The Lemon Tree: An Arab, a Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East

by Sandy Tolan

  The attack on Hassan Salameh's headquarters was described by Israeli historian Uri Milstein on pp. 263-64 of History of Israel's War of Independence, Vol IV; Spiro Munayyer, an Arab native of Lydda, in "The Fall of Lydda," Journal of Palestine Studies (Summer 1998): 80-98; and Khanom Khairi. Milstein mentions seventeen deaths; Munayyer, an eyewitness, recalled thirty dead and "bits of human anatomy hanging from trees." Khanom recalls going to the site the next day with her nationalist teacher in solidarity with the ex-mufti's fighters, most of whom were Iraqi.

  The death of Abd al-Qader al-Husseini, the ex-mufti's other main commander in Palestine, was perhaps the Arabs' most devastating single loss in the fighting, and it marked a turning point for the official war to come. The fall of the charismatic Husseini, the "bravest and most aggressive leader" on the Arab side {Clash of Destinies, p. 98), at the hill at Qastal (or Castel, or Kastel) is described in detail in Milstein's Vol. IV on pp. 306-10.

  The massacre by Irgun and Stern Gang militias at Deir Yassin, in the minds of Palestinians, is the most infamous of the entire conflict. Michael J, Cohen, on pp. 33738 of Palestine and the Great Powers, describes "the atrocity of Deir Yassin":

  The village had made a nonaggression pact with the Hagana and had abided by it strictly. The Hagana had intended to take over the village in any case, later, to prevent it falling into the hands of irregular bands. But on April 9, an IZL-Lehi [Irgun-Stern Gang] force attacked the village and reduced all resistance, ruthlessly and indiscriminately. The result was the massacre of some 245 villagers, men, women and children, many of whom were first paraded through the streets of Jerusalem, then taken back to the village and shot.

  Reports of rape at Deir Yassin are quoted by Morris {Righteous Victims, p. 208). The report of Assistant Inspector General Richard Catling, the British officer who investigated the Deir Yassin massacre, declares, "There is . . . no doubt that many sexual atrocities were committed by the attacking Jews. Many young school girls were raped and later slaughtered. Old women were also molested. Many infants were also butchered and killed . . . I also saw one woman who gave her age as one hundred and four who had been severely beaten about the head with rifle butts. Women had bracelets torn from their arms and rings from their fingers, and parts of some of the women's ears were severed in order to remove earrings." Report of the Criminal Investigation Division, Palestine Government, No. 179/110/17/GS, 13, 15, 16 April, 1948, as cited by Hirst {The Gun and the Olive Branch, p. 250).

  Numerous sources describe how this massacre induced many Palestinians to flee their homes and villages, with the understanding they would return in weeks or at most months. Benny Morris, in Righteous Victims, p. 209, quotes Israeli military intelligence as saying Deir Yassin was "a decisive accelerating factor" in the flight of the Arabs. Gelber, in Palestine 1948, p. 116, and Nur Masalha, author of The Expulsion of the Palestinians, in an interview with me, each said that the massacre was important but less of a factor than others have estimated. In my view, after a decade of interviewing dozens of refugees in the UN camps in the West Bank, Gaza, and Lebanon, it is clear that Deir Yassin had a tremendous impact in creating panic and inducing flight in the spring of 1948. Many refugees, especially those in Haifa and the Galilee who fled north into Lebanon, believed they would be coming back "within fifteen days."

  Debate has raged for decades over whether, beyond the fear of "another Deir Yassin," most of the seven hundred thousand Palestinians who left their homes in 1948 fled or were driven out by force and whether Arab leaders told them to leave (sometimes via broadcasts) or were the victims of a coordinated, preplanned Zionist operation. This question is too complicated to address here, save for a few important details:

  The long-standing and persistent rumor that Arab commanders promulgated orders for villagers to leave (via radio and other means) was discredited in an extensive investigation by Walid Khalidi published in the Arab Journal of summer 1968 and numerous subsequent corroborations (see Morris, 1948 and After, p. 18). Anecdotally, some villagers told me (decades later, in Lebanese refugee camps) they had been urged to temporarily evacuate their homes by local leaders, and at least one Jewish leader, Shabtai Levy, the mayor of Haifa, pleaded with the Arab population to remain. According to Morris in "The Causes and Character for the Arab Exodus from Palestine," an Israeli military intelligence analysis of June 1948 ascribed 70 percent of the exodus by June 1 to the "operations . . . and their influence" of the IDF and dissident Jewish militias like the Irgun. Only 5 percent of the villages were emptied, according to the analysis, as a result of Arab orders to local villagers to leave {1948 and After, pp. 84-102).

