Israelis Under Fire – Not For The First Time
The recent fighting in Gaza and the south of Israel (Operation "Protective Edge") is not the first time Israeli townships and villages have been attacked by artillery of different sorts. Since the 50s, Jewish communities have been targets for this kind of aggression. The Kisufim, Nirim and Ein Ha'shlosha kibbutzim were bombarded by the Egyptian army (which occupied the Gaza strip after Israel's War of Independence in 1948) in April 1956. In response, the IDF retaliated by bombarding Egyptian targets and inflicted heavy losses on the Egyptians.
After the Sinai war in October 1956, the point of friction moved to northern Israel. The Syrian army, which controlled the Golan Heights overlooking the Hula valley villages and the eastern Galilee, harassed and bombarded the settlements with heavy artillery fire, and many firefights took place in the years 1958–1967.
One of these firefights, on April 7, 1967, deteriorated into a full battle in which the Israeli air force destroyed Syrian artillery batteries, tanks and fortified positions that had bombarded the Gadot and Eib Gev kibbutzim. When the Syrian air force tried to intervene, seven Syrian fighter planes were shot down--several over Damascus itself. Many believe that this incident was a catalyst to the entrance of the Egyptian army into Sinai on May 15, 1967, and three weeks later to the Six Day War.
Following the Six Day War, the settlements in the upper Jordan valley became victims of rocket and mortar fire from Palestinian terrorists, who turned northern Jordan into their stronghold. The Jordanian army and the Iraqi expeditionary force (based in Jordan since the Six Day War) joined in and bombarded kibbutzim such as Ashdot Ya'acov, Sha'ar Ha'golan and Masada, as well as Moshavim (villages) such as Yardena and Beit Yosef. The inhabitants of these communities spent long days and nights in bomb shelters, while the IDF retaliated with artillery fire, tank shells and air force strikes. Here's a part of a newsreel in Hebrew, showing the damage done by the Jordanian artillery and Israeli airstrikes to silence the guns.
Following the intensification of the fire, the Israeli air force bombed the bases of the Iraqi expeditionary force in northern Jordan and inflicted heavy losses. (The Iraqi government used this attack as an excuse to further harass and abuse the remaining Jews in Iraq. This harassment culminated in the hanging of nine Jews in January 1969, as we wrote about previously). The air force bombed the East Ghor Main Canal – a central water project in Northern Jordan. Following the bombings, which rendered the canal useless, King Hussein asked the USA to intervene and stop the bombings and Israel announced that it would do so if the King fought the terrorist organizations. In September 1970, the King did just that when he expelled the Palestinian terrorist organizations and ordered the Iraqi expeditionary force back to Iraq.
The next people to be shelled were the residents of Israel's northern border, especially those who bordered Lebanon. As early as 1968, Palestinian terrorists shelled Kiryat Shmona, Nahariya and other northern towns and villages.
The expulsion of the Palestinian terrorists from Jordan to Lebanon intensified the rate of attacks on Israel's northern border communities. The IDF retaliated in raids, artillery fire and air strikes. This situation continued through the 70s to the early 80s.
In the early 1980s, the PLO's artillery barrages on Israel's northern border escalated, after the organization started using real artillery--Soviet 130mm cannons and heavier rockets. The First Lebanon War (Operation Peace for Galilee: June 1982 – June 1985) eliminated this threat to the northern border. Later on, when the clashes with the Hezbollah terror organization intensified in southern Lebanon, the threat of rocket fire on the northern border became real again. In 1993 and 1996, in Operations "Accountability" and "Grapes of Wrath" (respectively), the IDF concentrated air and artillery strikes to stop Hezbollah from shooting rockets at northern Israel.
After Israel's unilateral withdrawal from south Lebanon in May 2000, Hezbollah enlarged its rocket stockpile and unleashed it on the northern Israeli communities during the Second Lebanon War (July 12, 2006 – August 14, 2006). Since then, the northern border has remained quiet--aside from several incidents of rocket fire, usually from Palestinian organizations.
On January 30, 2001, an improvised rocket was shot at the Netzarim settlement near Gaza. The Hamas terror organization that fired it nicknamed it "Qassam" after the 30s gang leader Izz ad-Din al-Qassam. In April 2001, the first rocket was fired at Sderot. Since then, thousands of rockets, ever improving in payload and range, have been shot at Israel. The IDF has responded to the rockets with air strikes, artillery fire, and three major air and land operations: Operation "Cast Lead" (Dec. 12, 2008 – Jan. 18, 2009), Operation "Pillar of Defense" (Nov. 14, 2012 – Nov. 21, 2012) and the current Operation "Protective Edge" which started on July 8, 2014.
Every decade in Israel's history finds one part of the country or another under artillery fire, and all Israelis continue to share in this hard chapter of Israel's struggle for peace and quiet.
After the Sinai war in October 1956, the point of friction moved to northern Israel. The Syrian army, which controlled the Golan Heights overlooking the Hula valley villages and the eastern Galilee, harassed and bombarded the settlements with heavy artillery fire, and many firefights took place in the years 1958–1967.
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| An Israeli artillery battery in the Galilee (Israel State Archives) |
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| Examining the damage of an artillery shell in Tel Katzir kibbutz (GPO |
Following the Six Day War, the settlements in the upper Jordan valley became victims of rocket and mortar fire from Palestinian terrorists, who turned northern Jordan into their stronghold. The Jordanian army and the Iraqi expeditionary force (based in Jordan since the Six Day War) joined in and bombarded kibbutzim such as Ashdot Ya'acov, Sha'ar Ha'golan and Masada, as well as Moshavim (villages) such as Yardena and Beit Yosef. The inhabitants of these communities spent long days and nights in bomb shelters, while the IDF retaliated with artillery fire, tank shells and air force strikes. Here's a part of a newsreel in Hebrew, showing the damage done by the Jordanian artillery and Israeli airstrikes to silence the guns.
Following the intensification of the fire, the Israeli air force bombed the bases of the Iraqi expeditionary force in northern Jordan and inflicted heavy losses. (The Iraqi government used this attack as an excuse to further harass and abuse the remaining Jews in Iraq. This harassment culminated in the hanging of nine Jews in January 1969, as we wrote about previously). The air force bombed the East Ghor Main Canal – a central water project in Northern Jordan. Following the bombings, which rendered the canal useless, King Hussein asked the USA to intervene and stop the bombings and Israel announced that it would do so if the King fought the terrorist organizations. In September 1970, the King did just that when he expelled the Palestinian terrorist organizations and ordered the Iraqi expeditionary force back to Iraq.
The next people to be shelled were the residents of Israel's northern border, especially those who bordered Lebanon. As early as 1968, Palestinian terrorists shelled Kiryat Shmona, Nahariya and other northern towns and villages.
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| Residents of Kiryat Shmona after a rocket attack in 1968 (Israel State Archives |
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| Golda Meir at the funeral of Daniel Khayo, slain in a rocket attack on Kiryat Shmona in May 1970 (GPO) |
The expulsion of the Palestinian terrorists from Jordan to Lebanon intensified the rate of attacks on Israel's northern border communities. The IDF retaliated in raids, artillery fire and air strikes. This situation continued through the 70s to the early 80s.
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| Children hide in a bomb shelter in Nahariya during a rocket attack on the city in 1979 (GPO) |
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| Residents of Nahariya in a bomb shelter during a rocket attack in 1979 (GPO) |
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| A direct hit in a house in Nahariya, June 1982 (Israel State Archive) |
In the early 1980s, the PLO's artillery barrages on Israel's northern border escalated, after the organization started using real artillery--Soviet 130mm cannons and heavier rockets. The First Lebanon War (Operation Peace for Galilee: June 1982 – June 1985) eliminated this threat to the northern border. Later on, when the clashes with the Hezbollah terror organization intensified in southern Lebanon, the threat of rocket fire on the northern border became real again. In 1993 and 1996, in Operations "Accountability" and "Grapes of Wrath" (respectively), the IDF concentrated air and artillery strikes to stop Hezbollah from shooting rockets at northern Israel.
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| Clearing the rubble after a rocket attack on Kiryat Shmona, August 1993 (GPO) |
After Israel's unilateral withdrawal from south Lebanon in May 2000, Hezbollah enlarged its rocket stockpile and unleashed it on the northern Israeli communities during the Second Lebanon War (July 12, 2006 – August 14, 2006). Since then, the northern border has remained quiet--aside from several incidents of rocket fire, usually from Palestinian organizations.
On January 30, 2001, an improvised rocket was shot at the Netzarim settlement near Gaza. The Hamas terror organization that fired it nicknamed it "Qassam" after the 30s gang leader Izz ad-Din al-Qassam. In April 2001, the first rocket was fired at Sderot. Since then, thousands of rockets, ever improving in payload and range, have been shot at Israel. The IDF has responded to the rockets with air strikes, artillery fire, and three major air and land operations: Operation "Cast Lead" (Dec. 12, 2008 – Jan. 18, 2009), Operation "Pillar of Defense" (Nov. 14, 2012 – Nov. 21, 2012) and the current Operation "Protective Edge" which started on July 8, 2014.
Every decade in Israel's history finds one part of the country or another under artillery fire, and all Israelis continue to share in this hard chapter of Israel's struggle for peace and quiet.
Sunday, January 12, 2014
Ariel Sharon, 1928-2014, Israel's Eleventh Prime Minister: Three Recordings from his Military Career
On January 11, 2014, Ariel "Arik" Sharon passed away, after being in a coma for eight years. Sharon was Israel's eleventh prime minister, a government minister, a Knesset member representing the Likud, and the founder and leader of the Kadima party, Before entering politics he was a general in the IDF, one of the commanders of the paratroopers unit, founder of the 101 special unit and OC Southern Command.
In memory of Sharon, the Israel State Archives presents here two video clips and one audio recording from the period of his service in the Southern Command. In December 1969, Sharon was appointed to command Israel's southern front, at the height of the War of Attrition between Israel and Egypt on the Suez Canal. Sharon introduced more dynamic defensive methods, rather than the static approach represented by the Bar Lev line of outposts along the Canal. In August 1970, a ceasefire was reached between Israel and Egypt. In 1971, Sharon carried out a major operation against terrorism in the Gaza Strip, using aggressive methods and harsh measures which aroused considerable criticism. He succeeded in almost entirely eradicating the terrorists and bringing peace and quiet to the Strip. Sharon remained in Southern Command until July 1973, when he was replaced by Shmuel Gorodish Gonen.
The first films shows a visit to an outpost on the Suez Canal by Defense Minister Moshe Dayan accompanied by Maj. General Sharon in August 1971:
The second clip is an audio recording in Hebrew of commanders in the Six Day War talking about their experiences and the reasons for the victory, among them Arik Sharon, then a division commander (June 1967):
The final recording shows OC Southern Command Sharon visiting a Bedouin encampment, accompanied by Gorodish and other officers, and awarding a war ribbon to one of the inhabitants (November 1972):
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| OC Southern Command Sharon gives an explanation to former Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion on a visit to the lines near the Suez Canal, 27 January 1971. (Photograph: IDF Spokesman, Government Press Office) |
The first films shows a visit to an outpost on the Suez Canal by Defense Minister Moshe Dayan accompanied by Maj. General Sharon in August 1971:
The second clip is an audio recording in Hebrew of commanders in the Six Day War talking about their experiences and the reasons for the victory, among them Arik Sharon, then a division commander (June 1967):
The final recording shows OC Southern Command Sharon visiting a Bedouin encampment, accompanied by Gorodish and other officers, and awarding a war ribbon to one of the inhabitants (November 1972):
Wednesday, August 7, 2013
"Stop the cheap laborers!"
