Genocide was always part of the plan – Plan Dalet 1947-2024…

A strategic analysis of the Zionist plan for ethnic cleansing of Palestine, contextualizing the absurdity of ceasefire whilst under perpetual attack.?

This article is written as a counterpoint to those who believe Palestine “had it coming.” Israel’s treatment of Palestine amounts to one, singular, incessant, 76 year-long attack. The content examines the ethnic cleansing plan devised by David Ben-Gurion in 1948, and how it has led to Benjamin Netanyahu’s genocide against Palestine today.

Introduction

The following article is based on paraphrased notes taken from multiple sources, the most prominent being: The Hundred Years' War on Palestine by Rashid Khalidi, and The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine by Ilan Pappé. Specific references are not listed in this article but can easily be found within these two books. The information has also been cross-referenced across multiple other sources for historical consistency. Both these writers have received critical acclaim from academic peers and critics around the world, however they are treated with disdain by Israel, despite Ilan Pappé being an Israeli native historian and political scientist (currently a professor at the University of Exeter).

In the 1980s, pertinent British & Israeli government documents became declassified and accessible to the public. These documents inspired some Israeli historians and political scientists to rewrite history (called the New History). One of the most notable New Historians was Ilan Pappé, who wrote The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine in 2006.

This evidence-based “New History” told a very different story from the Zionist narrative portrayed in the Israeli media, taught in schools, and broadcast to foreign nations. This story tells of David Ben-Gurion’s Zionist plan (Plan Dalet), which utilized systematic violence, murder, destruction, and expulsion to establish the new nation of Israel. This is the story of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.

Plan Dalet – The Zionist plan for conquest and the cleansing of the Arab Palestinian people – a plan that is still underway today in various different guises.

The architect of this plan was the Jewish Agency leader, later to become the first prime minister of Israel, David Ben-Gurion. He developed it in the years leading up to 1947 in collaboration with the Haganah (Israeli military forces), and it was finalized on March 10, 1948.

The purpose of this article is not to make a chronological account but establish strategic pillars for Plan Dalet. The hypothesis is that Plan Dalet never concluded with the armistice in 1948, but rather continued as an ongoing ethnic-cleansing action, perpetrated against the Palestinian people till this very day.

Hypothesized Plan Dalet strategic pillars:

• Lobbying for land – The Balfour Declaration & The Partition Plan
• Lobbying for arms – From Britain, Soviet Union & United States
• Disproportionate Force (Dahiya Doctrine) – Provocation & justification for collective punishment
• Victimhood – Providing a narrative for impunity
• Intimidation and terrorism – The use of paramilitary gangs & settler militias for deniability
• Ethnic Cleansing – The murder and displacement of the native population
• Espionage and Intelligence – Developing a systematic plan for ethnic cleansing
• Land acquisition – Setting the groundwork for weaponized colonization
• Hostage taking (Detention Camps) – Weaponizing arbitrary detention of men, women and children
• Removal of self-determination – Preventing basic human rights, political & diplomatic representation
• Secrecy – Hiding intergenerational crimes
• Propaganda – Vilifying the Palestinian population & Islam
• Starvation and disease – The sabotage of aid & use of biological weapons?
• Occupation and colonialism – The continued implementation of Plan Dalet & the theft of a country

The Narrative

It is important to note that the Zionist narrative claims that Plan Dalet was created in self-defense, carried out in advance of an Arab League invasion. However, even before mid-May when the Arab Liberation Army reluctantly entered Palestine, Zionist forces (the Haganah) had already destroyed over 200 Arab Palestinian Villages (nearly 50%), and displaced 250,000 Arab Palestinians.

It is understood that western governments and the press were well aware of the ethnic cleansing; however, few were willing to broadcast negatively due to the holocaust occurring only 3 years before.

Despite this, as early as March 1948, US observers were so appalled by the unfolding atrocities that they recommended to the US State Department a halt to the partition plan. Subsequently, the US State Department and the UN nearly passed a plan to govern Palestine via an International Trusteeship. Unfortunately, President Harry Truman scrapped the plan after pressure from Zionist lobbyists.

The Zionist leader, David Ben-Gurion, despite proclaiming to the Western world about an impending second Holocaust by the neighboring Arab nations, knew that his British trained and armed Zionist forces were twice as powerful as the badly armed ALA (Arab Liberation Army).

The Haganah had no troubles repelling the Arab forces, whilst simultaneously destroying a further 90 Arab Palestinian villages between mid-May and mid-June (3 villages a day). In fact, it was so easy for Israel to overcome the ALA that many historians refer to this as the “Phony War.” Inspired by this success, David Ben-Gurion began to devise plans for invading the neighboring Arab nations, including taking revenge on Egypt for the mistreatment of Jewish ancestors thousands of years before – thankfully, the Zionist state never successfully realized this vision.

By the end of the war, the Haganah had attacked major Palestinian cities and destroyed some 530 villages, and perpetrated approximately 70 massacres (estimates vary, and some historians, like Ilan Pappé believe the numbers to be far higher).

