1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War (66 page)

The poor ALA showing in Hiram was due in part to incompetent command, which proved inflexible and unable to move troops to counter threats in a fast-changing situation. But, in general, the IDF deployed far greater firepower, mobility, and manpower, making the outcome a forgone conclusion. Moreover, the ALA-and the Galilee "pocket" inhabitants-appear to have suffered from a host of epidemics, including malaria, diphtheria, and typhoid, as three captured Arab doctors told the Israelis afterward. "All the [Arab] Liberation Army was in fact sick," one of them said.114

When the Seventh Brigade halted on the Lebanese border, OC Ben Dunkelman issued a communique to his troops: "With this ends the brilliant push by the 7th Brigade that took altogether 6o hours. The Galilee of the Jewish Revolt [that is, 66-70 CE] the Galilee of Yohanan of Gush Halav [ John of Gischala, one of the revolt's commanders] and Rabbi Shimon Bar Yohai [a spiritual leader after the Bar-Kochba Revolt of the second century CE], has been liberated. The Galilee ... is all in our hands." Ya'akov Dori, sick through most of the war, congratulated him: "You have freed the Galilee from the hands of the invaders and given it back to the Jewish people forever." 115

The Lebanese units and villages along the border had earlier been showered from the air with leaflets warning against intervention. If they stayed out, they would not be harmed, the IDF promised.116 The Carmeli Brigade, held in reserve for the first two days, on 30 October pushed up the slopes westward and northward from Yiftah and Manara and took Sheikh Abd, abandoned by the ALA without a fight. Around midnight 3o-3i October, Carmeli crossed the frontier into southern Lebanon and occupied a string of fifteen (mostly Shiite) villages between the Panhandle's western border and Wadi Duba (Wadi Saluki), from Aalmane and Deir Siriane, along the Litani River, in the north to Qanntara and al-Qussair in the west to Meis al-label and Blida in the south. The Lebanese Army faded away and the villagers welcomed the Israelis, some of them signing surrender instruments, others asking to be annexed by Israel.117 Indeed, "many villages" west of Wadi Duba contacted the IDF and asked to surrender.' 18 Early on 31 October Israel agreed to a ceasefire, which went into effect at i i:oo Am. 119

Israeli troops remained in southern Lebanon until March 1949, when the two countries signed an armistice agreement. A key clause provided for Israeli withdrawal back to the international frontier. During the half year-long occupation, the Israelis "controlled" the villages mainly through in-and-out patrolling rather than permanent garrisons.

Carmeli's move into Lebanon was the first time the Israelis had crossed a recognized international frontier and invaded a sovereign Arab state. Yet it is unclear why it did so or how the decision was taken. The matter had not been debated in the Cabinet or General Staff before Hiram or at its start, let alone resolved. Apparently, on 30 October, after Sheikh Abd and other positions along the border had been occupied, Carmeli commanders had pressed Front OC Carmel for permission to cross into Lebanon and secure a defense line along Wadi Duba. Carmel had contacted Yadin, who apparently called Ben-Gurion, who gave the go-ahead. Carmel, according to his later testimony, was motivated by the consideration that the Litani River and Wadi Duba afforded natural, defensible boundaries for Israel and by a desire to gain what he saw as an asset in eventual negotiations with the Syrians, who still occupied a chunk of Israeli territory west of the Jordan River. 12" Be that as it may, Ben-Gurion, reporting on Operation Hiram, failed to inform his Cabinet colleagues on the afternoon of 31 October that the IDF had, hours earlier, crossed into Lebanon.121

During the takeover of the Lebanese border strip, Carmeli troops committed a major atrocity in the village of Hule. On i November, after conquest, they rounded up local males and POWs, crowded them into a house, shot them, and then blew up the building. Altogether thirty-four to fiftyeight persons died. The company commander involved was tried, convicted, and sentenced by an Israeli court to a seven-year prison term, which he never actually served. 122

Hule was just one of a series of atrocities committed by the Golani, Seventh, and Carmeli Brigades, and auxiliary units, in the course of Hiram and in its immediate aftermath. Altogether, some two hundred civilians and POWs were murdered in about a dozen locations. There is no evidence that the killings were instigated or ordered by Northern Front HQ (indeed, Carmel subsequently condemned them) or that they were part of a policy designed to facilitate a civilian exodus from the conquered areas. Indeed, the haphazardness of the killings (Christians as well as Muslims were murdered; in some sites two or four persons were killed; in others, fifty or eighty) and the fact that in most of the villages, the atrocities were not followed by an expulsion would seem to undermine this conjecture. But, given the number and concentration of the atrocities and the diversity of the units involved, there are grounds for suspecting that the field commanders involved believed that they were carrying out an authorized policy probably designed to precipitate flight.

