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Article by Walid Khalidi examines Plan Dalet, a military strategy developed by the Jewish Agency and Haganah in 1948, aimed at establishing a Jewish state by conquering territory in Mandatory Palestine. The plan involved offensive operations, including the expulsion and flight of over half of Palestine’s Palestinian Arab population and the destruction of more than 500 Arab villages. Khalidi analyzes the plan’s objectives, execution, and its role in the Palestinian exodus, challenging narratives that attribute the displacement solely to Arab orders. This source is valuable for historical context on the Nakba, Plan Dalet, Palestinian displacement, depopulated Palestinian villages, ethnic cleansing, the Haganah, and Zionist militias.
Featured image depicts the ruins of a building in the depopulated village of Lifta, near Jerusalem. Lifta was depopulated as Zionist forces prepared Plan Dalet, the plan to ethnically cleanse Palestine. An initial attack by the Stern Gang, a Zionist paramilitary, caused the forced displacement of a number of villagers in December 1947. In response, the Haganah, the paramilitary responsible for Plan Dalet, integrated the Stern Gang attack into its plans to ethnically cleanse Palestine, ordering its forces to attack the village again on January 11, 1948. The ethnic cleansing of Lifta thus informed the finalization of Plan Dalet.
Note: This is a reprint of Khalidi's important 1961 article, initially published in Middle East Forum under the same title, with a new foreword in JPS.