On September 18, 1967, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Labor Yigal Allon wrote a short letter to the ministers of defense (Moshe Dayan) and police (Eliyahu Sasson) alerting them to the danger of large numbers of laborers from the newly-controlled territories entering Israel in search of work. They're illegal, he wrote, they undercut the wages of Israeli laborers, and of course they're a security threat. The Labor Bureau is trying to halt their entry, but the employers are disregarding its efforts. There's been a meeting of top officials, but no effective solution has been identified. It appears that the only way to combat the phenomenon is for the police and the army to prevent these laborers from leaving the territories.
Yes, well. As anyone who knew Israel in the 1970s and 1980s can attest, large numbers of mostly unskilled Palestinians from the territories were a central part of Israel's economy in those days, mostly in construction and low-level services. In the 1990s and afterwards this changed, but that's a different story.
Yes, well. As anyone who knew Israel in the 1970s and 1980s can attest, large numbers of mostly unskilled Palestinians from the territories were a central part of Israel's economy in those days, mostly in construction and low-level services. In the 1990s and afterwards this changed, but that's a different story.
Monday, June 24, 2013
Should Israel Subsidize an Arab Newspaper for the West Bank?
We're still looking into the issue of Israel's relations with the Palestinians after the Six Day War. Here's the top secret transcript of a meeting of the Cabinet subcommittee on the West Bank (there was such a thing), from December 24, 1967 (Christmas isn't on Israelis' calender, and certainly not in the 1960s). The participants included Prime Minister Levi Eshkol and ministers Moshe Dayan, Abba Eban, and Eliyahu Sasson, along with the high-ranking officials Dr. Yaacov Herzog, Gideon Refael, Colonel Shlomo Gazit, and Moshe Sasson (Eliyahu's son). The backdrop to the discussion was Moshe Sasson's report on his talks with public figures on the WB (which we've posted on).
The discussion dealt mostly with two issues, both conveyed to the ministers from prominent West Bank figures via Moshe Sasson - which is in itself an interesting finding. In late 1967, the local Palestinian leadership had a conduit to Israel's government, and was using it.
The first issue, and as it transpired, the easy one, was whether to allow a West Bank delegation to travel to the upcoming Arab summit. After a few minutes of debate, everyone in the room agreed to allow the delegation to travel. Everyone accepted that the summit would be stridently anti-Israel, and that the WB delegates would come back with their heads filled with invective; however, they also thought the the mere fact of having people at the summit who knew from close up that the Israelis weren't monsters might be novel; they also hoped it might strengthen King Hussein's hand in his quest for legitimacy to negotiate with Israel. Having made the decision to OK the delegation, the ministers excused themselves from deliberating Moshe Sasson's request to have a position regarding Palestinian self-rule: Let's wait and see what happens on the main track, they said.
The second issue was a bit trickier because it offered various alternatives, not a yes-or-no decision. Moshe Sasson related how prior to the war there had been two newspapers, Jihad and Palestine, which had managed to exist only because the Jordanian government had subsidized them; without that subsidy they had gone out of business, leaving the field open to the hostile communist paper. Might Israel perhaps be interested in the two papers re-opening, possibly under different names? The cost would be about IL 20,000 a month for each, and the subsidy could happen, as in Jordanian times, in the form of purchasing advertisement space. In such a setup, the papers would obviously have to be anti-Israeli, but they could be less so than the existing independent papers, and might even offer some space to friendlier voices.
The technique of opening the papers, by the way, as suggested by their publishers, would be in the form of a demand by the military governor that they desist from their "strike".
The ministers didn't have a clear position about the Arab newspapers. Some of them didn't think the covert subsidy was a bad idea, and even said that Israel's control should be as light as possible. Others felt it would be better to openly create a serious Arabic-language newspaper published in Israel, perhaps even with a Jewish editor. This raised the issue of censorship: in those days Israeli newspapers were all subject to censorship, and how would that appear with an Israeli Arabic newspaper? Moshe Dayan pointed out that Jerusalem had been annexed to Israel, so there was no military governor to put on the charade of ending a "strike". Which then raised the question of whether the paper - in whatever form - should appear in Ramallah or Nablus rather than Jerusalem. The argument went back and forth and back, until Dayan said they couldn't make a decision and Eshkol, in typical Eshkol form, allowed the matter to be postponed for some other day.
The discussion dealt mostly with two issues, both conveyed to the ministers from prominent West Bank figures via Moshe Sasson - which is in itself an interesting finding. In late 1967, the local Palestinian leadership had a conduit to Israel's government, and was using it.
The first issue, and as it transpired, the easy one, was whether to allow a West Bank delegation to travel to the upcoming Arab summit. After a few minutes of debate, everyone in the room agreed to allow the delegation to travel. Everyone accepted that the summit would be stridently anti-Israel, and that the WB delegates would come back with their heads filled with invective; however, they also thought the the mere fact of having people at the summit who knew from close up that the Israelis weren't monsters might be novel; they also hoped it might strengthen King Hussein's hand in his quest for legitimacy to negotiate with Israel. Having made the decision to OK the delegation, the ministers excused themselves from deliberating Moshe Sasson's request to have a position regarding Palestinian self-rule: Let's wait and see what happens on the main track, they said.
The second issue was a bit trickier because it offered various alternatives, not a yes-or-no decision. Moshe Sasson related how prior to the war there had been two newspapers, Jihad and Palestine, which had managed to exist only because the Jordanian government had subsidized them; without that subsidy they had gone out of business, leaving the field open to the hostile communist paper. Might Israel perhaps be interested in the two papers re-opening, possibly under different names? The cost would be about IL 20,000 a month for each, and the subsidy could happen, as in Jordanian times, in the form of purchasing advertisement space. In such a setup, the papers would obviously have to be anti-Israeli, but they could be less so than the existing independent papers, and might even offer some space to friendlier voices.
The technique of opening the papers, by the way, as suggested by their publishers, would be in the form of a demand by the military governor that they desist from their "strike".
The ministers didn't have a clear position about the Arab newspapers. Some of them didn't think the covert subsidy was a bad idea, and even said that Israel's control should be as light as possible. Others felt it would be better to openly create a serious Arabic-language newspaper published in Israel, perhaps even with a Jewish editor. This raised the issue of censorship: in those days Israeli newspapers were all subject to censorship, and how would that appear with an Israeli Arabic newspaper? Moshe Dayan pointed out that Jerusalem had been annexed to Israel, so there was no military governor to put on the charade of ending a "strike". Which then raised the question of whether the paper - in whatever form - should appear in Ramallah or Nablus rather than Jerusalem. The argument went back and forth and back, until Dayan said they couldn't make a decision and Eshkol, in typical Eshkol form, allowed the matter to be postponed for some other day.
Thursday, June 13, 2013
Moshe Sasson Talks to Palestinians, December 1967
The other day we posted a barely legible document about discussions held by Levi Eshkol's special envoy to the territories in 1967. Well, it didn't take long for us to dig up a copy of better quality, one that can be effortlessly read.
The post earlier this work deciphered the cover letter. Here's a summary of the 7-page report itself, dated December 15, 1967.
Introductory comments:
I've held 36 conversations with 32 public figures in Jerusalem, Ramallah, Hebron, and Bethlehem. They belong to many different political groups, and some unaffiliated. I haven't yet met religious Muslim leaders because it's Ramadan.
No-one refuses to meet me. On the contrary, some ask why I invited them so late. They are obviously talking among themselves and exchanging notes, though they're still presenting me with their own particular positions.
They all wish to know what our positions are, and often seem disappointed when I tell them I'm mostly listening.
They all see my talks with them as a sort of recognition of the Palestinians, though they attribute different sorts of significance to this; some wonder if we're intending to create an independent Palestinian entity.
Political background:
The local Palestinian political scene is lively, and they're in regular contact with other Arabs in Jordan and elsewhere.
Many of them are fed up with the Arab world, and are eager to change their own position. They may be a force we should deal with.
The current events are something of a distraction. Nasser's recent speech, the intended arrival of Gunnar Jahring, the UN emissary and other immediate events are grabbing much of their attention.
Common denominations
There is a rough consensus among most of them, with the exception of the communists, the Baath nationalists, and the PLO.
1. They don't want to remain in their current condition under Israeli military rule.
2. They're tired of violence and have no expectations Nasser will be able to help them.
3. If Nasser thinks time is on the side of the Arabs, he's wrong.
4. They don't want to go back to the situation before the war. If there's no other option, they'd prefer Israel to leave as part of an agreement.
5. They don't wish to live in a Palestinian ghetto inside Israel. They regard the status of Israel's Arab citizens as one of a "spiritual prison".
They mostly agree about what they don't want. There's less agreement about what they do want.
Israel's image:
1. They're pleasantly surprised that Israel isn't at all like they were described during 19 years of propaganda. "You're the same people we lived with under the British Mandate."
2. The PLO is hurting the good atmosphere, but so are some Israeli actions.
3. They have the suspicion that Israel seeks to expand and take over the entire land; they also think Israel will try to impose peace; they are mystified by Israel's demand for direct negotiations with Arab nations.
The Baath and the Communists:
They are fiercely against any peace settlement. My interlocutors can't understand why Israel is allowing them such a free hand. Those [among the communists and Baath] I've talked to state that there can be no settlement with the Palestinians unless there's a settlement with the entire Arab world. Yet since the general public will is for a settlement, they're using terminology that conceals their true positions.
Supporters of a Palestinian State:
There is potentially broad support for this option, yet it's always the second alternative. Each of them has a preferred settlement, an independent Palestine being only their fall-back plan. Many of the leaders I spoke with have vested interests in Jordanian rule or other options, and they fear for their status if there's a new and independent Palestine. They remember the [internal Palestinian violence of ] the 1930s, and they're afraid. Many are also waiting: if Israel comes out clearly in favor of this option it will change the dynamic. In the meantime they're under external pressure and from the Soviets.
They're afraid of appearing as Israeli lackeys, though some wonder if they might use the UN plan of 1947 as legitimisation to speak of an independent Palestine.
Jerusalem must be the joint capital of the two countries - but undivided.
The Position of the Main Leaders:
They are willing, though reluctant, to serve as mediators between Israel and the Arab leadership abroad, but they want to know what our intentions are.
Supporters of a Temporary Settlement:
No matter what they do, they'll be accused of working for Israel, they claim. So some are wondering if Israel might grant them some form of autonomy from which they will be able to build a stronger position.
Outliers:
1. The Arabs are mistaken in not immediately entering negotiations with Israel, so as to demonstrate its lack of sincerity.
2. Israel should annex the entire territory, so that they're be a single state for both nations.
3. There should be a three-way federation [Israel-Palestine-Jordan] with Jerusalem as its capital.
4. The West Bank should be a separate canton within Jordan.
Monday, June 10, 2013
Moshe Sasson Talks to Palestinians
We recently mentioned that there seems to have been quite a bit of conversation going on after the Six Day War between high Israeli officials and public figures on the West Bank. Here's what appears to be a highly significant document, though it's unusually frustrating, too. It's a seven-page report by Moshe Sasson to Prime Minister Levy Eshkol from December 13, 1967, behind a cover letter from December 15; it's a summary of his discussions with 33 prominent Arabs in Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza over the preceding month. Sasson, a Damascus-born diplomat and son of cabinet member Eliyahu Sasson, eventually went on to serve for seven years as Israel's ambassador to Cairo; in late 1967, he was serving as Eshkol's special advisor on the population of the West Bank. He spoke perfect Arabic, of course.
The problem is, the document's almost illegible. The copy in this particular file is a low-quality xerox copy of a low-quality carbon copy (remember those?). The first page is more or less decipherable, but the rest - hardly. So I've sent a description of the document to a clutch of our more knowledgeable staffers, and asked them if they can find one of the originals. There are more than 150,000 boxes of documents in the ISA, with an average of 15-20 files per box; a file can contain one document, or ten, or fifty. Which means we've got something like 30-60,000,000 documents (and roughly 300,000,000 pages). The current database of descriptions relates to files, not documents, so the only way to find a specific document is to be very experienced and lucky, both.