  Yitzhak Yitzhaki's account of the attack on Mt. Scopus conforms to the historical descriptions of that attack, which is described by Milstein in Vol. TV, p. 387, and by Morris in Righteous Victims, p. 209:

  The shooting continued for more than six hours, the Arabs eventually dousing the armored buses with gasoline and setting them alight. When the British finally intervened, more than seventy Jews had died. Deir Yassin and the death of Abd al-Qadir had been avenged.

  The story of relations between Lydda's leaders and Dr. Lehman of Ben Shemen appears in Munayyer's "The Fall of Lydda" (Journal of Palestine Studies, p. 85) and was confirmed by Alon Kadish, coauthor with Avraham Sela, of The Conquest of Lydda (Hebrew) in an interview in June 2004.

  The Bedouin fighters were recalled in the interview with Khanom Khairi and by Lydda native Reja'e Busailah in his article, also called "The Fall of Lydda" {Arab Studies Quarterly 3, no. 2: 127-28). Abdullah's promise to defend Arab lives is mentioned in The Jordan-Israeli War, p. 56. The stories of poor coordination among Arab forces comes from Clash of Destinies, p. 82:

  The Arab leaders . . . did not confide their respective plans to each other. There was no coordination between their armies or their commands. The Military Committee of the Arab League existed only on paper and it exercised authority over none of the Arab armies. The Egyptians told neither Abdullah nor the Syrians how they proposed to act; the decisions of the Arab commanders of Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Transjordan . . . were not conveyed to General Glubb [the British commander of Abdullah's Arab Legion].

  The fall of Jaffa (known to the Arabs as Yaffa and the Israelis as Yafo) and the arrival of the refugees in the Lydda/Ramla area is described by Munayyer on p. 87.

  I first heard the story of Khawaja Shlomo in 1998 in the Amari refugee camp near Ramallah from an Arab native of Na'ani, while working on an unrelated story. Six years later, I was able to verify it with Dr. Shimon Gat, whose PhD is on ancient Ramla and who as a lifelong resident of Kibbutz Na'an has become its unofficial historian. The horse rider's real name, Gat told me, was Moshe Ben Avraham of Kibbutz Na'an, and he worked for the intelligence arm of the Haganah. "Quite possibly, he was concerned" about the Arab villagers, Gat said. But he speculated that, given Ben Avraham's work with the Haganah, the ride into Na'ani in May 1948 was likely part of a military psychological operation to induce villagers to flee. Two of Ben Avraham's children, Ruthie and Boaz, also confirmed the story of their father's journey (by telephone during my visit with Gat), though one of them suggested he went to Na'ani on foot, and the other thought he might have ridden on horseback, but not in his pajamas. A similar psy-op, or whispering campaign, this one in the Galilee in early May 1948, was described by Allon himself: "I gathered all of the Jewish mukhtars [kibbutz leaders], who have contact with Arabs in different villages, and asked them to whisper in the ears of some Arabs, that a great Jewish reinforcement has arrived in Galilee and that it is going to burn all of the villages of the Huleh. They should suggest to these Arabs, as their friends, to escape while there is still time. . . . The tactic reached its goal completely." {Ha Sepher Ha Palmach, Vol. 2, p. 286, as cited by Hirst, p. 267).

  The scene in Ramla in mid-May and the Khairi family's continuing worries are described by Khanom, with additional description by Firdaws Taji Khairi.

  On May 13, Chaim Weizmann sent a letter to President Truman, praising h
im for "your inspiration," which "made possible the establishment of a Jewish state, which I am convinced will contribute markedly toward a solution of world Jewish problems, and which, I am equally convinced is a necessary preliminary to the development of lasting peace among the peoples of the Near East."

  Ben-Gurion's declaration of the Israeli state the next day, in front of the national council of Palestinian Jewry assembled at the museum in Tel Aviv, is described in detail in Clash of Destinies on p. 155. Chaim Weizmann sent a letter to U.S. president Truman asking him to "promptly recognize the Provisional Government of the new Jewish state," and on May 15, he obliged. Both letters appear in Rise of Israel, Vol. 38, pp. 163-65.

