From Palestine to Israel: A Photographic Record of Destruction and State Formation, 1947-1950 available in Paperback
From Palestine to Israel: A Photographic Record of Destruction and State Formation, 1947-1950
- ISBN-10:
- 0745331696
- ISBN-13:
- 9780745331690
- Pub. Date:
- 12/07/2011
- Publisher:
- Pluto Press
- ISBN-10:
- 0745331696
- ISBN-13:
- 9780745331690
- Pub. Date:
- 12/07/2011
- Publisher:
- Pluto Press
From Palestine to Israel: A Photographic Record of Destruction and State Formation, 1947-1950
Paperback
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$33.00Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780745331690 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Pluto Press |
| Publication date: | 12/07/2011 |
| Pages: | 256 |
| Sales rank: | 987,435 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.91(w) x 8.07(h) x 0.50(d) |
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Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Military Governmentality
This chapter describes how, from its inception, the new regime eliminated the possibility of civil life. Reading in the photographs the new and varied forms of violence which the new regime had its army carry out, I show the implausibility of calling the period from November 1947 to March 1949, a "war." The unquestioning adoption of the term "war" to characterize what occurred, as well as the description of the military's violence using terms like "battles," overlooks the violent policies seeking to transform the politico-demographic reality in order to establish a new regime in Palestine. The chapter deals, therefore, with military governmentality and the wide range of roles the army played in managing the civilian population – as collectivities as well as individuals. I employ the term "military governmentality" to refer to the contradiction inherent in the Israeli regime from its inception: managing the civilian population – the Palestinians, certainly, but the Jews as well – according to military logic. By this logic, the Palestinian represents the potential threat to the state, and the Jewish Israeli represents the one obligated to defend it, whether by military service or by denying Palestinians freedom of movement and erecting barriers in the state's geographic, commercial, administrative, cultural or economic space. A photograph taken in Jerusalem, appearing near the end of the chapter, shows one of the last times Palestinians played a public, civic role. Crowds of Palestinians march down the road in a protest demonstration, watched by many spectators on the sidewalks, united in their opposition to the efforts by the Zionists and the foreign powers cooperating with them in their attempt to impose the Partition Plan. According to the hegemonic Zionist narrative, this moment represents "the outbreak of the War of Independence" – three terms whose validity as descriptions of reality this book contests: nothing "broke out" on its own, the violence did not constitute war, and ending British rule did not require violence. The Palestinians' legitimate opposition to the division of their country was defined from that moment as an unequivocal expression of the violence they were seen wishing to direct against Jewish life in Palestine. That was the justification for the constituent violence aimed at imposing on the majority population of the country a new state-political reality.
Careful reading of the many photographs in this chapter, a reading that does not restrict itself to what the picture is supposedly "about," shows that the military's presence always means the end of civil life, in particular that in which relations between Jews and Arabs were other than hierarchical. The Palestinians appear in the photographs as people uprooted from their natural surroundings who are now being classified so they can be managed according to categories of ethnicity, religion, age and sex, their individual, civil existence totally erased. But the chapter demands viewing in and through the photographs not only the population that has become an object of intervention and whose life is now controlled by others, but also those who intervened and controlled. The Jewish soldiers and police turning Palestinians into subjects are themselves being transformed in turn as rulers and perpetrators with the authority to turn others into what they will. Here, as in the other chapters, I use the photographs to show that the catastrophe they document belongs not only to the Palestinians. The Palestinians – the immediate, manifest victims of this disaster – paid the highest price. Those who tasted the power to shape the lives of others but did not seek ways of resisting the ease with which that power was exercised are the victimizers, but also the unwitting victims of the regime that mobilized them to become perpetrators. In the photographs one can see the emptying of Palestinian localities, the columns of expelled refugees on the road (al-Ramle, Photo 11), the buses used to transport the refugees (Bir al-Sabi'e, Photo 5), incarceration of civilians in camps (Bir al-Sabi'e, Photo 9), the military government in action (al Nasirah, Photo 26), provision of civilian services, such as medical treatment, by the army ("A village in the Negev," Photo 27), the establishment of military government in towns (Qalanswa, Photo 23), and indifference to the surrender of Palestinians that could have formed a basis for a civil compact (Lubya, Photo 10).
1 Bir al-Sabi'e/Beersheba These are the mosque's final hours serving the town's Palestinian residents. The new inhabitants will change its function many times, ignoring the original purpose for which it was built. When the photograph was taken, it was being used as a detention camp. Most of the people seen outside the walls of the temporary detention camps established in public buildings are Israeli soldiers. The army left 100 healthy, strong Arab men in the city to help them clean up and remove rubble. Until a few days ago they had lived in the buildings whose ruins they're now required to clear away. During the few hours they're not engaged in that activity, they're shut up in the mosque with mattresses, blankets and other belongings they've managed to save from their homes. The official caption describes them as "Arab prisoners of war." They'll soon be transferred to a different prisoner of war camp in Israel.