In the hope that by next week I'll have the original in my hand, I've given up on the deciphering for today. I'm posting the document so that it will be out there - readers who wish are welcome to have a go at it. In the meantime, here's a summary of the content of the cover letter, from December 15, 1967:
Just as a matter of interest, here's a scan of an interview with Sasson in Maariv, October 13, 1969; actually, Maariv translated an Arab-language interview with Sasson from the East Jerusalem paper Al-Quds. Two years after his discussions with leading Palestinians, Sasson was not optimistic. He didn't see why Israel should be for or against a Palestinian state; sadly, however, so he said, the Arab and Palestinian forces outside of the territories were staunchly against the idea, nor were any of the locals pressing to make it happen.
The problem is, the document's almost illegible. The copy in this particular file is a low-quality xerox copy of a low-quality carbon copy (remember those?). The first page is more or less decipherable, but the rest - hardly. So I've sent a description of the document to a clutch of our more knowledgeable staffers, and asked them if they can find one of the originals. There are more than 150,000 boxes of documents in the ISA, with an average of 15-20 files per box; a file can contain one document, or ten, or fifty. Which means we've got something like 30-60,000,000 documents (and roughly 300,000,000 pages). The current database of descriptions relates to files, not documents, so the only way to find a specific document is to be very experienced and lucky, both.
In the hope that by next week I'll have the original in my hand, I've given up on the deciphering for today. I'm posting the document so that it will be out there - readers who wish are welcome to have a go at it. In the meantime, here's a summary of the content of the cover letter, from December 15, 1967:
We'll discuss my findings at our upcoming meeting. In the meantime, I suggest topics for your decisionI sure hope they find a good copy of this document.
1. How to proceed with the discussions.
2. If and how to encourage pressure from the West Bank figures on [King] Hussein [of Jordan] so that he'll be empowered to represent them?
3. Should we be encouraging self rule of the WB populace?
4. Should we be promoting the idea of a Palestinian State?
5. How should we combat the Communists and limit terror?
6. Should we deport Rouchi elKahtib so as to encourage the populace of East Jerusalem to municipal cooperation?
Just as a matter of interest, here's a scan of an interview with Sasson in Maariv, October 13, 1969; actually, Maariv translated an Arab-language interview with Sasson from the East Jerusalem paper Al-Quds. Two years after his discussions with leading Palestinians, Sasson was not optimistic. He didn't see why Israel should be for or against a Palestinian state; sadly, however, so he said, the Arab and Palestinian forces outside of the territories were staunchly against the idea, nor were any of the locals pressing to make it happen.
Monday, June 3, 2013
Negotiating with Palestinians, October 1967
There's a nice library at the ISA, with lots of books about Israel, its history, and adjacent subjects. There's also a fellow on the staff who apparently has read it all; in my experience, you can point at random at a book, and he'll rattle off its thesis and argumentation and perhaps some gossip about its author. So naturally, I went to him the other day with a question that's been nagging me: I'm finding as I wander around our files that in the early years after the Six Day War, there was quite a bit of Israeli interest in talking to Palestinians. (See our post yesterday as an example.) Has anyone ever written about this, I asked? And if not, why not? Isn't it interesting? To my mild surprise, he didn't know what I was taking about. There was this one memoir, by Shlomo Gavish (Moshe Dayan's top aide at the time); but other than that - no, he'd never really heard about the phenomenon, not to mention any literature about it.
So here's another example. On October 11, 1967, Moshe Dyan, along with Shlomo Gazit and some other aides, met in Jerusalem with the mayors of Nablus, Jenin, Tul Karm and others. On the 12th, Gazit sent a summary of the meeting to lots of top-level officials, including the prime minister, the minister of education and some generals. The mayors came to complain about severe Israeli measures, and also to see if there was any way their budgetary problems could be addressed. Dayan responded that he didn't expect anyone on the West Bank to like Israel or be happy about its presence and control; he also didn't expect the present situation to go on for long: "Sooner or later there will either be peace or there will be another war." Until then, however, he recommended that the population find a modus vivendi with Israel: dislike but practical accommodation. Mass strikes and demonstrations would be met with harsh counter-measures. Pragmatic accommodation, on the other hand, would result even in Israel assisting with the budgetary problems. At moments of tension, the leaders should come to him and talk. Which they agreed to do.
So here's another example. On October 11, 1967, Moshe Dyan, along with Shlomo Gazit and some other aides, met in Jerusalem with the mayors of Nablus, Jenin, Tul Karm and others. On the 12th, Gazit sent a summary of the meeting to lots of top-level officials, including the prime minister, the minister of education and some generals. The mayors came to complain about severe Israeli measures, and also to see if there was any way their budgetary problems could be addressed. Dayan responded that he didn't expect anyone on the West Bank to like Israel or be happy about its presence and control; he also didn't expect the present situation to go on for long: "Sooner or later there will either be peace or there will be another war." Until then, however, he recommended that the population find a modus vivendi with Israel: dislike but practical accommodation. Mass strikes and demonstrations would be met with harsh counter-measures. Pragmatic accommodation, on the other hand, would result even in Israel assisting with the budgetary problems. At moments of tension, the leaders should come to him and talk. Which they agreed to do.
Sunday, June 2, 2013
After the Six Day War: Eshkol Talks to His Generals
When Gershom Gorenberg set out to find how Israeli policy about settlements evolved after the Six Day War, one of his clearest findings was that the prime minister didn't have any clear position. Levi Eshkol talked a lot with lots of people, he presented varying, indeed, sometimes contradictory positions, and ultimately he had no clear concept of how he wished to move forward on the issue of Israel's control of the newly acquired territories. Since some of the people around him, however, did have clear ideas, Eshkol's vacillation created space for them to exploit. Of course, since Eshkol died a year and a half after the war, his positions can go only so far in explaining what later transpired.
The vacillations make it hard for the historian to fasten onto any document and pin down essential positions. It would be nice to have a 5-page record which sets out what was happening, and use it to prove a thesis about causes effects motivations and results. Such documents are rare in the study of any period or phenomenon; when it comes to demonstrating the decision-making process which formed Israeli policy in the territories it suddenly controlled in Mid-June 1967 – nope. There are no such documents, because there was never any clarity they could record.
Which isn't to say there are no interesting documents to tell about. On the contrary, there are lots of them. For example: On December 5th 1967, exactly six months after the war, Eshkol hosted a meeting with the top IDF generals. Eshkol himself was 72 at the time, and Moshe Dayan, the minister of defense, was 52. All of the others were in their 40s: Chief of Staff Yitzhak Rabin; Zvi Zur, the previous chief of staff and now effective boss of the defense ministry under Dayan; Aharon Yariv, who as chief of military intelligence had the job of top advisor to the PM on the Arab world; Yeshayahu Gavish and Uzi Narkiss, commanders of the southern- and central commands; Dan Laner, deputy CO of the northern command; and Rehavam Zeevi, head of military operations. Also present was Dr. Yaacov Herzog, alongside Eshkol the only civilian and head of the prime minister's office. Eshkol wanted them as a sounding board for some ideas he'd been mulling over as he prepared a trip to America on which, he expected, President Johnson might ask some pointed questions. "And so I'd like to do as we used to in cheder, when there were special sessions for sharpening our minds. Maybe we'll reach some interesting conclusions".
Eshkol launched into a long and rambling monologue, about how Israel didn't want the million Arabs it had recently come to rule over; about how the Americans saw the Middle East through the prism of the Cold War and Soviet attempts to move in; about how it would be nice if lots of Jews moved to Israel and lots of Arabs moved out but that would be nothing short of a miracle. Only now do we see how awful the previous border [the Green Line of June 1967] was, long and hard to defend; the present borders are much easier to defend. We're pumping large sums of money into the Arab economy and we're raising their standard of living. And what if King Hussein [of Jordan] suddenly says he wants to negotiate: what will we negotiate about? We're not going to return to the previous border. And if we wait ten years? Will that make any difference? Aliya (Jewish immigration)? Let's be honest there isn't going to be much of it. A bit from Morocco, perhaps, and some Romanians. But what American Jews will come to Israel and work as laborers and farmers? I wish we could identify a better line on the West Bank.
And so it went, on and on, for 8 full pages of the transcript. Did Eshkol know what his position was and was he trying to provoke the generals? Was he clueless to the extent that he didn't care to hide it from them? The solid parts of his meandering boiled down to: Israel retains control of Jerusalem; It probably might perhaps need to must stay along the Jordan River; it didn't want to control the Arabs on the West Bank, and, finally, we're in quite a pickle but it's better than where we were.
And then the generals began to respond. Each of them presented his thoughts in his own way, but there was a surprising degree of uniformity amongst them, either because they all saw the world the same way, or they'd all heard the PM and Rabin and they were falling in line as good soldiers do, or both. Of course we stay in Jerusalem. Or course we stay on the Jordan. Or course we don't want the Arabs of the West Bank.
Then they uniformly departed from some of Eshkol's points: no, we can't negotiate with Hussein, because he's the weakest Arab link and we have to start by making peace with the strongest (Egypt) so the others will follow. There's no chance that the Arab World will make peace with Israel in the foreseeable future. The Americans don't want us to negotiate with Hussein (or perhaps, they should want us to), because if Hussein makes peace with Israel the Egyptians and Syrians and his own people will kill him, and then the Soviets will move into Jordan.
Perhaps the most interesting part of the document is that a number of the generals, starting with Rabin, felt the only way out of the conundrum would be by setting up a Palestinian state. It would have to be created without an army, and with assurances of having good relations with Israel; the more this was mentioned at the meeting, the more Eshkol was against it because, as he explained, there was no way to prevent such a state from being truly independent which would inevitably mean hostile to Israel.
No one, at any point in the meeting, expressed the opinion that changing the borders would be illegal. Even the youngest of the generals, Rehav'am Zeevi, was 41 years old, and they'd all reached adulthood in a world in which borders were redrawn after wars.
There were two points in the meeting where Eshkol clearly indicated the limits of his confusion. The first was when he told of a recent meeting with an unidentified rabbi who wished to set up a large yeshiva in Hebron by evacuating the Arab residents of an entire block to clear the necessary space. "I understood whom I was dealing with and that was the end of our conversation." The second was a short exchange with Uzi Narkiss, who was trying to explain to Eshkol that he must convince the Americans that Jordan was a precarious ally; Eshkol was indicating that the Americans might have their own opinions.
Narkiss: "I think the Saudis and Yemen would be better American investments".
Narkiss: "I think the Saudis and Yemen would be better American investments".
Eshkol: "OK. I'll sell them the Saudis and Yemen straightaway… But what if Johnson persists in trying to convince me?"
I recognize the entire conversation rings a bit odd in our 2013 ears. (The Soviet who?) The thing is, it took place in 1967.
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
Book Review: The Accidential Empire
We haven't done any book reviews on this blog yet, which is a shame, actually, since many of the readers at the archives write books based on our materials. Given that our mission is to have folks know about our stuff, and these researchers are writing about our stuff, it's a no-brainer that we should be amplifying their message, no?
Still, it's not obvious that the first book we'd review ought to be Gershom Gorenberg's The Accidental Empire: Israel and the Birth of the Settlements, 1967-1977
. It sits, after all, smack in the middle of one of Israel's major political discussions, and we at the ISA, being civil servants in a national institution, try to stay away from political third rails. On the other hand, what's a national archives for if not to enable the citizenry to see the inner workings of their government, once a reasonable amount of time has passed? And when someone comes by to look and tell, we're still here, so that others can come and see if the initial interpretation was reasonable, or perhaps exaggerated, or unfair. If someone feels Gorenberg's depiction of the evolution of Israel's settlement policy is wrong, they're welcome to come and test his findings.