Who was David Ben-Gurion?

David Ben-Gurion was a Zionist leader, Israel’s First Prime Minister, and Minister of Defense, viewed as "Israel's founding father," and understandably revered by most Israelis. Clearly, Ben-Gurion had no innate hatred for Arabs and even instigated a policy of restraint ("Havlagah") in which the Haganah and other Jewish groups did not retaliate for Arab attacks against Jewish civilians during the 1936–1939 Arab revolt against the British, concentrating only on self-defense.

Sadly, in the 1940s Ben-Gurion became more extreme in pursuit of his goal to create the state of Israel. Despite being an adamant leftist, the expulsion of Palestinian Arabs was endorsed by mainstream Zionists, especially David Ben-Gurion. There can be little doubt that Ben-Gurion understood that this policy would result in considerable bloodshed. He also knew that Palestinian Arab people were primarily farming communities, who generally lived in integrated harmony with the minority Jews and Christians. He knew that they had few weapons and little capability of defending themselves. Yet, David Ben-Gurion formulated Plan Dalet detailing the violent systematic cleansing of the Palestinian people – there were no limits to the atrocities the Zionist regime were willing to commit to create the state of Israel.

Dr. Nahum Goldmann, president of the World Zionist Organization, criticized Ben-Gurion for what he viewed as a confrontational approach to the Arab world. Goldmann wrote, "Ben-Gurion is the man principally responsible for the anti-Arab policy because it was he who molded the thinking of generations of Israelis.

Nahum Goldmann also reported that Ben Gurion had told him in private in 1956: “Why should the Arabs make peace? If I were an Arab leader, I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural: we have taken their country. Sure, God promised it to us, but what does that matter to them? Our God is not theirs. We come from Israel, it's true, but two thousand years ago, and what is that to them? There has been anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They only see one thing: we have come here and stolen their country. Why should they accept that?”?

Since the conception of Zionism in the mid-1900s, the movement’s leaders have made no secret of their plans – they understood that the creation of a homogeneous Jewish state would result in the suffering of the Palestinian Arab people.

Zionist leader Zev Jabotinsky stated in 1923. “Every native population in the world resists colonists as long as it has the slightest hope of being able to rid itself of the danger of being colonized, that is what the Arabs in Palestine are doing, what they will persist in doing, as long as there remains a solitary spark of hope that they will be able to prevent the transformation of Palestine into the land of Israel.”

Below can be found hypothesized Plan Dalet strategic pillars and examples of the historical consequences.

Lobbying for land

As soon as Britain declared war on the Ottoman Empire in 1914, plans were developed for Palestine.

The key Zionists responsible for lobbying Britain for the establishment of a national home for Jewish people were Walter Rothschild and Chaim Weizmann. On the British side was Arthur Balfour (an outspoken anti-Semite who wished to divert Jewish immigration away from Britain) and Winston Churchill, who in his role as colonial secretary knew that the empire’s colonial strategy was already at an end. Colonialism had become strategically fraught and politically unpopular; Churchill was keen to establish a proxy state in the region.

Palestine’s fate was sealed in 1917 when the nation was effectively sold by Britain to the World Zionist Organisation. At this time, Palestine was harmoniously inhabited by Muslims, Jews, and Christians (the Jewish population being less than 10%).

In 1947 Britain was already losing its grip on the Middle East. Again, Zionist leaders had been successful in lobbying on behalf of a Jewish state, and the UN proposed the partitioning of Palestine. The Jewish inhabitants in Palestine were still a minority of only 30%, and yet were given 56% of the land, most of the fertile ground, and most of the coastline. Naturally, the Arab Palestinians refused, whilst the Zionist leadership accepted, never intending to honor the partitioning plan. Internally within the Zionist administration, David Ben-Gurion had already voiced a clear intent to capture 100% of the land and establish a minimum 80% threshold for Jewish population.

An example of how powerful the Zionist lobbyists were can be demonstrated in March 1948. US observers were so disturbed by the unfolding carnage of the Zionist ethnic cleansing of Arab Palestinians that they recommended to their counterparts in the US State Department that the planned partitioning of Palestine be halted.

The US State Department proposed a new plan where Palestine was to be governed by an international trusteeship. The US State Department and the UN were in agreement, and the plan was about to go through. However, Zionist lobbyists placed pressure on President Harry Truman, who promptly scrapped the plan. This taught the Zionist lobbyists the extent of their power, and from that day forward, the US State Department became sidelined regarding any Middle Eastern policy, which thereafter was determined via Capitol Hill and the White House, under Zionist influence.

Lobbying for Arms

Zionist leadership knew that Palestinian Arabs would never willingly give up the ancestral lands they had been inhabiting for millennia. As part of negotiations with Western superpowers, Israel sold itself as a proxy military presence in the region from which the West could control the Middle East. This idea was highly attractive to Western nations, resulting in consecutive military partnerships starting with Britain, then the Soviet Union, and finally with the United States.

In return, Israel gained military training and weapons. By 1947, Israel’s military power was twice that of all the surrounding Arab nations put together.

