The Lemon Tree: An Arab, A Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East (49 page)

The arrival at the port of Bakar and the lights of the
Pan York
were recalled in interviews in Israel with Melamed, Mossek, and Sami Sela.

Description of the
Pan York comes
from
"Pan Crescent
and
Pan York'
(the ships also known as "the
Pans')
and can be found online at
www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/
Immigration/pans.html.

The ship's supplies are listed in a memo sent by JDC's Bulgaria director Fred Baker to the JDC offices in Paris (general letter 1102). Melamed adds this from the journey: "They brought very bad soup. We kept throwing it up. And we ate more."

The idea of a binational state and discussion of Brit Shalom is from
The History of Zionism.
Additional background can be found online at
www.kehillasynagogue.org/KehillaMEPeace/Document_III.html
. Buber's "two peoples" quote comes from a talk he gave on Dutch radio in June 1947, which is reprinted in "A Land of Two Peoples" by Buber with Paul R. Mendes-Flohr. It can be found online at
www.one-state.org/
articles/earlier/buber.htm. Buber, while promoting coexistence, also made clear in the speech that he believed the Arab love of homeland was less significant than that of the Jews: It "is more passive among the Arabs. . . dimmer, simpler and more inchoate than that of the Hebrew pioneers."

The history of Mapam comes from an interview with Bulgarian Jew and former Israeli Knesset member Victor Shemtov, who was active in the party in the 1940s. Additional details on Gromyko's stance can be found in Cohen's
Israel and the Arab World,
pp. 202-04.

The lights of Haifa and Carmel were described in interviews. The lyrics of "Hatikva" were translated by Sarah Tuttle-Singer.

The processing of the arriving Bulgarian immigrants was described by Sela, Mossek, and Melamed, who recalled that "one hand gave me a sandwich, another sprayed DDT on my head." Additional details on the processing can be found in Tom Segev's account in
1949: The First Israelis,
pp. 95-116.

Moshe's restlessness and his discovery that Jews could sign up to move to "a place called Ramla" was described to Dalia during her childhood and confirmed by Melamed, who was in the same group of immigrants in the Pardes Hannah camp.

Chapter 6

This chapter is grounded primarily in interviews, both with members of the Khairi and Taji families and with other eyewitnesses to the events of late 1948 and early 1949; written accounts from additional eyewitnesses; declassified State Department, United Nations, and Red Cross memos and telegrams from the National Archives in Washington, D.C.; and additional primary and secondary accounts in various books, brochures, and reports.

The arrival in Ramallah is described by Firdaws Taji, second cousin of Bashir, who would also become Mustafa's daughter-in-law. Additional description comes from an interview with eyewitness Abu Issam Harb; Palestinian folklorist, Dr. Sharif Kanaana; and a telegram sent from the American consul in Jerusalem on August 12, 1948, housed in the National Archives.

The telegram, with its vivid language, gives a sense of how Ramallah felt to international observers and relief workers in the late summer of 1948:

SANITATION PRACTICALLY NONEXISTANT . . . NO WATER AVAILABLE FOR BATHING OR LAUNDRY. SICK NOT ISOLATED. COMPLETE LACK OF ORGANIZATION APPARENT . . . MEDICINES LIMITED TO LITTLE MORE THAN ASPIRINS, 20 SUSPECTED CASES TYPHOID HAVE BEEN "SENT BACK TO SLEEP UNDER THE TREES" . . . NIGHTS BECOME VERY COLD MID SEPTEMBER AND RAINS START SOON AFTER . . .

Ahmad's trips and the family's location near the Quaker School were described in interviews with Bashir, Nuha, and Khanom Khairi.

Conditions in the camps are described in various documents from the National Archives in Maryland, including a September 16, 1948, declassified draft report to the UN General Assembly sent to U.S. secretary of state George Marshall on September 17 (hereinafter referred to as the September 17 report).

Refugees strapping gold to their bodies comes from interviews with refugees in the Amari camp near Ramallah and Reja'e Busailah's "The Fall of Lydda"
(Arab Studies Quarterly
3, no. 2: 141). Bashir verified the refugees' hauling water and hawking sweets; Dr. Kanaana, the folklorist from Bir Zeit University, recounted the tensions between refugees and local residents and the taunts of the locals. The story of the sugar-coated nuts appears on p. 147 of "The Fall of Lydda."

The impression of men "shocked into silence" and sitting idly on burlap sacks comes from the interview with Abu Issam Harb. The harvest times for particular crops were verified by Kanaana, as was the role of women during the time. The relief supplies, their sources, and their modest aim of preventing starvation are listed in the September 17 report. The scouring of trash bins is mentioned on p. 44 of
The Palestinian Refugees:
1948-1998 (An Oral History),
edited by Adel H. Yahya.

