Adam Raz, in his meticulously researched book, Loot: How Israel Stole Palestinian Property (Verso), exposes an extremely sensitive and explosive issue, one that Israelis cannot conveniently sweep under a rug.
Raz, an Israeli human rights researcher and historian, deals with the plunder of moveable property left behind by Palestinian Arabs who fled or were forced to flee during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.
There have been a plethora of books about the flight of Palestinians from their homes, but Loot appears to be the first one-volume study of how Jews in British Mandate Palestine and Israel looted Arab moveable property ranging from the contents of homes and stores to livestock and cars.
The looters were members of the general Jewish population who acted as individuals. Many people, from civilians to soldiers, engaged in this criminal behavior, which stained the Zionist movement.
The theft of Palestinian property occurred as Palestinians left voluntarily or involuntarily, a wrenching and seminal process that unfolded in phases.
Until April 1948, a month before Israel declared statehood amid an invasion of five Arab armies, 30,000 to 40,000 Palestinians vacated British Mandate Palestine. In the following two months, an additional 200,000 departed. Upwards of 500,000 fled during the course of that year.
The majority left their property behind to live as refugees in neighboring Arab countries or outside the Middle East. Only about 160,000 Palestinian Arabs refused to leave their homes, and they were granted Israeli citizenship after the war.
Raz, whose book is based on primary sources, divides it into chapters detailing the looting in an assortment of towns and cities from Jaffa to Jerusalem.
Tiberias, the first town to be conquered by Jewish forces, fell on April 18, 1948. What happened next was recorded by an unidentified Jewish resident: “Ten by ten, in groups, the Jews moved about and robbed Arab homes and stores … This behavior was so ugly.”
This pillaging occurred after the Jewish community council issued a proclamation warning that the theft of Arab property was unacceptable. “The soldiers assigned specifically to protect property ignored what was going on around them,” this observer wrote. “A moral collapse.”
Several days later, Haifa, whose population was almost evenly divided between Jews and Arabs, was subjected to the same degradation. The Haganah command published an announcement prohibiting looting, but to no avail. Ruth Lubitz, an Israeli Communist Party member, claims that the authorities “remained silent and tolerated the plague-like spread of looting.”
David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, wrote in his diary that even Haganah fighters and commanders “were found in possession of stolen property.”
Haifa’s mayor, Shabtai Levy, demanded a stop to home invasions, but the 3,500 Arabs who remained lived in constant fear.
Pillaging in Jerusalem continued for months after Jews captured the western half. Moshe Salmon, a Haganah company commander, wrote in his diary, “The desire for material things enveloped everybody.” Yitzhak Ben-Ziv, who would be Israel’s second president, noted, “This plunder has become a widespread phenomenon … The booty is multifaceted: Refrigerators and beds, clocks and books, sheets and clothing.”
Police commissioner Reuven Shraibman called on citizens not to steal, but the looting continued. Some looters even broke into homes whose Arab owners were still present.
Jaffa, which had been designated to be part of a future Arab state under the 1947 United Nations Palestine partition proposal, was struck by a variety of looters. British troops who had been sent to maintain order were the first offenders.
The mayor of adjacent Tel Aviv, Israel Rokach, issued a proclamation warning against looting, but he lacked the power to prevent it.
The British Jewish journalist Jon Kimche wrote that the first Jews to loot in “a wholesale fashion” were members of the Irgun militia. They were joined by Haganah and Palmach soldiers.
Four months after Jaffa’s conquest, pandemonium still reigned.
The Hassan Bek mosque, which still stands near Jaffa, was vandalized, its floor tiles and decorative stones removed.
As in other towns and cities, only a small number of looters faced trial.
In Safed, the birthplace of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, Jews were warned to refrain from plunder. Yet soldiers and residents from kibbutzim around the country ignored the order.
Ramle and Lod (Lydda), which were supposed to be in the proposed Arab state as per the United Nations resolution, suffered a similar fate. Soldiers from the Kiryat and Yiftach brigades partook in looting, as Ben-Gurion noted. Finance Minister Eliezer Kaplan wrote, “Unfortunately, the army is ignoring orders issued by civilian authorities.”
Fouz el-Asmar, a Palestinian who remained behind in Lod, recalled, “The men who had come with trucks would go into house after house and take out any article of value, including beds, mattresses, cupboards, kitchenware, glassware, couches, draperies …”
The two cities’ mosques were gutted, and one was used as a latrine.
Almost none of the looters, be they civilians or military personnel, were prosecuted.
Beersheba, the last Arab city to be conquered, was the scene of widespread looting. Haim Bar-Lev, a Negev Brigade commander, wrote, “Pillows, blankets, garments, canned food — the looters left nothing untouched. Members of nearby settlements looted tractors and farms equipment. Soldiers loaded stacks of flour and sugar onto trucks.”
As Raz points out, the mainly Christian Arab city of Nazareth escaped this misfortune. Not only were its residents not expelled, but almost no robbery and plunder took place. The reason is in plain sight. Ben Dunkelman, the Canadian-born commander who was in charge of the area, refused to expel residents without a clear written order, which was never issued.
In summation, Raz says that the robbery of Palestinian property was so pervasive that the Israeli public knew all about it. And while high-ranking civic and army officers opposed it, they seemed to be at a loss to prevent it.
Golda Meir, a future prime minister, was highly critical of the despoliation of Arab property and demanded that “something dramatic” be done to discourage and stop it.
Ben-Gurion said he intended “to employ all means at our disposal to fight against such … degrading acts.” Yet the looting went on, prompting him to say, “It turns out that the Jewish people is a nation of thieves.”
However, Ben-Gurion refused appoint an inquiry, arguing that the war took precedence over this issue. Subsequently, he appointed the attorney-general to study the matter. To this day, his report remains confidential.
Acutely aware of the situation, the U.S. consul general in Jerusalem wrote, “Looting in the captured Arab areas has now been so widespread and has been regarded with such indifference by the authorities that it is difficult not to think that it is being officially tolerated.”
Raz, in concluding remarks, contends that the decision to tolerate or permit looting was part of “a manipulative political strategy employed to mobilize the Jewish population in support of the far-reaching consequences of a political policy that achieved hegemony during the course of the war: the Arab population’s removal from the country through the destruction of their economy, their homes and their property.”
He adds, “The plunder of property served Ben-Gurion’s policy of removing Arab residents from the State of Israel and helped him realize it. The plunder of Arab property was only one aspect of a broader policy of Arab expulsion … This made the pillagers into partners in crime, stakeholders in the non-return of the Arabs.”
All this may be true, but the fact remains that Jewish authority figures, from Ben-Gurion on down, openly condemned the looting and urged Jews to abstain from it. They paid no attention to their pleas, resulting in the mass pillage of Arab properties.