Reply #83: Plan Dalet [View All]

[aranthus]

as has already been posted, was a defense plan that was developed because it appeared that the Arabs were going to attack the Jews, probably before the British evacuated Palestine. The plan itself states that it is not intended as a means of permanently occupying land outside the original boundaries of the Jewish state. It was about securing the new state, not grabbing land. Please consider the following points:

1. Dalet was not a plan for initiating war, because the Jews did not intend to start one (they weren't sure that they could win, and losing meant extermination).

2. Dalet wasn't finalized and put into operation until April, 1948, five months after the war started.

3. The Arabs didn't know about Dalet until after the war, so how could they have started the war because they thought that it was a land grab?

4. It's absurd to think that the Jews would just take Arab attacks and not go on the counter-offensive.

5. The Arabs of Palestine set the terms of the war; all or nothing. They were the ones who started the war to drive out the Jews, not the other way around.

6. The plan certainly gave commanders in the field the leeway to move hostile strategic villages. And in many cases that was done. That doesn't make it a land grab, nor does it mean that the Israelis planned all along to start a war to drive out the Arabs.

Your last sentence seems to be intended to justify the Arab attack against the Jews. Before you start trying to justify it, you first need to admit that that is what happened.