Israel Wants To Supress History Book

by Ben Lynfield

Sharon, leader of the Likud party, is a man deeply committed to the idea that the Zionists are the ones with justice unequivocally on their side in the conflict over Israel/Palestine. And he wants all young Israelis to feel the same way.

One of his problems is that some Israeli historians, among them Benny Morris, who teaches at Ben Gurion University in Beersheba, believe the facts do not support Sharon's approach.

Indeed, Sharon's domestic agenda puts, as its first priority, a revamping of education curriculums in a bid to redress "a weakening of the roots."

The phrase, according to Sharon's adviser, Ra'anan Gissin, refers to a loss of faith in the Zionist ethos of redeeming the Land of Israel as the land that inherently belongs to the Jewish people.

When Israel was established in 1948, says Gissin, "our forefathers were not well armed but they were armed with the conviction they have a right to this land."

Palestinian ghosts from that year, recalled by Arabs simply as "the catastrophe" because of the destruction of Palestinian society that accompanied Israel's emergence, have surfaced in recent months.

But they were put back into the bottle by Yossi Beilin, the justice minister in the outgoing Labor Party-led government. Despite being one of the most liberal politicians in Israel, he blocked the release of excised cabinet statements and other documents about the fighting in 1948.

The documents were requested by Morris, who wanted them for revisions of his book, "The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-49," published in 1988. The book pointed to a middle ground between the Palestinian view of a deliberate expulsion and the official Israeli depiction of a mass flight, concluding that "the Palestinian refugee problem was born of war, not by design, Jewish or Arab. It was largely a by-product of Arab and Jewish fears and of the protracted, bitter fighting that characterized the first Israeli-Arab war."

Gissin says the book contributed to an erosion of Israel's moral fiber, but Morris believes the thrust of his arguments still stand in light of subsequently available documentation. He wants access to the archives to complete a picture he has been putting together from other sources.

According to Israeli law, classified documents are to be released after 40 years unless they harm state security, foreign relations or the privacy of individuals. In this instance, the closure of the archival material was reaffirmed out of concern and opening it would harm Israel's foreign relations, according to Evyatar Frizel, the State Archivist.

"I can understand the hesitations of Beilin that splashing stories of Israel Defense Force atrocities would harm the negotiations with the Palestinians," said Morris. "But this must be put against the more general argument that there will be endless negotiations with the Palestinians and Arab states and that this could remain as the [state's] contention for the next 50 years. It is a question of freedom of information versus foreign policy expediency."

Beilin declined to be interviewed for this article. The material will be kept confidential for at least another year, according to his decision. Gissin is dead set against releasing it, saying Morris would use the information to further undermine the belief in Zionism.

According to the transcript of the meeting, David Ben-Gurion, the prime minister, made it clear there would be no return of the refugees. And he was troubled that Israel had not extended its conquests to Lydda and Ramle, Arab towns southeast of Tel Aviv.

"That two thorns are remaining -- Lydda and Ramle -- is a serious flaw in our standing right now," Ben-Gurion said. In the archives, five blanked out lines follow that statement and other comments by Ben-Gurion and Foreign Minister, Moshe Shertok, have equally ominous deletions.

A month later, Israeli forces expelled tens of thousands of Palestinians from Lydda and Ramle in an operation commanded by a young officer named Yitzhak Rabin. The bluntly honest Rabin wrote later in his memoirs, in a passage that was itself censored for many years, that when Ben-Gurion was asked what should be done with the Palestinians, he had ordered, by waving his hand, that they be expelled.

Rabin thought the expulsions necessary to protect the rear of the advancing Israeli forces, but he described how some of his troops thought it was immoral and refused to participate.

Were Israeli intentions to expel the civilian population of Lydda and Ramle enunciated by Ben-Gurion a month before the towns were captured?

The answer, as Beilin is aware, is not entirely academic. Until Sharon's electoral victory, Beilin was a key negotiator with the Palestinians, and held discussions with his counterpart Nabil Shaath on one of the main bones of contention, the Palestinian refugee issue.

The practicalities of how that issue is resolved through a return of refugees, compensation or other means derive, in part, from which historical narrative is given greater weight, the Israeli or Palestinian.

According to the Israeli narrative, the refugees fled from their homes of their own volition in the hopes of returning after an Arab victory.

The Palestinian narrative says Israel expelled the Palestinians and bears direct responsibility for their becoming refugees. The Palestinian side demands that three million refugees located in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, the West Bank, Gaza Strip and elsewhere be accorded the "right of return" to former locales in what became Israel, though Palestinian leaders say not everyone will exercise the right. Israeli leaders see this as a blueprint for destroying Israel as a Jewish state.

The gap now promises to become even wider. Sharon has dropped the framework of the 1993 Oslo Agreement which called for negotiations about the refugees and says that he will opt, instead, for a limited non-belligerency pact. That would mean he would not deal with the past at all.

Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, says Israel needs to confront its past, including "ethnic cleansing," deliberate expulsion and massacres of Palestinians in order to begin healing wounds. "Allowing the truth to come out and an admission of culpability would go a long way to starting a process of reconciliation," she said.