Disproportionate Force (Dahiya Doctrine)

The Dahiya Doctrine is an asymmetric military strategy officially implemented as policy by Israel since 2006 (though unofficially used since 1947). It entails the use of disproportionate force when engaging an enemy militarily. It has also been Israeli military policy to treat all civilian areas such as towns and villages as military bases, so the use of the Dahiya Doctrine became an excuse for collective punishment of civilians. Israel has demonstrated a 75 year long pattern of deliberate provocation, using systematic abuse to push the Palestinian population to the limit. When an eventual retaliation occurs this then gives the IDF free reign to implement the The Dahiya Doctrine.

The Dahiya Doctrine provides zero tolerance for any act of resistance – in 1947/48 even the act of a child throwing a stone could result in the total annihilation of a village and the slaughter of all men of fighting age (ages 10-50), as well as the expulsion or killing of the women and children (depending on the Haganah mood on the day), followed by the complete destruction of all buildings. For all intents and purposes, this policy has not changed in the last 75+ years.

Another example is the use of massive and indiscriminate firepower. In the Israel-Gaza conflicts between 2008-2014, Israel dropped an estimated 21 Kilotons of bombs, displacing 450,000 Gazans, destroying 16,000 buildings, and? killing 17,000 people. The Israeli weapons included the use of hundreds of 2000-pound bombs with a kill range of 350m, as well as the use of other huge unguided artillery with a kill range of 200-250m. In just one day, Israel made 7000 strikes on a single Gazan neighborhood. In comparison, Hamas indiscriminately fired around 4000 rockets at Israel, the total accumulative power being equivalent to just 12 of the Israeli 2000 bombs.

The Dahiya Doctrine is much debated as a potential war crime amounting to collective punishment.

Victimhood

Even during the late 1800s, colonialism had become politically distasteful in the Western world. Zionist leaders realized that in order to maintain Western support, they would need to use subterfuge to carry out the Zionist colonial project.

After centuries of Jewish persecution, culminating in the Holocaust of WW2, the Western world was sympathetic, and it was understandable that Jewish people would want their own nation.

Despite accounting for 90% of the population, Arab Palestinians were not even acknowledged in the Balfour Declaration. However, it did entitle “non-Jewish” inhabitants of Palestine to basic civil rights and religious freedom.

For this reason, it was important that a narrative be established where Zionist aggression was perceived as being responsive to hostile acts rather than proactive.

Leading up to 1947, David Ben-Gurion and fellow Zionist leaders came up with a plan to use Far Right Zionist gangs to harass, terrorize, and intimidate the local population, with the goal of provoking resistance.

Regardless of provocation, any acts of violence by the Arab Population then provided justification for Zionist forces to take action, displacing the Arab Palestinian communities.

According to Ben-Gurion, the biggest problem was Arab Palestinian passivity. Even in the face of extreme violence, the Palestinian people were primarily farmers with few or antiquated weapons; they were essentially powerless. Even in the face of major Zionist hostilities in 1948, most Arab Palestinians tried to continue with rural life, hoping that eventually things would return to normal, as they had always done during previous regime changes.

One story perpetuated within the Israeli narrative was that Palestinian villagers left of their own free will, expecting that the invading Arab League armies would repel the Zionist forces.

However, the story told by David Ben-Gurion to Jewish populations abroad is the antithesis of this. Ben-Gurion described the potential Arab Army invasion as a great risk to the newly founded Israeli state, likely to bring about a second Holocaust. This was entirely untrue; in reality, nations in the Arab League had their own domestic and political problems to deal with, and their leaders were reluctant to engage militarily in the Palestinian conflict. Initially, incursions were limited to lightly armed volunteers, and when the Arab Liberation Army (ALA) finally committed regular army forces, they too were poorly armed and certainly no match for the Western-armed and trained Zionist Haganah forces.

In fact, by May 1948, when the Arab armies finally invaded, Ben-Gurion’s Haganah forces had already “cleansed” (displaced or destroyed) over 200 villages (nearly 50% of total Palestinian villages), and despite fighting the Arab armies, the Haganah also managed to cleanse another 90 villages in the one month following. This clearly puts to rest the myth that Israel was a victim at the mercy of hostile neighbors.

Victimhood continued to be an important propaganda narrative throughout the creation of the Zionist project, especially after the enactment of the American Arms Export Control Act of 1979. This act stipulates that arms can only be sold to foreign states for the purpose of defense. Without a narrative of victimhood, Israel cannot claim that the use of these arms against an occupied people is for defensive purposes.

Intimidation and Terrorism

Leading up to 1947, the Zionist leadership wished to maintain a level of deniability for atrocities. David Ben-Gurion devised a plan to use violent pro-Zionist paramilitary gangs to carry out what were known as Intimidation Raids (terror attacks) on Arab Palestinian villages and towns. The most notorious of these gangs were named the Irgun, Stern, and Lehi gangs.

Such terrorist raids included: sneaking into villages at night and shooting anyone who happened to exit the houses, or randomly blowing up houses while the residents slept.