  Benny Morris (Righteous Victims, pp. 218-35) provides details of the Arab attacks at the official beginning of the war in May 1948. Walid Khalidi (Before Their Diaspora, pp. 310-13) describes Haganah operations prior to May 15 in Jerusalem and near Ramla. The Irgun-Arab fighting in Ramla and the Arab defense of the city from May 15-19 are described by several sources, including Firdaws Taji as eyewitness and participant; Haboker newspaper reports; and Israeli military intelligence reports dated May 28 and June 19, 1948, in which it is made clear that Hassan Salameh's Iraqi troops were among the defenders of the city. According to the May report, Irgun attacks included fighters whose "Sten guns didn't work" and whose "level of professionalism is extremely low and is far from what is demanded by regulations."

  The Haboker article described al-Ramla as "the focal point of this campaign as it lays in the middle of the route to Jerusalem and its conquest will greatly improve the military balance in the whole area." Benny Morris, in "Operation Dani and the Palestinian Exodus from Lydda and Ramie [Ramla] in 1948," Middle East Journal 40, no. 1 (Winter 1986), describes the broader strategic objective as "relieving the city of Jerusalem and the road to it of enemy pressure."

  The urgent cables of al-Ramla's leaders, invoking another possible slaughter on the scale of Deir Yassin, are referenced by Morris in The Road to Jerusalem, p. 173, from an Israel Defense Forces mobile (Alexandroni) brigade report. Pleas to King Abdullah are cited on p. 108 of Glubb's memoir, A Soldier with the Arabs. Abdullah's warning to Glubb ("any disaster suffered") is quoted in Maan Abu Nowar's The Jordan-Israeli War, 1948-1951, p. 93. The quote from Radio Jerusalem comes from Busailah's account (Arab Studies Quarterly, p. 129). Glubb describes his initial forces in Jerusalem on p. 114 of A Soldier with the Arabs, and the attack on p. 115, where he also quotes "a Jewish writer" describing the siege of Jerusalem through Israeli eyes.

  David Ben-Gurion described the Arab-Israeli war of 1948 as "700,000 Jews pitted against 27 million Arabs—one against 40" (War Diaries, p. 524, quoted in Flapan's The Birth of Israel: Myths and Realities). Chaim Herzog, in a letter to President Truman, said the Israelis were outnumbered "20 to 1." Israeli commander and president Chaim Herzog, in his Arab-Israeli Wars, described the conflict as "a Jewish population of some 650,000 ranged against a Palestinian Arab population of approximately 1.1 million, supported by seven Arab armies from across the borders" (p. 11). These kinds of comparisons were often based on Arab population or troop strength of the entire armed forces of the Arab states that entered Palestine/Israel in May 1948, but do not reflect that numbers of the Arab forces actually engaged in battle in 1948. In Clash of Destinies, the Kimche brothers estimate that total strength of the invading Arab armies was twenty-four thousand, compared with thirty-five thousand for the Haganah, with the Arab armies initially possessing "greater firepower." Benny Morris, in 1948 and After, pp. 14-15, adds:

  The atlas map showing a minuscule Israel and a giant surrounding Arab sea did not, and, indeed, for the time being, still does not, accurately reflect the true balance of military power in the region . . . Jewish organization, command, and control . . . were clearly superior to those of the uncoordinated armies of Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon.

  U.S. officials of the day also didn't consider the Arab forces to be the juggernaut depicted by Ben-Gurion, Weizmann, and Herzog. On May 12, three days before the official start of the war, Secretary of State George Marshall received a telegram from the American embassy in London (Rise of Israel, Vol 38, p. 155):

  Mufti, and Arab Governments for various reasons do not show signs of assuming significant roles in the next few weeks, although Iraq and Egypt might arrange to fire a few token shots just to be able to say they have done so . . . if Abdullah should attack Jews he will confine himself to token forays . . .

  Glubb, in Soldier with the Arabs, pp. 96-97, describes the Arab Legion's intention only to "occupy the central and largest area of Palestine allocated to the Arabs by the 1947 partition." The sense that some Jewish leaders had that Abdullah reneged on their unwritten agreement is conveyed by Shlaim in The Iron Wall, p. 32, and by Herzog in The Arab-Israeli Wars, p. 47. The attack on the Etzion bloc is described by the Kimche brothers in Clash of Destinies, p. 140, and by Morris in Righteous Victims, p. 214:

  Villagers shouting "Deir Yassin, Deir Yassin" poured through the breach. The remaining defenders laid down their weapons and walked, hands in the air, into the center of the compound. There, according to one of the few survivors, the villagers (and perhaps some legionnaires as well) proceeded to mow them down. In all, about 120 defenders, 21 of them women, died that day. Of the 4 survivors, 3 were saved by Arabs.

