From Propaganda to Scholarship: Dr Joseph Schechtman and the Origins of Israeli Polemics on the Palestinian Refugees

Abstract

In 1948 an official ‘Transfer Committee’ was appointed by the Israeli Cabinet to plan the Palestinian refugees' resettlement in the Arab states. Apart from doing everything possible to reduce the Arab population in Israel, the Transfer Committee sought to amplify and consolidate the demographic transformation of Palestine by: preventing the Palestinian refugees from returning to their homes; the destruction of Arab villages; settlement of Jews in Arab villages and towns; and launching a propaganda campaign to discourage Arab return. One of the Transfer Committee's initiatives was to invite Dr Joseph Schechtman, a right-wing Zionist Revisionist leader and expert on ‘population transfer’, to join its efforts. In 1952 Schechtman published a propagandists work entitled The Arab Refugee Problem. Since then Schechtman would become the single most influential propagator of the Zionist myth of ‘voluntary’ exodus in 1948. This article examines the leading role played by Schechtman in promoting Israeli propaganda and politics of denial. Relying on newly-discovered Israeli archival documents, the article deals with little known and new aspects of the secret history of the post-1948 period.