Israeli settlements tended to be built on defensible hills located above Palestinian towns, enabling the gangs to roll barrel bombs down the hillside into the towns below, or hose fuel down into the streets setting them alight. The gangs would then machine-gun anyone who attempted to escape the flames or fight the fires.

The gangs inspired terror by randomly shooting at cars in traffic or bombing Palestinian cafes, workplaces, and even hotels, on one occasion accidently killing the Spanish consul.

As time went by, these attacks became more extreme and the gangs became notorious for numerous massacres, including war crimes like torture, mutilation, rape, looting, and the mass murder of men, women, and children.

On 9 April 1948, the Official Zionist Haganah militias decided to attack a village. This was problematic because the village already had an established peace accord with Israel. In order to claim deniability, they chose to use the Irgun and Lehi gangs for the task. The resulting atrocity became famously known as the Deir Yassin massacre – the gangs killed at least 107 Palestinian Arab villagers, including women and children (including 30 babies). Although the Irgun gang bragged that the actual number killed was 250. They executed the children last, lining them up against a wall and machine-gunning them (apparently for fun). Eventually, the Irgun and Stern gangs were absorbed into David Ben-Gurion’s militias to officially become part of the Haganah.

Intimidation continues to be a key strategy utilized by the Zionist government today. Random attacks, harassment, arbitrary arrests, government-endorsed settler attacks and killings, the spraying of Palestinian neighborhoods with Skunk water (a malodorant, non-lethal weapon), the prevention of free movement, randomized rationing of basic goods and services… All these tactics are used to instill terror and teach Palestinians one thing – “We don’t want you here, you are not welcome.”

The Stern, Irgun, and Lehi gangs might not be around anymore, but today IDF-supported settler militias perform a very similar role. These militias may be slightly less brutal than the gangs of 1947, but their objective is still the same – to intimidate Palestinians into fleeing their homes or to provoke a response, giving the IDF license to come down hard on the population (Dahiya Doctrine style).

Ethnic Cleansing

David Ben-Gurion’s regular Haganah militias were no less ruthless than the paramilitary gangs, as demonstrated by the fact that only a few original pre-1947 Palestinian villages still stand today.

The Haganah were the British-trained and armed Israeli defense force. The primary difference between the Haganah and the gangs was that as an official military force, their actions were slightly tempered by the presence of the British forces, who supposedly had a responsibility to protect the Arab Palestinian people (although they seldom took action to do so).

Unfortunately for the Palestinians, it was commonplace for the Haganah to commit atrocities in plain sight, and overwhelmingly the British just looked the other way.

As the impending departure of the British army came closer, Haganah attacks became progressively more ruthless. This behavior is demonstrated in the now-famous Tantura massacre (watch the documentary) where all the males of the town over the age of 10 were executed right in front of the women and children. Or the Ein al-Zeitun massacre where, despite the townsfolk instantly surrendering, Haganah forces rounded up and bound all men, women, children (including babies) and shot every one of them.

Massacring villages close to larger towns was considered good military procedure because as news spread, it caused the people to flee in terror, making the ethnic cleansing process easier. Approximately 70 massacres were perpetrated by Zionist forces in 1948 (however, some historians believe the number to be much higher). Most Israeli historians claim the number to be around 10, but this seems out of proportion to the vast number of villages and urban neighborhoods cleansed in under a year.

Another famous example was in the cleansing of Haifa in an attack called Operation Bi'ur Hametz on 22 April 1948. Around 65,000 Palestinians were inhabiting the city, and at the time of the attack, there were no longer any Arab fighting forces at the location. Aware of an impending Haganah attack, the British intended to evacuate the city via the ports. Before they could do so, five Haganah companies attacked.

One company called Carmeli's 22nd Battalion was given the order to 'kill every [adult male] Arab encountered' and to set alight with firebombs, all flammable buildings.

The Palestinian Arabs had just moments to flee and rushed towards the port in hope of escape. Upon reaching the port gates, the population assembled in an adjoining market square. The Haganah then used the elevation of nearby hills from which to fire mortars right into the crowd, the terrified Palestinians panicked and stormed the port, crushing each other in a desperate attempt to escape. The few fishing boats available for boarding became so overcrowded that many capsized and sank with all passengers. At no time did the British attempt to interject in the massacre or help the wounded.

In a relatively short time, the Haganahs managed to push enormous numbers of Palestinian villagers out of their homes. It became standard practice for men of fighting age (10–50 years old) to be separated from the women and children. Depending on the Zionist Intelligence dossier for the town, the men would be executed on the spot or imprisoned. Having a peaceful relationship with Jewish settlements did not guarantee safety, and there are plenty of recorded incidents where men were executed despite amicable preexisting relationships.

The Haganah were not afraid of committing war crimes, including reported biological and chemical warfare. There are allegations of biological attacks where water sources were poisoned with dysentery and typhoid (e.g., in Acre). And on 27 May 1948, Israeli agents attempted to ‘poison the water supply in Gaza. The agents were caught in the act of injecting typhoid and dysentery viruses into wells; this attempt was foiled by Egyptian forces and the Israeli agents were executed.