Actually, they may even have access to more documentation than he had - and from our perspective, that's the reason to review his book here: to examine its relation with our collections. But first, a synopsis of his thesis and findings.
The thesis of the book is that following the Six Day War, Israel had no clear policy what to do with the newly controlled territories, and it spent the next few years (or decades) not acquiring one. Instead, it sort of bungled along. Moshe Dayan had ideas; Yigal Allon had ideas; Levy Eshkol, the prime minster until his death in 1969, had lots and lots of ideas, many of them mutually contradictory; and over time, a growing number of young adults of the religious Zionist camp had ever clearer ideas.
For a while after the electoral victory of Menachem Begin's Likud party, in 1977, Israel may have had a reasonably clear idea that it intended to hold onto Gaza, the West Bank, the Golan and East Jerusalem, and the government purposefully crafted a settlement policy to promote that; but Gorenberg's book is about the decade before Begin's victory, when the Labor party (in its various permutations) ruled, not Likud. He shows that during that decade almost 80 settlements were set up. To the limited extent that there was a guiding line, it was the idea of Allon, according to which Israel would hold onto - and thus settle - the Jordan Valley, parts of the West Bank to the south of Jerusalem and of course Jerusalem itself. (Holding on to all of Jerusalem was the mainstream Israeli policy at least until the summer of 2000). Yet even the 80 settlements weren't put in place as part of a crafted policy, but rather as the results of lots of different, local motivations. Hence the title of his book: it was an accidental empire in that its acquisition wasn't foreseen, and retaining it wasn't thought out.
Reading the book from the perspective of the archivists, however, adds a layer to the discussion, because sadly, although Gorenberg made good use of all the documentation he could find, much of what's relevant has yet to be declassified.
He used many non-governmental sources, such as memoires, interviews, and private archives. Israel Gallili, a top minister in all the governments of the time, took home far too may documents, and they are now in Yad Tabenkin, the archives of the kibbutz movement. There's a detailed oral history project made with Yigal Allon, at his kibbutz. And there are some very rich files from Eshkol's office, which Gorenberg made use of, and I may make further use of here on the blog, because their documents are so rich and interesting.
He didn't use the reams, truckloads, of the state documentation. At the end of the day, the story of the settlements is a story of government action and state bureaucracy implementation. In order to really tell the tale, you'd need to systematically follow the deliberations of the decision-makers at the top, and the actions of the officials below them. You'd need to read all the transcripts of the relevant cabinet discussions, then the records of the internal ministerial discussions. You'd need to identify which agencies were playing important roles, and figure out what that role was. Oh, and of course, you'd need to look at lots of material from the military government of the territories. Most of these sources were not open while he was researching his book in the previous decade; sadly, too much of it isn't open now, either. Parallel to the research, Gorenberg ran a five-year legal battle against the military archives to open more of their files; the result was a draw, in which he got enough files for the court to close the case, and the archives never had to deal with a court verdict on the matter.
So here's our summary of the matter: in spite of the gazillions of words written over the years about Israel's settlement project, no-one really knows what they're talking about because the documents aren't open. (They are now finally being opened, slowly, and the rate is a matter of budgets not political chicanery). So far, Gorenberg's book is the best one around, and if you're interested in the reality rather than the punditry, you should read it. But be aware that it's essentially a first draft of the story, not a definitive summary - as Gorenberg himself would be the first to admit.
Still, it's not obvious that the first book we'd review ought to be Gershom Gorenberg's The Accidental Empire: Israel and the Birth of the Settlements, 1967-1977
. It sits, after all, smack in the middle of one of Israel's major political discussions, and we at the ISA, being civil servants in a national institution, try to stay away from political third rails. On the other hand, what's a national archives for if not to enable the citizenry to see the inner workings of their government, once a reasonable amount of time has passed? And when someone comes by to look and tell, we're still here, so that others can come and see if the initial interpretation was reasonable, or perhaps exaggerated, or unfair. If someone feels Gorenberg's depiction of the evolution of Israel's settlement policy is wrong, they're welcome to come and test his findings.Actually, they may even have access to more documentation than he had - and from our perspective, that's the reason to review his book here: to examine its relation with our collections. But first, a synopsis of his thesis and findings.
The thesis of the book is that following the Six Day War, Israel had no clear policy what to do with the newly controlled territories, and it spent the next few years (or decades) not acquiring one. Instead, it sort of bungled along. Moshe Dayan had ideas; Yigal Allon had ideas; Levy Eshkol, the prime minster until his death in 1969, had lots and lots of ideas, many of them mutually contradictory; and over time, a growing number of young adults of the religious Zionist camp had ever clearer ideas.
For a while after the electoral victory of Menachem Begin's Likud party, in 1977, Israel may have had a reasonably clear idea that it intended to hold onto Gaza, the West Bank, the Golan and East Jerusalem, and the government purposefully crafted a settlement policy to promote that; but Gorenberg's book is about the decade before Begin's victory, when the Labor party (in its various permutations) ruled, not Likud. He shows that during that decade almost 80 settlements were set up. To the limited extent that there was a guiding line, it was the idea of Allon, according to which Israel would hold onto - and thus settle - the Jordan Valley, parts of the West Bank to the south of Jerusalem and of course Jerusalem itself. (Holding on to all of Jerusalem was the mainstream Israeli policy at least until the summer of 2000). Yet even the 80 settlements weren't put in place as part of a crafted policy, but rather as the results of lots of different, local motivations. Hence the title of his book: it was an accidental empire in that its acquisition wasn't foreseen, and retaining it wasn't thought out.
Reading the book from the perspective of the archivists, however, adds a layer to the discussion, because sadly, although Gorenberg made good use of all the documentation he could find, much of what's relevant has yet to be declassified.
He used many non-governmental sources, such as memoires, interviews, and private archives. Israel Gallili, a top minister in all the governments of the time, took home far too may documents, and they are now in Yad Tabenkin, the archives of the kibbutz movement. There's a detailed oral history project made with Yigal Allon, at his kibbutz. And there are some very rich files from Eshkol's office, which Gorenberg made use of, and I may make further use of here on the blog, because their documents are so rich and interesting.
He didn't use the reams, truckloads, of the state documentation. At the end of the day, the story of the settlements is a story of government action and state bureaucracy implementation. In order to really tell the tale, you'd need to systematically follow the deliberations of the decision-makers at the top, and the actions of the officials below them. You'd need to read all the transcripts of the relevant cabinet discussions, then the records of the internal ministerial discussions. You'd need to identify which agencies were playing important roles, and figure out what that role was. Oh, and of course, you'd need to look at lots of material from the military government of the territories. Most of these sources were not open while he was researching his book in the previous decade; sadly, too much of it isn't open now, either. Parallel to the research, Gorenberg ran a five-year legal battle against the military archives to open more of their files; the result was a draw, in which he got enough files for the court to close the case, and the archives never had to deal with a court verdict on the matter.
So here's our summary of the matter: in spite of the gazillions of words written over the years about Israel's settlement project, no-one really knows what they're talking about because the documents aren't open. (They are now finally being opened, slowly, and the rate is a matter of budgets not political chicanery). So far, Gorenberg's book is the best one around, and if you're interested in the reality rather than the punditry, you should read it. But be aware that it's essentially a first draft of the story, not a definitive summary - as Gorenberg himself would be the first to admit.
Sunday, May 26, 2013
Occupied Territories: The Census of 1967
In the wummer of 1967 Israel counted the populace of the territories it had taken over in the recent war. On October 3, 1967, the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) published its initial findings - so the document we're presenting today was actually never classified at all. We're posting it here not because it's been secret all these years, but simply because we're not aware that it's online. So now it is.
The document starts out by explaining its methodology: a one-day curfew was placed on each of the various areas, and hundreds of Arabic-speaking census-takers tried to reach every single home (except what they called the 'wanderers', presumably the tent-living Bedouin). Every family filled out a form and received a form of confirmation; 20% were asked to fill out comprehensive questionnaires. Since the populace expected potential benefits to accrue from being counted, the CBS reported that compliance had been very high.
The census was taken in August (beginning on the Golan Heights) and September.
On the Golan 6,400 people were enumerated, 2,900 of them in Magdel Shams.
In northern Sinai, 33,000 people were counted, 30,000 of them in El-Arish; the Bedouin of the vast Sinai desert were not counted.
In Gaza, the census found 356,000 people, about half (175,000) in refugee camps.
On the West Bank, there were about 600,000, not including East Jerusalem.
(The population of East Jerusalem has been counted, since the Six Day War, in the column of Arabs in Israel, not in the occupied territories. This creates some amusing results, most noticeably when western media outlets who would never accept Israel's annexation of East Jerusalem routinely count its Palestinian population as part of the 20% of today's Israeli population who are Arab; present-day demographic statistics routinely double-count the 300-plus Arabs of East Jerusalem as being both part of Israel's Arab population and the population of the West Bank.)
Beyond the simple numbers, the editors of the report point at a number of possible explanations for the numbers. In Gaza, the Egyptian data from 1965 had about 100,000 additional people, or 25% more than the Israelis counted. Since only a few thousands left as a consequence of the war, and many of them were Egyptians from Sinai and not Gazans, the report assumed someone had been inflating numbers, perhaps by failing to register deaths.
The Jordanian numbers from 1961 were also larger than those identified here, and the editors felt this probably expressed a significant phenomenon of migration during the Jordanian period and after the Six Day War.
The populace of all the territories was very young, children between 0-14 making up the largest group in all areas. the editors were struck, however, by the imbalance between young men and young women; their conjecture being that the relative lack of young men reflected large-scale emigration of laborers.
The document starts out by explaining its methodology: a one-day curfew was placed on each of the various areas, and hundreds of Arabic-speaking census-takers tried to reach every single home (except what they called the 'wanderers', presumably the tent-living Bedouin). Every family filled out a form and received a form of confirmation; 20% were asked to fill out comprehensive questionnaires. Since the populace expected potential benefits to accrue from being counted, the CBS reported that compliance had been very high.
The census was taken in August (beginning on the Golan Heights) and September.
On the Golan 6,400 people were enumerated, 2,900 of them in Magdel Shams.
In northern Sinai, 33,000 people were counted, 30,000 of them in El-Arish; the Bedouin of the vast Sinai desert were not counted.
In Gaza, the census found 356,000 people, about half (175,000) in refugee camps.
On the West Bank, there were about 600,000, not including East Jerusalem.
(The population of East Jerusalem has been counted, since the Six Day War, in the column of Arabs in Israel, not in the occupied territories. This creates some amusing results, most noticeably when western media outlets who would never accept Israel's annexation of East Jerusalem routinely count its Palestinian population as part of the 20% of today's Israeli population who are Arab; present-day demographic statistics routinely double-count the 300-plus Arabs of East Jerusalem as being both part of Israel's Arab population and the population of the West Bank.)
Beyond the simple numbers, the editors of the report point at a number of possible explanations for the numbers. In Gaza, the Egyptian data from 1965 had about 100,000 additional people, or 25% more than the Israelis counted. Since only a few thousands left as a consequence of the war, and many of them were Egyptians from Sinai and not Gazans, the report assumed someone had been inflating numbers, perhaps by failing to register deaths.
The Jordanian numbers from 1961 were also larger than those identified here, and the editors felt this probably expressed a significant phenomenon of migration during the Jordanian period and after the Six Day War.
The populace of all the territories was very young, children between 0-14 making up the largest group in all areas. the editors were struck, however, by the imbalance between young men and young women; their conjecture being that the relative lack of young men reflected large-scale emigration of laborers.