  The ramifications of the Arab Legion's move into Jerusalem, which in the end represented far more than "token forays," are discussed by Shlaim in The Iron Wall, p. 32, and by Morris in Righteous Victims, p. 221 and p. 225. Morris (p. 225) points out that Jerusalem "had been designated an international zone and therefore lay outside the tacit nonaggression agreement concluded by Golda Meir and Abdullah."

  The Kimche brothers describe the plight of Jewish residents of Jerusalem during the Arab onslaught (Clash of Destinies, p. 186). Israeli attacks on the Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem are described by Walid Khalidi in Before Their Diaspora, p. 340. Other accounts of Arab life in Jerusalem come from Ghada Karmi's memoir, In Search of Fatima, pp. 79-128, and in my 1998 interviews with Hala and Dumia Sakakini, daughters of the prominent Jerusalem Arab, Khalil Sakakini.

  Glubb's initial reluctance to enter Jerusalem is discussed in The Jordan-Israeli War, p. 93; his concern that additional troops would thin Arab Legion lines elsewhere is on p. 113 of A Soldier with the Arabs.

  The patriotic songs are described by Reja'e Busailah in the Arab Studies Quarterly article, p. 129.

  The defeat of the Irgun forces on May 19 is chronicled in the aforementioned Israeli intelligence report, which also commented: "The commanders give the impression that they don't know how to organize such a large body of men against such a serious and complicated target as Ramla. They lack proper training and knowledge of military tactics."

  Within days, the Irgun forces would be integrated into the command of the Haganah and would become part of the Israel Defense Forces.

  Ahmad's decision to send the family to Ramallah and the journey the children took were described by Khanom Khairi.

  The death of Hassan Salameh and the pall it cast was recalled by Firdaws Taji in an interview and by Munayyer in his "Fall of Lydda" article, pp. 88-90.

  The maneuvering before the June truce, Count Bernadotte's arrival in Amman, and Glubb's reluctance to send more than a token force into Ramla and Lydda are described by Glubb on pp. 141-43 of A Soldier with the Arabs. The Arab Legion, considered the most professional of all Arab forces in Palestine, was, at 4,500 troops (Clash of Destinies, pp. 161-62), also among the smallest.

  The decision not to attack Ben Shemen is described by Glubb on p. 142 of Soldier with the Arabs and by Bromage in a letter to Maan Abu Nowar on pp. 147-48 of The Jordan-Israeli War.

  The truce period and the arms embargo are described in A Soldier with the Arabs, pp. 142-153; The Road to Jerusalem, pp. 171-72; The Jordan-Israeli War, pp. 195-200; and on p. 34 of From the Wings, the Amman memoirs of British representative Sir Alex Kirkbride, who quoted Abdullah complaining about hi
s "not very desirable friends." Additional factors may have contributed to the arms and ammunition shortage facing Transjordan after the truce: Glubb (p. 166) also mentions Egyptian seizure of a Transjordan-bound ammunition shipment. It is not clear how Glubb's claim squares with evidence of British pressure on Abdullah not to break the embargo. (See Gelber, Palestine 1948, p. 160.)

  The sinking of the Altalena is recounted in Brother Against Brother, pp. 17-32. Israel's ability to break the arms embargo is described on pp. 204-05 of Clash of Destinies. The weapons included artillery, Messerschmitt fighter aircraft, Czech-made Beza machine guns, and millions of rounds of ammunition in a "shuttle service of arms and planes to Israel" from the "Haganah's main base in Europe."

  Glubb describes Abdullah's position vis-a-vis war, the Arab League, and the end of the truce on pp. 151-52; see also The Road to Jerusalem, p. 175. The "don't shoot" quote comes from A Soldier with the Arabs, p. 150.

  Israel Gefen was eighty-two years old and in possession of a vivid recollection of detail when I interviewed him. The details of the weaponry conform with the materiel secured by Israel in the aforementioned Czech arms shipments; additional details were verified by Alon Kadish, coauthor of The Conquest of Lydda. Gefen and Kadish confirmed the firing rate of the machine guns.