The main massacres, aside from Hule, occurred in Saliha, where sixty to eighty persons were blown up in the village mosque; Jish, where a dozen or more Moroccan or Syrian POWs and civilians were killed; and Safsaf, where fifty to seventy civilians and POWs were murdered (all three by the Seventh Brigade); `Eilabun, where twelve (Christians) were executed (Golani Brigade); and `Arab al-Mawasi, where another fourteen were executed (ioznd Battalion). The massacres at `Eilabun and `Arab al-Mawasi were both, apparently, precipitated by the occupying troops' discovery of the decapitated bodies and one or both heads of two Israeli soldiers captured by ALA troops a month before in a skirmish near Arab al-Mawasi.123 No Israeli perpetrators were tried or jailed for the atrocities (except in the case of Hule), despite a string of internal IDF and civilian investigations authorized by the General Staff and the Cabinet.124

Hiram apparently precipitated the flight, mostly to Lebanon, of about thirty thousand local inhabitants and refugees resident in the "pocket." 125 But at least as many, both Christians and Muslims, remained (today they and their descendants constitute the core of Israel's 1.3-million-strong Arab minority). As we have seen, no directive of expulsion was included in the main operational order by Northern Front to its brigades and other units issued before Hiram, and no such order was issued while the Galilee was being conquered. Indeed, a senior Israeli Foreign Ministry official, who later toured the Galilee, spoke with commanders and assessed the demographic denoue ment of the operation, wrote: "From all the commanders we talked to we heard that during the operations ... they had had no clear instructions, no clear line, concerning behavior towards the Arabs in the conquered areasexpulsion of the inhabitants or leaving them in place ... discrimination in favor of Christians or not. 11116 And: "The attitude toward the Arab inhabitants of the Galilee and to the refugees [there] ... was haphazard [mikri ] and different from place to place in accordance with this or that commander's initiative.... Here [inhabitants] were expelled, there, left in place; ... here, [the IDF] discriminated in favor of the Christians, and there [the IDF] behaved toward the Christians and the Muslims in the same way." 117 And although the official, Yaakov Shimoni, had favored expelling the refugees camped out in the Galilee, and perhaps many of the permanent inhabitants as well, this had not been conveyed in time to the IDF and had not been the army's policy.

Without doubt, many officers, perhaps including Carmel, had wanted the Galilee "pocket" depopulated; certainly this was the defense minister's wish. (After all, Ben-Gurion had told one interlocutor only days before the offensive: "The Arabs of Palestine have only one function left-to run away.") 128 But this had never been translated into policy or operational instructions, at least not in the relevant timeframe.

But on the morning of 31 October, rising early, Ben-Gurion drove up to Safad, Northern Front HQ, where he met Carmel. What exactly was said is unknown, but Ben-Gurion jotted down in his diary that he (or Carmel) expected "additional Arabs" to flee the area, above and beyond those who had already fled or been expelled,129 and Carmel promptly-while Ben-Gurion was still with him or hard on the heels of the Old Man's departure-instructed all his units: "Do all in your power for a quick and immediate cleansing [tihur] of the conquered areas of all the hostile elements in line with the orders that have been issued[.] The inhabitants of the areas conquered should be assisted to leave."'-"0 Ten days later Carmel reiterated: "[We] should continue to assist the inhabitants who wish to leave the areas we have conquered. This matter is urgent and should be expedited quickly." 131 To this order Carmel had added that "a S-kilometer- deep strip behind the border line between us and Lebanon must be empty of [Arab] inhabitants." 132

But it is one thing to instruct units before they set out to conquer villages, or while conquering them, to expel the inhabitants; it is quite another to tell them, after they have conquered the villages and moved on, to go back and expel the inhabitants who have already been neutralized. The fact that the UN cease-fire had gone into effect at ii:oo AM on 31 October may also have contributed to the nonexpulsive behavior of most IDF units following their receipt of the expulsion directive, radioed to the units only an hour before. Besides, the order was couched in very unimperative language. Carmel had pointedly avoided using the word "expel" (legaresh), perhaps hinting at his moral unease.