Allegations were also made that Israel also used this technique (in Operation Shalach) against foreign states including Egypt and Syria. Such weapons were developed in an Israeli biological and chemical weapon department called "The flame-thrower project” under the directorship of a physical chemist called Ephraim Katzir. Aside from domestically made flamethrowers (a favorite Haganah weapon), other weapons included a chemical agent that permanently blinded but did not kill.

Leading into 1948, any remaining Palestinian educated elite fled the country to the safety of their winter homes located in neighboring countries. They hoped to wait out the storm of violence ravaging the country and eventually return. Most were never allowed to reenter the country.

For average Palestinians, when the danger became too much, they were forced to flee either by foot or on buses and trucks that the Zionist regime kindly supplied. Supply of transportation was not just to expedite quick expulsion; this provided an opportunity to film the exodus for broadcasting and propaganda purposes, as evidence of their peaceful departure.

This is in keeping with the fabricated narrative, stating that the Palestinians left voluntarily, expecting the combined (Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria) forces to defeat the Zionists, enabling them to return and reclaim their lands.

As mentioned earlier, outwardly Ben-Gurion claimed the Arab nation’s forces represented a great threat and a potential second holocaust against the Jewish people. However, privately, and as noted in his diary, Ben-Gurion knew the ALA could not contest against Israel Haganah, who already had military might amounting to twice that of all the Arab nations combined. History proved this to be true with the Israeli army only ever encountering serious resistance on a few instances when fighting Egyptian, Iraqi, and Jordanian forces.

Espionage and Intelligence

Before the Partition, in the years leading up to 1947, Zionist leader David Ben-Gurion and other leaders began contriving a plan for the taking of all Palestine. To enable this, he formed an Arab Affairs intelligence team charged with building dossiers about every Palestinian village and town.

Operatives were trained to assimilate themselves into Palestinian society as traders in order to gather intel for the development of strategies for attack, details about the population, including previous participation in the revolt against the British (marked for execution), and whether towns and villages had any ability to resist militarily. It was this information that enabled Zionist militias to swiftly and conclusively cleanse Palestine in 1948.

Land Acquisition

In the years following the Balfour Declaration, the Jewish Colonial Trust began funding the acquisition of Palestinian land from absentee ex-Ottoman landlords. This land was inhabited by farmers who had been tending it for hundreds of years. In some cases, this was done equitably, and Zionist settlers were able to move in peacefully alongside villages.

Traditionally, when land changed hands, the new owners would keep the farmers on to continue farming and generating a profit. However, the Zionist settlers generally had no interest in this, and in most cases, after completing the purchase of the land, they immediately evicted the farmers from their homes, leaving them destitute.

This led to The Great Palestinian Revolt against the British administration from 1936 until 1939. Large numbers of displaced farming workers were forced to move to metropolitan centers to escape their abject poverty and found themselves socially marginalized. The uprising coincided with a peak in the influx of immigrant Jews, some 60,000 that year – the Jewish population having grown under British auspices from 57,000 to 320,000 in 1935.

David Ben-Gurion had a grand plan that involved these settlements. They were to blaze a trail for further settlements, providing some level of security. However, leading up to 1947, only 6% of the land had become Jewish-owned, and Ben-Gurion was concerned about the slow progress. It was apparent to Zionist leaders that more drastic and violent action would be required.

Hostage Taking (Detention)

The Zionist forces knew the power of using arrests to subjugate the Arab Palestinian population. Through the use of administrative detention (a form of arbitrary detention), they could prevent the development of any coordinated resistance. It wasn’t long before the realization was made that children provided great leverage. By arresting children (effectively as hostages), the population could be forcibly kept subjugated. When there was a failure to apprehend potential resistance leaders, it became standard practice to take family members in their stead.

Israel is the only country systematically employing military court systems to prosecute children. Annually, an estimated 500-700 Palestinian children, some as young as 12, end up detained and facing prosecution in the Israeli military court system.

However, in times of tension, these numbers can rise rapidly – between the years of 2010 and 2017, over 10,000 Palestinian children have been imprisoned. In 1948, it became standard practice during the cleansing that any males of fighting age (age 10-50), if not executed, would be sent to detention camps. The average term of their detention was 18 months. It’s been suggested that one reason for the numerous massacres of men in 1948 was because the Zionists did not have the capacity for containment of so many captives.

Removal of Self-Determination

It’s important to note that Palestinians were not acknowledged as even existing in both the Balfour Declaration or the 1947 Partition plan, the only reference being as “non-Jewish communities.”

Despite the Great Palestinian Revolt against the British administration from 1936 until 1939, Palestine was primarily a peaceful rural nation, which was traditionally administered in each region by the educated elite. As such, there was not much in the way of a central government. This placed Palestine in a weak position when it came to forming unified or coordinated resistance. When resistance did occur, it happened organically as a popular movement. The results of such action were never going to be positive, and by the end of the brutal suppression by the British forces of The Great Palestinian Revolt in 1939, many of the educated elite were either killed in the conflict, executed afterward, or exiled.

