DALET: The Conspiracy to
Steal the Land of Palestine
By Stuart Littlewood
I have to admit, I was only dimly aware of the Dalet Plan
before reading Alan Hart’s latest article ’The green light for
Zionism’s ethnic cleansing of Palestine’.
The Dalet Plan, or Plan D, was the Zionist terror mob’s
diabolical blueprint for the violent and blood-spattered
takeover of the Palestinian homeland – some call it the
Palestinian holocaust – written 65 years ago and based on
three earlier schemes drafted between 1945 and 1948. It was
drawn up by the Jewish underground militia, the Haganah, at
the behest of David Ben-Gurion, then boss of the Jewish
Agency.
Plan D was a carefully thought-out, step-by-step plot
choreographed in advance of the British mandate government’s
withdrawal and the Zionists’ declaration of Israeli statehood.
It correctly assumed that the British authorities would no
longer be there. Indeed, the British had completed their
departure by 15 May 1948.
The Plan’s intention, on the surface, was to gain control of
the areas of the Jewish state and defend its borders. But it
also aimed to do much more. It included measures to control
the areas of Jewish settlements and concentrations located
outside Jewish borders and ensure “freedom of military and
economic activity” by occupying and controlling important
high-ground positions on a number of transport routes.
This would be achieved by, amongst other things, “applying
economic pressure on the enemy by besieging some of his
cities”, “encirclement of enemy cities” and “blocking the main
enemy transportation routes… Roads, bridges, main passes,
important crossroads, paths, etc. must be blocked by means of:
acts of sabotage, explosions, series of barricades, mine
fields, as well as by controlling the elevations near roads
and taking up positions there.”
Jewish forces would occupy the police stations, described as
“fortresses”, fifty of which had been built by the British
throughout Palestine after the Arab unrest of 1936-39.
The Plan discussed “operations against enemy population
centers located inside or near our defensive system in order
to prevent them from being used as bases by an active armed
force.” These operations included:
“Destruction of villages (setting fire to, blowing up, and
planting mines in the debris), especially those population
centers which are difficult to control continuously.
“Mounting search and control operations according to the
following guidelines: encirclement of the village and
conducting a search inside it. In the event of resistance, the
armed force must be destroyed and the population must be
expelled outside the borders of the state.”
Villages emptied in this way were then fortified. “Outside the
borders of the state” seems a curious thing to say since
nobody was saying then where Israel’s borders ran, and nobody
is saying now.
If they met no resistance, “garrison troops will enter the
village and take up positions in it or in locations which
enable complete tactical control,” said the Plan. “The officer
in command of the unit will confiscate all weapons, wireless
devices, and motor vehicles in the village. In addition, he
will detain all politically suspect individuals…
In every
region, a [Jewish] person will be appointed to be responsible
for arranging the political and administrative affairs of all
[Arab] villages and population centers which are occupied
within that region.
And here are the chilling guidelines for besieging, occupying
and controlling Arab cities:
“1. By isolating them from transportation arteries by laying
mines, blowing up bridges, and a system of fixed ambushes.
2. If necessary, by occupying high points which overlook
transportation arteries leading to enemy cities, and the
fortification of our units in these positions.
3. By disrupting vital services, such as electricity, water,
and fuel, or by using economic resources available to us, or
by sabotage.
4. By launching a naval operation against the cities that can
receive supplies by sea, in order to destroy the vessels
carrying the provisions, as well as by carrying out acts of
sabotage against harbor facilities.”
It is one of the sickest documents in history and shows why so
many people question Israel’s legitimacy. Jewish terror gangs
committed a massacre at Deir Yassin to set the tone and
‘soften up’ the Arabs for expulsion. More atrocities followed
the declaration of Israeli statehood on 14 May 1948. 750,000
Palestinians were put to flight as Israel’s forces obliterated
hundreds of Arab villages and towns. The village on which
Sderot now stands was one such. To this day they have been
denied the right to return and received no compensation. 34
massacres are said to have been committed in pursuit of the
Jewish nation’s racist and territorial ambitions.
White Colonialist Club
The UN Partition of Palestine in 1947 cannot stand close
scrutiny. At that time, UN membership did not include African
states, and most Arab and Asian states were still under
colonial rule. It was pretty much a white colonialist club.
The Palestinians themselves had no representation and they
weren’t even consulted.
The first vote failed to reach the two-thirds majority
required. To ensure success in the second vote a good deal of
arm-twisting was applied to the smaller countries, but again
it fell short. At the third attempt France was persuaded to
come “on board” after the US threatened to withdraw
desperately needed post-WW2 aid, and on 29 November the UN
voted to partition Palestine into three parts: a Jewish state
on 14,000 sq km with some 558,000 Jews and 405,000 Palestinian
Arabs; and an Arab state on 11,500 sq km with about 804,000
Palestinian Arabs and 10,000 Jews. Jerusalem, including major
religious sites, was to be internationally administered.
