among them

is David Ben Gurion himself, who is one of the men who

devised the nervous system of the State of Israel, basing it

on a concept that has long been dear to him and which is

dear to many of today’s Israeli leaders—hatred of the Arabs

and all things Arab. No other intelligent political leader has

been so completely dominated by an idea as he has been

by this.

On April 30, 1958 the newspaper Haaretz published a

report which revealed Ben Gurion’s real attitude to the Arabs.

“Ben Gurion,” it said, “refused the identity card issued to

him because it was written in Arabic as well as Hebrew.”

Commenting on this report in the periodical, Haolam Hazeh,

on 7 April 1958, Uri Avneri wrote: “Ben Gurion has always

been utterly reactionary in his opposition to anything Arab.


The Prime Minister of Israel has never visited an Arab town

or village since the establishment of the State. (In July 1959

he visited the Druse village of Julis in a helicopter.) When

he visited the Jewish town of Upper Nazareth, he refused to

visit Arab Nazareth, only a few hundred metres away from

the Jewish town. In the first ten years after the establishment

of the State, Ben Gurion did not receive a single delegation

of Arab citizens, though, under party pressure he did con¬

descend to receive the Arab members of the Knesset who

were subservient to the Mapai; this was his only meeting

with Arabs, and during it he made them insincere promises.

In December 1958 he met these deputies for the second time,

on the occasion of the elections. Ben Gurion, who learned

Greek so as to be able to read Plato, and Spanish so as to be

able to read Cervantes, has never found it necessary to learn

Arabic, so as to read about the splendid treasures of Arab

civilization. And although it is now 53 years since he came

to Israel, he has never understood one word printed in the

Arabic press or broadcast over the Arabic radio.55

When he visited the Negev, he insisted on the immediate

removal of a signpost bearing the Arabic name, Ain Ghadban,

saying that he found this Arabic name disagreeable. And

when he was asked, in the colony of Bir Ora in the Negev,

what the old Arabic name of the site of the colony was, he

replied: CT don’t know and I don’t want to know.”

His refusal of the identity card was just another illustra¬

tion of David Ben Gurion’s fanatical hatred of the Arabs.

For we have never heard of him refusing a passport because

it was written in French as well as Plebrew. But French is

certainly a foreign language whereas Arabic is an official

language in Israel, however much Ben Gurion may despise it.

It cannot be said that Ben Gurion bears the responsibility

for Israel’s anti-Arab policy alone; he has advisers, assistants

and directors who are even more extremist in their ideas,

which they hold to this day, and it is they who have been

directing Israel’s policy since Ben Gurion retired. But it was

he who switched on the green light, and no one has turned

it off. On the pretext of protecting the security and safety of


the State of Israel, its government’s policy towards the Arabs

has involved the imposition of a dictatorial military govern¬

ment, which has oppressed the Arabs, destroyed all possi¬

bility of a rapprochement with the Jews, and increased their

contempt and hatred for the Israeli Government.

We have no intention of discussing any further the Arab

attitude to the Military Government, or the loathing they

feel for it. We do, however, wish to repeat our statement that

this form of government has made no contribution whatsoever

to the safety and security of Israel, that it has not served the

true interests of the State, and that it is completely incompat¬

ible with the constitutional practice of democratic countries.

In order to settle and absorb Jewish immigrants in Israel,

hundreds of thousands of dunums of good Arab agricultural

land have been expropriated. The government has simply

ignored the inevitable and disastrous reactions of the Arab

world to such Israeli actions.

The Israeli Government’s aim in the imposition of

military government and the expropriation of Arab lands

are obvious, but the reasons for the repression of the Arabs,

the government’s negative attitude to Arab education, Arab

men of education and workers, to the development of the

Arab village and to progress in all other fields of Arab life,

all seem to us incomprehensible. It would seem that the

basis for this attitude lies in hatred for the Arabs and a lack

of understanding of the situation of the Arabs in Israel in

particular and of what is going on in the Arab world in

general. What is plainly needed is a policy with clearly

defined aims. In the absence of such a policy it is only pos¬

sible to study certain Israeli political attitudes in the context

of certain sensitive psychological factors. If the rulers of Israel

really wanted to defend their country’s safety and security,

did they really need to impose military government on the

Arab population? Is not the Intelligence Bureau of the

Ministry of Defence (the Sheif Beit) capable of doing this

task by itself? Many countries are faced by security problems

much graver than those which confront Israel, but they have

not found it necessary to impose a system of military govern¬

ment based on national and racial discrimination.


If the object of these measures is to absorb Jewish im¬

migrants and re-settle them on expropriated Arab land,

should they not have considered the probable Arab reaction ?

The area of land so far expropriated from the Arabs con¬

stitutes only about five per cent of the total area of Israel,

but this plundering provides clear evidence of Israel’s nefar¬

ious intentions to expand and liquidate the Arab entity in

the country. Further evidence of a policy of racial discrim¬

ination aimed at impairing the “Arab presence” in the State

of Israel, is provided by the Nationality Law passed in 1952.