Monday, May 20, 2013
Scuffling at the Mughrabi Gate
According to the Times of Israel, a UNESCO investigative team which was about to visit Jerusalem has been disinvited by Israel. Apparently part of the team's agenda was to investigate the matter of the Mughrabi Gate, which leads from the Kotel (Western Wall) into the Temple Mount compound. We don't have anything intelligent to say about this particular case, but it just so happens that we've got an interesting document about Israelis and Palestinians disagreeing about the Mughrabi Gate.
In early October 1967, four months after the Six Day War, Talmi al-Mukhtashev, head of the Waqf in Jerusalem, sent a letter to Levi Eshkol, Israel's prime minister. If he was in any way cowed by the new rulers, he managed to hide it, as he castigated Israeli actions at the Western Wall and the Mughrabi Gate.
In early October 1967, four months after the Six Day War, Talmi al-Mukhtashev, head of the Waqf in Jerusalem, sent a letter to Levi Eshkol, Israel's prime minister. If he was in any way cowed by the new rulers, he managed to hide it, as he castigated Israeli actions at the Western Wall and the Mughrabi Gate.
Last month we sent your honor a telegram warning that Israeli forces had taken over the Mughrabi Gate and opened it to the public; we demanded this action be undone and the key to the gate returned to us. We received confirmation of the telegram's arrival, but when no change was seen on the ground we've sent additional letters demanding the same.A note attached to the letter explained that it had been sent to various officials, including the police, Ministry of Justice and others, but that no answer was intended to the complaint. (File א-7921/3).
The open gate has enabled uncontrolled visits. Muslim worshippers have been cursed, Jewish tourists have misbehaved and some even had picnics and otherwise behave as tourists on the Temple Mount [the original Arabic probably called it Haram A-Sharif]. These events have caused offense to the Muslims, and we demand that the keys be handed back so the Waqf alone will control the area.
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
ID Cards for Arabs in East Jerusalem (1967-70)
Yesterday I introduced the Advisor on Arab Affairs, and we looked at one of his files on East Jerusalem. Here's another one, of a very diferent character however. As the front page of the file indicates, its title is bland and uninformative: "ID cards". Could mean all sorts of things, no?
The file contains three distinct types of records, all of which indeed fit under that title. The first are a few letters dealing with the practicalities of handing out Israeli ID cards to the Arabs of East Jerusalem.
On page 2 of the file we've got a handwritten summary of a conversation one of the officials had with Mr. Zarfati fo the Ministry of Interior on November 14th 1967: The ministry continues to hand out ID cards to anyone with a note of participation in either of the two census actions taken since the Six Day War in East Jerusalem. People who were not counted and registered, and thus have no notes, are not granted ID cards at this stage. Apparently, there are thousands of them. Requests for re-unifiation of families should be submitted to Zarfati if they're in Jerusalem, or to the Military Governor if they're elsewhere in the West Bank.
Pages 3-5 are the Arabic original and the Hebrew translation of a letter by the head of the Arab Chamber of Commerce to the Minister of the Interior, Mr. Barakat. Barakat noticed the long lines and interminable hours of waiting required of people trying to pick up their new ID card, and he had all sorts of suggestions for improvements: more clerks, informing people in advance which day they should come to the office to get their ID card, and creating a separate line in a separate section of the building for women, so that they not need to stand among the men (October 30, 1967). As we saw yesterday, the Arabs of East Jerusalem took it for granted that Israeli officials either knew Arabic or would make the effort to translate their incoming mail.
Much of the file contains dozens of letters by individual Arabs explaining how come they came not to have census notes ("my wife was in the hospital that day") and requesting their ID cards. These letters were still being written in 1970. (I didn't scan this section of the file for privacy purposes.)
The part of the file which seems most significant is the attempt by Eli Amir, an official in the office, writing to his boss, the Advisor on Arab Affairs himself, Shmuel Toledano. Toledano later went on to be elected to the Knesset, while his underling, Amir, grew up to be an important novelist and public figure; in 1968, however, it's a safe bet they were both mostly unknown to the general public. On June 12, 1968, exactly a year after the unification of Jerusalem, Amir summarized the status of issuing ID cards:
The file contains three distinct types of records, all of which indeed fit under that title. The first are a few letters dealing with the practicalities of handing out Israeli ID cards to the Arabs of East Jerusalem.
On page 2 of the file we've got a handwritten summary of a conversation one of the officials had with Mr. Zarfati fo the Ministry of Interior on November 14th 1967: The ministry continues to hand out ID cards to anyone with a note of participation in either of the two census actions taken since the Six Day War in East Jerusalem. People who were not counted and registered, and thus have no notes, are not granted ID cards at this stage. Apparently, there are thousands of them. Requests for re-unifiation of families should be submitted to Zarfati if they're in Jerusalem, or to the Military Governor if they're elsewhere in the West Bank.
Pages 3-5 are the Arabic original and the Hebrew translation of a letter by the head of the Arab Chamber of Commerce to the Minister of the Interior, Mr. Barakat. Barakat noticed the long lines and interminable hours of waiting required of people trying to pick up their new ID card, and he had all sorts of suggestions for improvements: more clerks, informing people in advance which day they should come to the office to get their ID card, and creating a separate line in a separate section of the building for women, so that they not need to stand among the men (October 30, 1967). As we saw yesterday, the Arabs of East Jerusalem took it for granted that Israeli officials either knew Arabic or would make the effort to translate their incoming mail.
Much of the file contains dozens of letters by individual Arabs explaining how come they came not to have census notes ("my wife was in the hospital that day") and requesting their ID cards. These letters were still being written in 1970. (I didn't scan this section of the file for privacy purposes.)
The part of the file which seems most significant is the attempt by Eli Amir, an official in the office, writing to his boss, the Advisor on Arab Affairs himself, Shmuel Toledano. Toledano later went on to be elected to the Knesset, while his underling, Amir, grew up to be an important novelist and public figure; in 1968, however, it's a safe bet they were both mostly unknown to the general public. On June 12, 1968, exactly a year after the unification of Jerusalem, Amir summarized the status of issuing ID cards:
1. There were two census actions. The first by the Ministry of the Interior in July 1967; the second by the Municipality in September.So did Toledano sit down and write a full response to Amir? Apparently not. A month later, on August 9, 1968, Amir wrote again: We need a policy. Legitimate people are hamstrung, and also the press is sniffing around the story (p. 8). Another month passed, and on September 2 Amir wrote again: "I'm sorry for being a nag (nudnick) but we really do need a policy." On September 3, someone inserted a tiny note into the file:
2. Most people were registered in the first census, and they've been given ID cards. A small group, comprised mostly of young men, was registered but didn't request their cards. We don't know why. When they come now, almost a year later, they must give a satisfying explanation before cards are issued to them.
So far about 65,000 cards have been issued. We assume about 6,000 people have yet to request them:
a. Families. Estimated at about 5,000 people in complete family units, they were missed in the first census and identified in the second.
b. Individuals. Estimated at about 1,000, they are divided as follows:
b1. Unmarried people of all ages who live with identifed parents. They are given ID cards when they prove they live with their parents.
b2. Uncles, grandparents etc: likewise. As soon as they demonstrate that they live with registered relatives they're issued cards.
b3. Unmarried singles without registered families. They are not issued ID cards at this stage.
b4. Families with only one registered parent. Probably about 250 people, and they're issued cards.
3. The municipality counted 65,857 people. About 65,000 ID cards have already been issued, yet there are still those 6,000. So there seem to be about 71,000 Arabs in East Jerusalem. Where did the last 5,000 come from?
Three possibilities:
a. The census wasn't accurate.
b. People are infiltrating from outside Jerusalem.
c. Both of the above.
4. The East Jerusalem branch of the Ministry of the Interior reports that there continue to be new applicants. We don't know how to explain these ongoing applications - why did people wait a year? How did they live their lives for a year with no papers?
5. Conclusions:
1. There seem to be significant numbers of infiltrators.
2. Perhaps we should stop accepting new applications.
3. The groups of legitimate applicants (above) should be given ID cards.
4. A committee should be created to decide about the unclear 6,000 people: interior, police, security.
5. Assuming the committee will identify infiltrators, we need a decision as to what happens to them.
Sima in Toledano's name says the Cabinet will set up a committee.The file has nothing helpful to add.
Monday, January 21, 2013
Martin Luther King's plan to visit Israel in 1967
Last week, we posted an official publication on our website on the connection between Martin Luther King Jr. and Israel. We showed how Israeli and Jewish groups tried to invite MLK to the Jewish state several times, but to no avail.
King's attitude towards Israel has been a subject of some controversy. At his blog, Prof. Martin Kramer recently re-published a March 2012 article tracing the provenance of a quote attributed to King, in which he rebuked a student attacking Zionism. King was quoted as saying "When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews. You’re talking anti-Semitism!”
In 2004, two Palestinian-American activists suggested that this quote was fabricated or invented. They claimed, in a nutshell, that MLK could not have said it, because he was not and could not have been in the place where he was claimed to have done so -- Cambridge, Massachusetts -- before his assassination. In this very researched and detailed article, Prof. Kramer proves that King could have said that quote -- since he was most certainly in Cambridge in late October 1967.
Prof. Kramer also posted on Facebook a most interesting poster of Martin Luther King's planned visit to the Holy Land in November 1967, after the visit that was cancelled due to the Six Day War. We published on our site the formal invitation to visit Israel sent by Prime Minister Levi Eshkol to Martin Luther King, and King's acceptance of the invitation. In his own words: "I take these means to express my deep appreciation to you for the invitation you extended to me to come to your wonderful country."
While I was writing this post, Prof. Kramer posted another piece, solving a question that had arisen while we were preparing our official publication: Why didn't Rev. King visit Israel in 1967, as he promised PM Eshkol in May 1967? Prof. Kramer found the answer in the FBI wiretaps of King and his advisers. In a conference call with his advisers, King said that if he went to the Middle East “I’d run into the situation where I’m damned if I say this and I’m damned if I say that, no matter what I’d say, and I’ve already faced enough criticism including pro-Arab” and that "I just think that if I go, the Arab world, and of course Africa and Asia for that matter, would interpret this as endorsing everything that Israel has done, and I do have questions of doubt."
Wednesday, December 26, 2012
Putting the War in Jerusalem Behind Us
On August 6, 1967, there was a meeting of the Committee of Executive Directors of Government Ministries for Jerusalem (ועדת מנכ"לים לענייני ירושלים). Four executive directors participated - Kokia of Justice, Silverstone of Interior, De-Schalit of Tourism and Shari, head of the civil service. They were joined by officials from Health, Treasury, Jerusalem's municipality and a Colonel Vered from the IDF - all in all, a high-profile group as committees of bureaucrats go. This seems to have been their second meeting.
Over the decades, there have been endless media reports and speculation by politicians and pundits abut what Israel has been trying to do in East Jerusalem and how it regards the local Arab residents. Most of it hasn't been based on solid evidence, as much of the evidence is only being declassified in recent years. (Today's document, for example, has not been public until last month and has never been cited since it has been on my desk most of that time). Obviously, no single file can persuasively end any of those arguments. Still, it is interesting to follow the matter of fact deliberations, and in this context, perhaps the most interesting finding is the lack of anything interesting to find. A series of issues was brought to the table, each one was discussed in a dispassionate matter, and then the committee went on to the next item. Beyond the over-arching but unstated determination to unify the city, there seems not to be any political ideology at all.
The first chunk of the meeting focused on matters of tourism.
Over the decades, there have been endless media reports and speculation by politicians and pundits abut what Israel has been trying to do in East Jerusalem and how it regards the local Arab residents. Most of it hasn't been based on solid evidence, as much of the evidence is only being declassified in recent years. (Today's document, for example, has not been public until last month and has never been cited since it has been on my desk most of that time). Obviously, no single file can persuasively end any of those arguments. Still, it is interesting to follow the matter of fact deliberations, and in this context, perhaps the most interesting finding is the lack of anything interesting to find. A series of issues was brought to the table, each one was discussed in a dispassionate matter, and then the committee went on to the next item. Beyond the over-arching but unstated determination to unify the city, there seems not to be any political ideology at all.
