著者

森 まり子

出版者

東京大学東洋文化研究所

雑誌

東洋文化研究所紀要 (ISSN:05638089)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.165, pp.124-204, 2014-03-26

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This paper gives an introduction to The People’s Administration―The Protocols, 18 April to 13 May 1948, which is part of the Proceedings of the Israeli Cabinet Meetings, and gives a review of its main contents, primarily, the Arab question. It is intended to be a preliminary step toward revisiting the formative years of Israel. The debate over these years among the New Historians has tended to be channeled into a single controversial question―whether there was an Israeli policy of expulsion of the Palestinians or not. This paper is part of an attempt to replace this politically and emotionally charged approach with an unbiased, social-scientific one by re-examining the Cabinet proceedings and putting the Israeli policies toward the Palestinians in the broader context of the cabinet’s entire priorities at that time. The detailed review of the protocols brings into relief the controversial issues which would thereafter determine the fate of the Palestine conflict: the Israeli-UN relations, the borders and the name of the state, the return of refugees, and the rights of the Arabs remaining in Israel. The protocols show that in the People’s Administration there was a variety of opinions and dissents on Ben-Gurion’s policy of rejecting the return of the Arabs. In sum, in the Israeli cabinet on the eve of the First Arab-Israeli War, there existed, contrary to the conventional wisdom of students of the Middle East, sufficient moderate diplomatic realism to block the unanimous adoption of an extreme decision to expel the Palestinians.