Benny Morris: The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949. Cambridge University Press, 1987, 380 pp. and 'The Initial Absorption of the Palestinian Refugees in the Arab Host Countries, 1984-1949' in A. C. Bramwell (ed.): Refugees in the Age of Total War. London: Unwin & Hyman, 1988, 359 pp.

At the time of World War I, David Ben-Gurion wrote that the Jews had not come to Palestine to dominate and exploit the Arab population: 'We do not intend to push the Arabs aside, to take their land, or disinherit them'. But in the course of time, following the Balfour Declaration and the confrontations between Jews and Arabs in 1920-21, 1929 and 1936-39, his attitude was to change. On 12 July 1937 he wrote in his diary: 'The compulsary transfer of the Arabs from the valleys of the proposed Jewish state could give us something which we never had, even when we stood on our own during the days of the First and Second Temples, . . . We must expel Arabs and take their places . . . and if we have to use force'.

Ben-Gurion's notes were in reaction to the report of the British Peel Commission, which put forth the idea of dividing Palestine, setting up two separate states, and transferring the 250,000 Arabs living within the confines of the proposed Jewish state. The proposal was to be rejected, but it introduced the idea of expulsion, not the least in the mind of Ben-Gurion, the first leader of the Israeli state.

The quotes are taken from a new book from Cambridge University Press that has already become the focus of much debate, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-49. In it Benny Morris, historian and journalist with the Jerusalem Post, presents the whole, complex chain of events that led to the flight of 600,000-760,000 from Israel in the years 1947 to 1949.

This is the most thorough study of the problem that has hitherto been published. Morris maintains a strict empirical approach in his presentation - nothing has been left to chance. The reader is provided for instance with a map of the 369 Arab villages that were abandonded in the course of the 1947^49 war, detailing the exact time and cause of each evacuation.

The author has had access to previously classified American, British and, of primary interest, Israeli documents. There is no reference made to any Arab or Palestinian sources, however. Those Arab states which were involved in the 1948 war are unwilling to open their archives, while the Palestinians had at the time of the establishment of the Israeli state yet no functioning state apparatus which could have produced any documents of value.

From a strictly formal point of view, the Palestinian refugee problem was created on 14 May 1948, when the State of Israel proclaimed its independence. At that time there were two main ethnic groups with rivalling claims in Palestine which under British rule had become known as the Palestine Mandate. The most nationalist groups were the Palestinian Jews and the Palestinian Arabs. The tension between these two groups intensified during the twenties and thirties. As it developed, the relationship between the two groups acquired the character of a zero-sum game, where the gains of one became the losses of the other. The battle was uneven from the start, however, with the half-feudal Palestinian Arab society facing a modern Jewish society with a more clear-cut nationalist orientation as well as a welldeveloped

After years of conflicts and fruitless international conferences the United Kingdom its failure as trustee to resolve the Palestine question. The matter was referred unresolved to the United Nations, which on 29 November 1947 endorsed the recommendation to partition Palestine into two states, with Jerusalem and Bethlehem constituting a neutral international enclave.

Long before the Israeli declaration of independence, however, the Arab population to flee Palestine. Since then an intensive debate has raged among scholars as to the causes of the refugee problem. Arab and Israeli accounts are at great variance with each other, more often than not reflecting a clear bias on the part of both. In the Arab view the Jews are wholly to blame. According to them the flight of the Palestinians was provoked by Jewish terrorism. Proponents of the Israeli view, on the other hand, have argued that it was the Palestinian leaders who urged their people to flee. One shortcoming of Morris's presentation is that he fails to provide a bibliographic record of this debate.

Morris's book tells us 'wie es eigentlich gewesen ist'. His findings, in simple terms, support the Arab view. Even though there was no 'blueprint' for a forced expulsion of the Palestinian Arabs, this possibility was discussed at an early stage by the Zionist leaders.

The idea of 'one people - one state' had evolved in the nationalist farvour of nineteenth century Europe. Jewish nationalism, manifested in the Zionist movement, the first ideological expression for this idea in Theodor Herzl's book DerJudenstaat. The 'one state - one people' theme was to remain central to Zionist thought.

At the same time as Jewish leaders were discussing the possibility of creating a homogenous Jewish state, millions of ethnic Germans were being expelled from various European nations in order to avoid ethnic rivalries in the future. The Polish and Czech governments, among others, thereby rid themselves of a troublesome ethnic minority. In this way, contemporary events provided the Jewish leaders with a precedent. A Jewish state without Palestinians lay within the realm of the possible.

Yosef Weitz, chief of the so-called 'Transfer Committee', was according to Morris one of the prime movers behind the 'Arab Exodus'. Though never given any official status, the 'Transfer Committee' had the silent approval of Ben-Gurion. The main task of the organization was to prevent the return of Palestinian refugees.

In advance of official sanction, Weitz began to raze a large number of Arab villages. The development of events was proving optimal for his purposes. The war generated new refugees, and each village that was abandoned provided Weitz's troops with a new target to level. His aim was clear: to create a Jewish state without an Arab minority.

