The Haganah: Plan Gimmel (Plan C): Section on Countermeasures

The Haganah: Plan Gimmel (Plan C):

Section on Countermeasures

May 1946

A. The aim of a counterattack is to strike at each source at the beginning of an Arab outbreak in order to deter the instigators of the incidents and to prevent the participation and support of the Arab masses. Forceful and severe blows will serve to identify and isolate the active elements.

B. Because of the difficulty in directly engaging the active Arab forces while they are carrying out their activities, the countermeasures we will adopt will mostly take the form of retaliatory operations. Like all retaliatory operations, they will not always be directed only against the executors of a particular action, but will also be aimed at other active groups or those who provide them with assistance.

C. Counterattacks must be appropriate in kind to the operations which led to the retaliation. These attacks must be as immediate as possible, and must affect large areas. The reasons for the retaliation must be detailed to the Arabs in full, using all available means of communication: leaflets, announcements, radio broadcasts, etc.

D. It is preferable that these operations should strike the Arab rear in order to undermine the Arab sense of security.

E. Counterattacks must be divided into two kinds: warning operations and strike operations.

Warning operations will come in response to limited or single Arab operations, and their aim will be to warn the Arabs of what may be expected in the future. These operations will mostly be executed in the same area in which the Arabs were active but they must be accompanied by the widest possible media coverage.

The aim of strike operations will be to punish serious operations carried out against us. These strike operations will be more extensive in nature and at the regional or country-wide level, their goal being severe punishment. For example, if they strike one of the Jewish means of transportation by destroying vehicles along with their passengers, the response should be comprehensive and aim at the destruction of all Arab means of transportation.

F. Strikes must be carried out against the following targets:

1. Striking at the political leadership.

2. Striking at agitators, their financial backers, and others. them with shelter.

3. Striking at the executors of operations and those who provide

4. Striking at high-ranking Arab officers and officials.

5. Striking at Arab transportation.

6. Striking at vital economic targets (water installations, flour mills, etc.).

7. Attacks on villages, neighborhoods, and farms used as bases for the Arab armed forces or for their organization, launching, and retreat, etc.

8. Striking at clubs, cafés, meetings, assemblies, and the like.

G. The aim of striking at the political leadership is the following:

1. Doing damage to their property.

2. Imprisoning members in order to hold them hostage or prevent them from performing their activities.

3. Expelling them or physically harming them in some other way. These operations will be carried out by (Arabist) individuals, or by units the size of a squad or sub-squad which are equipped with light arms and whose line of retreat is as secure as possible.

H. The aim of striking at agitators and financial backers is the following:

1. Doing damage to their property.

2. Doing damage to their printing presses.

3. Harming them physically.

4. Expelling or imprisoning them in certain cases. These objectives will be realized along the line specified in section G.

I. The aim of striking at the executors of operations and those who shelter them is the following:

1. Expelling them.

2. Doing damage to their property.

3. Imprisoning them in certain cases in order to collect information or hold them hostage. Such operations will be executed by units the size of a squad or sub-squad if the site of the operation is small and close to our bases, and will be executed by units the size of a platoon or larger if the site is far from our bases.

J. High-ranking Arab officers and officials will be targeted as specified in section G, above.

K. The aim of striking at Arab transportation is the following:

1. Carrying out punitive measures against a particular service route or an individual vehicle through sabotage.

2. Striking at services by damaging vehicles and targeting suspected travelers.

3. Destroying the Arab transportation network either wholly or in part.

The operations mentioned in 1 above will be carried out by damaging the service stations along that route, or by sabotaging its vehicles, or by stopping one or more vehicles on the road, evacuating the passengers, and destroying them. The operations mentioned in 2 above will be carried out by setting up ambushes on the road, evacuating passengers, and physically harming the passengers suspected of active assistance against us, and destroying the vehicles. The operation will be executed by about one or two squads. The operations mentioned in 3 above will be executed by carrying out attacks on the service stations and destroying the vehicles. The force needed for such missions is one or two platoons.

L. The aim of operations directed against clubs, cafés, meetings and assemblies, etc. is the following:

1. Dispersal of inflammatory gatherings.

2. Encircling the places mentioned above when they contain known leaders and agitators in order to imprison them or expel them.

3. In some cases, it is necessary to demolish one of the above- mentioned places after evacuating people from it.

The force needed to carry out such operations will be determined by the particular circumstances and will range from a sub-squad to a platoon or more.

M. Striking at Arab economic targets is difficult because of the scarcity of vital projects which, if hit, would paralyze or severely damage the Arab economy. There are few industrial projects and most are of a non-vital nature for the manufacture of tobacco, soap, etc. Striking at such establishments is not always in our interest because it may result in swelling the ranks of the Arab force by scores of unemployed workers. This does not mean that these targets should be removed from consideration, but establishments must be sought which, if hit, would lead to the most effective consequences possible, such as water reservoirs in urban areas, flour mills, the [olive] oil industry, and the like. The importance of strikes against such targets lies in their implementation on a wide scale, whether locally or regionally. Striking at such targets does not require a large force; in most cases a force the size of a squad or sub-squad is enough to mount an operation against a single specific target.

N. The aim of launching attacks against villages, neighborhoods, farms, and hamlets is the following:

1. Kidnapping or expelling leaders and members of gangs and those who assist them.

2. Punishing villages that provide gangs with shelter, by destroying their property.

3. Attacking villages where an armed Arab force is located.

For the execution of operations mentioned in 1 above, see Section I above.

For the execution of operations mentioned in 2 above, the village will be surrounded by a force whose size will vary with the circumference of the village and the resistance expected from it (the size of the force will range from a platoon to a company). A part of this force at least half-will enter the village and carry out acts of sabotage by setting fire to and blowing up targets. If the objective is general punitive action, everything possible should be set on fire and the houses of the instigators and participants in operations must be demolished.

As for the operations in 3 above, they will implemented according to the principles relating to attacks on an entrenched hostile force.

O. Most operations should be carried out under cover of darkness because of the difficulty of movement [in the daytime]. In addition, due consideration should be given to returning men and equipment to their bases.

P. In order to implement the countermeasures detailed in this chapter in an effective manner, active and extensive intelligence and reconnaissance networks must be set up and the Arabist units must be developed.

Q. Propaganda will have a large effect on the extent to which incidents are publicized and on the deterrent value this will have on the Arab masses. Therefore, an extensive propaganda network must be organized by the following means:

1. Radio.

2. Leaflets.

3. Whispering campaigns diffused by Arabs or Arabists.

Each of our countermeasures should be widely publicized and reverberate in every Arab village.

 

Source: Walid Khalidi. “Plan Dalet: Master Plan for the Conquest of Palestine.” Journal of Palestine Studies 18, no.1 (Autumn 1988), pp. 20-23. Translated from Yehuda Slutsk, ed. Sefer Toldot Hahaganah [History of the Haganah], vol. 3. Tel Aviv: Zionist Library, 1972. Appendix 39, pp. 1939-43.