Plan Dalet
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Plan Dalet, or Plan D, (in Hebrew, dalet is the fourth letter, similar to "d" in English), was a plan that the Haganah in Palestine worked out during autumn 1947 to spring 1948. The purpose of the plan was, according to its Jewish planners, a contingency plan for defending a Jewish state from invasion. [1] According to Benny Morris or Yoav Gelber, Plan D was primarily defensive in nature.[2]
According to other sources it was a plan with the purpose of conquering as much of Palestine as possible (see 'Plan Dalet: Master Plan for the Conquest of Palestine', by Walid Khalidi, for example). They believe that first step of the plan was initiated in April when Operation Nachshon, was launched to relieve the Arab siege of Jerusalem. Operation Nachshon was the first large scale Haganah operation and thus many view it as a part of Plan D. However; Yitzhak Levi, head of the Jerusalem Shai (Hagannah intelligence service) did not include operation Nachshon in his account of the implementation of Plan D in his book, Nine Measures (in Hebrew, Tish'a Kabin). MidEast Web
[edit] Purpose of Plan Dalet
The introduction states:
- a) "The objective of this plan is to gain control of the areas of the Hebrew state and defend its borders. It also aims at gaining control of the areas of Jewish settlements and concentration which are located outside the borders (of the Hebrew state) against regular, semi-regular, and small forces operating from bases outside or inside the state.
This passage has, by the Palestinian side, been interpreted to mean that Plan Dalet was not really of defensive nature, and that the founders of the Jewish state intended to disregard the 1947 UN Partition plan and secure positions outside the partition plans borders.
On the Israeli side, Plan D was an eventuality based on the assumption that they would be attacked by 'semi-regular forces of the Arab Liberation Army affiliated with the Arab League, "the regular forces of neighboring countries, (the Arab Legion)", and "Small local forces" that would operate within the borders and without. Thus what the Palestinians call the "disregard" of the UN Plan was contingent on an attack by Arabs within and without the Partition. It is left to the reader to decide whether such an attack would justify "gaining control" of Jewish-occupied regions outside the borders of the propopsed state.
The Plan states :"Generally, the aim of this plan is not an operation of occupation outside the borders of the Hebrew state. However, concerning enemy bases lying directly close to the borders which may be used as springboards for infiltration into the territory of the state, these must be temporarily occupied and searched for hostiles according to the above guidelines, and they must then be incorporated into our defensive system until operations cease."
In Section 3b the plan describes how to deal with occupied "enemy population centers":
- 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 expelled outside the borders of the state.
Again, it must be seen in the context of a war and a response to being attacked.
MidEast Web says the following on this controversial issue:
- "Nonetheless, contrary to the assertions of some, none of the following seem to be evident in the plan as published:
- * It was not a plan for mass expulsion or "ethnic cleansing" of Palestinians from wide areas
- * It was not an offensive plan-- it was meant to activated only in the event of an attack initiated by the Arab side, though that attack was thought to be inevitable.
- * It did not call for massacres such as the massacre perpetrated at Deir Yassin by the dissident Irgun and Lehi forces.
- * It was not an "expansionist" plan
Walid Khalidi (General Secretary of the Institute for Palestine Studies) offered this interpretation in an address to the American Committee on Jerusalem:
"As is witnessed by the Haganah's Plan Dalet, the Jewish leadership was determined to link the envisaged Jewish state with the Jerusalem corpus separatum. But the corpus separatum lay deep in Arab territory, in the middle of the envisaged Palestinian state, so this linking up could only be done militarily."