Photographer: Hugo Mendelson, Government Press Office, October 22, 1948
2 Bir al-Sabi'e/Beersheba About 3,000 Palestinians lived in the town at the end of the British Mandate. The day after Bir al-Sabi'e was captured, the only people on the street were armed soldiers on patrol whose job was to prevent life in town from returning to normal and lay the groundwork for transforming Bir al-Sabi'e into a Jewish town. The orders were to settle 3,000 Jews. The residents expelled from the town won't be able to enjoy the beautiful trees which will grow from the saplings recently planted along the sidewalk, and the mosque will no longer be a place for prayer.
Photographer: Hugo Mendelson, Government Press Office, October 22, 1948
3 Bir al-Sabi'e/Beersheba According to the Partition Plan, seemingly accepted by the Jews, Bir al-Sabi'e was to have been part of the Palestinian state. But this was neither the first nor the last time Israel had violated the conditions set by the ceasefires that had been reached and the UN resolution (acting in the spirit of "UN – Shmoo-N," even before that policy had a name), creating facts on the ground that were inconsistent with these agreements. The conquest of Bir al-Sabi'e was an example. Men who had been captured, and who the soldiers suspected had not surrendered all their weapons, were shot. Others were transferred to prison camps. It's not possible to tell from the photograph what will happen to the captured Egyptian soldiers leaving the building.
Photographer not identified. Government Press Office, October 22, 1948
4 Bir al-Sabi'e/Beersheba A few hours earlier, still carefully dressed in the uniforms of Egyptian soldiers, they raised their hands in surrender and were brought to this temporary detention camp. Now, their uniforms in such disarray that it's hard to identify them as soldiers, the official caption says they're "being brought" by IDF soldiers, but it doesn't indicate where they're going. Those standing in the front row can't avoid seeing their new appearance as prisoners of war reflected in the puddle at their feet.
Photographer not identified. Government Press Office, October 22, 1948
5 Bir al-Sabi'e/Beersheba The slogan on the bus, "On to Gaza," doesn't refer to the destination of the "Egyptian prisoners of war" if those sitting in the bus are really "Egyptian prisoners of war." They'll be exchanged a few months later, in February 1949, as part of the armistice agreement with Egypt, and now they're on their way to a prisoner of war camp. The slogan might be the warcry of fighters on their way to capture Gaza – even though, at the end of the day, they didn't capture Gaza then – or the sign on buses that carried the residents of Bir al-Sabi'e who had been expelled to Gaza. Dozens of buses were put at the disposal of the residents after the town was captured, and the orders were clear: "If we see anyone here after 8 o'clock tomorrow, we'll kill them."
Photographer not identified. Government Press Office, October 22, 1948
6 Bir al-Sabi'e/Beersheba You can get some feeling for the town's modern appearance, planned at the beginning of the twentieth century, from this view through the fence surrounding the police station courtyard – the wide streets weaving the city's fabric. Women and children have been separated from the men, as required by the Geneva Convention, but despite what's written in the official caption, the people in the photograph aren't prisoners of war, nor Egyptians, but inhabitants of the town and their children.
Photographer not identified. Government Press Office, October 22, 1948
7 Bir al-Sabi'e/Beersheba The narrow plank seems to separate the women and men imprisoned in the police station courtyard. The concertina wire is supposed to isolate the different population groups, but the women take advantage of the gap and talk to one of the men seated on the other side. They've been uprooted from their homes, and their Via Dolorosa has just begun. Perhaps they need something, and hope that the Egyptian medics who are also being held in that cell, and who are permitted by the Geneva Convention to provide aid to other prisoners, will help them.
Photographer not identified. Government Press Office, October 22, 1948
8 Bir al-Sabi'e/Beersheba The initial sorting out seems to have been conducted next to the police station courtyard fence that is visible on the right side of the photograph. To the left the men are crammed into partially enclosed spaces with coils of barbed wire in front of them. These coils mark the boundaries of the cells, and structure the relationships between the new jailers and the people they're guarding.
Photographer not identified. Government Press Office, October 22, 1948
9 Bir al-Sabi'e/Beersheba The prisoners' needs are being met in the same improvised manner in which the detention area, whose rules and boundaries are unclear, was established. Are we seeing the distribution of rations, or peddlers to whom the soldier sitting and resting has given permission to sell their wares? Who is that peddler? How did he come to be on that side of the barbed wire coil?
Photographer not identified. Government Press Office, October 22, 1948
10 Lubya The photograph seems to have been taken a few hours after the white flags that are still visible proclaimed the surrender of the village. Most of its residents had left for Lebanon two days earlier, after they learned that al-Nasirah (Nazareth) had fallen. They, as well as those shown surrendering, lost their homes (there were 596 homes), which were erased from the face of the earth. Hikers in the Lavie Forest, planted on village land in the mid 1960s by the Jewish National Fund, may come across old wells and hedges of prickly pear decorating the landscape, which are now only ancient remnants of the past. Some of the refugees from Lubya made their way to Dayr Hana, in the central Lower Galilee. To this day they have not been allowed to return to their land.