The first chunk of the meeting focused on matters of tourism.
De Schalit (Ministry of Tourism) wanted to know when the IDF would remove the last of its units bivouacked in East Jerusalem hotels.
Col. Vered: Hopefully within six months. We need to find alternatives first.
De Schalit: The IDF moved staff and equipment from the St. George Hotel to the Ritz. Nu?
Col. Vered: We'll fix it.
De Schalit: Our ministry is willing to give East Jerusalem hotel owners loans to repair damages, but the Jordanian property registration isn't acceptable.
Kokia (Justice): We're arranging to have the Jordanian registry recognized.
Decision: Treasury and tourism will resolve the matters of loan guarantees.
De Schalit: East Jerusalem hotel owners whose premises were damaged during the fighting are demanding compensation.
Kokia: We don't owe damage payments for actions initiated by the Jordanians. Still, Mr Gafni of Treasury tells me it's possible such payments may be made.
Shari: Why? The Jordanians initiated the hostilities in Jerusalem.
Decision: Kokia will discuss the matter with Treasury.
De Schalit: There's a night-time curfew in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Bad for tourism.
Col. Vered: we're looking into it. In the meantime the curfew remains.
De Schalit: The Army commandeered 12 buses of the [Jordanian] JETT company.
Vered: They're about to be returned.
De Schalit: East Jerusalem cabdrivers aren't authorized to to enter West Jerusalem or the West Bank. Bad for tourism.
Silverstone: This will soon be discussed in a different committee.
De Schalit: The JETT bus company ordered 8 new Mercedes buses before the war, via Jordan of course. What now?
Decision: Kokia will work with the Ministry of Transportation to expedite the import of the buses [via Israel].
DeSchalit: East Jerusalem tour guides and travel agents can operate in Israel but not the West Bank [presumably because Israel had already annexed East Jerusalem, thus severing it for this purpose from its previous hinterland, the West Bank].
Col. Vered: If the bus driver has a travel license that should be enough. No-one's checking the tour guides.
Decision: This needs to be fixed - responsibility of Transportation.
Kokia: We're hearing that some of the East Jerusalem civil servants are refusing to sign forms with Israeli letterheads on their way into Israeli employment. Unacceptable.
Shari: Actually, all it is is a standard personnel form.
Decision: Whoever doesn't sign won't be employed. Moreover, people whose place of employment is now redundant will also not be employed.
Silverstone: There's the matter of the planning committees for East Jerusalem. We (Interior) think there should be a joint government-municipality planning committee.
Benvenisti (Municipality): And we think we can do it on our own, thank you very much.
Kokia: This needs to be resolved between the municipality and Interior; it's not the authority of this committee.
Rotem (Interior): We're working on the issue of debt to and from the East Jerusalem Municipality. Once we've listed all the data we'll bring a proposal.
Agmon (Treasury): We better be in on that.
Decision: Add a representative from Treasury and report back to us when possible.
Haramati (Municipality): The lack of clarity regarding the Jordanian land registry is preventing anyone from taking mortgage loans.
Kokia: We've talked about that already, in the matter of the hotels.
Decision: Investigate the creation of an option for the Public Guardian (Apotropos Haklali) to work a way around this in specific cases.
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Ownership in the Jewish Quarter
Sovereignty and land ownership don't have to be connected. The fact that Israel transferred ownership of the stunning Sergei's Courtyard to Russia a few years ago meant that a government office which had been using the premises moved out - but there was no change in sovereignty.
Yet they are connected, and have been since 1937 at the latest: first, when the Peel Commission recommended partitioning Mandatory Palestine along ethnic lines, and then again in 1947 when the UN adopted a partition proposal based on the changes in the intervening decade. Assuming some day the territory which was once Mandatory Palestine will end up divided between Jews and Arabs, there is little doubt that the matter of who lives where will be relevant. Where people live often has to do with what property they own. The registration of property ownership, therefore, is crucial.
(The issue is also sensitive for not-unrelated historical reasons in some Eastern European countries, and perhaps elsewhere too. Israel is not unique in this way.)
In the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem's Old City, however, the Jewish claim has little to do with legal ownership. The south-western corner inside the walls has been Jewish since the 13th century; documented modern legal titles to property can be traced back to the 19th century. Since most of Jerusalem's Jews until quite recently were the poorest of the poor, it ought not surprise anyone that many of them lived in rented apartments (or hovels) rather than owning them.
Which is the background to Y. Tamir's letter to Adi Yaffe of the Prime Minister's Office on August 30, 1967:
Yet they are connected, and have been since 1937 at the latest: first, when the Peel Commission recommended partitioning Mandatory Palestine along ethnic lines, and then again in 1947 when the UN adopted a partition proposal based on the changes in the intervening decade. Assuming some day the territory which was once Mandatory Palestine will end up divided between Jews and Arabs, there is little doubt that the matter of who lives where will be relevant. Where people live often has to do with what property they own. The registration of property ownership, therefore, is crucial.
(The issue is also sensitive for not-unrelated historical reasons in some Eastern European countries, and perhaps elsewhere too. Israel is not unique in this way.)
In the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem's Old City, however, the Jewish claim has little to do with legal ownership. The south-western corner inside the walls has been Jewish since the 13th century; documented modern legal titles to property can be traced back to the 19th century. Since most of Jerusalem's Jews until quite recently were the poorest of the poor, it ought not surprise anyone that many of them lived in rented apartments (or hovels) rather than owning them.
Which is the background to Y. Tamir's letter to Adi Yaffe of the Prime Minister's Office on August 30, 1967:
In the Jewish Quarter, there are about 100 empty structures and dozens of destroyed ones. Because of the hazy legal situation, there are all sorts of entities and groups, religious and non-religious, who are trying to move in, especially into the synagogues.
On the other hand, we cannot yet begin restoring the structures.
We have made plans with the Ministry of Construction to allocate funds to begin reconstruction. So as not to slow this down, we need to resolve the legal issues quickly; nor can we afford to lose control of the activity. In our discussions with the Ministry of Justice, we've delineated the area. The main question is which legal tool to use.
The Minister of Justice wishes us to declare the entire area as under survey, so as to block unauthorized activity; later we can take over buildings identified as Jewish-owned and reconstruct them.
My position is that we must take over all uninhabited parts of the area, irrespective of ownership. There's no simple way to know who owns what and it will take a very long time to piece it together, much longer than we can afford. In any case, we don't expect that more than 10-15% of the Quarter is owned by Jews, and that's not enough if we wish it to return to being the Jewish Quarter.
Please arrange this to be discussed in the cabinet as soon as possible.
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
Jerusalem: The City and the Park
How does a large modern city relate to the site of its original walled forerunner? There's no single correct answer. The Viennese, for example, razed the walls and built a broad avenue, so that the original town is still identifiable but fully integrated into the town around it. Warsaw's Old City is still mostly walled off (though of course none of the buildings in it are actually older than 60-some years, all having been reconstructed after WWII). Paris did away with its Old City; Florence preserved the buildings but mostly took down the walls.
Because of the whims of history, the truly ancient part of Jerusalem has been outside its walls for about 2,000 years; the present wall is a bit shy of 500 years old - young, by the local standards. Still, when people talk about Jerusalem's Old City, those are the walls they're referring to and that's the section they've got in mind.
When Israel took control of the Old City in June 1967 there were suggestions to follow the example of Vienna or Paris and knock down the walls. A different proposal was to create a park all the way around the walls.
Jerusalem being as spectaular as it is, I assume no one will object to another few pictures.
Because of the whims of history, the truly ancient part of Jerusalem has been outside its walls for about 2,000 years; the present wall is a bit shy of 500 years old - young, by the local standards. Still, when people talk about Jerusalem's Old City, those are the walls they're referring to and that's the section they've got in mind.
When Israel took control of the Old City in June 1967 there were suggestions to follow the example of Vienna or Paris and knock down the walls. A different proposal was to create a park all the way around the walls.
[source]
The wasn't much room for a park along the northern section of the wall. Of course, along the eastern wall there's a Muslim cemetery, so that wasn't a possibility either. But the park could have been to the south (to the left of the picture), and of course to the west, around Jaffa Gate. This is the context of Zerach Wahrhaftig's letter to the Prime Minister of October 1, 1967 (Wahrhaftig having been Minster of Religious Affairs):Re: The plan to create a National Park around the Old City
Since I was unable to present my full position at the recent meeting of the Ministers' Committee for Settling East Jerusalem which you chair, I am doing so in writing. I'm against the idea:
1. Unifying Jerusalem and ensuring our control of the entire city is one of our most important programs.
2. There are an estimated 25,000 people living in the Old City. The Jewish Quarter, even once it's rebuilt, won't be able to contain more than an estimated 500 families. The Jewish population inside the walls will remain a minority. In order to balance this we'll need to build right up to the walls on the outside. The plan to create a park will do the opposite; eventually, it could facilitate the creation of a Corpus Separatum in the Old City.
3. We need to attach the Old City to the modern section in a physical maner, not only a spiritual one.
4. One wall is enough. I'm not of the opinion that we should knock it down, but we certainly ought not create a second, green wall, to differentiate it from the rest of the city and give our enemies an opening to cut it off.Wahrhaftig lost that argument, and the green belt was created.
[source]
Times change. These days critics of Israeli policies in Jerusalem claim that Israel uses parks to strengthen its control of the city and fend off plans for division. This blog refrains from politics, but here's a link to a page with a map of the various parks and a presentation of the argument.Jerusalem being as spectaular as it is, I assume no one will object to another few pictures.
[source]
[source]
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
Jerusalem, late 1967: the Banality of Unification
Israeli policies regarding Jerusalem after the Six Day War have been a theme of this blog, but we've been neglecting it recently. So let's get back to it (previous installments are tagged with the "Jerusalem" label).
File ג-6304/4 contains various letters which went across the desk of someone in the Prime Minister's Secretariat between August and December of 1967. In September, Yehuda Tamir, who had previously worked for the Ashdar construction company, was appointed to oversee settling of Jews in East Jerusalem from the PM's Office; thereafter, the file probably was in his office.
The file is interesting precisely because it reflects a variety of Jerusalem-related matters which preoccupied officials in the most powerful office in the land.
Some of it is standard politics. Mordechai Bentov, Minister of Construction, wrote to PM Levi Eshkol on August 30 to remonstrate against the appointment of Yehuda Tamir: "You can't have meant him to deal with construction, can you? Of course, so long as he doesn't deal with that we'll be happy to work with him" [p.17]. Moshe Kol, Minister of Tourism, sent a note to the Minister of Justice Yaacov Shimshon Shapira with a copy to Eshkol: "I'll be on vacation next Sunday, but please remember to add my name to the list of ministers in the committee you're setting up for Jerusalem affairs. Tourism will be very important in Jerusalem" [p.16]. Hanoch Lev-Kochav, the General Manager of the Ministry of Labor wrote a remonstration to the head of Eshkol's Secretariat: "What were you possibly thinking when you sent that letter (enclosed) to the Minister of Police telling him to deal on his own with transferring his headquarters to Jerusalem, since the Public Works Organization (Ma'atz) is too busy? All you needed to do was ask us, and we'd have told you Ma'atz isn't too busy!" [p.12-13].
On the edge of turf-fighting politics and budgetary politics, there's the December letter from Yigal Allon, Minister of Labor, to the Minister of Police: "Yes, the police is moving its headquarters to Jerusalem, and yes, this will entail making considerable severence payments to spouses of officials who will be moved, but this is an expensive issue. I don't see how the Minister of Labor can be expected to resolve it on his own. You should raise it at the next inter-ministerial meeting" [p.2].
