Plan Dalet

"Plan D" redirects here. For the band, see Plan D (band). For the French WWII defense plan, see Dyle Plan.

Plan Dalet
Part of 1948 Palestine war and Nakba
Zones controlled by Yishuv before and after the implementation of the Plan Dalet.
TypeEthnic cleansing
Location
Mandatory Palestine
Planned byJewish Agency and Haganah
Commanded byDavid Ben Gurion
TargetPalestinian Arab villages and cities
DateMarch 10, 1948 – early 1949
Executed by Israel
Outcome
  • Expulsion and flight of more than half of Mandatory Palestine's Palestinian Arab population
  • Over 500 Arab villages destroyed or depopulated

Plan Dalet (Hebrew: תוכנית ד', Tokhnit dalet "Plan D") was a Zionist military plan executed during the 1948 Palestine war for the conquest of territory in Mandatory Palestine in preparation for the establishment of a Jewish state. The plan was the blueprint for Israel's military operations starting in March 1948 until the end of the war in early 1949, and so played a central role in the 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight known as the Nakba.[1]

The plan was requested by the Jewish Agency leader and later first prime minister of Israel David Ben-Gurion, and developed by the Haganah and finalized on March 10, 1948. Historians describe Plan Dalet, in which Zionist forces shifted to an offensive strategy, as the beginning of a new phase in the 1948 Palestine war.[2][3]

The plan was a set of guidelines to take control of Mandatory Palestine, declare a Jewish state, and defend its borders and people, including the Jewish population outside of the borders, "before, and in anticipation of" the invasion by regular Arab armies.[4][5][qt 1][6][7][8] Plan Dalet specifically included gaining control of areas wherever Yishuv populations existed, including those outside the borders of the proposed Jewish state.[9]

The plan's tactics involved laying siege to Palestinian Arab villages, bombing neighbourhoods of cities, forced expulsion of their inhabitants, and setting fields and houses on fire and detonating TNT in the rubble to prevent any return.[10] Zionist military units possessed detailed lists of neighborhoods and villages to be destroyed and their Arab inhabitants expelled.[10]

This strategy is subject to controversy, with some historians characterizing it as defensive, while others assert that it was an integral part of a planned strategy for the expulsion, sometimes called an ethnic cleansing, of the area's native inhabitants.[11]

  1. ^ Khalidi, Walid (1 October 1988). "Plan Dalet: Master Plan for the Conquest of Palestine". Journal of Palestine Studies. 18 (1): 4–19. doi:10.2307/2537591. ISSN 0377-919X. JSTOR 2537591.
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference :3 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference :1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ David Tal (2004). War in Palestine, 1948: strategy and diplomacy. Psychology Press. pp. 165–. ISBN 9780203499542.
  5. ^ Benny Morris. The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited, Benny Morris, Cambridge University Press, pg 155.
  6. ^ MidEast Web, Plan Daleth (Plan D)
  7. ^ Yoav Gelber (January 2006). Palestine, 1948: war, escape and the emergence of the Palestinian refugee problem. Sussex Academic Press. pp. 98–. ISBN 978-1-84519-075-0. Retrieved 14 April 2011.
  8. ^ Ten years of research into the 1947-49 war - The expulsion of the Palestinians re-examined. By Dominique Vidal. Le Monde diplomatique. December 1997.
  9. ^ Robbie Sabel, [’https://www.google.com/books/edition/International_Law_and_the_Arab_Israeli_C/f_xpEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbp International Law and the Arab-Israeli Conflict,] Cambridge University Press ISBN 978-1-108-80798-2 2022 p.131:'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 settlement and concentration which are located outside the borders (of the Jewish state in the Partition Plan) against regular, semi-regular, and small forces operating from bases outside or inside the state.’ .'
  10. ^ a b Pappé 2017, p. 9.
  11. ^ Morris 2008 "The essence of the plan was the clearing of hostile and potentially hostile forces out of the interior of the territory of the prospective Jewish State, establishing territorial continuity between the major concentrations of Jewish population and securing the future State's borders before, and in anticipation of, the invasion [by Arab states]."


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