Ethnic Cleansing Continues
Commentary and Translation by Prof. Ilan Pappé
Ethnic cleansing continued after the cession of fighting.
“To Moshe Sharett (Israel’s Foreign Minister)
New York
4 December 1949
Dear Moshe,
Zalman Liff [advisor to Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben Gurion, on land policy] told me today that there is a plan to expel the Arab population in many places. Especially in the Galilee
Here are the facts:
1. The villages whose population will be expelled are: Fasuta, Tarshiha, Mi’lya, Jish (which includes the people of Iqrit and B’rim), Hurfish, Rihaniya this in the Galilee, Majdal and Zacharia (near beit Natif).
2. The number of people who would be expelled would be more than ten thousand.
3. The transfer, namely the expulsion, is needed for security reasons.
4. The Prime Minister approved the plan but will execute it with yours and Kaplan’s [Eliezer Kaplan, the Finance Minister] approval.
5. Liff says that the plan is to be executed without extra brutality…
6. The plan will not be executed before you arrive [back from the UN in New York] and your approval.
In a conversation with Liff, I expressed my strong opposition for political reasons. I thought I should alert you of the program now, if it were not finalized yet. I would add that most of those targeted for expulsion are Christians, Druze (in Horfish), Circisians (in Rihaniyya).
Yours
Walter Eitan [Director General of the Israeli Foreign Office].”
[In the end of the day, the villages in the north were spared by strong lobbying of Sharett and his colleagues, mainly because they were not Muslim villages. However, Majdal was expelled as was Zacharia. Between 1948 and 1956, Israel expelled around 30 villages. ]