This law contains entirely different provisions for the granting

of citizenship to Jews and Arabs. Jews are granted Israeli

citizenship automatically, by virtue of the “Return Law” of

1950, but an Arab is considered to be an Israeli citizen only

if a) He was registered as a resident in Israel on 1/3/1952,

by virtue of the Population Registration Law of 1949,

b) He was resident in Israel on 1/4/1952, and c) He was,

from the date of the establishment of the State and until

1/4/1952 in Israel, or in an area that was attached to it after

the establishment of the State, or had entered Israel legally

during that period. This last provision resembles the provi¬

sions of the Law for the Acquisition of Absentees’ Property,

which we have already examined, and by virtue of which

thousands of Arab citizens resident in Israel to this day have

been declared absentees. It is on the basis of these provisions

that the Ministry of the Interior has refused to recognise the

nationality of Arabs, who, on the eve of the establishment of

Israel, happened to be in areas which were at the time outside

its frontiers, but were later occupied by Israeli forces or

annexed. These provisions remained in force until 1961,

when an inhabitant of the Arab village of Ana attacked them

in the Supreme Court, which gave judgement to the effect

that they were repressive and discriminatory, that they had

no proper legal foundation, and that they were devoid of

both reason and mercy. This was the first and only case of

its kind in which Arabs prevailed over a repressive law that

had been enacted to persecute them.1

1 - Case No. 3280/60, Jamal Musa vs. the Minister of the Interior. Judgements of the Supreme Court, 16, pp. 69-75.


The Knesset debate on the Citizenship Law should also

be mentioned. During this debate, Moshe Shapira, then

Minister of the Interior, referred to the important rights

granted to the Arabs when “the State granted automatic

Israeli citizenship to c63,000 foreigners’ who were registered

on November 30, 1948.551 These “foreigners” had been born

in the country where they and their ancestors had lived for

hundreds of years before the establishment of the State of

Israel.

If the rulers of Israel wanted to bring about an Arab-

Jewish rapprochement, did they really think that this could

be brought about by a negative attitude to Arab education,

to Arab men of education and workers, and to Arab problems

as a whole? And what have been the results of this policy

based on neglect and repression of the Arabs in every field ?

It is not enough to say that nothing else was possible,

and that the State of Israel could have been created in no

other way. Such claims do not deceive the Arabs who have

remained in Israel. It is true that the majority of them do

not love the new government that came into existence over¬

night, and transformed them from a majority into a minority,

but many of them expected to live a comfortable life in the

new State, although they were well aware of the difficulties

and obstacles—national, political and social—that lay

ahead, obstacles which it would not be easy to surmount.

But the Israeli politicians did all in their power to ensure

that negative psychological factors should predominate, espe¬

cially amongst the young Arabs who were born and educated

under the control and supervision of the Jewish State.

In the debate on the Military Government in the Knesset

in 1963, Ben Gurion stated that “many members of the Arab

minority living in Israel do not regard themselves as a mi¬

nority; most of them think that it is the Jewish majority that

is the real minority, surrounded beyond the frontiers by tens

of millions of the peoples to which the Arab minority in

Israel belongs.”

If this is the case, does it make sense that the “Jewish

1 - The Knesset Debates, Vol. 6, p. 2134, 10 October 1950.


minority,55 surrounded, beyond the frontier, by tens of mil¬

lions of Arabs, should behave as it does to that part of the

Arab nation that lives in Israel? Does this Jewish majority

think that the overwhelming Arab majority will stand idly

by in the face of the policy of repression and racial discrimin¬

ation that is being enforced in Israel against their brother

Arabs ? That the Arabs will forgive the Military Government

laws or the theft and expropriation of Arab lands?

Moreover, if we go somewhat deeper into the matter,

another aspect becomes clear. The Arabs do not expect to

derive any special benefit from the establishment of a Jewish

State in the Middle East, and they feel that it is they who

are the losers; in contrast the Jews can talk day and night

of having “given the Old Testament to the World,55 of

“God’s chosen people,55 and of the “land of our fathers and

grandfathers.55

The Arabs find such ideas unimpressive, for their attitude

as Arab Nationalists also has a strong ideological basis. For

them the country is the Holy-Land, Palestine, continuously

inhabited by Arabs for 1200 years, and only dispossessed of

its inhabitants 17 years ago. To the Arabs, Palestine is part

of the great Arab homeland which stretches from one end

of the Arab World to the other.

OTHER PUBLICATIONS BY THE INSTITUTE

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Israeli Withdrawal from Sinai 1956-1957 (E) by Walid Abi-Mershed. 144 pages, 10 L.L.

United Nations Resolutions on Palestine 1947-1966 (E) Edited by Sami Hadawi. 228 pages, 9 L.L.

Documents on Palestinian Arab Resistance to the British Mandat* and Zionism 1918-1939 (A) Edited by A. Kayali. 700 page9, 30 L.L.

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River Without Bridges (E) A Study of the Exodus of the 1967 Palestinian Arab Refugees

by P. Dod*4 — * ® Barakat. 64 pa-es, 4.50 L.L.

The Pale* ine Question Seminar ot Arab jurists on Palestine, Algiers, 22-27, July, 1967 (E)

203 pages, L.L.

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