Even before 1947, the British administration and the Zionists utilized a divide-and-conquer strategy, assassinating Palestinian leadership and encouraging Arab Palestinian infighting. In 1947, most of the remaining Palestinian leaders left in fear of Israeli aggression, escaping to their winter homes in neighboring countries. They believed this to be temporary, but Israel never allowed them to return.

Palestinian leadership was never allowed representation in the negotiations and agreements that formed policy for their country until 1993 with the Oslo Accord. Palestinian leaders had virtually no experience in lobbying or diplomatic negotiations. Most believed in an honor system where words were binding. When it came to finally having a seat at the table with US and Israeli diplomats, Yasser Arafat and his cohort were unfit for the task. As such, the Oslo Accord was a disaster, putting the onus on Palestine for security, effectively defending Israel from any Palestinian resistance, but denying Palestine any rights, even for basic resources like water.

This lack of self-determination continues today. The Palestinian National Authority remains as hog-tied as the day the Oslo Accord was first drafted. Whereas Hamas, being labeled as a terrorist organization and not recognized as a governing body, is not entitled to involvement in negotiations regarding policy or governance. For all intents and purposes, Palestine still has as little rights to self-determination as when they were under the British thumb and the writing of the Balfour Declaration in 1917 – despite the UN and many other countries recognizing Palestine as a state, they remain classified domestically as “non-Jewish people.”

Secrecy

By the 1800s, colonialism had become a political taboo. David Ben-Gurion knew that the violence required to capture all of Palestine, as per Plan Dalet, would be distasteful to the public of the Western world. As stipulated by Theodor Herzl, the father of Zionism in 1896, Zionist leaders understood that to be successful, they must use stealth, controlling the external narrative and perception of the colonial project, whilst preventing awareness of the grand plan among the Arab Palestinian population.

This can be seen through British and Zionist control of the media – for 2 years following the Balfour Declaration, the production of newspapers in Palestine was banned. Most Palestinians were blissfully unaware that their nation had been sold-off until news filtered in via newspapers brought into the country by traders. For many, the news only arrived when they were evicted from the land they had been farming for generations. Despite the Great Palestinian Revolt of 1936, many Palestinians in the rural communities accepted the new Jewish settlements and continued living in peace until 1947.

Theodor Herzl, the father of Zionism, said:

“We must expropriate gently the property on the estates assigned to us, we shall try to spirit the penniless population across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while denying it employment in our own country. Both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly.”

Propaganda

Zionist leaders understood the power of propaganda as a lobbying tool, to insulate against criticism from foreign powers and to motivate the people.

This was evident during 1948 when, after terrorizing and slaughtering the Palestinian population, the Zionist administration supplied transport to Palestinians desperate to flee the violence, using buses and trucks. The exodus was filmed as a demonstration of Zionist goodwill toward refugees for foreign news and diplomats.

The Zionist cause was aided by the fact that, although the news media were on the ground in Palestine reporting on the ethnic cleansing, broadcast exposure was limited because most news stations were afraid to report anything negative about the Zionist project, just 3 years after the Holocaust.

In 1947, David Ben-Gurion began promoting a narrative to Jewish populations both abroad and domestically, stating that the newly formed Zionist state was in danger of being crushed by neighboring Arab nations.

In 1948, this seemed plausible because ethnic cleansing was underway, resulting in threats of military action by nations of the Arab League. In reality, Ben-Gurion knew that these were hollow threats, as intelligence had informed him well of the political and military status of all countries in the Arab League. Each of these Arab nations had their own political struggles and was reluctant to enter into a conflict with Israel. In addition, the Israeli army was already twice as powerful as all the Arab states, aside from Jordan, which was a well-equipped force – which is why David Ben-Gurion chose to negotiate with King Abdullah of Jordan.

Post-1948, Zionist leaders realized that the cleansing of Palestine would inflict significant “moral injury” on the population of Israel – most nations prefer not to think of themselves as being founded on mass murder and atrocities. Additionally, there was much work still to be done in cleansing the areas annexed by Jordan (The West Bank) and under military rule by Egypt (Gaza) – it was important to keep the population of the Zionist project motivated and militarized towards the ultimate goal of claiming back all of Judea.

In the 1950s, it was decided that a narrative needed to be established that would enable the public to maintain a sense of moral righteousness about the Zionist project.

This was communicated via the media, within schools, and the military. At the heart of this was a sense of victimhood. After centuries of persecution and the horrors of the Holocaust, this sense of victimhood was completely natural. However, Israel had already become one of the world’s greatest military powers and had never been defeated. As such, a version of history needed to be created that continued this sense of victimhood.

The resulting narrative can be found in the school history curriculum created in 1958, which is still the basis for history taught in most Israeli schools today.

In many respects, this narrative aligns with David Ben-Gurion’s propaganda back in 1947.

