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.167, 2015-03

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This paper gives an introduction to The Proceedings of the Provisional Government Meetings Vol.1., 16 to 30 May 1948 and gives a review of its main contents, primarily, the Arab question. As a follow-up of my previous paper published in this journal in March 2014, it is also intended to be a preliminary step toward revisiting the formative years of Israel, this time focusing on the critical two weeks after the Declaration of Independence on 14 May 1948, during which the state authority was formed, various institutions founded, and most importantly, the ideals and future directions of the new-born state seriously discussed. A close examination of the proceedings clarifies that, at least during these two weeks, both the possibility of Israel’s becoming a “civil state” embracing Arab citizens who would return after the war and the possibility of the establishment of the Arab state within the boundaries determined by the United Nations Partition Resolution on 29 November 1947 were still considered realistic. At least at the level of the cabinet meetings until the end of May 1948, with an alternative of a “civil state” still alive and the institutional orientation of the state largely undecided, the Zionist ideal model of a “Jewish state” was not so self-evident as the conventional wisdom suggests. Judging from this situation, it can be concluded that there was no systematic policy to expel the Palestinians at least at the level of the cabinet until the end of May, even when taking into consideration the deleted portions of the proceedings. The reason is as follows: although there was a long-standing aspiration to create an ethnically pure “Jewish state” among some Zionists, including Ben-Gurion, an expulsion policy was no more than a politically unfeasible option within the coalition government at that time, where the argument for Jewish-Arab coexistence in the “civil state” based on the assumption of the return of the refugees, and the argument for parliamentary democracy open to Arab citizens, were sufficiently effective to block the adoption of such an extreme policy by voting.