The allegation that Israel’s first PM David Ben-Gurion wrote in a 1937 letter to his son that he supports the “compulsory transfer of Arabs” has recently gained traction on social media, but has been around for a while.
The Israeli revisionist historian Ilan Pappe, in his 2006 book The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, summarises Ben-Gurion’s letter with the phrase
“The Arabs will have to go, but one needs an opportune moment for making it happen, such as a war.”
The Israeli revisionist historian Benny Morris , who was an apologist for the Palestinians until the Second Intifada, made similar claims. In his 1988 book, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem:1947-1949, Morris quotes Ben-Gurion’s 1937 letter as saying
“We must expel Arabs and take their places.”
In 1997, the Israeli historian Efraim Karsh set the record straight in the second chapter of his book Fabricating Israeli History. The chapter ‘Falsifying the Record’: Benny Morris, David Ben-Gurion, and the ‘Transfer’ Idea criticises Morris for using Ben-Gurion’s letter as proof that he wanted to expel the Arabs, given Morris simultaneously quoted the letter as saying “if we have to use force not to dispossess the Arabs from the Negev and Transjordan, but to guarantee our own right to settle in those places, then we have force at our disposal.” Karsh, who read Ben-Gurion’s original handwritten letter, quotes it as follows.
“I do not dream of and I do not love war. And I still believe-more than before the possibility of a state was created- that after we become numerous and strong in the country, the Arabs will understand that it is best for them to strike an alliance with us, and to benefit from our help, provided they allow us, in good will to settle in all parts of Palestine… the Jews can be equal allies, true friends, and not occupiers and oppressors.
(But) let us assume that the Negev will not be included in the Jewish State. It will then remain barren [since] the Arabs are not capable of nor need to develop and build it. They have their fair share of deserts- and they lack the human resources, the money, and the initiative [for such an enterprise]. And it is very likely that, in exchange for our financial, military, organizational, and scientific assistance, the Arabs will agree that we develop and build the Negev. It is also possible that they will not agree. A people does not always behave according to logic, common sense, and best interest. Just like you feel a contradiction between your mind and your heart, so it is possible that the Arabs will act according to sterile nationalist emotion and will tell us: ‘We want neither your honey nor your sting. It is better for the Negev to remain barren than to be populated by Jews.’ And then we will have to talk to them in a different language. And we will have a different language, which we will not have unless we have a state. Because we cannot stand to see large areas of unsettled land capable of absorbing dozens of thousands of Jews remain empty, or see Jews not returning to their country because the Arabs choose that neither we nor they will have the place. And then we will have to use force and will use it without hesitation though only when we have no other choice.
We do not wish to and do not need to expel Arabs and take their place. All our aspiration is built on the assumption- proven throughout all our activity in the Land [of Israel] — that there is enough room in the country for ourselves and the Arabs. But if we have to use force — not to dispossess the Arabs of the Negev and Transjordan, but to guarantee our own right to settle in those places-then we have force at our disposal.” (Emphasis mine).
Karsh notes that Ben-Gurion rephrasing a sentence resulted in him accidentally crossing out the words “do not,” making it seem as if he were saying “we need” rather than “we do not need,” despite this being inconsistent with a holistic interpretation of the letter. Morris claimed, after Karsh’s book was published, that the “we do not” was an editorial addition by later hands. The issue with that, as Karsh pointed out in the chapter, is that “we don’t need to expel the Arabs” makes more sense in the context of the rest of the letter than “we need to expel the Arabs” does.
Thus, it’s rather clear that Ben-Gurion wasn’t advocating the expulsion of the Arabs from Israel, or anything like that. He was simply talking about how the Jews would respond if the Arabs were to force them into a situation of having to go to war.
Matitya Loran blogs at Matitya’s Many Musings on a Myriad of Matters on Medium.
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