The fabricated narrative essentially goes like this: All Arabs have a singular evil goal – to wipe all Jews off the face of the earth. After the Partition Plan, Israel came under a great threat from all the hostile forces of the surrounding Arab nations. In 1947, local Palestinian gangs rose up to attack the Zionist forces. But the Israeli Haganah prevailed in these battles, and the rest of the Palestinian population fled from their ancestral farms, making way for the Arab armies to sweep in and destroy the Zionist state, enabling the Palestinian people to return claiming all the territory. In some texts, it’s even claimed that the Zionists tried to convince the Palestinian people to stay. In the end, the Zionist forces, through strength, tenacity, and bravery, miraculously prevailed against the combined strength of the Arab League. The Zionist Haganah forces then cleansed the land of the Palestinian infection, making Israel safe, and as then, the IDF continues to protect Israel today, against the evil intent of the Arab Muslims.

This narrative has been described by non-Israeli Jewish academics as woefully deceptive, inaccurate, and a fabrication created solely for propaganda purposes.

You can read this scholarly thesis about how history is represented in the Israeli school curriculum (sourced from The CDEC Foundation (Contemporary Jewish Documentation Center) titled “The Nakba in Israeli History Textbooks: Between Memory and History.” https://www.quest-cdecjournal.it/the-nakba-in-israeli-history-textbooks-between-memory-and-history/

These school texts provide a dehumanized portrayal of Arab Palestinians, at best depicting them as squatters and at worst as vermin. Palestinians are shown to be simple, uneducated, and subhuman. As such, Palestinians are demonized as people of evil intent who deserve to be exorcized out of the god-given land of Judea.

Starvation and Disease

As mentioned earlier, in 1948, Israel had a special department called “the flamethrower project” dedicated to the development of biological and chemical weapons. Historical accounts demonstrate that the Haganah had no issues with using dysentery and typhoid to contaminate water sources.

In the present day, there are numerous reports of Israeli settlements piping sewage downhill into refugee water sources or filling in domestic and agricultural water systems with cement. Since 1948, Israel has had a policy of destroying Palestine’s ability to self-sustain agriculturally, decimating whole regions of traditional Arab Palestinian agriculture (including over a million olive trees). This meant that after 1948, if Palestinians survived the crossing of the Green Line and returned, they would find their villages completely destroyed, farms untenable, and have no capacity to feed their families.

Fast forward to 2024 – Gaza has been under blockade for decades with Israel having complete control of all goods to enter the “open-air prison.” The only thing preventing complete deprivation is a dependency on aid delivered by UNRWA.

Over the years, Israel has constantly tried to undermine aid support, making numerous accusations regarding UNRWA, supported by unsubstantiated reports from Jewish-run NGOs. The organization has been forced to defend itself through regular audits and investigations.

Despite this, UNRWA has managed to deliver to Gaza a high level of health and education, as well as basic needs to millions. Recent accusations made since October 7 by Israel are no different. As of yet, Israel has failed to provide proof, but whether this becomes substantiated or not, this is a clear case of Israel weaponizing its lobbying and propaganda power in order to starve the Palestinian people by inhibiting aid. This is a tactic borrowed from the Nazis, who used starvation as a weapon, eventually offering food in exchange for agreement to (supposed) deportation (a journey that most never survived).

Occupation and Colonialism

Occupation was never part of David Ben-Gurion’s Plan Dalet, and the Zionist advance was only halted by the 1949 Armistice Agreements, ending the 1948 Arab–Israeli War and delineating the Green Line as the legal boundary between Israel and the Arab territories.

But this has never stopped Israel from trying to claim it all. The Zionist government even reneged on a secret agreement with King Abdullah of Jordan enabling annexation of some land. In 1947, King Abdullah met with the Jewish Agency for Israel and negotiated to help the Zionists facilitate the partition plan in exchange for annexation of the West Bank lands. However, in 1948, the Haganah attempted to retake the West Bank but were repelled by the Jordanian Arab legions. As a result, despite King Abdullah’s earlier betrayal of Palestine, Jordan somewhat unintentionally saved 250,000 Palestinians from displacement or execution.

Despite not fully completing Plan Dalet, it was considered a huge success and a great start by the Zionist regime. The massacres perpetrated against Arab Palestinians and the battles fought against badly equipped Arab forces were celebrated as great victories, and many of those responsible for the most ruthless atrocities eventually found their way into high-status positions within the military or government.

By the end of 1948, the Zionist regime had murdered 15,000 and expelled 700,000 Palestinians (85% of the total population), most of whom had lived in peace with pre-Zionist Jews for millennia. Most of those 700,000 expelled never returned, although many tried, and between 1948-56, Israel killed an estimated 2000-5000 Palestinians who tried to re-enter their home country to rejoin relatives or collect possessions.

In the process of creating the State of Israel, Haganah forces and Zionist gangs attacked major Palestinian cities and destroyed some 530 villages, but for the Zionist Colonial Project, this was never going to be enough; there still remained Arab Palestinians on land they considered an ancestral birthright, and the ethnic cleansing would continue.