As a result, Carmel's units by and large failed to expel the inhabitants who had remained in place after Hiram had washed over them. And, indeed, Carmel later punished neither commanders who had expelled communities nor commanders who had failed to expel.

In the following weeks, IDF patrols between the conquered villages and the Lebanese border regularly prodded refugees to cross the border and prevented refugees from returning to the villages. For example, on 3 November the Eleventh Battalion reported: "On the way back [from Malikiya to Sasa] columns of refugees returning from Lebanon were spotted.... A number of bursts [of gunfire] were fired toward them. They disappeared." 13-' Or: "Between `Eilabun and Mughar ... a bedouin encampment with 15 big tents has sprouted up.... We found only women and old men.... In line with the order not to allow Muslim inhabitants to return we told them that they must leave. We did not use force."134 Occasionally the patrols were more violent: a Ninety-first Battalion patrol between Deir al-Qasi and Mansura encountered a group of refugees "heading for Lebanon. One of these refugees refused to say where he lived and where he originated, and as he tried to run away-was shot and killed."135 Moreover, during the weeks after the operation IDF units uprooted villagers from a number of sites along the Lebanese border, including Kafr Bir'im, Iqrit, and Mansura, for security reasons (though, inconsistently, due to last-minute lobbying by Minorities Affairs Minister Bechor Shitrit, left in place Arab communities in Jish and Tarshiha, which were also within the border strip). Most were transferred inland, to still-populated villages in the Galilee; others were expelled to Lebanon.

Within days of the end of Hiram, Ben-Gurion began to press for the settlement of the Galilee. "It makes no sense," he wrote, "for the Galilee [now] in our hands to remain empty and desolate." Israel must establish "a chain of settlements along the [Mediterranean] coast to Rosh Hanikra and along the length of the Lebanese border and also around Safad."136 The IDF's settlement officer, Lieutenant Colonel Yehoshua Eshel, was similarly minded. He presented Northern Front with a map on which he had marked sites for new settlements-Malikiya, Saliha, Sasa, Mansura, Tarbikha, and Bassa-"according to the national plan." Northern Front apparently wanted Malikiya to be first, and Eshel agreed. The plan was approved by the Cabinet. 1-37 But given Israel's other problems, including the continued state of war with Egypt, little was immediately done. Ben-Gurion again raised the matter before the Cabinet on 9 January 1949, arguing that the new immigrants faced "a catastrophic [housing] situation" and that the emptiness of the Galilee vil lages continued to present a security problem; establishing a chain of settlements along the Galilee frontier would serve as a "Maginot Line" that could frustrate renewed Arab invasion. The Cabinet approved Ben-Gurion's motion-"to encourage the settlement of olim in all the abandoned villages in the Galilee. "i,1s Dozens of sites were settled during the following months.

In Operation Hiram, the IDF completed the conquest and incorporation of the Galilee into Israel. This dovetailed with at least one element of Bernadotte's political legacy, that the Galilee be assigned to Israel. Thus it was that the UN Security Council, in its subsequent resolutions calling for IDF withdrawal, did so with respect to the pre-15 October lines in the south but not in the north; indeed, somewhat strangely, nothing at all was said about Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon.'39

The demise of the ALA was probably welcomed by Lebanon's leaders, who had been unhappy with its presence and activities on Lebanese soil and certainly were uninterested in an ALA- or Palestinian-ruled area on its southern border. By 31 October, the ALA had collapsed, and its harried troops had fled to Lebanon. The IDF had failed to obliterate the ALA, as demanded in Hiram's operational order, but for all practical purposes the force had been knocked out of the war. The Israelis estimated that the Arabs had suffered four hundred dead-half of them Syrians and the rest ALA and local militiamen-and 55o prisoners, most of them ALA. After the retreat, many deserted from the ALA and headed for their homes in Lebanon and Syria. Part of the ALA was temporarily coopted into the Syrian army-but was finally disbanded in May 1949.140 One ALA officer, Nimr abu Naaj, reportedly committed suicide following the rout.

It had been a one-sided affair. Israeli losses were about twenty dead (most at Yanukh).141 Throughout the fighting, the Syrians, as Ben-Gurion noted, had failed "to fire a shot" along the Syrian-Israeli front, despite repeated calls for help from al-Qawugji. "They are afraid [that we will attack them] and want to hold on to their positions [that is, gains]," Ben-Gurion concluded. The Lebanese, too, had not raised a finger to help the ALA. 142