His activities provoked protests from the left-wing Mapam party, which early on had campaigned in favour of the Arabs. But the course was set, not the least thanks to the Haganah and the other military organizations. As an example, the military had carte blanche to clear out or blast away all Arab settlements along the Israeli border. The demolition and blov/ing apart of property - a tradition picked up from the British - soon ceased, however, in the realization that such waste of capital value served no useful purpose.

The author makes a point of emphasizing that the Jewish state never actively pursued a policy aimed at a massive and systematic expulsion of Palestinians. There was no plan for an 'Arab Exodus' nor any political decision taken in the matter. But it was tacitly understood at all decision-making levels of the Israeli state apparatus that the fewer Arabs that remained within the borders of the Jewish state the better.

This ambivalent attitude toward the Palestinian problem is well expressed by Israel's first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion. His dream of a pure Jewish state, expressed in his diaries, stands in contrast to his refusal as a statesman to sanction officially Yosef Weitz's operations.

In the latter half of the war the attitude towards the civilian Palestinians toughened. Israeli defence forces and the Haganah carried out more and more expulsion raids. This was going on while Count Bernadotte on behalf of the UN was seeking a solution to the conflict and appealing to Israel to allow the refugees to return.

In the chapter entitled 'Blocking a Return', Morris describes how the abandoned Palestinian villages were claimed for the growing Jewish immigration. Time worked in Israel's favour- it soon became a physical impossibility to reabsorb the refugees. Jews from Europe and the Middle East (half a million Sephardic Jews entered Israel after 1948) moved into houses previously occupied by Palestinians.

The international community continued to pressure the Jewish state to accept the idea of repatriation, but as Morris shows, Israel never had any intention of allowing the Palestinians to return - only a small minority were given the opportunity to rejoin their families.

Since its birth in 1948 and its reception in the following year of half a million
Jewish refugees from the Arab nations, Israel went on to consolidate its strength
at the expense of the Palestinians.

How was the Palestinian problem to be resolved, then, if Israel refused to accept repatriation? This question does not receive the attention it deserves in Morris's book. Interested readers are referred to a recently published anthology, Refugees in the Age of Total War (Unwin & Hyman, ed. Anna C. Bramwell), where Morris in a brief study discusses this problem.

In 1949 the Palestine conflict developed into a conflict between Israel and the
Arab states. The Palestinians became pawns in a political game with international

actors. It would take 15 years before Palestinian nationalism coalesced into a viable
political force.

The prognosis offered in 1948 by a British Foreign Office official was right on
the mark: 'We may be hated now but that is nothing like the hatred which the Jews
are laying up for themselves in the future if they don't allow these people back'.

A lasting solution could only be arrived at in one of two ways: either the Palestinians should be allowed to return, or some means be devised by which they could be fully integrated into one or several of the Arab nations. There was no third way.

The Americans ruled out a repatriation of the Palestinian population. According to the US Concul-General in Jerusalem William Burdett, political stability could only be attained if the Palestinians were integrated into the Arab world. There was too great a risk that repatriation would lead to the rise of a radical Arab fifth columnist movement.

Given the choice of integration, what Arab countries were the most suitable? Israel and the United States preferred Syria and Iraq before Transjordan and Arab Palestine, not the least out of strategic considerations. The further away from Israel the better.

Other Arab nations such as Saudi Arabia would never accept Palestinian refugees with even a brief experience of free press and democratic institutions. Nor was Lebanon a candidate. It was already a host to 100,000 Palestinian refugees and a further influx would mean a heavy strain on the already faltering Lebanese economy. The political consequences would be even more destabilizing. An admission of further Palestinian refugees would tip the balance and give Lebanon a Muslim majority. This was a prospect the Christian elite could not accept. Thus Beirut endorsed the US and Israel view that Syria and Iraq be the recipients.

But both Syria, which had already received 80,000 refugees, and Iraq, with 4,500, said stop. Despite a common Arab cultural heritage, integration was riddled with difficulties, political as well as social. Iraq even wanted to quit itself of the few Palestinians it had received.

The main reason for the Arab world's opposition was not founded on considerations internal economic, political or social concerns. Of overriding interest was the potential of the more than half a million Palestinian refugees as a prime political weapon against the Jewish state. Hundreds of thousands of refugees living in interminable misery along the Israeli frontier would be a constant reminder to world opinion and a siphon of good will.

Benny Morris's book is an important contribution to our understanding of a central and all too often muddled element in the Palestine conflict. Morris's contribution has been to document how the Israeli state apparatus - with the war against the Arab states as a prerequisite - tended to lose no chance in provoking a mass flight of the Arab population. Whether Morris's findings will contribute to a better understanding between Jews and Arabs is another matter. As a paradoxical twist of irony, one of the fundamental prerequisites for Palestinian nationalism was the creation of the Jewish state.