Bernadotte's telegrams and the "human disaster" quote come from the September 17 report, as does the estimate of refugees who fled or were driven out. Bernadotte's "ghastly" quote comes from the
Progress Report of the UN Mediator on Palestine General Assembly, Official Records,
Third Supplement, No. 11 (A/648), Paris, 1948, p. 200, as cited by Hirst, p. 276. See also Bernadotte's
To Jerusalem,
p. 200, as cited by the official Web site of the Swedish government,
http://www.sweden.se/templates/cs/BasicFact
sheet_4l98.aspx. The anger of the refugees in 1948 is clear from numerous interviews and is recalled by Glubb in his memoir,
A Soldier with the Arabs,
pp. 163-64, where he also recalls the spitting and "worse than Jews!" remark. Additional mention of these events, including the demonstrations, is in Morris's
Road to Jerusalem,
pp. 178-79; see also Gelber's
Palestine 1948,
p. 163 and pp. 172-73. The "five times their numbers," "Admittedly," and "what else could I have done?" quotes all come from
Soldier with the Arabs,
p. 164.

Abdullah's apparent contact with Sheikh Mustafa, including the "shall I bring them?" and "stay where you are" exchange, is part of Khairi family oral history, as described here by Samira Khairi.

Abdullah's kingdom under siege is described in many accounts of the time, including in
From the Wings,
the memoirs of Alec Kirkbride, pp. 47-50, which also describes the apparently imminent "bloodbath" and the king striking a refugee on his head. Glubb, in
Soldier with the Arabs,
pp. 164-66, describes his personal upbraiding in the wake of the loss of al-Ramla and Lydda, at a mid-July meeting of the king and his ministers in Amman. Arab Legion troops strength is listed at forty-five hundred by Glubb in
A Soldier with the Arabs,
p. 92, though on p. 90 he writes of "6,000 in 1948." Morris
(Righteous Victims,
p. 223) estimates the force at eight thousand.

British refusal to resupply the Arab Legion is documented in Gelber,
Palestine 1948,
p. 160, citing British cable traffic.

The "little prospect" quote comes from a July 29, 1948, air gram sent from the American embassy in Cairo to Secretary of State Marshall in Washington, from declassified material retrieved from the National Archives. The Ben-Gurion and Sharett quotes come from Meron Benvenisti's
Sacred Landscapes,
p. 150. Israeli confirmation of this position is corroborated in an August 1948 "Note on the Refugee Problem in Palestine," submitted by A. Katznelson, the head of Israel's delegation to the International Red Cross Conference. The
"not one of them has been deported"
quote comes from that note.

It should be noted that a few Israeli officials did argue for the return of Arab refugees, in varying numbers. At one point, Israel told the U.S. ambassador it was willing to receive one hundred thousand refugees out of a total of more than seven hundred thousand who had fled or were driven out, provided this would resolve the refugee problem. Neither Arab governments nor the refugees would have accepted such a proposal; in any case, the prevailing sentiment in Israel was set against return. (See Segev,
1949,
pp. 28-34.)

The report citing the "Controlled American Source" is in the Cairo air gram cited previously.

The description of Arab POW conditions comes from interviews with Labib Qulana, Mohammad Taji, and Michail Fanous, all Arabs of Ramla. Additional recollections are in Fouzi el-Asmar's memoir,
To Be an Arab in Israel,
p. 23. Confirmation comes from minutes of the first meeting of the City-Council of Israeli Ramla, provided by Yonatan Tubali, longtime city manager of Ramla. Military restrictions on Arabs of Israel, including martial law, are described by Segev in
1949,
pp. 47-51.

That the first group of Jewish immigrants would not arrive until November 1948 is confirmed by original documents from Tubali and by Yablonka in
Survivors of the Holocaust,
p. 24, citing documents in the Israel Defense Forces archives. Physical description of doors ajar and belongings spilling out comes from recollections by the first Israeli immigrants to Ramla of their arrival in the town, including M. Levy and Moshe Melamed, and from an October 1948 memo from a field officer in Ben Shemen to the Israeli Custodian of Abandoned Properties (Israeli State Archives document 15a/ 49/27/12), from which the "Men of Battalion 89" quote is also taken.

The crossing of the front lines by Arab villagers back to their old lands is documented in kibbutz and state archives cited by Benny Morris in "The Harvest of 1948 and the Creation of the Palestinian Refugee Problem," pp. 239-56 of
1948 and After.
The "must be destroyed" quote from Yadin is on p. 248; "additional 1,000 dunams" is on p. 255; "Every enemy field" is on p. 248.

