lishment, then it is inconceivable that the then Chief of Staff
Raphael Eitan was not privy to its formulation. In any event,
however, Yariv’s critical remarks were also part of an ongoing public
debate about the transfer solution beginning in the late 1970s and
intensifying as the 1980s progressed and drew to a close, and in turn
generating outspoken condemnations from a small, though
significant, group of liberal academics, journalists and members of
the peace movement. Arguing against the Likud’s annexationist
policies, Dr Arieh Ya’ari, a political scientist and academic director
of the International Centre for Peace in the Middle East, wrote in
1984: ‘Formal annexation is liable to dangerously arouse the
population in the territories, who will see in this move a plot to
deny them their national independence. This uprising would, in
turn, provoke a bloody repression and might be exploited for a mass
expulsion of the West Bank residents – an idea that has gained
momentum in recent years, not only among the masses but among
some higher-ups as well.’
110
Ya’ari also took issue with Meron
Benvenisti, arguing that nothing was more reversible than a military
occupation. As we shall see, much of the Likud held similar latent
views in favour of transfer.
Throughout the 1980s, General Sharon was among the most
powerful ‘higher-ups’ who promoted public debate on the transfer
solution within the framework of Greater Israel. In 1982, while he
was Defence Minister, Sharon implied, shortly before and perhaps
while contemplating his planned invasion of Lebanon, that the
Palestinians might have to be expelled, warning that they should
‘not forget the lesson of 1948’.
111
‘The hint is clear,’ Amnon
Kapeliouk commented, citing Sharon’s statement.
112
Sharon’s threat
of a new mass expulsion if the Palestinians did not mind their
manners also seemed to be directed towards the Palestinians as a
whole (those citizens of Israel as well as the inhabitants of the
occupied territories). Upon becoming Defence Minister in 1981,
Sharon initiated the most brutal period of repression in the West
Bank and Gaza and set about crushing all opposition to the Israeli
occupation. Shortly after Sharon’s threat was made, the Middle East
International correspondent Amos Wollin reported from Israel that
intensive preparations were continuing in the West Bank and Gaza
for much harsher measures to combat their Arab inhabitants’
opposition to the Likud’s settlement policies. Wollin, hinting at
Sharon’s threat, commented:
86 Imperial Israel and the Palestinians