One of the favorite terms spouted by far-right settler groups is “settlements bring security.” This is nothing new, being a strategy dating back in advance of the Partition Plan, starting with the acquisition of foreign absentee-owned land, though to the fortification of settlements in 1947 in readiness for Plan Dalet. There’s a reason why settlements are often built on hilltops overlooking Palestinian towns. It’s the same reason that kings built castles on the high ground of conquered lands, not just to create easily defensible fortifications but as an unignorable statement: “This is our land, we are here to stay, and we will dominate you.”

Settlements are as much a weapon as the tanks and bombs used to assault Gaza. The raw sewage that they allow to spill down into the refugee camps below, spoiling the water supply, does a very similar job to the Typhoid and dysentery used by the Haganah to poison Palestinian water systems back in 1948. The endless settler militia violence and killings supported by the IDF seem very similar to atrocities committed by the Zionist Stern and Irgun gangs in 1947 and 48. The constant arbitrary arrests without trial, representation, or definitive release date seem very similar to the detention camps of 1948, as does the torturing and execution of resistance suspects. The persistent raiding, skunk water spraying, random beatings, and property damage seem very similar to the intimidation raids of 1947.

In 2023, before October 7, it was already a record year for settler violence in the West Bank, with settlers killing 234 Palestinians with impunity. The Israeli government tripled down on any previous years for new settlements, issuing permits for 22 new settlements, 12,000 houses (all illegal under international law), and legalized 6 settlements that had previously been deemed illegal under Israeli law. This seems very similar to the harassment used since the inception of Plan Dalet, designed to provoke a response, providing the IDF a free pass to carry out the Dahiya Doctrine (disproportionate Force). As does the decades-long blockade on Gaza, crippling the self-determination of millions of people, and applying random restrictions, preventing access to the basics for survival and the pleasures of life including children’s toys, chocolate, wedding dresses, sanitary pads, contraception, fuel, electricity, and water...

Conclusion

So who shot first??

One consistent Zionist rhetoric is the statement, “The Palestinians always attack us first.”

There’s little doubt Plan Dalet was a plan for systematic ethnic cleansing. It’s arguable that the Plan Dalet strategies devised by David Ben-Gurion and actioned by the Haganah and Zionist gangs in 1947-48 have continued to be used throughout the last 76 years and are still in use by the Israeli government today.

So the question is – If the Palestinians were and are under continuous ethnic cleansing attacks, why should the ceasefire only have applied to them?

It’s immoral to condone Hamas’s retaliation through the horrific attacks of October 7. However, considering the 76 years of ethnic cleansing violence perpetrated against Palestine, violence and hatred are understandable results.

As Netanyahu and the full force of the Israeli army rain hell down on the population of Gaza and the civilian population, the Israeli public play their part in the genocide by attacking aid trucks – It can only be wondered if David Ben-Gurion were alive today, would he be delighted or ashamed of the mass murder being perpetrated by the people of his Zionist utopia. Israeli historian and politician Simha Flapan quoted Ben-Gurion as stating in 1938: "I believe in our power, in our power which will grow, and if it will grow agreement will come…”

After all that has been done, how will agreement come, and how can Israel and the complicit western nations ever be forgiven?

A Note on Anti-Semitism Vs Anti-Zionism

True anti-Semitism conflates Zionism with all Jews and holds them collectively responsible for all of Zionism’s crimes. As such, it is not anti-Semitism to criticize Zionism – quite the opposite. Zionism is a political group utilizing an ethnic-cleansing policy to steal land and facilitate a colonial project. Zionism is not a religion.

It is for this reason that there’s a growing number of non-Israeli Jews leading the Anti-Zionist movement. These mostly young Jewish activists, understand the danger to Judaism that Zionism poses and do not wish to see Zionist crimes being perpetrated in their name.

A red flag to the notion that Zionism is by default an extension of Judaism is how far-right parties around the world are forming alliances of convenience with Zionism. For example, The National Front Party in France and the Jobbik party in Hungary have become Pro-Israel. Heinz-Christian Strache, leader of the Austrian Freedom Party (founded by Nazis in Austria), was even hosted by the Likud Party (a major Zionist? right-wing political party in Israel) to visit the Holocaust museum.

As a case in point regarding why anti-Zionism is not the same as anti-Semitism, consider the case of Folke Bernadotte (Count of Wisborg). This Swedish nobleman and diplomat negotiated the release of about 31,000 prisoners from German concentration camps, including 450 Danish Jews from the Theresienstadt camp during World War II. It was for this reason that Bernadotte was unanimously chosen to be the United Nations Security Council mediator in the Arab–Israeli conflict of 1947–1948.

Folke Bernadotte was a man of incredible moral integrity and a fervent believer in human rights. In late 1948, he tried to have the partition plan reinstated, including the return of the Arab Palestinian people. He was assassinated in Jerusalem in 1948 by the paramilitary Zionist group Lehi while pursuing his official duties. The Lehi gang, along with the Stern and Irgun gangs, were utilized throughout 1947 & 1948 by David Ben-Gurion to commit atrocities that were considered too controversial or horrific to implicate the Zionist government.