There were the ususal budgetary hurdles. In December, Tamir thought he had secured a budget of some three and a half million pounds to be administered by the PMO for planning and construction in the Old City. Not so fast, the Finance Ministry folks said; you've still got to show us this form and that authorization [p. 5-7].
There were interactions with the public: Eshkol signed a letter to "Dear Fisher, Developing east Jerusalem is a major project, it needs to be done with forethought and planning, and it will take a bit of time before everybody sees the results" [p.8]. An aide wrote to the Shoham family thanking them for their suggestion and assuring them Yehuda Tamir was on it [p.15].
An official of a youth movement wrote Tamir, with copies to lots of important folks, to request a building in the Old City where they could set up an education center. Tamir, in the eternal tradition of officials, asked for more details [p.10-11].
And finally, the file contains a hand-written note from an aide to Eshkol himself, on September 8th:
File ג-6304/4 contains various letters which went across the desk of someone in the Prime Minister's Secretariat between August and December of 1967. In September, Yehuda Tamir, who had previously worked for the Ashdar construction company, was appointed to oversee settling of Jews in East Jerusalem from the PM's Office; thereafter, the file probably was in his office.
The file is interesting precisely because it reflects a variety of Jerusalem-related matters which preoccupied officials in the most powerful office in the land.
Some of it is standard politics. Mordechai Bentov, Minister of Construction, wrote to PM Levi Eshkol on August 30 to remonstrate against the appointment of Yehuda Tamir: "You can't have meant him to deal with construction, can you? Of course, so long as he doesn't deal with that we'll be happy to work with him" [p.17]. Moshe Kol, Minister of Tourism, sent a note to the Minister of Justice Yaacov Shimshon Shapira with a copy to Eshkol: "I'll be on vacation next Sunday, but please remember to add my name to the list of ministers in the committee you're setting up for Jerusalem affairs. Tourism will be very important in Jerusalem" [p.16]. Hanoch Lev-Kochav, the General Manager of the Ministry of Labor wrote a remonstration to the head of Eshkol's Secretariat: "What were you possibly thinking when you sent that letter (enclosed) to the Minister of Police telling him to deal on his own with transferring his headquarters to Jerusalem, since the Public Works Organization (Ma'atz) is too busy? All you needed to do was ask us, and we'd have told you Ma'atz isn't too busy!" [p.12-13].
On the edge of turf-fighting politics and budgetary politics, there's the December letter from Yigal Allon, Minister of Labor, to the Minister of Police: "Yes, the police is moving its headquarters to Jerusalem, and yes, this will entail making considerable severence payments to spouses of officials who will be moved, but this is an expensive issue. I don't see how the Minister of Labor can be expected to resolve it on his own. You should raise it at the next inter-ministerial meeting" [p.2].
There were the ususal budgetary hurdles. In December, Tamir thought he had secured a budget of some three and a half million pounds to be administered by the PMO for planning and construction in the Old City. Not so fast, the Finance Ministry folks said; you've still got to show us this form and that authorization [p. 5-7].
There were interactions with the public: Eshkol signed a letter to "Dear Fisher, Developing east Jerusalem is a major project, it needs to be done with forethought and planning, and it will take a bit of time before everybody sees the results" [p.8]. An aide wrote to the Shoham family thanking them for their suggestion and assuring them Yehuda Tamir was on it [p.15].
An official of a youth movement wrote Tamir, with copies to lots of important folks, to request a building in the Old City where they could set up an education center. Tamir, in the eternal tradition of officials, asked for more details [p.10-11].
And finally, the file contains a hand-written note from an aide to Eshkol himself, on September 8th:
Prime Minister,
40 families of immigrants and between 30-50 other families have settled in Jerusalem since June 6th, according to the Ministry of Construction and Yehuda Tamir's data. Ziegel is on vacation, but his office assures me they'll send over their numbers within the hour.
[in a second handwriting, apparently the number's from Ziegel's office]
The numbers of new immigrants are:
June: 5 families, 3 individuals, a total of 17.
July: 8 families, 2 individuals, total of 29.
August: 22 families, 2 individuals, total or 100.
Total: 146. [p.18]
Thursday, October 25, 2012
Jerusalem, July 1967: Who Runs This Government?
You may perhaps remember a blogpost we published on September 11th this year, in which an intriguing possibility was mooted: that the poiticians and top civil servants could make as many decisions as they wished, but the gnomes in the Ministry of Finance (MoF) run the show. The document we posted then came from Moshe Sandberg, the head of the Budget Department in the MoF, and in it he essentially contravened previous decisions made above his rank: No, Israel will not offer services in East Jerusalem on the level offered in the west part of town; what we'll do is to continue to offer services on the level supplied by the Jordanians. (An example would have been running water, which was taken for granted in West Jerusalem, while in the Jordanian part of town it was supplied only a few days a week).
In that blogpost, I raised the question if perhaps the MoF hadn't, in fact, ultimately influenced Israeli policy in East Jerusalem rather more than is generally recognized.
Today's document can't answer the large question, but it does demonstrate that other parts of the government intended to put up a fight. On page 1 of the file there's a letter sent out on July 18 1967 by Dr. Yosef Kukia, Director General of the Ministry of Justice (MoJ), to other secretary generals, explaining that the Committee of Ministers for Jerusalem Affairs had been shown the document about limiting service in East Jerusalem, and had countermanded it.
On a related matter: Moshe Sanbar (Sandberg), the MoF budget director who tried to limit the government's expenses, passed away earlier this month. He arrived in Israel as a destitute Holocaust survivor, held that important job in 1967, and went on to make a lifelong contribution of great significance to Israel's economy; whether he won this particular argument about Jerusalem or lost it, he certainly did his share for the country. May he rest in peace.
In that blogpost, I raised the question if perhaps the MoF hadn't, in fact, ultimately influenced Israeli policy in East Jerusalem rather more than is generally recognized.
Today's document can't answer the large question, but it does demonstrate that other parts of the government intended to put up a fight. On page 1 of the file there's a letter sent out on July 18 1967 by Dr. Yosef Kukia, Director General of the Ministry of Justice (MoJ), to other secretary generals, explaining that the Committee of Ministers for Jerusalem Affairs had been shown the document about limiting service in East Jerusalem, and had countermanded it.
The service given in both parts of Jerusalem will be the same. The ministries are required to give these services, as stated by law. Additional services will be offered in accordance with the capabilities of the ministries.I'm not certain that was the last word in the matter, but it was a very clear word.
On a related matter: Moshe Sanbar (Sandberg), the MoF budget director who tried to limit the government's expenses, passed away earlier this month. He arrived in Israel as a destitute Holocaust survivor, held that important job in 1967, and went on to make a lifelong contribution of great significance to Israel's economy; whether he won this particular argument about Jerusalem or lost it, he certainly did his share for the country. May he rest in peace.
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Reposting: June 19, 1967, Israel's Peace Plan
A few months ago we put online the declassified stenogram of the discussion in Israel's cabinet immediately after the Six Day War. At the time I blogged about this at my old, dormant blog. Today I'm moving the post to this blog, which didn't exist at the time, because this is the place it belongs, and anyone looking for it in the future is more likely to find it here.
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At the end of the Six Day War, Israel controlled wide tracts of territory and someone had to decide what to do with them. Israel's Cabinet first discussed the question at length on June 18-19, a week after the war. The ministers decided the Sinai and Golan would be returned to Egypt and Syria for peace. Jerusalem would not be re-divided. The deliberations about the West Bank were not concluded.
On the 45th anniversary of the discussion, the Israel State Archives has put onlinethe declassified transcript. Some 200 pages long and in Hebrew, the document shows that on many points there was unanimity among Israel's political leaders, while on other matters the differences of opinion were so significant that agreement was not possible. (There is also a five-page English extract here.)
I have summarized the outlines of the discussion for the benefit of hebraically-challenged readers. Non-Hebraically challenged readers are urged to read the document itself, which is rich in drama and nuance.
The immediate context: There were intense post-war diplomatic maneuvers going on at the United Nations. Abba Eban, Israel's Foreign Minister, needed orders. The deliberations in Jerusalem were not intended as a fundamental policy statement, but rather as a hurried set of directives to Eban. Many of the ministers feared that showing cards or appearing conciliatory would harm Israel's ability to negotiate. Although their deliberations were classified as Top Secret, any number of times they stopped short and refused to say how far they might be willing to go, for fear that their positions might leak. (They seem mostly not to have, which is what makes the declassified document so interesting.)
The broader context: The ministers had spent the previous five weeks under intense pressure, frantic preparations for war, even more frantic attempts to stave it off by diplomatic means, and – crucial for understanding the present document – the collapse of the internationally-sanctioned framework for Israeli-Egyptian co-existence put in place in 1956 when Israel had been forced hurriedly out of the Sinai. Then there had been the week of war itself. Rather than suffering destruction, Israel had won an astonishing victory. Yet the ministers seem to have expected the great powers to re-apply the pressure of 1956. The BBC, as they repeatedly mentioned, had already begun to report about harsh Israeli measures in Jerusalem's Old City, and they expected growing international impatience. Most of them thought Israel's forces would be back behind the previous lines within two months.
Ideologically they were a diverse bunch: this was a National Unity government, with representatives from four socialist parties, two liberal ones, one Orthodox party and a nationalist one. They were all Zionists. They were all men. (Golda Meir, their next leader, was not in the government.) None were young: Moshe Dayan, at 52, and Yigal Allon at 49 were the only ones not born before WW1. Some had been adults before that war, and all were adults before WW2. All had lived their lives in a world where wars changed borders and moved populations. None had ever met an NGO – the very concept lay decades in the future – and they had no trust in the United Nations even as they recognized it as an important international forum.
Yet while their perspective was different than ours, the positions they staked were mostly cool-headed – the parts they agreed on, and the parts they didn't. They all hoped there would be no more wars. They intended the new conditions to be leveraged into a stable and just coexistence with the Arab world. They assumed the fate of the Arab refugees from 1948 was the irritant that was motivating the conflict and that it could now be resolved.
They implicitly accepted that land could not permanently be taken from sovereign nations by act of war. So they all accepted that the Egyptian Sinai and Syrian Golan would eventually be returned to their owners. Syrian-born Eliyahu Sasson, one of only two non-Ashkenazi ministers and the only one who explicitly grounded his position in a life-long acquaintance with Arab culture, insisted that since no Arab government would make peace with Israel, the Golan and Sinai should be returned for something less than full diplomatic peace. Stringent demilitarization and freedom of Israeli shipping should be enough. Most of his colleagues didn't want to be so pessimistic, but interestingly, Menachem Begin agreed. When in 1978 he agreed to evacuate Israeli forces from the entire Sinai, pundits the world over hailed his flexibility and willingness to change course. Well: read the transcript and you'll see that Begin actually got more in 1978 than he had expected in 1967. In 1967 he was willing to evacuate the Sinai for less than full diplomatic recognition and peace.
In the event, the resolution at the end of the meeting was that both areas would be held until peace was brokered. The West Bank and Gaza were another matter, however.
Sometime in the 1980s the general perception of the conflict changed. No longer seen as Arab rejection of a Jewish State, the conflict was understood as a conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, which the Arab world would maintain only until the two central protagonists reached an accommodation. Since the Israelis and Palestinians have not yet reached accommodation, this proposition has never been tested, a fact which contributes to its explanatory power. 1967, however, was before the 1980s, and participants and observers the world over saw the conflict as an Arab-Jewish conflict, with the local Arabs playing a subordinate role; they were not generally referred to as Palestinians.
I know this is hard to believe, but it's true.