Photographer not identified. Golani Museum Archive, no date
11 al-Ramle The photograph shows the result of the violent process that was frequently repeated in most places that were captured: uprooting the local population (which the army concentrated in temporary fenced-off areas) from their homes in order to deal separately with people ("The Committee for Transferring Arabs from Place to Place") and with property. Those who are still seated and watching the military trucks evacuating their fellow residents are beginning to understand that they won't be returning home from here. It probably didn't occur to them at this moment that their return would be prevented for generations. Only a few Palestinians succeeded, after considerable effort, to return to their homes. Most lost them forever.
Photographer: Beno Rothenberg, Israel State Archive, 1948
12 al-Ramle Separating the Palestinians from their homes was usually accompanied by separating men from women. The photograph shows hundreds of men penned on the roadside. Their homes have been broken into; the fate of their women and children is still unknown. Protocols of cabinet meetings refer to reports that when the refugees were penned behind fences, women in town were raped and the city was plundered. The government, troubled by the looting, discussed it, but didn't take the rapes seriously, as the words of one minister during those meetings indicated: "There are reports of rape in al-Ramle. I can forgive rape, but not other, more serious behavior. When people come into a city and remove rings from fingers and jewelry from the neck, that's a more serious business." By condemning one type of behavior they legitimized the other, though the behavior they condemned didn't necessarily cease. Held behind barbed wire, without blankets or food supplies, men "of military age" were taken by truck to detention camps.
Photographer: Beno Rothenberg, Israel State Archive, 1948
13 Ijlil Before it was turned into a prison camp, about 700 Palestinians lived in the village of Ijlil. "Prison Camp 791" operated for eleven months, and held about 2,000 people. Every Palestinian male "of military age" was to be detained. In the camp they were employed in various activities, and were a source of cheap labor. Some of the camp commanders didn't hesitate to use them as such, and to extend their period of "incarceration." In order to transform the village into a prison camp, the prisoners were required to work in construction. While they were doing forced labor in the camps, their families struggled to survive in the absence of their breadwinners. The chance that a photograph of them might reach members of their family, which sometimes occurred through the mediation of the Red Cross, must have been enough of a reason to smile for the camera. Or perhaps they had other reasons.
Photographer not identified. IDF and Defense Archive, 1949
14 Ijlil Camp No. 791. Managing the population, like managing its property, required accurate record-keeping. The "prisoner" was forced to remove his shoes in order to facilitate collection of information about his physical characteristics. These were, without a doubt, useful in deciding what work to assign him. The location is described on the sign as the "Office of Prisoner Registration." In fact, the office also handled the registration and administration of the unpaid labor in which 65 percent of the prisoners in the camps were forced to engage.
Photographer not identified. IDF and Defense Archive, 1949
15 Ijlil Camp No. 791. The camp still received new "prisoners" in 1949. All that was needed were three clerks, an ink bottle, pen, rubber stamps, blank documents, forms and lists, and soon everyone had his own prison document containing the relevant information about him. It was important to those who organized the photograph to make clear that the camp held only prisoners of war. The sign, "Office of Prisoner Registration and Classification," wasn't intended for the prisoners, most of whom couldn't read Hebrew, and it was easy to move it a few times so it would be readable in each of the photographs taken that day.
Photographer not identified. IDF and Defense Archive, 1949
16 al-Ramle The same people whom Beno Rothenberg photographed (cf. Photos 11 and 12) were characterized by the Government Press Office archive by the term then commonly used to describe Palestinians who had been uprooted from their homes – "prisoners of war." Who sent the two youths to ration out the water? Did they do so at their own initiative, or was it the idea of the Israeli army? Are they now obligated to someone because they were allowed to move around freely with the water?
Photographer: David Eldan, Government Press Office, July 11, 1948
17 al-Ramle Imagine a town that has just been occupied, where only women, elderly men and children have remained, after armed combatants filled its streets and arrested all the younger men who appeared strong enough to represent potential resistance to the new rule imposed on the town. Imagine these women on their own, their plight, exposed to Jewish combatants who treat anything they find as their own – who demand to be served food, drink, sex. Barefoot, she hurried here to search for him among the thousands of prisoners – perhaps she had something urgent to tell him or maybe she heard a rumor that the men won't be here much longer. Fortunately, she seems to have found him. But in a few hours they'll be separated again. He'll be transferred to a prison camp, and she'll be sent elsewhere. If her luck holds, in a year or two the state will approve her application for "family reunification." In most cases, approval of the application will be conditional on their being reunited "beyond the country's borders."
Photographer: David Eldan, Government Press Office, July 7, 1948
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "From Palestine to Israel"
by .
Copyright © 2011 Ariella Azoulay.
Excerpted by permission of Pluto Press.
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Table of Contents
Introduction: Constituent Violence 1947–50Acknowledgements
Bibliography
1 Military Governmentality
2 Socialization to the State, and the Mechanisms
of Subordination
3 Architecture of Destruction, Dispossession
and Gaining Ownership
4 Creating a Jewish Political Body and Deporting
the Country’s Arab Residents
5 Borders, Strategies of Uprooting, and
Preventing Return
6 Looting, Monopolizing and Expropriation
7 Observing “Their Catastrophe”
Index