The Cizling quote is taken from an Israeli cabinet meeting of July 21, 1948, as cited by Segev in
1949,
p. 31.

The continuing refugee crisis in mid-September is described in a report from the American Officers Consul General and sent by telegram from Jerusalem on September 25, 1948. The amount and type of nations' contributions to the relief efforts is from the September 17 report cited earlier.

Bernadotte's advocacy of a division of Palestine between Israel and Transjordan is documented in appendix C of Abu Nowar's
The Jordan-Israeli War: 1948—1951,
pp. 451-55.

Bernadotte's assassination is described by Glubb on p. 182 of
A Soldier with the Arabs
and by Sprinzak in
Brother Against Brother,
pp. 40-48. Sprinzak also details Shamir's involvement and the planning of the operation, describing it (p. 42) as "the result of a long and careful plan." The Stern Gang detentions are described by Herzog on p. 88 of
The Arab-Israeli Wars.
See also Avishai,
The Tragedy of Zionism,
p. 183. Accusations of truce violations are found in Herzog (p. 88) and Mohamed Heikal's
Secret Channels,
p. 97.

The need for thousands of tents and blankets was mentioned in the September 25, 1948, telegram from the American consul. The story of refugees lighting fires in their tents comes from Yahya's
Palestinian Refugees: 1948-1998 (An Oral History),
p. 45.

Recollections of the early Khairi abodes in Gaza come from interviews with Bashir and Nuha Khairi. The Gaza figures of population and density and the "hardly surprising" quote come from the September 28, 1951, "Report of the Director of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East" (General Assembly official records, sixth session, supplement no. 16, A/1905), available on the UNISPAL Web site (United Nations Information System on the Question of Palestine, online at domino.un.org/unispal.nsf).

Recollections of "constant shelling" are from interviews with Bashir. Incursions are mentioned from an Israeli perspective by Gelber
(Palestine 1948, pp.
212-13) and from an Arab point of view by Heikal
(Secret Channels, p.
81). Yezid Sayigh's
Armed Struggle and the Search for State
examines the political rivalries among Arab states, especially between Egypt and King Abdullah of Jordan, on pp. 13-16. Sayigh mentions Abdullah's ambitions and his April 1950 "Act of Union" between Jordan and the West Bank (that is, annexation of the West Bank) on pp. 41-42; Heikal discusses this from an Egyptian perspective in
Secret Channels,
pp. 82-86.

Sayigh discusses the formation of UNRWA on p. 4 and p. 43 of
Armed Struggle and the Search for State.
The materials of the camp structures as well as the rations are described in the "Report to the Director of the United Nations," cited previously. Ahmad's and Zakia's work was described by Nuha and Bashir, who recalled the work-for-rations barter arrangement.

The time and manner of Sheikh Mustafa's death was recalled by Khanom Khairi and verified by Bashir. The preparation of his body under Islamic custom, and the difficulty of doing so in exile, is verified by Muslim scholar Hatem Bazian of UC-Berkeley, who adds:

It is rather difficult for a family not to be able to directly be engaged in preparing the body for the funeral since it is part of Islamic practices that the men of the family are to oversee and participate in washing the dead body and then help in the process of wrapping. Also, the family can see the dead body before the washing takes place as well as offer prayers and recite Qur'an at that time. Also, immediate family members at this time might want to make sure that the body is sprayed with the favorite perfume, so much so that some people write in their wills what type to be used in keeping with the example of the Prophet. All these must have been a source of pain to the family.

The armistice agreements are mentioned by Gelber, p. 298, and Sayigh, p. 4 and p. 58. Abdullah's assassination is mentioned in Heikal, pp. 85-86, and Glubb, pp. 27778.

The "shabby and ragged" quoted comes from the previously mentioned UN "Report to the Director."

The conditions and routines of the Gaza schools, and the schooling in shifts, were recalled by Bashir, Nuha, and Ghiath Khairi. The "Palestine is ours" poem appears in A. L. Tibawi's article, "Visions of the Return: The Palestine Arab Refugees in Arabic Poetry and Art,"
Middle East Journal,
Vol. 17, no. 5. Late Autumn 1963, pp. 507-526. The reality of right of return transforming into a long-term dream was described by Bashir. The frustration of the refugees and the "irritable and unstable" quote are from the 1951 UN "Report to the Director." The Israeli "doing the refugees a disservice" quote is cited in Daniel Dishon,
Middle East Record
5 (1969-1970): 399.