This dissonance of historical perspectives is essential to understanding the discussion about the future of the territories. Israel's entire Cabinet in 1967 agreed that Egypt and Jordan had no more claim to Gaza and the West Bank than Israel did, as all three had conquered them through war; since Israel was now in possession it had superior claim. There were serious disagreements, however, as to what that meant. Many ministers were wary of returning the area to King Hussein, assuming that his long-term chances of survival were not good and whoever overthrew him wouldn't respect his commitments. (Hussein died on the throne in 1999 and his son is still there. Forecasting the future is tricky.)
Many of the speakers felt the previous 20 years had shown there had to be Israeli forces on the River Jordan, but refused to countenance Israeli control over the large number of Arabs on the West Bank. Minister of Justice Ya'acov Shimshon Shapira was implacable on the matter of citizenship. Israel can give citizenship to the Arabs it controls or it can stop controlling them, but there's no third way. Most of his colleagues accepted this. Some thought the entire area should be handed back to Hussein, while a few thought it could be split along demographic lines, with the sparsely populated Jordan valley under Israeli control but the crowded mountain area to Hussein. A number of speakers so disliked the thought of handing territories to Hussein, that they suggested finding some local Arabs to hand it over to – what would later be called the two-state solution. Menachem Begin was the only speaker who demanded the entire area remain part of Israel, but even he didn't know what to do with the local Arabs, suggesting merely that the question be revisited in "6 or 7 years". Yigal Allon presented the first outline of the plan that would later bear his name: the Jordan Valley and the Hebron area should be annexed to Israel while the populous northern part of the West Bank should be either returned to Hussein or somehow handed to the locals. He was the only speaker who explicitly recommended creating Israeli settlements; even Begin didn't go that far. Levi Eshkol sardonically summed up the diversity of opinions: You do realize you're playing chess with yourselves, don't you?
Jerusalem: everyone in the room agreed Jerusalem must remain united in Israeli hands, even if this meant Hussein would refuse to reach an agreement which would take the Arab population off Israel's hands in return for some sort of peace. The lines of the city had not yet been drawn, and the official decision would be taken later that month, but those were (important) technicalities. Left to right, atheists to believers, no-one had any doubts. If there was any apprehension regarding Jerusalem, it was that the Christian world would refuse to countenance Jewish control of the city and would relaunch the demand for internationalizing the city.
Gaza: Seen from our perspective, the deliberations about Gaza were the strangest. As with the West Bank, no-one regarded Gaza as Egyptian. Yet nor did anyone see it as part of a future Palestinian State, since no-one, anywhere, including at the UN, had such a State in mind. So everyone agreed that Gaza must be annexed to Israel. Many of the speakers accepted this to mean the Gazan populace would be given Israeli citizenship, but others thought those among them living in refugee camps could perhaps be resettled: to the West Bank (and thus handed to Hussein or whoever); to the El Arish area of the northern Sinai, or perhaps even to other Arab countries. Eshkol shot down all these proposals. Why do we need Gaza and its population, he asked. There's no water in El Arish, you can't settle them in the mostly empty Jordan Valley and dream of holding on to it simultaneously, no far-flung Arab country will even give you the time of day. He speculated, rather wistfully, that if a general agreement with the Arab world could be achieved perhaps the Lebanese might be willing to pipe water down to the West Bank to help settle the refugees, but by the time the meeting moved to concrete proposals he had dropped that idea. No better one appeared, and the Gaza part of the discussion sort of petered out.
The Americans were informed of Israel's positions. It is not known if they relayed them to any Arab leaders. In September the Arab leaders convened in Khartoum and rejected any possibility of peace with Israel. The paradigm Israel's leaders thought they were operating in was irrelevant, and the reality developed in directions they hadn't foreseen. But that's a story for another day.
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At the end of the Six Day War, Israel controlled wide tracts of territory and someone had to decide what to do with them. Israel's Cabinet first discussed the question at length on June 18-19, a week after the war. The ministers decided the Sinai and Golan would be returned to Egypt and Syria for peace. Jerusalem would not be re-divided. The deliberations about the West Bank were not concluded.
On the 45th anniversary of the discussion, the Israel State Archives has put onlinethe declassified transcript. Some 200 pages long and in Hebrew, the document shows that on many points there was unanimity among Israel's political leaders, while on other matters the differences of opinion were so significant that agreement was not possible. (There is also a five-page English extract here.)
I have summarized the outlines of the discussion for the benefit of hebraically-challenged readers. Non-Hebraically challenged readers are urged to read the document itself, which is rich in drama and nuance.
The immediate context: There were intense post-war diplomatic maneuvers going on at the United Nations. Abba Eban, Israel's Foreign Minister, needed orders. The deliberations in Jerusalem were not intended as a fundamental policy statement, but rather as a hurried set of directives to Eban. Many of the ministers feared that showing cards or appearing conciliatory would harm Israel's ability to negotiate. Although their deliberations were classified as Top Secret, any number of times they stopped short and refused to say how far they might be willing to go, for fear that their positions might leak. (They seem mostly not to have, which is what makes the declassified document so interesting.)
The broader context: The ministers had spent the previous five weeks under intense pressure, frantic preparations for war, even more frantic attempts to stave it off by diplomatic means, and – crucial for understanding the present document – the collapse of the internationally-sanctioned framework for Israeli-Egyptian co-existence put in place in 1956 when Israel had been forced hurriedly out of the Sinai. Then there had been the week of war itself. Rather than suffering destruction, Israel had won an astonishing victory. Yet the ministers seem to have expected the great powers to re-apply the pressure of 1956. The BBC, as they repeatedly mentioned, had already begun to report about harsh Israeli measures in Jerusalem's Old City, and they expected growing international impatience. Most of them thought Israel's forces would be back behind the previous lines within two months.
Ideologically they were a diverse bunch: this was a National Unity government, with representatives from four socialist parties, two liberal ones, one Orthodox party and a nationalist one. They were all Zionists. They were all men. (Golda Meir, their next leader, was not in the government.) None were young: Moshe Dayan, at 52, and Yigal Allon at 49 were the only ones not born before WW1. Some had been adults before that war, and all were adults before WW2. All had lived their lives in a world where wars changed borders and moved populations. None had ever met an NGO – the very concept lay decades in the future – and they had no trust in the United Nations even as they recognized it as an important international forum.
Yet while their perspective was different than ours, the positions they staked were mostly cool-headed – the parts they agreed on, and the parts they didn't. They all hoped there would be no more wars. They intended the new conditions to be leveraged into a stable and just coexistence with the Arab world. They assumed the fate of the Arab refugees from 1948 was the irritant that was motivating the conflict and that it could now be resolved.
They implicitly accepted that land could not permanently be taken from sovereign nations by act of war. So they all accepted that the Egyptian Sinai and Syrian Golan would eventually be returned to their owners. Syrian-born Eliyahu Sasson, one of only two non-Ashkenazi ministers and the only one who explicitly grounded his position in a life-long acquaintance with Arab culture, insisted that since no Arab government would make peace with Israel, the Golan and Sinai should be returned for something less than full diplomatic peace. Stringent demilitarization and freedom of Israeli shipping should be enough. Most of his colleagues didn't want to be so pessimistic, but interestingly, Menachem Begin agreed. When in 1978 he agreed to evacuate Israeli forces from the entire Sinai, pundits the world over hailed his flexibility and willingness to change course. Well: read the transcript and you'll see that Begin actually got more in 1978 than he had expected in 1967. In 1967 he was willing to evacuate the Sinai for less than full diplomatic recognition and peace.
In the event, the resolution at the end of the meeting was that both areas would be held until peace was brokered. The West Bank and Gaza were another matter, however.
Sometime in the 1980s the general perception of the conflict changed. No longer seen as Arab rejection of a Jewish State, the conflict was understood as a conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, which the Arab world would maintain only until the two central protagonists reached an accommodation. Since the Israelis and Palestinians have not yet reached accommodation, this proposition has never been tested, a fact which contributes to its explanatory power. 1967, however, was before the 1980s, and participants and observers the world over saw the conflict as an Arab-Jewish conflict, with the local Arabs playing a subordinate role; they were not generally referred to as Palestinians.
I know this is hard to believe, but it's true.
This dissonance of historical perspectives is essential to understanding the discussion about the future of the territories. Israel's entire Cabinet in 1967 agreed that Egypt and Jordan had no more claim to Gaza and the West Bank than Israel did, as all three had conquered them through war; since Israel was now in possession it had superior claim. There were serious disagreements, however, as to what that meant. Many ministers were wary of returning the area to King Hussein, assuming that his long-term chances of survival were not good and whoever overthrew him wouldn't respect his commitments. (Hussein died on the throne in 1999 and his son is still there. Forecasting the future is tricky.)
Many of the speakers felt the previous 20 years had shown there had to be Israeli forces on the River Jordan, but refused to countenance Israeli control over the large number of Arabs on the West Bank. Minister of Justice Ya'acov Shimshon Shapira was implacable on the matter of citizenship. Israel can give citizenship to the Arabs it controls or it can stop controlling them, but there's no third way. Most of his colleagues accepted this. Some thought the entire area should be handed back to Hussein, while a few thought it could be split along demographic lines, with the sparsely populated Jordan valley under Israeli control but the crowded mountain area to Hussein. A number of speakers so disliked the thought of handing territories to Hussein, that they suggested finding some local Arabs to hand it over to – what would later be called the two-state solution. Menachem Begin was the only speaker who demanded the entire area remain part of Israel, but even he didn't know what to do with the local Arabs, suggesting merely that the question be revisited in "6 or 7 years". Yigal Allon presented the first outline of the plan that would later bear his name: the Jordan Valley and the Hebron area should be annexed to Israel while the populous northern part of the West Bank should be either returned to Hussein or somehow handed to the locals. He was the only speaker who explicitly recommended creating Israeli settlements; even Begin didn't go that far. Levi Eshkol sardonically summed up the diversity of opinions: You do realize you're playing chess with yourselves, don't you?
Jerusalem: everyone in the room agreed Jerusalem must remain united in Israeli hands, even if this meant Hussein would refuse to reach an agreement which would take the Arab population off Israel's hands in return for some sort of peace. The lines of the city had not yet been drawn, and the official decision would be taken later that month, but those were (important) technicalities. Left to right, atheists to believers, no-one had any doubts. If there was any apprehension regarding Jerusalem, it was that the Christian world would refuse to countenance Jewish control of the city and would relaunch the demand for internationalizing the city.
Gaza: Seen from our perspective, the deliberations about Gaza were the strangest. As with the West Bank, no-one regarded Gaza as Egyptian. Yet nor did anyone see it as part of a future Palestinian State, since no-one, anywhere, including at the UN, had such a State in mind. So everyone agreed that Gaza must be annexed to Israel. Many of the speakers accepted this to mean the Gazan populace would be given Israeli citizenship, but others thought those among them living in refugee camps could perhaps be resettled: to the West Bank (and thus handed to Hussein or whoever); to the El Arish area of the northern Sinai, or perhaps even to other Arab countries. Eshkol shot down all these proposals. Why do we need Gaza and its population, he asked. There's no water in El Arish, you can't settle them in the mostly empty Jordan Valley and dream of holding on to it simultaneously, no far-flung Arab country will even give you the time of day. He speculated, rather wistfully, that if a general agreement with the Arab world could be achieved perhaps the Lebanese might be willing to pipe water down to the West Bank to help settle the refugees, but by the time the meeting moved to concrete proposals he had dropped that idea. No better one appeared, and the Gaza part of the discussion sort of petered out.
The Americans were informed of Israel's positions. It is not known if they relayed them to any Arab leaders. In September the Arab leaders convened in Khartoum and rejected any possibility of peace with Israel. The paradigm Israel's leaders thought they were operating in was irrelevant, and the reality developed in directions they hadn't foreseen. But that's a story for another day.
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