32. IDFA 7249/1949 file 137. Members of Etkes family told me that not long after the establishment
of the State of Israel, Etkes and his wife left for the USA (where he had spent a few years prior to
his arrival in Palestine).
33. IDFA 7249/1949, file 152, 14 March 1948 [An intelligence account from Hiram to Teneh]. Also
filed elsewhere 5942/1949, file 23.
34. IDFA 5942/1949, file 23, 16 March 1948 [An intelligence report from Hiram to Teneh].
35. IDFA 7249/1949 file 152.
36. Charles Tripp argued the above in a paper concerning the Iraqi involvement in Palestine in 1948.
The paper was delivered at The Centre for Middle Eastern Studies, Oxford, 4 December 1998.
There is still a popular saying amongst the Palestinians regarding this Iraqi lack of orders: bayn aku¯
wa-ma
¯ku
¯ al filasti¯niyyu
¯n inta
¯ku
¯ between the presence [of orders] and the lack [of orders], the
Palestinians were screwed. I thank Avraham Sela, who drew my attention to this saying General
Jabu¯ri¯, who headed the Iraqi forces in Palestine in 1948, argued that the accusations regarding lack
of orders are baseless. They are the outcome, he further added, of competition within the Arab
League and between the different Arab army forces. Nafcz Nazzal (1978) describes the same lack
of Iraqi orders in the Galilee region.
37. IDFA 2506/1949 file 85. The correspondence is in English.
38. IDFA 6400/1949 file 66 dated 4 July, 1948. . .. The people of Ijzim receive small arms from T
u
¯ l-
Karem, through paths in the mountains that pass by Umm az-Jima¯l near Zikhron. IDFA 6400/1949
file 66. . .. No foreign army in Ijzim. . .. Every night food supplies, ammunition, arms and
equipment are transferred from the triangle to the village.
39. Mishmar Haemeq is a Jewish kibbutz south east of Haifa.
40. IDFA 7249/1949 file 152 dated 4 July, 48. The reference regarding relations with Umm az-Zi¯na¯t is
bewildering as Umm al-Zi¯na¯t was conquered on the 15th of May.
41. The army translator marks that he cannot identity the word mundel. In the Palestinian colloquial
Arabic, muna¯dili¯n, meaning fighters, is often used in a derogatory manner. I thank Issam Aburaiya
for this information.
42. This passage is translated from the Hebrew translation that is kept at the IDFA. The word used for
exposed in Hebrew was nitgalenu. IDFA 5942/1949 file 3.
43. Yigal, who had been a politician and a Member of Parliament previously and was involved with
the Arab population in Israel, imposed on his account of the war his right-wing world view. In 1948
he was an army officer in charge of a unit that set up ambushes in the fields north east of T
ant
u
¯ra in
order to prevent any assistance from arriving during the battle. He said to me that as far as he
knows, over seventy people were killed.A Tantura survivor who lives in a nearby village said he
recorded the names of the dead and the list reached 95 people. The information I have is not
sufficient to be certain what happened in T
ant
u
¯ra.
44. Teddy Katz of Kibbutz Magal wrote his MA thesis (submitted to the University of Haifa) on the
conquest of T
ant
u¯ra and Umm az-Zi¯na¯t. His description of the T
ant
u¯ra massacre reached the
Maariv Hebrew daily newspaper, and the veterans of the Alexandroni brigade decided to sue him.
The two sides signed an agreement before the trial in which Katz was to publicly denounce his
findings. This led to the cancellation of the trial.
45. Yu¯sri¯ of Ein H
awd
mentioned T
ant
u¯ra when trying to explain the decision to leave his own village:
There were some people who said no [to the option of surrendering]We do not want to stay
here. There were other reasons as well, especially the massacre of T
ant
u¯ra that they had witnessed
in which a hundred people were killed. So people feared they [the Jews] will come and slaughter
them.
46. The attacking force included a unit from Alexandroni (most likely meaning a battalion); two three-
inch mortars, ten men and an officer; two bizeh machines, ten men and an officer; a medical force;
three communication devices; fourty Carmeli men who were brought in from a commanders
course; thirty garrison men. Whereas the field forces (h
eil sade ) were mobile and living in camps,
the garrison forces (h eil mishmar ) were comprised mostly of older men, above the age of 35, who
would remain in their homes and be mobilized for local assignments. Therefore, some of the
fighters on both sides knew one another. See IDFA 6400/49, file 66, and 2506/1949, file 85.
EFRAT BEN-ZEEV
28