No sooner had Britain packed her bags than Israel declared
statehood on 14 May 1948 and immediately began expanding
territorial control across all of Palestine to accommodate a
new Jewish state expanding on all fronts. 15 May marks the
dark day in 1948 remembered by Palestinians as al-Nakba (the
Catastrophe) brought about by the military terror that forced
them off their homeland.
Atrocities occurred at Deir Yassin, Lod and Ramle. The
massacre at Deir Yassin was carried out by the two Zionist
terror groups, the Irgun and the Stern Gang. On an April
morning in 1948 (before the Israeli state declaration) 130 of
their commandos made a dawn raid on this small Arab town with
a population of 750, to the west of Jerusalem. The attack was
initially beaten off, and only when a crack unit of the
Haganah arrived with mortars were the Arab townsmen
overwhelmed. The Irgun and the Stern Gang, smarting from the
humiliation of having to summon help, embarked on a ‘clean-up’
in which they systematically murdered and executed at least
100 residents – mostly women, children and old people. The
Irgun afterwards exaggerated the number, quoting 254, to
frighten other Arab towns and villages.
The Haganah played down their part in the raid and afterwards
said the massacre “disgraced the cause of Jewish fighters and
dishonoured Jewish arms and the Jewish flag”.
Deir Yassin signaled the beginning of a deliberate programme
by Israel to depopulate Arab towns and villages – destroying
churches and mosques – in order to make room for incoming
Holocaust survivors and other Jews. In any language it was an
exercise in ethnic cleansing, the knock-on effects of which
have created an estimated 4 million Palestinian refugees
today.
In July 1948 Israeli terrorist troops seized Lydda, shot up
the town and drove out the population. Donald Neff reported,
as part of the ethnic cleansing, the Israelis massacred 426
men, women, and children. 176 of them were slaughtered in the
town’s main mosque.
The remainder were forced to walk into exile in the scalding
July heat leaving a trail of bodies – men, women and children
– along the way.
Of all the blood-baths they say this was the biggest. The
great hero Moshe Dayan was responsible. Was he ever brought to
book? Of course not.
By 1949 the Zionists had seized nearly 80 percent of
Palestine, provoking the resistance backlash that still goes
on.
Even if the UN Partition had been legitimate – which many
people doubt – the Israeli state’s greedy ambition immediately
overran the generous borders gifted to the Zionists. Few, if
any, of the Jews imported into Palestine can trace ancestral
connection with the Jews who were driven out by the Roman
occupation. As Lord Sydenham warned when he opposed the
Balfour Declaration, they are an alien population dumped on an
Arab country. “What we have done,” he predicted, “by
concessions not to the Jewish people but to a Zionist extreme
section, is to start a running sore in the East, and no-one
can tell how far that sore will extend.”
Israel’s numerous war crimes and crimes against humanity, and
its continual defiance of international law and the UN
Charter, together forfeit all claim to legitimacy as far as
Arabs and non-Arabs around the world are concerned – at least,
those that haven’t been bribed to say otherwise.
UN Resolution 194 called on Israel to let the Palestinians
back onto their land. It has been re-passed many times, but
Israel still ignores it. The Israelis also stand accused of
violating Article 42 of the Geneva Convention by moving
settlers into the Palestinian territories it occupies, and of
riding roughshod over international law with their occupation
of the Gaza Strip and West Bank.
As Plan D shows, “expulsion and transfer” (i.e. ethnic
cleansing) were always a key part of the Zionists’ scheme.
According to historian Benny Morris no mainstream Zionist
leader could conceive of future co-existence without a clear
physical separation between the two peoples. Ben-Gurion, who
became Israel’s first prime minister, is reported to have said
in 1937: “New settlement will not be possible without
transferring the Arab fellahin…” The following year he
declared: “With compulsory transfer we have a vast area [for
settlement]… I support compulsory transfer. I don’t see
anything immoral in it.”
On another occasion he remarked: “If I were an Arab leader I
would never make terms with Israel. 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
is true, but 2,000 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.” Ben-Gurion reminded his military
commanders that the prime aim of Plan D was the ethnic
cleansing of Palestine. He was well aware of his own
criminality.
It is high time the Palestine solidarity movement circulated
Plan D/Plan Dalet far and wide and, in particular, brought it
to the attention of political half-wits who stooge for and
support the Israeli regime and turn a blind eye to its
unbridled terrorism.
– Stuart Littlewood’s book Radio Free Palestine, with Foreword
by Jeff Halper, can now be read on the internet by visiting
www.radiofreepalestine.org.uk. He contributed this article to
PalestineChronicle.com.